A woman once branded “Australia’s worst female serial killer” has been pardoned after new evidence suggested she did not kill her four children.
Kathleen Folbigg was in 2003 sentenced to at least 25 years in jail, after a jury found she had killed Caleb, Patrick, Sarah and Laura over a decade.
But a recent inquiry heard scientists believe they may have died naturally.
The 55-year-old’s case has been described as one of Australia’s greatest miscarriages of justice.
New South Wales Attorney General Michael Daley on Monday announced the inquiry, which finished in March, had concluded there was reasonable doubt as to the guilt of Ms Folbigg on each offence.
“Kathleen Folbigg should be released from custody as soon as possible,” he said. “She has now been pardoned.”
Previous appeals and a separate 2019 inquiry into the case found no grounds for reasonable doubt, and gave greater weight to circumstantial evidence in her original trial.
But at the new inquiry, headed by Judge Tom Bathurst, prosecutors accepted evidence about gene mutations had cast reasonable doubt on Ms Folbigg’s convictions.
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11 March 2021
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