Australia’s ‘worst female serial killer’ pardoned due to new evidence

An Australian woman convicted of murdering her four infant children has been pardoned due to “reasonable doubt” sparked by new evidence.

The attorney general of New South Wales state, Michael Daley, said Monday that he had recommended an unconditional pardon for Kathleen Folbigg, 55, whom prosecutors had dubbed “Australia’s worst female serial killer,” according to BBC News. She was set to be freed right away.

Daley told Gov. Margaret Beazley that new scientific evidence pointed to natural causes for at least two of the deaths, which occurred over the course of a decade. The babies were 19 days to 19 months old — two daughters and two sons — when Folbigg found their bodies. She has always insisted they died of natural causes and maintained her innocence.

The first child to die was Caleb, who was born in 1989 and died 19 days later. A jury convicted Folbigg of manslaughter on that death. Son Patrick died at 8 months old in 1991, and 10-month-old Sarah died two years later. Her fourth child, Laura, died in 1999 at 19 months old.

Folbigg has already served two decades of her 30-year sentence. Convicted of murder in the deaths of Sarah, Laura and Patrick and manslaughter of her firstborn, Caleb, she was scheduled to serve until 2033, though she would have been up for parole in 2028.

Bathurst launched a new inquiry in November that examined the possible role of a rare genetic variant found in both daughters that could cause heart arrhythmias and sudden death in young children. The sons had a different genetic issues, one that was implicated in sudden-onset epilepsy in mice, BBC News reported. The research did not exist when Folbigg was convicted in 2003.

No physical evidence connected Folbigg to the deaths. A jury based its assessment on the near-impossibility of four siblings dying of natural causes before age 2 and on passages from her diary, some of which they interpreted as admissions of guilt.

“It has been a 20-year-long ordeal for her,” BBC quoted Daley as saying. “If she is not out already, she will be soon ... I wish her peace.”

With News Wire Services