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| Kathleen Folbigg always maintained she was innocent. |
A woman once branded "Australia's worst female serial killer" has been pardoned after new evidence suggested she did not kill her four infant children.
Kathleen Folbigg
spent 20 years in prison after a jury found she killed sons Caleb and Patrick
and daughters Sarah and Laura over a decade.
But a recent
inquiry heard scientists believe they may have died naturally.
The
55-year-old's case has been described as one of Australia's greatest
miscarriages of justice.
Ms Folbigg, who
has always maintained her innocence, was jailed for 25 years in 2003 for the
murders of three of the children, and the manslaughter of her first son, Caleb.
Each child died
suddenly between 1989 and 1999, aged between 19 days and 19 months, with
prosecutors at her trial alleging she had smothered them.
Previous appeals
and a separate 2019 inquiry into the case found no grounds for reasonable
doubt, and gave greater weight to circumstantial evidence in Ms Folbigg's
original trial.
But at the fresh
inquiry, headed by retired judge Tom Bathurst, prosecutors accepted that
research on gene mutations had changed their understanding of the children's
deaths.
New South Wales
(NSW) Attorney General Michael Daley on Monday announced that Mr Bathurst had
come to the "firm view" there was reasonable doubt that Ms Folbigg
was guilty of each offence.
As a result, the
NSW governor had signed a full pardon, and ordered Ms Folbigg's immediate
release from prison.
"It has
been a 20-year-long ordeal for her... I wish her peace," Mr Daley said,
adding his thoughts were also with Craig Folbigg, the children's father.
At the 2022
inquiry Mr Folbigg's lawyers pointed to the "fundamental
implausibility" of four children from one family dying of natural causes
under the age of two.
The
unconditional pardon does not quash Ms Folbigg's convictions, Mr Daley said.
That would be a decision for the Court of Criminal Appeal, if Mr Bathurst
chooses to refer the case to it - a process which could take up to a year.
If her
convictions are overturned, she could then potentially sue the government for
millions of dollars in compensation.
Alternatively,
she could receive a settlement similar to that of Lindy Chamberlain, who was
awarded $1.3m (£690,000, $US858,000) in 1992 for her wrongful conviction over
the death of her daughter Azaria.
But some
advocates say the case of Ms Chamberlain, imprisoned for three years, pales in
comparison with Ms Folbigg's.
"It is
impossible to comprehend the injury that has been inflicted upon Kathleen
Folbigg - the pain of losing her children [and] close to two decades locked
away in maximum security prisons for crimes which science has proved never
occurred," said her lawyer, Rhanee Rego.
Ms Folbigg was
met at prison gate by friends involved in the years-long campaign for her
freedom, and Mr Daley appealed privacy so she can "move on with her
life".
Law must be more
'science sensitive'
Ms Folbigg's
2003 trial centred on circumstantial evidence, most notably diaries which
expressed her struggles with motherhood.
But there was no
physical evidence of smothering or injuries to the children presented to the
trial.
At the recent
inquiry, experts suggested the diaries were a coping mechanism written by a
grieving mother with limited support, and that it would be unlikely all four
children could be smothered without a trace.
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| Two of Ms Folbigg's children, Laura (left) and Patrick (right) |
But the key evidence was from a team of immunologists who found Ms Folbigg's daughters, Sarah and Laura, shared a genetic mutation - called CALM2 G114R - that can cause sudden cardiac death.
Evidence was
also uncovered that her sons, Caleb and Patrick, possessed a different genetic
mutation, linked to sudden-onset epilepsy in mice.
Professor Carola
Vinuesa, who led the research team from the Australian National University,
said an unusual genetic sequence was immediately obvious in Ms Folbigg's DNA,
before the children's samples were even tested.
"We did the
first test and found a [gene] variant that looked very suspicious... even then
in November 2018, we thought this [a] very high likelihood, if found in the
children, to be the culprit," she told the BBC.
Prof Vinuesa
said there were only 134 known cases worldwide of the potentially deadly heart
condition linked to the genetic mutation.
She described
the decision to pardon Ms Folbigg as a "beautiful moment" that could
offer hope to other women in similar situations.
"We've been
approached about women who have lost children, or who have been accused of
inflicting harm, and the cases look as if they're also children with severe
genetic conditions," she said.
The Australian
Academy of Science says the case shows the need for reform that makes the legal
system more "science sensitive", a call echoed by Ms Folbigg's
lawyer.
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