Australia’s ‘worst female serial killer’ pardoned due to scientific evidence; Here’s all you need to know

Kathleen Folbigg, once dubbed as Australia’s ‘worst female serial killer’, has now been pardoned owing to the fresh scientific evidence which suggested that all her four children died due natural causes. She has already spent at least two decades in prison after a jury convicted her for killing her sons Caleb and Patrick and daughters Sarah and Laura over the period of decade.

The case of the 55-year-old has also been described as one of Australia’s greatest miscarriages of justice. However, Folbigg has always claimed that she was innocent. In 2003, she was jailed for 25 years for murdering her three children and manslaughter of her eldest son, Caleb.

The prosecutors in her case alleged that she suffocated all her children after each of them died abruptly between 1989 and 1999 in ages between 19 days and 19 months. NUmerous appeals along with a separate 2019 inquiry into the case failed to locate a doubt in her being guilty. Instead, they cemented her role in the death of her children.


However, during a fresh inquiry, led by retired judge Tom Bathurst, prosecutors accepted that research on gene mutations impacted their understanding of how the four of them died. On Monday, June 5, New South Wales Attorney General Michael Daley said that Bathurst concluded that there was enough doubt over her conviction.

In the aftermath, the New South Wales governor signed a full pardon in Folbigg’s case and ordered for her immediate release from the prison.

It is to note that an unconditional pardon does not mean that Folbigg’s convictions are changed as the power to take that decision lies with the Court of Criminal Appeal, which could take up to a year. At the time of her original trial, there was no physical evidence of her smothering the children. But, in a recent inquiry, immunologists discovered that Folbigg’s daughters shared a genetic mutation called CALM2 G114R - that can cause sudden cardiac death. Meanwhile, scientific evidence showed that her sons had different genetic mutations, linked to sudden-onset epilepsy in mice. Professor, who led the research by the Australian National University team, reportedly said that the peculiar genetic sequence of her children was obvious in Folbigg’s DNA, she told BBC.

FAQs:

Q1:How old is Kathleen Folbigg?
55 years

Q2:When was Kathleen Folbigg jailed?
In 2003, Kathleen Folbigg was jailed for 25 years.