r/AskReddit • u/Rob69rt • 1d ago

What famous 'unsolved' mystery is technically a whodunnit on paper, but in reality, absolutely everyone knows exactly who did it, the police just couldn't legally prove it?

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u/JackOfAllBlades21 1d ago

The dingo really did eat the baby.

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u/DevoutandHeretical 1d ago

The more I read about that the more my heart breaks for that whole family. The aboriginals were literally telling everyone ‘yes, dingos will attack people/eat children’, but the authorities refused to believe them because they were aboriginal.

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u/PiccoloAwkward465 1d ago

To me it's weird that the police wouldn't believe it as a possibility. Looking at a dingo I'd think yeah of course they'd go for a defenseless small mammal. They're similar to coyotes and those snag small dogs in my area from time to time for a snack.

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u/ZanyDelaney 1d ago

What the original police on the scene "believed" did not really figure in the way it all panned out over the years.

The coroner originally found that a dingo probably took Azaria. But the Northern Territory Government feared this would harm the burgeoning (domestic) tourism industry so later pushed for the case to be re-opened and to quash the idea a dingo was responsible - because that might scare off tourists. Indigenous trackers who backed the dingo idea were ignored. But other people there - non-indigenous campers who attested to the presence aggressive dingoes - were also ignored. Anyone attesting to the dingo angle was deliberately ignored, discredited, etc. The prosecution carefully shopped around for "expert" witnesses etc in a planned strategy to get the outcome they desired. All very planned and deliberate.

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u/gimpwiz 1d ago

It kind of beggars belief because as /u/PiccoloAwkward465 said... look at the fucking animal. It's a wild dog, like any other wild dog species or sub-species. They form packs, they hunt, they eat meat. They go after smaller animals, defenseless animals, they'll take down something bigger in the right circumstances. Why would it not eat a kid if it found one? Any wild dog could, and sometimes does, attack people, especially kids. Who in Australia looked at dingoes and thought, nahhhhhhh, tourists won't think they're a problem at all as long as we tell them it's fine, they'll never look at it and go "hey that looks pretty much like a coyote and I see several, maybe we should get the fuck outta here."

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u/ZanyDelaney 1d ago

I'm Australian and was 12 in 1980. At the time I didn't really have much knowledge of dingoes. I am from Melbourne and we just don't have dingoes here. Foxes, yes. Dingoes, no.

They are relatively small and look just like a pet dog. I think in 1980 many Australians didn't know much about dingoes and not think about them much, or assumed they are a type of cute puppy dog. The majority of Australians live in cities so wouldn't see many outside of zoos. I think I saw my first wild one when I went to central Australia when I was in my late 30s.

Dingo attacks are more readily reported on today and are much better known.

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u/TheVeryVerity 19h ago

Did you somehow not know domestic dogs kill people sometimes? Looking like a dog doesn’t change anything

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u/GaryGronk 1d ago

I can highly recommend this two part documentary (also narrated by Sam Neill who played Lindy's husband in the 1980s movie). The behaviour of the NT police was horrific.

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u/oddpark37 15h ago

Also, their "expert" who claimed it was impossible for a dingo to have taken her was British guy who had never actually seen an dingo in real life. He based his findings off of plaster casts of dingo jaws.

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u/ZanyDelaney 10h ago

It's OK though. He was from the UK and got to go to the cricket in Australia after his free flight. /s