On a warm afternoon in March 1999, a mother lost her 18-month-old daughter in a small town called Singleton near the Hunter Valley, a well-known wine region in New South Wales, Australia.
Singleton Town
The mother's name was Catherine Forbig, and the unfortunate baby was Laura.
Catherine almost collapsed, and the bad luck of "Death is coming" seemed to refuse to spare any of her children. Before little Laura, she had three children, Caleb, Patrick and Sarah, all of whom died in 19 days, 8 months, and 10 months respectively, all of whom lost their breath in their deep sleep and never woke up.
This symptom is called sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and is common up to 2 years of age. It is not yet possible to pre-confirm and to intervene effectively. The medical community still has a fairly limited understanding of it.
The pathologist performed an autopsy on little Laura and found no cause of death. He raised the possibility: the virus causes inflammation of the heart. But he preferred his own other inference: that all four children in the family died of SIDS, which is unbelievable and does not rule out the possibility of homicide. ”
One stone stirs up a thousand waves, and all kinds of theories are very loud.
The police intervened in the investigation and got some clues from Catherine's diary.
Catherine's Diary
While pregnant with Laura, Catherine wrote, "I felt like the worst mother in the world. Afraid that she (Laura) will leave me like Sarah did... She (Laura) is a kind child, and thanks to God, this saved her from the fate of her siblings... I think I'm going to be a little patient with Laura and I'll figure out what's wrong and not 'break the gears' like I did before."
She also once wrote: "I know I'm sometimes grumpy and harsh on her (Sarah), and when I'm with her, I just wish she could be quieter." Finally, one day, she shut up..."
She was also very upset to mention in her diary of her biological father who killed his wife: "I am obviously my father's daughter. ”
The words are creepy. Catherine's husband, Craig, a man exhausted by the loss of four children in a row, is convinced that her wife killed their children.
Mr. and Mrs. Forbig
In May 2003, after a lengthy investigation, the jury found Catherine to have negligent in causing the death of her eldest son and the deliberate murder of her three children. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
The prosecutor made a generous statement in court: Lightning does not hit the same person four times.
The judge in charge of the investigation said: "The only reasonable conclusion is that someone intentionally harmed the child. The baby suffocated, and evidence suggests that no one but Catherine could have been the killer. ”
Why are the judges so sure?
That's to Roy Meadow, a British paediatrician who specializes in child abuse. In 1997, he put forward the idea that "a sudden infant death is a tragedy, two are suspicious, and three is murder", which was widely accepted by the public. This line of thinking has influenced a number of pathologists who testify that the probability of a family experiencing multiple deaths from SIDS is extremely small, and that there has never been a precedent before.
Catherine argued and defended herself, but apparently, she did not win the trust of the judge and the jury, was sentenced to 40 years in prison, and became the demon of Australians who brutally killed her four infant children.
But in such a horrific case, the verdict was based entirely on circumstantial evidence, which disturbed many people, especially medical experts.
In 2015, Melbourne forensic pathologists re-examined the autopsies of the dead babies and concluded: "There is no positive forensic pathology to the claim that these babies were killed by man. They showed no signs of suffocation. ”
In 2018, a Canadian forensic pathologist said: "The deaths of these four babies can all be explained by natural causes." ”
In 2019, Australian National University medical professor Corolla and his team discovered the "G114R" variant of the CALM2 gene in Katherine and her two daughters, Sarah and Laura.
The CALM2 gene is responsible for encoding calmodulin, and variants of the calmodulin gene can cause sudden cardiac death.
Based on these findings, public opinion began to turn, and the public believed that Catherine was wronged and hoped that she would be acquitted.
In 2019, an Australian court announced the reopening of the case, and the judge asked the Australian Academy of Sciences to act as independent scientific adviser.
Divisions have emerged within the Group. Although they have found mutations in CALM2 and the gene MYH6, they have different views on their pathogenicity, and some experts have scored the variants on a five-level scale, believing that they are "variants of uncertain significance" that cannot prove that they must cause disease, which is not enough to overturn the conviction of Catherine.
Why can't scientists agree?
This is due to the rapid development of genomics research in the past two decades, and pathogenic bursts have become the hot new favorite in the medical community. There are exaggerated discoveries that claim to have identified dangerous genetic variants that have been later proven harmless, and so-called deadly variants that are actually relatively common and benign in the population.
The medical profession has liquidated this impetuosity of short-term success, arguing that there must be a fairly high degree of evidence to determine the pathogenicity of a variant.
So they argue that there is no more reliable evidence that Catherine's children died of genetic variations.
On this basis, the court upheld the original verdict and held that the children had died of murder.
At this time, Catherine had been in prison for 16 years, and she still maintained her innocence and never gave up on appeal.
Professor Corolla, a staunch supporter of Catherine, complains that the legal system relies on "intuition" to inform decision-making, and she has invited more experts internationally to join the study.
In November 2020, the international team published a paper in EP, a well-known European medical journal, reporting further findings.
Catherine's G114R variant, like other known CALM gene variants, is extremely lethal and can often induce cardiac arrest and even sudden death in mutation carriers, including sleeping infants and young children. Both of her daughters suffered from respiratory problems before their deaths, and Laura's autopsy found heart inflammation. The scientists believed: "Intercurrent infections cause fatal arrhythmias. ”
They also found two rare variants of the other two children, Caleb and Patrick, in the BSN gene, which can cause fatal epilepsy in mouse experiments.
These latest genetic findings support that all four children died from genetic mutations.
On March 2, 2021, more than 90 prominent scientists signed a petition calling for the acquittal of Catherine, who had been unjustly imprisoned. These include two Nobel laureates. They believe in the latest research and believe that judges should trust science more than their intuition swayed by bias.
The Australian government of New South Wales has finally decided to reopen the case again, with investigative hearings scheduled to begin on November 14, 2022. They will convene scientists around the world for scientific discussion and evaluation of the evidence, and psychologists will provide analysis of Catherine's diary.
The result is unknown. But this is a good sign for Catherine, who has been waiting in prison for 19 years. Hopefully, as she wrote in prison in 2006: uncover the truth.
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