Kathleen Folbigg was convicted of the smothering deaths of her four children and sentenced to 40 years in prison 20 years ago. Recent evidence from geneticists suggested that the children may have died of natural causes, and that a rare genetic mutation in the CALM2 gene that affected Folbigg and her daughters could have caused life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias. On Monday, the attorney general of New South Wales announced that Ms. Folbigg has been given a full presidential pardon and released from prison. The decision was made after Justice Bathurst conducted a second inquiry and found that there was “reasonable doubt” that Folbigg was the killer. Justice Bathurst concluded that there was a reasonable probability that three of the four children died of natural causes, while the prosecutor relied on “coincidence and tendency evidence” that did not hold up to scrutiny.
