SYDNEY - The growl came first, low and throaty, piercing the darkness that had fallen across the remote Australian desert. A baby's cry followed, then abruptly went silent. Inside the tent, the infant girl had vanished. Outside, her mother was screaming: "The dingo's got my baby!"

With those panicked words, the mystery of Azaria Chamberlain's disappearance in the Australian Outback in 1980 became the most notorious, divisive and baffling legal drama in the country's history. Had a wild dog really taken the baby? Or had Azaria's mother, Lindy, slit her daughter's throat and buried her in the desert?

Thirty-two years later, Australian officials hope to finally, definitively, determine how Azaria died when the Northern Territory coroner opens a fourth inquest Friday. Lindy Chamberlain, who was convicted of murdering her daughter and later cleared, is still waiting for authorities to close the case that made her the most hated person in Australia.

To the rest of the world, the case is largely known for its place in pop culture: countless books, an opera, the Meryl Streep movie "A Cry in the Dark," and the sitcom Seinfeld's spoof of Lindy's cry, "Maybe the dingo ate your baby!"

But to Australians, the case is about much more than the guilt or innocence of one woman. It is about the guilt or innocence of a nation - a nation that prides itself on the concept of a "fair go," an equal chance, for all. Did Lindy Chamberlain get a fair go? Or had Australians misjudged this woman? With doubts growing about just how fair and tolerant they truly were, many wondered if they had misjudged themselves.

And so Australia will once again try to get to the bottom of one of the most painful chapters in its history.

"It's a bit like a really bad war," says Tony Raymond, chief forensic scientist in an investigation that debunked much of the evidence used to convict Lindy. "You've got to learn from it and make sure it doesn't happen again."