6 Wild Criminal Cases Where An Animal Was Charged

In August 1980, on a campsite in the Australian outback, a desperate mother exclaimed: "The dingo stole my baby!" Her cry, audible as "the dingo ate my baby," became an obscure joke and a pop-culture fixture in the years that followed the disappearance of 9-week-old Azariah Chamberlain.

The baby's body was never found, and her mother, Lindy Chamberlain, insisted she saw the wolf-like predator leaving the family's tent. Although Chamberlain had the support of other campers and park rangers, authorities charged her with murder in 1982 and she was given a life sentence. After Azaria's jacket was found near a dingo den in 1986, Chamberlain was freed, new inquiries refuted key evidence and she was finally proven innocent - although the child's death by dingo was not officially recognized by the coroner until 2012.

The twists and turns of Chamberlain's ordeal have been adapted for film, television and even opera. But this isn't the only true crime case where a wild animal has been charged. In some cases, suspects have used the story of an animal attack to cover up their crimes. In other cases, evidence in the form of scratches or teeth marks remains the subject of fierce debate.

Michael Peterson and "The Staircase "

On December 9, 2001, Michael Peterson told police that he found the body of his second wife, Kathleen, at the bottom of a staircase. She lay in a pool of blood that flooded the bottom steps and walls of the narrow staircase. Peterson claimed his wife probably fell while he was at the pool where they were drinking together, but he was charged with murder. Authorities dismissed the idea of a fall, determining she was beaten to death and suffered deep cuts to her scalp.

According to 13 episodes of the true-crime documentary "The Staircase" and the HBO docu-drama Max 2022, Peterson was tried in 2003 and convicted by a jury (which learned that the body of his close friend and neighbor was found at the bottom of a staircase in Germany in 1985) and sentenced to life in prison. Ten years later, he was granted a new trial based on the false testimony of a pleural expert. A second trial never happened - he pleaded guilty in 2017 to a reduced charge of manslaughter and was sentenced to time served.

He could have been acquitted, however, had the jury heard publicity about the "Owl Theory," first presented by his neighbor Larry Pollard in 2008. Based on the fact that three microscopic owl feathers were found in strands of Kathleen's hair found in her hands, and from the pattern of cuts on her scalp (caused by a fireplace tool, according to prosecutors), Pollard assumed she was attacked by an owl. His theory, later confirmed by a bird of prey expert, was that the bird attacked her as she walked toward the house. In his version, injured and navigating with difficulty, Kathleen fell down the stairs, sustaining fatal injuries.

Christopher Whiteley and the mountain lioness

28-year-old Christopher Whiteley was last seen on the morning of December 2, 2020, when he left his girlfriend's home in Texas' Rutland County, 80 kilometers southwest of Fort Worth, to get in his car and drive to a job painting houses.

Whiteley reportedly took a shorter route to a main road through a wooded area where his body was found the next evening after a friend reported him missing.

Whiteley's body was lying in a thick thicket about 15 feet from his backpack. There was a deep jagged wound on the right side of his neck that had severed his subclavian artery. "There were small thin scratches on his torso, forehead and one side of his face. He was shirtless even though the weather was cold," Texas Monthly reported.

The next day, the Hood County Sheriff's Office issued a press release emphatically stating that a mountain lioness had killed a man - the first fatal mountain lion attack in Texas - and authorities were searching for the animal. The announcement angered state wildlife agencies - including Texas Parks and Wildlife Department biologists, Texas foresters and a USDA wildlife service trapper - whose examinations of the scene and review of evidence contradicted those findings.

Factually, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department refutes the fact that Whiteley was attacked by a wild animal. "None of the evidence reviewed [by the agency] indicates a predatory attack by a mountain lioness or other wild animal," Texas Parks and Wildlife Department spokeswoman Megan Radke told The Associated Press in an email Dec. 6, 2020.

Darlene and Glenn Summerford

On Oct. 3, 1991, Darlene Summerford said her husband of fifty years, the pastor of a Pentecostal church, tried to kill her with the tools of his trade. As depicted in the 2020 HBO Max documentary "Alabama Snake," Glenn Summerford forced his 23-year-old wife to plunge her hand into a cage of rattlesnakes in hopes that she would die from a venomous snake bite.

She was bitten - twice - but luckily got antivenom and recovered.

"He took a trumpet and hit the cages loudly to make the snakes angry, and then he grabbed me by the hair and told me that if I didn't put my hand in the cage, he would push my face in there," she told jurors during his trial on attempted murder charges, according to The Associated Press. "He said I had to die because he wanted to marry another woman. "

Summerford was sentenced to 99 years in prison.

Mike Williams and Denise Winchester

When Mike Williams disappeared after duck hunting on Florida's Lake Seminole in December 2000, authorities suspected he had been eaten by alligators. His boat was found on shore, his car was left nearby, and a short time later searchers found his hunting license, jacket and boots at the bottom of the lake.

The 31-year-old real estate appraiser had been married to his wife Denise for six years and they had an 18-month-old daughter. Williams' best friend, Brian Winchester, was an insurance agent and convinced Williams to take out three insurance policies totaling about $1.75 million, according to NBC News.

Denise Williams successfully petitioned to have her husband declared dead, received the insurance payout and married Winchester in 2005. The couple eventually divorced, but in 2016, she told police that Winchester kidnapped her at gunpoint. The kidnapping investigation brought new attention to the disappearance of Mike Williams, and 14 months later, Winchester agreed to a deal with prosecutors. In exchange for reporting the crime to authorities, he admitted to burying his friend's body far from Lake Seminole and its alligators; even after 17 years, the remains and clothing were unchanged. To avoid prosecution for murder, Winchester admitted shooting and killing Williams and blamed Denise, with whom he had a three-year affair before they decided to kill her husband and collect the insurance money.

Denise Williams was sentenced to life in prison in 2019. The conviction was overturned, but she remained in prison for 30 years for conspiracy to commit murder. Winchester, who was granted immunity from murder, is serving a 20-year prison sentence for armed kidnapping.

Lucas Gingras and rock climbing

Lucas Gingras stopped at a cabin in Vermont in 2014 with his girlfriend Ladonna Merriman when he told her they needed to jump off a 70-foot cliff.