Kathleen Folbigg

15 years after being found guilty of murdering her four children, Kathleen is desperate for the truth to come out

SITTING IN AN INTERROGATION room in the NSW Hunter Valley, child serial killer Kathleen Folbigg, sobbed, “No! No! No! No!” as police asked whether she killed her four babies. Despite her denials, as seen in the footage aired on the ABC’S Aug. 13 episode of Australian Story, a NSW Supreme Court jury in May 2003 found Folbigg guilty of the murder of Patrick, 7 months, Sarah, 10 months, and Laura, 18 months. She was also charged with the manslaughter of her firstborn Caleb whose death was initially attributed to SIDS after Folbigg alleged she found him dead in his cot 19 days after he was born on Feb. 1, 1989. The now 51-year-old was sentenced to 40 years in jail, but has maintained that her children died of natural causes.

The renewed interest comes after Australian Story aired tapes of Folbigg speaking for the first time from Cessnock Correctional Centre about the diary entries that were part of the prosecution’s case against her. “She’s a fairly good-natured baby. Thank goodness,” Folbigg wrote of Laura. “It has saved her from the fate of her siblings. I think she was warned.” However in phone calls recorded by the ABC, Folbigg explained the diaries, which were found by her then-estranged husband Craig, and led to her 2003 sentencing, which was later reduced to 25 years. “Those diaries are written from a point of me always blaming myself,” Folbigg explains. “I took so much of the responsibility, because that’s, as mothers, what you do.”

Folbigg has exhausted her right of appeal, however a petition by her legal team stating she was convicted on “flawed evidence” remains her only hope. The petition claims Monash University forensic pathologist Professor Stephen Cordner concluded Caleb and Sarah died from SIDS and Patrick most likely died from epilepsy. The professor also concluded Laura, died “unexceptionally from myocarditis.”

Folbigg expressed frustration about the delay, adding, “We’ve been clinging to that little bit of hope.” •

Laura Elizabeth lived the longest of her siblings, passing away in February 1999, aged 19 months. Caleb Gibson arrived on Feb. 1, 1989. Just 19 days later, he was found dead in his cot. Sarah Kathleen was just 10 months when she passed away on Aug. 29,1993.

“Not a day passes when I don’t think of my four other little angels,” said Craig Folbigg in 2003.