Sydney, Australia, Dec 14 (EFE).- An Australian court on Thursday overturned the convictions of Kathleen Folbigg for killing her four children.
Folbigg, who spent two decades in prison, was pardoned in June after a review of her case determined that there was reasonable doubt about her guilt.
“There is now reasonable doubt as to Ms Folbigg’s guilt, the appropriate relief is to quash each of the convictions (of three counts of murder and one of involuntary manslaughter) and enter verdicts of acquittal pursuant to s 6(2) of the Criminal Appeal Acts,” the New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal said in its ruling on Thursday.
The 56-year-old Australian – whose case was reopened in 2021 after a group of scientists suggested the possibility that the infants may have died due to a rare genetic mutation – was sentenced in 2003 to 40 years in prison, reduced to 30 years in 2005, for the death of her children Caleb, Patrick, Sarah and Laura, between 1989 and 1999 at ages ranging from 19 days to 18 months.
“The time this has taken in seeing today's result has cost many people a lot,” Folbigg – once branded as “Australia's worst female serial killer” – said after the verdict.
“I hoped and prayed that one day I would be able to stand here with my name cleared,” she added.
Former judge Tom Bathurst, who was in charge of reviewing Folbigg’s case, concluded that there was reasonable doubt as to her guilt.
In a final report sent to the Court of Criminal Appeal in November, Bathurst asked the court to consider quashing Folbigg’s convictions or order a new trial.
After examining the report, the court agreed with Bathurst that the new scientific evidence and the entries in Folbigg's diary, which were used to incriminate her, were “not reliable admissions of guilt.”
The case was reopened due to a letter sent to NSW Governor Margaret Beazley in March 2021 by over 100 scientists – including two Nobel laureates – calling for the acquittal and immediate release of Folbigg.
In 2020, a group of scientists, coordinated by Spanish immunologist Carola García de Vinuesa and led by Denmark's Michael Toft Overgaard concluded that the deaths of the Folbigg’s babies may have been due to genetic causes.
The scientific study, published in the European Society of Cardiology's journal Eurospace, linked a genetic mutation (CALM2) – present in Folbigg's two daughters – with sudden cardiac death.
Moreover, the study – put together by an international group of 27 experts – showed that the children carried rare variants of a gene that kills rodents through epileptic attacks. EFE
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