Kathleen Folbigg exclusive: ‘The day I slapped Kathleen’s hubby in the face’

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: It was some time in 2003, after Kathleen Folbigg had been sentenced to 40 years in jail for smothering her four infant children, that her husband Craig Folbigg was physically attacked in a RSL club.

It was some time in 2003, after Kathleen Folbigg had been sentenced to 40 years in jail for smothering her four infant children, that her husband Craig Folbigg was physically attacked by Karen Hall.

At Singleton RSL, Mr Folbigg walked over to Mrs Hall in a friendly fashion and she slapped him across the face.

“Physically I wanted to do more than that, I’m a bit of a hothead,” Mrs Hall said of her fury at Mr Folbigg giving evidence against a friend she always believed to be innocent.

“He just thought he could walk up and put his arms around me and everything was OK and it wasn’t. I told him in a few short words to back off and don’t speak to me again.”

In the late 1990s Mrs Hall worked with Mr Folbigg at a Singleton car dealership, and she and her husband Raymond became close with the Folbiggs, enjoying dinner parties and family barbecues.

Kathleen and Craig Folbigg with baby Sarah in 1993. She died months later.

Ms Hall, knowing of the couple’s former losses, did a CPR course when Kathleen fell pregnant with the couple’s fourth child Laura. She regularly babysat Laura and on one of those occasions she stopped breathing.

“When I had her she slept where I was, so I could keep an eye on her. She was on the lounge and the phone rang … it was Kath saying she was on her way to Laura, I said no hurry, she’s asleep,” she said.

“I spoke to her for probably a minute or two, hung up the phone and as I walked into the room and looked at Laura, something wasn’t right. She was a deathly grey colour. And she just looked lifeless.

“I couldn’t hear her breathing. I couldn’t see her breathing. I must have just went into overdrive and I did what the training tells you to do, I scooped her up off the lounge and put her on the floor and got down to start CPR.”

Laura came to. World expert on the rare genetic mutation found in the Folbigg girls, Professor Peter Schwartz, gave evidence at the inquiry that this incident was likely Laura’s first cardiac event.

Laura would die in her sleep in February 1999 at 18 months. Ms Folbigg was convicted of her murder.

For a long time Ms Hall held her head high in Singleton, defending her friend against the groundswell of hatred and suspicion.

She always suspected a genetic fault caused the children’s death, and now she says she was right, after Ms Folbigg was pardoned last week.

“I’m more at ease, I have been proven right. It’s a case of ‘I told you so’ and it feels bloody good. It feels wonderful she’s out but it took way too bloody long,” she said.

Last week she reunited with her friend who spent 20 years in jail for crimes she did not commit.

“The reunion was wonderful, as you would expect, there was lots of tears, lots of joy and lots of catching up to do,” she said.

And, as for that slap, she does not regret it, nor the mouthful she gave Mr Folbigg.

“I remember the words and they weren’t very pleasant. He just looked at me and walked away. He was wise to walk away,” she said.

‘I lost everything except my friends’

They are the self-described “pack of nerds” who stuck together to protect each other from high school bullies and whose loyalty to each other has only grown stronger in the face of adversity.

Meet Kathleen Folbigg’s best friends — the women who never doubted her innocence or her love for her children.

Megan Donegan tears up when she talks about the death of little Sarah Folbigg.

“When Sarah died I was a mess, I get emotional every time I talk about it,” Ms Donegan told The Saturday Telegraph as she sat with Kathleen Folbigg, days after she was released from prison.

“I was so devastated. I was sent home from work because of the state I was in.

“I remember contacting Kath in that week, between Sarah’s death and her funeral, asking if we could come visit.

“Kath was godmother to my oldest, who was born four weeks after Sarah.

Lifelong besties (l to r) Megan Donegan, Billi-Jo Buckley, Kathleen Folbigg and Tracy Chapman.

“When Kath and I were pregnant we would book our appointments at the obstetrician together, especially in those last weeks.

“We would travel together, tie each other’s shoe laces because we couldn’t reach our feet.

