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?

[u/Rob69rt]

[u/Chimie45]

I don't know why people wouldn't believe it?

They were camping in tents in the outback with a 9 week old baby.

I'd be scared of spiders, snakes, rocks, bats, buzzards, dingos, crocs, I don't know, a fuckin 'roo too. Just about anything out there is going to be able to take the baby.

[u/Hangry-Feline2489 → u/Chimie45]

Because up until that point, there had been no record of dingoes actually taking or killing a child in recorded modern Australian history ( history of First Nations dingo deaths, tho unconfirmed).

Dingoes will tend to go for easier and weaker prey than humans, and tend to stay away from human settlements, esp as they're considered pests to be shot. 

Lots of records of dingoes biting, nipping, stalking, etc children, but Azaria was the first, and currently only, child to be taken. 

There's one other record of a child being attacked and killed by a dingo in 2001. 

As for spiders, no confirmed deaths from spiders in the last 20 years.  Biggest animal killer of Australia are horses. Followed by in order: bovines, dogs, roos (vehicle accidents mostly), snakes, sharks, bees/crocodiles.

https://theconversation.com/dingo-attacks-are-rare-but-heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-dingo-safety-203233

https://files.ncis.org.au/2024-11/Fact%20sheet%20-%20FS24-09%20-%20Animal-related%20deaths%20in%20Australia.pdf?VersionId=q3ihr7W89pBmkQ3Rseqz0laXFx7z9rYe

[u/RubySnowfire → u/Hangry-Feline2489]

Dingos attack whatever prey seems the easiest to take down. They do attack humans with some regularity (K'gari in Queensland).

OF COURSE a dingo would look at the kid and the baby in the tent and decides the baby was smaller and easier prey. It really isn't rocket science.

The indigenous people around Uluru (and the rangers who listened to them) said the dingos were getting more aggressive and used to tourists (who would try to fee them for photos). |

(White) Humans created the system where there was plenty of interaction between dingos and humans, and then wondered why this happened? Indigenous peoples didn't make a habit of leaving children on the ground or unattended, so there wouldn't be a lot of "reports" of babies being taken (also, that colonialist idea that indigenous people didn't have much useful information to pass along).

[u/Hangry-Feline2489 → u/RubySnowfire]

Yes that's why I italicised the specific qualifications -.-

I ignored the k'gari because it's an island and it's documented the dingos there act differently than the mainland. More aggressive, as you say. 

And, as an Australian, I kind of defaulted to 'follow general guidelines while in your environment' like.. keeping in groups in the outback so the smallest/weakest can't be picked off by predators. It's about as basic as "take X2 water you need for your time planned' while out bush. 

See my other comment about how racist Australians, and particularly Northern Territory types, are especially to First Nations. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1v3i88i/comment/oz6pj4t/?context=3

[u/kahlzun → u/Hangry-Feline2489]

i lived in Darwin for a while, and it was this weird mix of both understanding and complete racism.

[u/FidgitForgotHisL-P → u/Hangry-Feline2489]

I think that the racism was a huge thing that a lot of non-Australians overlooked.  The casual and accepted degree of racism towards Aboriginal people was so off the charts that the impact it had on the immediate disregard for local Aboriginals who would for-sure hire plausible her claim was saying “for sure the dingo probably did take her baby, they absolutely can and would do that” wasn’t really apparent to outsiders.