'The worst murderer in history' accused of killing her 4 children is released

Australian Kathleen Folbigg, who came to be considered the worst serial killer in her country, waspardoned and released on Monday after spending 20 years in prison accused of the deaths of her four children between 1989 and 1999.

The governor of the state of New South Wales signed the pardon after learning the conclusions of a report on the case by retired judge Thomas Bathurst, authorities said Monday.

The jurist came to "the firm consideration thatthere are reasonable doubts about the guilt of Folbigg" in each of the deaths, after a scientific investigation coordinated by the Spanish immunologist Carola García de Vinuesa linked the deaths to genetic failures.

Kathleen Folbigg was convicted of the deaths of her four children. Photo: AP

When she was arrested, she was considered "the worst murderer in the history" of Australia, being considered as the material author of the murder of her four children. Now, the story seems to change radically.

Folbigg, who always maintained her innocence, had been sentenced to 25 years in 2003 for the murder of three of her children and the manslaughter of her first son, Caleb.

Each child died suddenly between 1989 and 1999, ranging in age from 19 days to 19 months, and prosecutors at his trial alleged he had suffocated them.

The pardon does not mean that the 55-year-old woman will be acquitted of the crimes attributed to her, which is within the competence of the Criminal Court of Appeal, and it is possible that Folbigg will claim compensation.

The death of children

Kathleen Folbigg's children, Caleb, Patrick, Sarah and Laura, died between 1989 and 1999 in Hunter-Newcastle, about 120 kilometres from Sydney, when they were between 19 days and 18 months old, while in her care.

Married in 1987 to Craig Folbigg, it all began when Kathleen shouted to her husband on the night of February 20, 1989 "something is wrong with my baby", upon discovering that her firstborn, Caleb, was not breathing, dying 19 days after birth.

The image of Kathleen Folbigg when she was arrested and convicted 20 years ago.

"It happened again," Kathleen Folbigg cried as she asked her husband to come home when their second baby, Patrick, who already suffered from brain damage, partial blindness and epileptic seizures, died on February 13, 1991 at eight months of age.

In the third case, Folbigg found his ten-and-a-half-month-old daughter Sarah, blue and motionless, dying on August 30, 1993. Six years later, on March 1, 1999, her fourth daughter, Laura, died at 18 months after her mother put her for a nap.

Initially, experts considered that Caleb and Sarah were victims of a sudden death and Patrick of an epileptic seizure, while leaving as "undetermined" the causes of Laura's death, which opened the door to investigate possible infanticides.

The incriminating diary

Criminal investigations began in July 1999, with a focus on Folbigg's diary. In it, she wrote, "I am my father's daughter," alluding to her biological father, who stabbed Folbigg's mother to death in 1969, when she was an 18-month-old baby, after the woman left home.

Folbigg, who separated from her husband in 2000, wrote in her diary: "I feel like the worst mother in the world, I'm afraid she will leave me like Sarah (her daughter) did. I know he had little patience and was cruel to her sometimes and she left (died)," or passages in which he blamed her stress for "doing terrible things."

This diary, which was key in his subsequent conviction in 2003 for the murder of Patrick, Sarah and Laura, as well as the manslaughter of Caleb, to 40 years in prison, with the right to ask for parole after 30 years.

Legal Process

Folbigg, who always maintained his innocence, managed to get the Criminal Court of Appeal to reduce his sentence in 2005 to 30 years, with the right to ask for parole after 25 years in prison.

In 2008, Australian authorities ordered a non-judicial investigation into the case, but then-judge Reg Blanch, in charge of the review, determined that the evidence against the accused, as well as her diaries, proved her guilty.

"The only reasonably open conclusion is that someone intentionally caused harm to the children, and suffocation was the obvious method. The evidence did not point to anyone other than Mrs. Folbigg," Blanch said at the time.

Scientific research

The case took a turn in 2020, when a team of scientists, coordinated by Spanish immunologist Carola García de Vinuesa and led by Danish Michael Toft Overgaard, concluded that the deaths of Folbigg's babies could be due to genetic causes.

The scientific research, published in the specialized journal "Europace", of the European Association of Cardiology, links a genetic mutation (CALM2) of Sarah and Laura, with sudden cardiac death.

In addition, the study, made up of an international team of 27 scientists, found that children carried rare variants of a gene that kills rodents by epileptic seizures.

The case was reopened following a letter sent in March 2021 to Australian authorities by a hundred scientists, including two Nobel laureates, requesting Folbigg's pardon and release.