Finally released after 20 years in prison! Hundreds of scientists have signed up for their grievances...
What would a mother do if she indirectly lost four children in a row over several years?
Sydney woman Kathleen Folbigg wrote diary after diary, describing the pain and struggle of losing her four children.
What she didn't expect, however, was that the diaries were taken as evidence that she had killed her four children.
She is accused of killing four of her own biological babies.
All the media around the world portrayed her as
"Murderous demon" or "cold-blooded female killer",
The judge, the jury are talking
Words like "conclusive"
She ended up in jail.
Sentences of up to 40 years,
Maybe spend the rest of your life behind bars.
However, in addition to herself, there are many people who insist that she is not guilty.
They went on top of each other to find a way to release Kathleen Folbigg.
Kathleen Folbigg himself didn't give up.
Finally, her waiting, the persistence of her friends, the efforts of scientists to achieve justice... Everything paid off.
June 5th, which is yesterday,
Kathleen Folbigg was pardoned in court.
She waited 20 years,
Finally, I have come my own freedom and blue sky.
Four children died mysteriously
The mother was charged with murder and sentenced to 40 years in prison
Kathleen had a tragic childhood.
When she was less than two years old, her biological father brutally murdered her mother with a knife. Her father was sentenced to 15 years in prison for murder and will be deported back to Britain after serving his sentence.
As a result, her childhood was spent in orphanages and foster homes.
She left school at the age of 15 and married Craig Gibson Folbigg at the age of 20 (1987).
In 1989, they had their first child, Caleb.
Caleb is not very healthy and has been diagnosed with laryngeal malacia,
19 days after birth,
He was found dead in his crib.
At first, no one paid much attention to it, and the doctor even thought that it was an accident that caused the baby to choke due to an unsafe crib.
That's when Kathleen began keeping a diary to record his inner feelings.
In 1990, the Folbiggs' second child, Patrick, was born.
One night just over four months later, Kathleen's husband, Craig, was woken up by screams. He saw his wife standing by the crib, desperately performing CPR on Patrick.
The ambulance rushed Patrick, who was no longer breathing, to the hospital, where doctors revived Patrick, but there,
He was diagnosed with epilepsy and cortical blindness,
He died of a seizure four months later.
After Patrick's death, her husband, who was at work, received a call from a collapsed Kathleen, crying, "That happened again!" ”
After losing two children in a row, the couple chose to move, however, the children in the new home were the same as the two children who came before them.
In 1993, 10-month-old Sarah died;
In 1999, 18-month-old Laura died.
All four children died, and the couple's relationship also cracked.
One day, Craig saw Kathleen's diary, which recorded Kathleen's journey after losing his child.
An angry Craig called the police and claimed Kathleen had written entries in her diary suggesting she might have hurt the child.
"For Sarah, I just wish she shut up. Then, one day she literally shut up. ”
Kathleen accused of murder,
All her diaries are treated as "key evidence",
It is carefully studied in court.
Her complaints, grief and helplessness after losing her child,
It was taken as evidence that she "did not love children".
"I feel like the worst mother on this planet."
"I am my father's daughter."
The prosecution cited the highly controversial and strongly gender-biased "Meadow's Law": "The sudden death of one baby is tragic, two is suspicious, and three is murder, unless proven otherwise." ”
The British doctor, Meadow, believes that whenever there are multiple unexplained deaths of babies in a family, the mother who seeks attention is often the culprit.
Prosecutors believe Kathleen was overstressed while caring for the child and strangled the child.
The line in the diary, "I am my father's daughter." "It was taken as evidence of her murder (Kathleen's father committed murder).
In 2003, without any direct evidence, the court found her guilty of murder of three children and accidental killing of Caleb on three counts of murder, one count of manslaughter, and one count of intentional wounding.
She was sentenced to 40 years in prison and will serve her sentence in a high-level prison because she is a felony.
She suddenly became the history of Australia
"The most cold-blooded female serial killer"!
She was kept in a cell 22 hours a day and "under strict supervision" to prevent any inappropriate behavior.
Others wrote a book about her "killing of her own child" and published it publicly.
