Australian woman convicted of child murder pardoned

In Australia, a woman convicted of murdering her four children has been pardoned after 20 years in prison. New South Wales Attorney General Michael Daley said a year-long investigation found “reasonable doubts” about the case. “In the interests of justice,” Kathleen Folbigg, now 55, should be released “as soon as possible.”

Process 2003 a pure circumstantial process

Folbigg was considered “Australia’s worst serial killer”. She was sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2003 for the murder of three of her children and the manslaughter of a fourth child – and under the country’s laws would have had a chance of release in 2028 at the earliest. Prosecutors accused her of suffocating the children between the ages of nine weeks and three years.

In the absence of clear forensic evidence, prosecutors had argued that it was extremely unlikely that four children had died suddenly and without explanation. The mother, on the other hand, insisted that the deaths of each of her children were due to natural causes. The process was purely circumstantial, and the experts questioned did not agree.

A new investigation had been launched after the woman was found to have passed a rare genetic mutation on to her two daughters. This can lead to cardiac arrhythmia and sudden death. Almost 100 scientists and doctors then petitioned for the case to be reopened, listing possible medical reasons for each of the four deaths.

Genetic mutation and “underlying neurogenic disease”

According to Judge Tom Bathurst, who led the investigation, two of the children suffered from a rare genetic mutation, and a third child suffered from an “underlying neurogenic disorder”. As a result, Bathurst also considered it unlikely that Folbigg had killed her fourth child. She was nothing more than “a caring mother”. Diary entries that were seen as an admission of guilt at the trial were probably due to the woman’s grief and desperation.

sti/fab (afp, dpa)