Second inquiry into child killer Kathleen Folbigg’s conviction

The fate of convicted killer Kathleen Folbigg will be decided by a second inquiry, NSW Attorney General Mark Speakman has announced.

Australia’s worst female serial killer Kathleen Folbigg will have her conviction reviewed by a second inquiry after she has spent almost two decades behind bars.

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

Today, Attorney General Mark Speakman ruled out an immediate pardon based on new scientific evidence but said it “justifies some form of intervention.”

An inquiry upheld her conviction in 2019.

She is not eligible for parole from her 40-year sentence for another six years.

Kathleen Folbigg during a convictions inquiry at the NSW Coroners Court in 2019. Picture: Joel Carrett

Mr Speakman has recommended NSW Governor Margaret Beazley conduct a second inquiry into her conviction.

She has appointed retired Chief Justice Thomas Bathurst QC to conduct it.

NSW Attorney-General Mark Speakman will make decision on Folbigg’s appeal today. Picture: Gaye Gerard

“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.”

More than 12 months ago Folbigg’s legal team lodged a petition signed by more than 150 medical and scientific experts with the NSW Governor calling for Folbigg to be pardoned.

Kathleen Folbigg outside court in Darlinghurst, Sydney in 2003.

The petition says her conviction “is based on the proposition that the likelihood of four children from one family dying of natural causes is so unlikely as to be virtually impossible.”

The petition argues new gene science has found a genetic mutation called CALM2 that could explain the death of both Sarah and Laura.

Mr Speakman said he had informed Folbigg’s legal team about the inquiry in writing.

He called her former husband Craig Folbigg just before the press conference.

”I just can’t imagine what this family has been through and whatever the outcome of this inquiry it is an extraordinary tragedy,” he said.

Originally published as Second inquiry into child killer Kathleen Folbigg’s conviction