Over the years, she appealed repeatedly, insisting her innocence, and finally reduced her sentence to 30 years, with no parole for the first 25 years.
Many parties rushed to the rescue
The grievances were finally revealed
Day after day, it seems that everyone thinks Kathleen is the killer who strangled his four children.
Still, there are those who haven't given up. Tracy Chapman, a best friend she had known since school, traveled extensively for Kathleen, hiring lawyers and witnesses to try to get the court to acquit Kathleen.
At the same time, Meadow's Law was considered untenable, and Meadow himself lost his license to practice medicine in 2009.
More than a decade later, in 2018, Mark Speakman, then Attorney General of NSW, announced that he would reopen the case, but the judge in charge of the re-investigation found the trial process "fine".
Finally, key evidence emerged that was able to determine Kathleen's innocence.
Carola Garcia de Vinuesa, a well-known scientist and doctor selected for the Australian Academy of Sciences, did not initially know about the case, but after receiving a call from her lawyer, she heard Kathleen's story and was determined to find out about it.
She said:
"As a mother,
I can't think of anything more valuable than that. ”
She began pushing for research, sequencing the DNA of Kathleen's four children, Kathleen herself, and the results were amazing.
The results showed that Kathleen himself and his two daughters, Sarah and Laura, both had mutations in the CALM2 gene that could lead to sudden infant death.
This is key evidence of Kathleen's innocence,
Her two daughters are likely to have this genetic condition.
However, in 2019, Kathleen's further appeal was also dismissed. Judges are "more at the disposal of another group of experts."
Vinuesa was unhappy with this, feeling that her status as a genetics expert had been insulted by the judge.
She began to seek collaboration with doctors and scholars in other countries to advance related research. Danish scientists Professor Michael Toft Overgaard and Mette Nyegaard responded to her request by co-authoring the paper for publication in the journal.
In 2021, new research found that two of Kathleen's sons carried two potentially fatal mutations in the BSN gene that can cause seizures and sudden death.
In other words, the tragedy of the Kathleen family stemmed from genes, and the deaths of all four children were related to genes, one of which came from Kathleen and one from Craig.
The international scientific community recognized Vinuesa's findings.
More than 100 around the world
Authoritative scientists sign a joint letter,
Request for Kathleen's release,
It also includes two Nobel Prize-winning scholars.
After the key findings were announced,
The cries about Kathleen's innocence are getting louder,
People began to question the fairness of justice back then.
Kathleen's lawyer also said in an interview that she believed Kathleen's case was "the biggest wrongful case in Australian history".
On 5 June 2023, NSW Governor Margaret Beazley exercised her royal pardon powers,
Kathleen Folbigg was released.
I speak publicly
Throughout the incident, almost everyone blamed her for her crimes, ignoring a mother's most fundamental emotional needs.
Suffering from depression, she could only appeal over and over again, saying she was "not guilty" but to no avail, and was treated as a felon, who murdered many people, in a high-security prison.
In 2021, she was also beaten by her cellmates.
When she got out of prison, she was much older.
After her release, Kathrleen's best friend, Tracy Chapman, came to pick her up.
The next day, she chose to speak publicly.
"I am very humble,
Also very grateful to be pardoned and released from prison. ”
"I am forever grateful to my friends and family,
Especially Tracy and all her family,
Without them,
I couldn't realize this whole dream. ”
She spent her first night of freedom with friends and family, celebrating with pizza, nectar and coke.
Currently, Kathleen Folbigg and her lawyers are petitioning the court to quake the conviction, making her truly innocent in the legal sense.
She may also file a lawsuit against the NSW government for damages.
Impression epilogue
The story of Kathleen Folbigg is one of the biggest wrongful convictions in Australian history.
A mother who was directly convicted in an unscientific and imprecise way,
It also raises reflections on prejudice, mindsets and legal issues.
If none of the laws follow science, but hastily criminalizes people in certain stereotypes,
Then the meaning of its existence is greatly reduced.
In any case, Kathleen Folbigg is finally free,
Hopefully, she can start a new life.
来源：the Guardian、9 News、wired、justice for kathleen folbigg等