The Australian Kathleen Folbigg, considered in her country until very recently as the incarnation of the devil, has been pardoned and released this Monday after spending twenty years in prison accused of the death of her four babies (she always defended her innocence). The governor of the state of New South Wales signed the pardon after learning the conclusions of a report on the case by retired judge Thomas Bathurst, authorities said.
The lawyer came to "the firm consideration that there are reasonable doubts about Folbigg's guilt" in each of the deaths, after a scientific investigation coordinated by the Spanish immunologist Carola García de Vinuesa - who heard about Folbigg's case at the 2018 while working in Australia, where he spent 20 years - linked the deaths to genetic failures.
“I am very content and happy. And not only because of Kathleen, but because she has listened to science, ”Vinuesa explains to La Vanguardia. She confesses that this morning Kathleen herself (whom she visited in prison on several occasions) called her. “It has been very beautiful and exciting. She is very happy, radiant, and grateful to the scientists who have worked on her cause”.
Although it is not possible to reward someone who has spent the last 20 years in jail accused of crimes that, in light of what the courts have now determined, he did not commit, Vinuesa explains that Folbigg feels peace right now. "She always said that what she wanted was to be able to change the epitaph on the graves of his children and that it be known that they had died of natural causes."
Folbigg's children - Caleb, Patrick, Sarah and Laura - died between 1989 and 1999 in Hunter-Newcastle, about 120 kilometers from Sydney, when they were between 19 days and 18 months old, while in his care.
The first to come into the world was Caleb. The year was 1989. The little boy was born with laryngomalacia (flaccid larynx) that made it difficult for him to breathe and swallow simultaneously. He only managed to survive 19 days. He passed away from sudden infant death syndrome.
Two years later (1991) Patrick would be born, who died at eight months of age during an epileptic attack. With only four months to live, he suffered from severe epilepsy and blindness.
Despite the shock of losing the two little ones, Kathleen and her husband did not give up hope and kept trying to become parents. In 1992, Sarah would be born. However, she would pass away ten months later. And seven years later (1999) Laura would come to the world. Of the four, she was the one who managed to survive the longest, 18 months.
Three days before she died, Sarah, the third baby, was given antibiotics for a respiratory infection. And Laura, the last child, had had a fever before she died. In the autopsy she was found to have a heart infection: myocarditis.
In Vinuesa's opinion, the problems for Folbigg began when the forensic pathologist, on the death certificate, did not specify myocarditis as the cause of death. "They alerted him that there had been three previous deaths in the family and he specified 'undetermined cause.' That was the trigger for the police process, ”the Spanish immunologist explained to this newspaper at the time.
Scientists have known for some time that Sarah and Laura inherited a genetic mutation in the calmodulin protein, in the CALM2 gene, which causes sudden death in young children from cardiac arrest.
Folbigg was condemned not only by the forensic report on Laura's death, but also by what her husband found in his personal journals, which contained phrases that could seem incriminating. Hence she took them to the police. Kathleen wrote about Sarah (the third baby) statements like her: “She's a kind enough baby, thank God, she'll save her from the fate of her siblings. I think she was warned." She also went on to write: “With Sarah all she wanted was for her to shut up. And she one day she did it ”.
Folbigg's lawyers asked seven of the world's leading experts in psychology, forensic psychiatry, and linguistics to analyze the diaries, and all seven concluded that there was nothing incriminating. "They simply reflect the thoughts of a mother who is losing her children and that she is stressed and depressed, often feeling responsible."
In 2003, Folbigg was sentenced to 40 years in prison - with the right to seek parole after 30 years - for the murder of Patrick, Sarah and Laura and the manslaughter of Caleb. Folbigg, who has always defended her innocence, managed to get the Criminal Court of Appeals to reduce her sentence in 2005 to 30 years, with the right to request parole after 25 years in prison.
The case took a turn in 2020, when a team of scientists coordinated by Vinuesa and led by the Danish Michael Toft Overgaard concluded that the deaths of Folbigg's babies could be due to genetic causes. The investigation, published in the specialized magazine Europac, found that the children carried rare variants of a gene that kills rodents by epileptic seizures.
The case was reopened again as a result of a letter sent in March 2021 to the Australian authorities by a hundred scientists, including two Nobel laureates, to request pardon and the release of Folbigg, which has finally arrived.
"She has already left the prison," says Vinuesa. The Spanish immunologist explains that Folbigg will continue to live in Australia thanks to the fact that in recent months, as a result of all the news that has appeared since the second legal review of the case, the public's perception of her has changed little bit. “It is very rare now to hear news that calls her a murderer. The image of her has already changed ”.
She will go to live, she says, “in a little house that her best friend has built for her on her farm. It is an idyllic place. She is glad that she can have a quiet life from now on.”
He understands that this case can set a precedent. “The Australian Academy of Science has played an important role in this process, mediating by seeking out experts in the field and ensuring that the science was intelligible. And that sets a precedent so that in the future there may be figures who can advise the judge when science is very complex”.
