Dingo really did snatch a 9-week old baby

National Geographic photo by Jason Edwards

It took four inquests, untold number of tears, several years in prison at hard labor for the mother, and more than two decades for the truth to finally hold sway over this case. In 1980 a wild dog snatched a baby from a family's camp in the wilds of Australia. Both the mother and the father asserted repeatedly that a dingo had taken the baby, but the baby's clothes found in the desert were unmarred which led to the belief the mother had made it look like a dog attack.

Is it reasonable to automatically assume family attacks family?

Gary Chapman said in his book, The Five Languages of Love that we are more courteous to strangers than we are to our most beloved. Well, maybe. I grew up in a Christian home, and we were courteous to each other, but my sister and I could have some of the most violent fights. Oh, not where bruises were exchanged, but hair pulling, snarls, and damage to property did. (I'm so glad that I didn't have those kinds of losses of self-control later in life--until the monster Menopause came visit me.) However, let anyone ever take a poke either verbally or physically at my sister and that brought out the momma bear in me. Family members will trade verbal barbs and perhaps a few arrows, but rarely do bullets, knives or hatchets become physical weapons of choice.

In 2010 statistics released by the FBI Uniform Crime Reports show the victim/offender relationship was by far the highest in the form of acquaintance and friend. The lowest was sister to sister. The highest within the family was the husband murdering his wife. Of all the known to police murders of infants in 2010 (186) it was less than 1% (.0143) of all homicides. That means the likelihood a parent would murder his/her infant son or daughter is far less than it being committed by an acquaintance or friend. Bear in mind that accidents are not included here so we can't run the full equation to a definitive conclusion.

To me, this means that the assumption that a lot of police officers and officers of the court make that husband/wife, or any other familial relationship committing the murder is far less than 1% here in the U.S.

The fact this crime took more than two decades to be solved as an accident is so sad to me. So often people jump to conclusions, and assume things without gathering all the facts. Since the baby's coat was found next to a dingo's den and was mauled considerably which explains why the baby's other clothes were more pristine, why would it take so incredibly long for the truth of a fatal attack by a wild dog to be concluded?

Proverbs 3:7  Don't assume that you know it all. Run to GOD! Run from evil!

1 Corinthians 4:5  So don't get ahead of the Master and jump to conclusions with your judgments before all the evidence is in. When he comes, he will bring out in the open and place in evidence all kinds of things we never even dreamed of--inner motives and purposes and prayers. Only then will any one of us get to hear the "Well done!" of God.

Proverb 25:8  Don't jump to conclusions--there may be a perfectly good explanation for what you just saw.

I am not saying that circumstantial evidence should not be used or considered. After all, what would you conclude if you found cookie crumbs in your children's bed and they had chocolate smeared faces?