“We used to watch them roll around on the mat while we chatted and drank coffee.

“So when Sarah died I contacted Kath because I wanted to go and see her but I didn’t want to bring Alex if it was too distressing for her.

“She said: ‘Bring Alex, I want to see him’.”

Kathleen Folbigg released a video statement to the media after her first night of freedom. Picture: Supplied

What stood out for Ms Donegan was the fact the home wasn’t as immaculate as usual.

“Kath was OCD with cleaning but I noticed she hadn’t washed the window because it had Sarah’s handprints on it,” she said.

“She was 10 months old when she died and she had just started pulling herself up on things … there were all these little fingerprints and Kath couldn’t bring herself to wipe them away.”

It’s those “little things” that have haunted Ms Donegan, Billi-Jo Buckley and Tracy Chapman.

“She always made sure she talked about her babies, she never forget them, there were photos everywhere.”

For Ms Buckley, believing in her friend is simple: “We know her, we saw her with the babies, she was loving, she was caring, she adored them”.

“Kath was so excited to be pregnant, the joy on her face. She was a kind person, she always was.

“I was bullied a lot at school and she would protect me, you could even see the loyalty and protectiveness of her back then and she’s still the same.”

Baby Laura.

Baby Sarah.

Ms Buckley has her own standout memory.

“I was working nights and I remember going over to Kath’s when Caleb had already died.

“We were lying down watching a movie and it was about whether you would give up your life for a child.

“Kath said I would give up my time thousands of times over if I could have my baby back. I will always remember bursting into tears with that.”

Or there’s the memories of Kathleen’s fears when she fell pregnant with Patrick.

“She was heavily pregnant and so worried this could happen again,” Ms Donegan recalls.

“I remember saying ‘this can’t possibly happen again’. How stupid was I?

“She was so worried about it. When she was pregnant with Laura I wasn’t game to say anything ‘cause it had already happened three times over.”

Baby Patrick.

Baby Caleb.

Because Patrick was blind from four months old, Kathleen went to lessons on how to parent a blind child.

“She had to learn how to teach him to crawl, little things like announcing you are there and about to pick him up so he isn’t startled. Those things all stick out to me, the little things,” Ms Donegan said.

The women are angry their friend has been judged by her diaries.

“She always had a diary on her bedside table, always,” Ms Donegan said. “It was never hidden; it was there plain to see.”

Ms Buckley also recalled Kathleen “always” having a diary on her bedside table, even when they lived together in 1985.

“She would always write the date and time and if you read the whole thing the time would always be 1am. She was always awake and couldn’t sleep so she would dump in the diary to stop her overthinking,” she said.

“Picking bits and pieces and not reading the whole thing is so unfair.”

Kathleen Folbigg was in prison for 20 years before she was pardoned.

Ms Donegan recalls Kathleen’s husband Craig lamenting that she could talk to her diary better than she could talk to him.

“Craig handed the diaries in, in May 1999, and by July 23 there was that nine-hour interview of Kath by police,” she said.

“They reconciled after that and stayed together for well over six months, arriving at my house at 8am on Christmas morning 1999, with Craig full of plans for the future.

“They weren’t trying to have more babies, they were going to travel to ‘get to know each other again’ and then look to fostering.

“Kath was very quiet on that visit and they broke up for good just a few weeks later.

“If someone thought a mother was capable of killing her children, would he go back to her for six months?”

As the dust settles and Kathleen begins her life on the outside, her three best friends will always be a whisker away.

“She is surprisingly not anywhere near as institutionalised as she thought she would be,” Ms Donegan said after her friend’s 20 years in prison.

Her release came after a two-week judicial ­inquiry into the deaths of her four young children that found there was reasonable doubt as to whether she killed all four of them.

“She certainly wasn’t rocking in the corner,” Ms Donegan said.

Kathleen confirmed it herself, coming to the phone briefly to exchange greetings as her friends spoke fondly about her on loudspeaker.

“This is home now,” she said.