Earlier this week, 32 years of false accusations, sensationalism and infamy finally turned in the favour of one Australian family.

On August 17, 1980, the Chamberlains lost their nine-week-old baby Azaria in a dingo attack near Australia's Uluru (formerly Ayer's Rock).

The family - Lindy, Michael, baby Azaria and sons Aidan, 6, and Reagan, 4 - were on a camping trip. Soon after Lindy put Azaria to bed beside your brother, she heard the baby shriek and ran back to the tent from the nearby campfire.

As Lindy cried, "The dingo's got my baby!", Reagan told a spectator, "The dingo has our bubby in its tummy!"

Blood in the tent continued in paw prints leaving the campsite. There was plenty of evidence confirming the Chamberlain's story, but since that horrible day, they have faced brutal public scrutiny not just in Australia, but around the world.

In October 1982, Lindy was found guilty of murdering her baby girl, and sentenced to life in prison, based on forensic evidence later proved to be false. A forensic medic claimed that blood marks found on Azaria's jumpsuit (which a hiker found a week after the baby disappeared) were consistent with a cut to the neck, and that fetal blood was found in the trunk of the Chamberlain's vehicle.

The blood in the vehicle was actually a common automobile chemical, and the jumpsuit showed signs of animal bites.

Three years after Lindy was locked away for life, while police were looking for the body of a hiker who fell from Uluru, they found Azaria's blood-soaked sweater on the edge of a dingo lair. Lindy's conviction was overturned and she was released in 1988.

Dingoes are a wild dog, comparable to a coyote. They are not native to Australia but were introduced from Asia thousands of years ago, long before the country was colonized.

Attacks by dingoes - especially fatal ones - were so rare back in 1980 that many thought it more conceivable that Azaria's parents were to blame for her death.

No fatal attacks had ever been reported, but it was in the animal's nature and over subsequent years, that became clear.

The tiny sand Fraser Island off Queensland's coast saw 39 dingo attacks on humans between 1996 and 2001, culminating in the fatal attack on a nine-year-old boy. Two dingos stalked and then set upon the boy and his younger brother. The older boy died of his injuries.

In 2007, a four-year-old girl was bitten but thankfully not killed by a dingo on Fraser Island. Park rangers said the wild dogs had become accustomed to humans feeding them.

But in 1980, the Chamberlains didn't have such case studies to back up their story. Instead, they were forced to submit to a trial of public opinion.

Michael Chamberlain was a pastor in a Seventh Day Adventist Church, and many bought into the sensationalism that the church was a cult, and even that Azaria's name meant "sacrifice in the desert".

Michael and Lindy were composed in the spotlight, and their failure to behave as grieving parents are expected to fuelled speculation against them.

Some suggest that the police showed bias in their investigation. Azaria disappeared in Australia's Northern Territory, the central northern area that could be compared to Canada's Yukon. The Chamberlains were on vacation from Queensland. To the locals, they were outsiders from the big smoke, where people are capable of just about anything.

For these reasons and many more complicated ones - human fascination with the macabre being a significant aspect - until this week, many thought the Chamberlains were guilty. Despite Lindy's conviction being overturned, coronial inquests over the 30 years were inconclusive.

The first inquest in 1981 found that Azaria was the victim of a dingo attack, but added that a person or persons had disposed of the baby's body.

Another inquest later the same year led to the murder charge against Lindy.

A third inquest in 1995 came back with an open finding, inconclusive one way or the other.

The fourth inquest that concluded this week was the first time a government official had publicly declared the Chamberlains innocent. The decision was read the day after what would have been Azaria's 32nd birthday. Fittingly, the coroner issued the Chamberlains a new death certificate for Azaria, with the cause of death a dingo attack.

Outside the courtroom, Lindy Chamberlain proudly displayed that death certificate. It was a macabre token, but it is hopefully the final piece of evidence in a painful tragedy that was, chapter by awful chapter, a nightmare for the Chamberlains.