Kathleen Folbigg's Convictions Over Infant Deaths Successfully Overturned

A woman who was previously dubbed as "Australia's worst female serial killer" has been cleared of the murder charges relating to her four children. Kathleen Folbigg, now 56 years old, had her convictions overturned by the New South Wales Supreme Court on Thursday. The court determined that the evidence used to convict her was "not reliable". Despite spending 20 years in prison, Folbigg's innocence was recognized by the state government, and she was pardoned in June. Throughout the entire ordeal, she has maintained her innocence. Folbigg's case has been described as one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in Australian history. It revolved around the sudden deaths of her four children, Caleb, Patrick, Sarah, and Laura, between the years of 1989 and 1999. Prosecutors in her trial accused her of smothering them. In 2003, she was handed a 40-year prison sentence for the murders of Sarah, Patrick, and Laura, as well as the manslaughter of her first son, Caleb. However, a landmark inquiry conducted earlier this year raised reasonable doubt about Folbigg's guilt. The inquiry concluded that there was scientific evidence suggesting her children may have died of natural causes due to extremely rare gene mutations. This led to the New South Wales Supreme Court quashing her convictions. With her exoneration, Folbigg's case serves as a reminder of the importance of reliable evidence and the potential for unjust outcomes in the criminal justice system.