Dark Stories: On This Day In True Crime History - Dark Stories True Crime Tours

1980: Baby Azaria Vanishes at Uluru, Sparking One of History’s Most Divisive Cases

On the night of 17 August 1980, nine-week-old Azaria Chamberlain disappeared from a tent at a campsite near Uluru in the Northern Territory. Her mother, Lindy Chamberlain, reported that a dingo had taken the baby, but her account was met with widespread public scepticism and intense media scrutiny.

The case became one of the most controversial miscarriages of justice in the history of Australia. Lindy Chamberlain was convicted of murder in 1982 and imprisoned, before new evidence, a piece of Azaria’s clothing found near a dingo lair, led to her release in 1986. A fourth inquest in 2012 finally returned the finding that a dingo did take and kill Azaria, vindicating the Chamberlain family after more than three decades.

Dingo

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Australia Cold Case Exoneration Miscarriage of Justice Murder NT Trial Uluru

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1891: Arthur Cooley Hanged at Campbell Street Gaol for the Murder of Mary Camille Ogilvy

Mary Camille Ogilvy, wife of a magistrate of Inverquharity station near Richmond, Tasmania, was shot dead on the morning of 14 August 1891 while walking back from the gate after seeing her husband off to the Richmond Police Court.

Her body was found the following dawn, pinned beneath a willow in the Coal River, with part of her skull destroyed by a gunshot. Evidence suggested she had been shot some 50 yards from the water and her body dragged to the riverbank. A search party of nearly 100 people with lanterns had scoured the district through the night before she was found.

Arthur Cooley, a young man already on bail awaiting trial for an assault charge, was arrested as the prime suspect and faced a coroner’s inquest that same Saturday afternoon. Public anger in the district was described as approaching lynching point. Cooley was convicted of the murder and hanged at Campbell Street Gaol on 17 August 1891.

Hobart Gaol prison exterior historic stone building

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Australia Execution Hobart Murder Richmond TAS Trial

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1960: Francis Gary Powers Pleads Guilty at Moscow Spy Trial

On 17 August 1960, American pilot Francis Gary Powers stood trial in Moscow after his U-2 reconnaissance aircraft was shot down over Soviet airspace on 1 May 1960. Powers, flying a CIA surveillance mission, had been captured alive when his high-altitude spy plane was struck by a Soviet surface-to-air missile near Sverdlovsk.

Powers pleaded guilty to espionage charges before a Soviet military tribunal, in a trial that became a Cold War spectacle broadcast to the world. He was sentenced to ten years, serving nearly two before being exchanged for Soviet spy Rudolf Abel at the Glienicke Bridge in Berlin in February 1962.

Spy aerial view

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Cold War Espionage Europe Moscow Political Crime Russia Trial USA

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1975: Ted Bundy Caught by a Wrong Turn: The Traffic Stop That Unmasked a Serial Killer

At 3 a.m. on 16 August 1975, Utah Highway Patrol Trooper Bob Hayward took a wrong turn leaving a subdivision and stumbled onto a tan Volkswagen Beetle parked outside a neighbour’s home. When his headlights hit the car, it fled, running dark through stop signs. When Hayward finally pulled the driver over, a search of the vehicle turned up handcuffs, an ice pick, a crowbar, and pantyhose with eye holes cut out. The missing front passenger seat only deepened suspicion. The driver was Ted Bundy, law school student, and by then already responsible for the deaths of at least 25 young women across four states.

Bundy was initially arrested for burglary. The items found matched restraints used in the kidnapping of Carol DaRonch, who later identified Bundy in a lineup. He was convicted of her attempted kidnapping. Separately, detectives linked him to the February 1975 murder of Caryn Campbell, a 23-year-old nurse killed in Colorado. Charged with Campbell’s murder, Bundy was transferred to a jail in Aspen, Colorado, to stand trial. His girlfriend, Elizabeth Kloepfer, had reported her suspicions to police multiple times in 1974. Nobody had acted. A wrong turn finally changed that.

Exhibit with the Volkswagen of serial killer Ted Bundy. Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, USA - December 18 2025: The Volkswagen of serial killer Ted Bundy in an exhibit the Alcatraz East Crime Museum | ID 426074004 © Raisamacouze | Dreamstime.com

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Arrest Kidnapping Murder Serial Killer Trial USA

1980: Baby Azaria Vanishes at Uluru, Sparking One of History’s Most Divisive Cases

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1891: Arthur Cooley Hanged at Campbell Street Gaol for the Murder of Mary Camille Ogilvy

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1960: Francis Gary Powers Pleads Guilty at Moscow Spy Trial

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1975: Ted Bundy Caught by a Wrong Turn: The Traffic Stop That Unmasked a Serial Killer

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