Recently, Australia's "most hated woman" was finally released from prison: Kathleen Fobigg was convicted of killing three children in 2003 and a manslaughter case, after which he spent 20 years in prison.
However, after an investigation and review of new scientific evidence, Forbig's conviction was overturned this Thursday by an appeals court, where there are reasonable doubts about his guilt.
Forbig's case could trigger national reflection in Australia, a soul-searching of the country's legal system, and lead to the largest compensation payment in Australia to make up for the loss of this wrongful conviction.
Forbig's pre-existing conviction was not based on medical evidence that could explain the specific causes of the deaths of her four young children, Caleb, Patrick, Sarah and Laura, between 1989 and 1999. The prosecution relied heavily on Folbig's diary records as a self-confession. No trauma, diary, or grief experts testified in court, and the case also relied on Meadow's Law's law) - This is a now-abandoned precedent that holds that the case of sudden infant death in the same family must be **.
In the original diary entry, Forbigg wrote that she angrily called out for her daughter Laura and almost intentionally made her fall to the floor to abandon her, and subsequently felt extreme regret and self-blame. However, Folbigg on Thursday criticized the accuser for taking her text out of context and misinterpreting it. She explained that her diary record was a record of her inner feelings and far from evidence of a conviction.
Forbig's case relied on a large number of good and determined people who saw the injustice and acted in support of it. One of them is Emmma Cunliffe, a forensic expert from the University of British Columbia who published Medicine and the Role of Motherhood in 2011, arguing that Forbigg was wrongfully convicted and that the diary record is not a record of a guilty woman, but an account of a grieving mother trying to make sense of her own trauma.
In her case, Cunliffe pointed out the prejudice against women and highlighted that the normal behavior of working part-time and sending children to a nursery so that she could go to the gym was portrayed as suspicious scenes in the courtroom.
The 2023 investigation uncovered a range of scientific evidence, including confirmation that Folbigg and his two daughters, Laura and Sarah, carried a rare genetic mutation that made it impossible to rule out the possibility that the children's deaths were natural deaths. But in Forbig's original conviction, this new evidence was not taken into account. Because there is no independent body in Australia to investigate possible wrongful convictions, Folbig's case is the latest example of a team's efforts to contend with the accusers.
After Forbig's release, some of her adherents called on Australia to change its legal system to avoid a recurrence of similar incidents. Lawyer Regi said that the existing system could not identify and correct judicial wrongful convictions in a timely manner, and that an independent body similar to the Criminal Case Review Board in the United Kingdom would need to be introduced to conduct conviction or acquittal reviews. She also demanded state compensation from Forbigg to make up for his 20-year prison sentence.
Forbigg said she is grateful for the new scientific and genetic evidence that proves the innocence of her child's mother. But she pointed out that the answer to the legal conviction actually existed in 1999, but it was ignored and suppressed. This has broken many families, and we should learn from it to avoid similar incidents from happening again.
Now that Folbigg is finally free, she moves to a friend's farm to recuperate and spend time with the people who have always supported her. "My children will always be in my heart today and in the future," she said. I love my children and I always will be. ”