Australia has pardoned a mother convicted of murdering her four babies after a review of the case

Australian authorities on Monday announced the pardon of Kathleen Folbigg, who spent two decades in prison for killing her four babies. after reviewing his case as a result of an investigation coordinated by a Spanish scientist which linked the deaths to genetic defects.

“She was pardoned. I also want to say that we took advantage of the opportunity as expected, to ensure that Ms. Folbigg is released without delaysaid the Attorney General of the Australian state of New South Wales, Michael Daley, during a press conference in Sydney.

Authorities last year ordered a review of Folbigg’s case over the deaths of his children Caleb, Patrick, Sarah and Laura between 1989 and 1999 – when they were aged between 19 days and 18 months. after a group of scientists raised the possibility that the deaths were the result of a rare genetic mutation. The pardon came after former judge Tom Bathurst, who was in charge of hearing the case, concluded that “there is reasonable doubt as to the guilt of Kathleen Folbigg for each of these crimes,” Daley said.

The review found there was a reasonable possibility that three of Folbigg’s children had died of natural causes, while the evidence about coincidence and trend in the fourth baby’s death was inconsistent, according to Bathurst’s findings.

The 55-year-old woman was released after receiving a pardon from New South Wales Governor Margaret Beazley and he secluded himself on a farm in the north of the country next to his friend and loyal defender Tracy Chapman. In a statement, Chapman thanked the support received and said that the last 20 years “have been terrible for Kathleen”, especially because of the “pain and suffering she has had to endure after the loss of four children”.

They all miss each other every day, he qualified speaking of the deceased minors. For her part, Folbigg’s lawyer, Rhanee Rego, viewed the pardon as “the decisive moment of a long and painful journey” and expressed that the case exposes that “the legal system can make mistakes”.

“This case should revive the debate on strengthening the interaction between law and science, implement important reforms so that the legal system makes decisions based on the best available scientific evidenceand not in speculation,” he said in statements to the local press.

The role of the Spanish immunologist

A team of scientists coordinated by Spanish immunologist Carola García de Vinuesa and led by Dane Michael Toft Overgaard, concluded in 2020 that the deaths of the Folbigg babies could be caused by genetic causes. Scientific research, published in the specialized journal Europace of the European Association of Cardiology, links a genetic mutation (CALM2) in two of Folbigg’s daughters, Sarah and Laura, to sudden cardiac death.

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

reopening the case

folbigg was sentenced to 40 years in prison in 2003reduced to 30 years in 2005, for the murder of three of his children and for the murder of another of them, and unsuccessfully appealed the sentence several times, defending his innocence and assuring that his children died of natural causes in the Hunter Valley town, about 120 kilometers from Sydney.

The case was reopened as a result of a letter sent in March 2021 by a hundred scientists – including two Nobel laureates – to Australian authorities demanding a pardon and immediate release of Folbigg.