Inquiry to probe Kathleen Folbigg’s convictions for killing her four children

Kathleen Folbigg has spent 19 years in jail for killing her four children, but did she actually do it and could this be one of the gravest miscarriages of justice in Australian history? A new inquiry could lead to her release.

The new inquiry into Kathleen Folbigg’s convictions for the murder of three and the manslaughter of another of her four children was called by NSW Attorney General Mark Speakman in May 2022.

This was after a petition was presented to the NSW Governor by Folbigg’s lawyers detailing new science that suggests two of the children died of natural causes.

Folbigg was jailed in 2003 after being found guilty of the murder of three of her children, Caleb, Sarah and Laura, and for the manslaughter of her second born, Patrick.

The case was circumstantial, had no forensic evidence of smothering but relied on her diary entries, the testimony of her estranged husband and medical opinion that four infant deaths in the one family was unheard of.

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The inquiry started on November 14 in Sydney and heard evidence that indicated the two daughters, Laura and Sarah, inherited a genetic mutation on the CALM2 gene, a gene associated with cardiac arrhythmias and sudden death. After two days of hearings it was adjourned until February.

A study on the mutations was published in 2021 with evidence is so strong, a petition was signed by 90 eminent scientists, include two Nobel laureates – Professors Elizabeth Blackburn and Peter Doherty. The petition now has 151 signatures including world experts in cardiac arrhythmias.

Mr Speakman recommended NSW Governor Margaret Beazley conduct a second inquiry into her conviction and appointed retired Chief Justice Thomas Bathurst QC to hear it.

Kathleen Folbigg has spent two decades in prison for killing her four children.

“I can well understand why members of the public may shake their heads and roll their eyes in disbelief about the number of chances Ms Folbigg has had to clear her name and (ask) why has the justice system allowed someone convicted of … multiple homicides, yet another go?” Mr Speakman said.

“But the evidence clearly in my view reaches the necessary threshold for some kind of intervention,” he said.

The first inquiry in 2019 reaffirmed Ms Folbigg’s guilt, based on the dairy entries, but the genetic mutation discovered in the girls that same year had not been conclusively proven to cause cardiac arrhythmias.

Scientists in Denmark, A/Prof Mette Nyegard and Professor Toft Overgaard and their team, isolated the mutation, recreated it and proved it was likely pathogenic, meaning it could cause cardiac arrhythmias. Both will present their research to the inquiry on Tuesday, November 15. Professor Carola Vinuesa and Professor Todor Arsov, who discovered the gene mutation in 2019 will give evidence on Wednesday, November 16.

Kathleen Folbigg appearing at the inquiry in 2019.

Cardiologists, including world expert in cardiac arrhythmias and CALM genes Professor Peter Schwartz who established a register pf patients carrying mutations of the Calm gene will give evidence the following week.

The inquiry was originally set down for two hearings: two weeks set aside in November to hear the scientific argument and a second hearing in February 2023 to hear evidence about the diary entries.

Three things could happen. First, the scientific evidence is so strong Ms Folbigg’s case will be referred back to the Court of Criminal Appeal after November’s hearing and she is released from jail. Secondly, the diary hearings remain to be heard in February as planned, and thirdly, after February’s hearings, her conviction might still stand and she serves out her 25 year sentence of which she has served 19 years.

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