![]() In particular, he has devoted 50 years to a condition called the long QT syndrome (LQTS), a disorder that can cause fast, chaotic heartbeats, also known as arrhythmias. In what has been described as one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in Australian history, scientists concluded there was reasonable doubt that Ms Folbigg had nothing to do with her children’s deaths – simply that she had been dealt an unbelievably bad genetic hand.īorn in Huntingdon during the Second World War to an Italian mother and a Hungarian father, Prof Schwartz is a prominent scientist at the Italian Institute for Auxology, based in Milan, where he studies genetic disorders that can lead to sudden cardiac deaths in children. One of her sons, Patrick, suffered from epileptic seizures in the months before his death. They also discovered that her sons possessed another genetic mutation which in mice has been linked to sudden-onset epilepsy. They found that Ms Folbigg’s daughters shared a genetic mutation called Calm2 G114R, which can cause sudden cardiac death. The chances of four children from the same family having such mutations seemed infinitesimally small – and yet scientists showed that it existed. The case illustrated how revolutionary advances in science can make all the difference, coming up with new evidence that can overturn criminal convictions.Īn international team of scientists found that Ms Folbigg’s two daughters and two sons suffered from incredibly rare genetic mutations that most likely led to their deaths. Rhanee Rego, Ms Folbigg’s lawyer, said: “It is impossible to comprehend the injury that has been inflicted upon Kathleen Folbigg – the pain of losing her children and close to two decades locked away in maximum security prisons.”Ī fresh inquiry led by Tom Bathurst, a retired Australian judge, accepted that cutting edge research on gene mutations had cast serious doubt over her conviction. In a brief video message, she said she would grieve for her children “forever, and that she “missed them and loved them terribly”. However, she became a figure of hate, a woman who had committed the unthinkable act of killing her own offspring.Īfter spending much of her sentence in solitary confinement, she received an official pardon this week and was released from jail in the town of Grafton, 200 miles south of Brisbane. There was no forensic evidence linking her to the deaths and she always protested her innocence. Prosecutors, basing their evidence in part on highly selective extracts from Ms Folbigg’s diaries in which she wrote of her struggles with motherhood, insisted she had smothered them. The infants all died suddenly in the period between 19, aged between 19 days and 18 months. In 2003, she was jailed for 40 years for the murders of three of her children – Sarah, Laura, and Patrick – and the manslaughter of the fourth, Caleb. It was an ordeal from which Ms Folbigg, now aged 55, has only just been liberated. Not only did she witness all four of her children die at a young age, she then spent two decades in jail, wrongly accused of murdering them and reviled by society as a monster. Those findings brought to an end a nightmare for the Australian woman. It was really against the odds.”Īlong with other prominent scientists, Prof Schwartz played a vital role in casting reasonable doubt over Ms Folbigg’s original convictions. He said: “I’ve saved the lives of a few people with CPR, but this was a different story. ![]() ![]() The geneticist had submitted what he called a “rather strong and direct and blunt” deposition to an Australian review of the case which helped secure Ms Folbigg’s liberation. It makes a big impression on you when you realise the woman has been released from jail largely because of what you have done. “It was not unexpected, but it generated a lot of emotion in me. “I was having breakfast and I received a message from a dear friend in London who knew that I had been involved,” Prof Schwartz told The Telegraph. He immediately felt “goosebumps” – it was his expert opinion that had played a key role in casting doubt over Ms Folbigg’s original conviction, which led to her being described as “Australia’s worst female serial killer”. It was then that the British-born doctor’s phone rang and he heard the news that Kathleen Folbigg, an Australian woman convicted of murdering her four small children, had been granted an official pardon and released after 20 years behind bars. ![]() On the morning of June 5, Prof Peter Schwartz, a world-renowned cardiologist, was sitting at his table enjoying his breakfast of tea and kippers. ![]()
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