Mom wants dingo blamed for baby's death

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SYDNEY, Aug. 17 (UPI) -- An Australian woman, whose infant daughter was allegedly taken by a dingo, said she wants the death certificate changed to reflect that as the cause of death.

On the 30th anniversary of her daughter's disappearance, Lindy Chamberlain of Sydney, who in 1982 was convicted of murder for the death of her baby, Azaria, and served three years in prison, said in an open letter on her Web site "to open-minded Australians" that the cause of death should be changed from "unknown" to blaming the wild dog, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. and the British Daily Telegraph reported Tuesday.

"(Azaria) deserves justice. In light of all the evidence before the commission, this should be reflected on her death certificate and not the open finding that is there now," said Chamberlain.

The 8-week-old baby had gone missing from a camp tent on Aug. 17, 1980. Although Chamberlain said the child was taken by a dingo, Chamberlain was sentenced to life in prison for murdering her daughter, the Daily Telegraph reported.

Azaria's jacket was discovered six years later near a dingo lair, and Chamberlain was exonerated, the Telegraph reported.

"Our family will always remember today as the day truth was dragged in the dirt and trampled upon. But more than that it is the day our family was torn apart forever because we lost our beautiful little Azaria," Chamberlain wrote on her Web site.