Crime update:
She has been called Australia’s worst female serial killer, but now some of the world’s most brilliant scientific minds say Kathleen Folbigg’s four children could have died of natural causes.
Could convicted child killer Kathleen Folbigg actually be innocent?
OnNew Year’s Day this year, there was an attack in the high security women’s wing of Australia’s biggest prison. An inmate busted into a cell where another prisoner, with tired, hazel eyes and greying hair, was lying on her bunk, resting. After 18 years in protective custody, Kathleen Folbigg was being integrated in with the main population at the Clarence Correctional Centre, and some of her new cellmates were not happy about sharing their quarters with a convicted baby killer. The inmate seized Kathleen and beat her until she bled, warning that her friends would be targeted too if she didn’t leave. With bruises and a black eye, the 53-year-old was returned to protective custody, where her meagre freedoms were curtailed.
“But I’m safe (as I can be). So are my friends and that’s what really matters,” she wrote of the incident.
It had been almost two decades since Kathleen Folbigg was convicted of killing her four infant children, Caleb, Patrick, Sarah and Laura, and the hatred for her still ran deep. Though, as her letter states, she is not friendless. Kathleen has always had a group of devoted allies who believe she is innocent, and now some of the finest scientific minds in the world have added their voices to the chorus of support.
Rhanee Rego, one of the lawyers who has worked unpaid on Folbigg’s case for almost five years, puts it simply: “It’s the worst miscarriage of justice in Australian history.”
“Kathleen never stood a chance. When all of this was said, and she couldn’t then prove her innocence, which was never her job anyway, she was doomed,” Rhanee tells The Weekly. Kathleen’s backers say there is significant new evidence that the
Folbigg babies died of natural causes, not the murder and manslaughter charges that put Kathleen behind bars. In a sensational development last month, 90 pre-eminent scientists sent a petition to the NSW Governor calling for Kathleen to be pardoned and freed. Two Nobel Laureates and three former Australians of the Year signed the document that says Kathleen Folbigg is suffering with psychological trauma and being physically abused while in prison on evidence that’s “entirely circumstantial”.
“She has endured the death of her four children and has been wrongfully incarcerated because the justice system has failed her,” the petition says. “Ms Folbigg should be granted a pardon.”
They say genetic mutations identified in the Folbigg daughters likely caused their deaths. The Folbiggs’ sons had a different genetic mutation that is not yet fully understood, in addition to medical conditions