An Australian woman accused of murdering her four babies could be pardoned after her case is reviewed

A review of the case of Kathleen Folbigg, who was jailed for two decades for killing her four babies in Australia, ended on Thursday, opening the possibility of her being pardoned, after an investigation coordinated by a Spanish scientist pointed out that death could be the result of genetic errors.

Former Justice Thomas Bathurst, who is in charge of the review, will have to produce a report indicating whether the case should be referred to the Court of Criminal Appeal, which may or may not overturn the conviction, or to the New South Wales regional governor for her recommendation. Pardon, there is no specific deadline for publication, reports Australian public television ABC. However, the New South Wales Department of Justice told EFE there was no deadline for the publication of the Bathurst report.

Australian 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 between 19 days and 18 months old -. after a group of scientists raised the possibility that these deaths were the result of a rare genetic mutation. The review, which began in November last year, claimed there was reasonable doubt about Folbigg’s responsibility for the children’s deaths.

The role of the Spanish immunologist

The death of Folbigg’s babies could be the result of genetic causes, concluded a team of scientists coordinated by a Spanish immunologist Carol García de Vinues and under the guidance of the Dane Michael Toft Overgaard, 2020. Scientific research published in a specialized journal Europefrom 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 2003, reduced to 30 years in 2005, for the murder of three of her children and for the murder of another of them and He unsuccessfully appealed the verdict several timesdefending his innocence and assuring that his children died of natural causes in the Hunter Valley, 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 New South Wales Governor-General Margaret Beazley demanding a pardon and immediate release of the Australian. All the babies were sick with different diseases: the first, Caleb, with laryngomalacia; another, Patrick, had very severe epilepsy and died of a seizure, while Sarah was on antibiotics for a respiratory infection and Laura suffered from myocarditis.