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Kathleen Folbigg Homepage This Page Set up by Dr Robert N Moles Networked Knowledge Media Reports Networked Knowledge Kathleen Folbigg Homepage This page set up by Dr Robert N Moles [Underlining where it occurs is for NetK editorial emphasis] 17 March 2019 Channel 9 60 Minutes Tara Brown and the case of Kathleen Folbigg Part One 13 mins Tara Brown: Is there a more hated woman in Australia than Kathleen Folbigg? Over ten years, one by one she killed her four babies. Her crimes are so inconceivable its still hard to fathom how and why she did it. That is until you consider this – maybe Kathleen Folbigg was wrongly accused. She’s always maintained her innocence and tomorrow a judicial inquiry reviewing her conviction begins. It might lead to her freedom after fifteen years in prison. Hoping that’s true is Carol Mathey. More than anyone she knows what Kathleen’s endured because incredibly she too was accused of murdering four of her babies. The two cases are remarkably similar, right down to the expert witnesses called upon to determine the truth. Yet while Kathleen was convicted as Australia’s worst female serial killer the prosecution against Carol was thrown out. Carol Mathey stands accused but never convicted of killing her four babies. While this mother believes she deserves overwhelming sympathy for her loss, instead she’s dogged by suspicion that she killed them all – four murders in five years. This is the first time Carol’s spoken publicly about the sudden death of her children. Sitting here opposite you today I am looking at somebody who has suffered unimaginable grief and loss or I am sitting opposite a deeply disturbed person who is capable of committing the most monstrous things, committing murder four times over. Who am I sitting opposite? Carol Mathey: Someone dealing with an unimaginable amount of grief. I’d do anything to have all my babies back. Tara: At the heart of this tragedy is the question of what to believe. One medical expert says its homicide. Ophoven: There’s no question in my mind. Tara: So, you’re saying Carol Mathey got away with murder? Ophoven: Yeh, I think so. Tara: Another expert says there’s no proof of foul play. Ransom: I think it would be too simple to suggest that just because there’s been a series of deaths that we can use that evidence and that evidence alone to say that someone is guilty of serial murder. Tara: Four deaths in one family was enough to convict NSW woman Kathleen Folbigg yet nowhere near enough to convict Carol Mathey. Strikingly similar cases, even the same experts, but one woman walks free, the other is sent to jail. Now Carol has given up her anonymity joining forces with the Folbigg supporters to help free Kathleen. Supporter: I’m trying so hard not to cry but it means so much Tara: A woman she fears was falsely accused and wrongly convicted. Supporter: Its concerning that in one place a judgment can be made to keep someone technically in prison for thirty years, and then after that in Carol’s case, it didn’t even make it to trial in the end because the judge himself said no, we’re not accepting that expert’s findings. Carol: This is Jacob and Shaniah and Chloe and Joshua. Tara: It’s a terrible roll call of death, from 1998 to 2003 Carol had and lost four babies. Such a big smile. Carol: He’s always happy. Tara: His smile giving no hint of what was to come, Jacob was the first to die at seven months. How did he die? Carol: We just found him one morning. Yeh, he wasn’t breathing Tara: Two years later nine week old Chloe was found lifeless in her cot. Forensic pathologists said both she and Jacob suffered Sudden Infant Death Syndrome known as SIDS. Two years on Joshua at three months stopped breathing. At the time, his death was thought to have been caused by a blood infection. Carol: We were actually shopping at the time and came back out to the car and picked him up from the pram and he wasn’t breathing. Tara: Less than a year later, Shaniah was found dead in her bed. She was nearly three and a half. Carol: I can’t remember exactly what I was thinking but yeh, the main thing was it can’t be happening again. Tara: Too old for SIDS pathologists were unable to say what caused Shaniah’s death. Four tiny siblings lost in five years was shocking and remains extraordinarily rare. Tara: Looking at the photos of your children here its like an album of grief. Carol: They still my babies and even though they’re gone they’re still gonna be my babies. No matter what happens you just you can’t forget anything. Tara: The children’s section of any cemetery is its saddest part. Its heartbreaking to think of mourning one dead child. Inconceivable to lose four. But over five years Carol buried two sons and two daughters. She says she welcomed the autopsies of her children, wanting answers as to why their lives had ended so prematurely. But it was the unexplained death of Shaniah which finally raised questions for police and launched a murder investigation. Ransom: If you have an object like a pillow or a cushion or something like that then you may see no signs at all. Leading forensic pathologist Dr David Ransom is Deputy Director of the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine based at Melbourne’s morgue. It was here that he conducted the autopsy on three and a half year old Shaniah. What did you determine her cause of death to be? Ransom: Unascertained. I could not find a cause of death. Tara: Did that raise suspicion? Ransom: Of itself, it doesn’t raise suspicion. It just added to the overall issue of why had her children died and we were looking for what concrete evidence to let us know that there was something other than a natural process in order to give the investigators something to actually start investigating. And we simply were not able to find it. Tara: Despite no evidence of foul play in any of the four children, the police were still convinced they’d been murdered by their mother Carol. To prove their case they sought the opinion of other interstate and international experts including American pathologist Dr Janice Ophoven. Ophoven: As far as I’m concerned their aren’t any conditions we know that could cause four children to die without any evidence. Tara: Her opinion of Carol Mathey was damning. Ophoven: There clearly was in my opinion consistent with suffocation or smothering. Tara: Would you accept that there is no evidence of that? Ophoven: I don’t disagree that there is no evidence of smothering because its well recognized that you can smother an infant without leaving a trace. Tara: In trying to determine the innocence or guilt of a parent accused of murdering their baby the greatest challenge for investigators is the lack of concrete physical evidence of what really caused that baby’s death. Whether the baby has died of natural causes or has been deliberately smothered the evidence is the same, no marking nothing to distinguish between SIDS and homicide and while there is no forensic proof there will always be lingering doubt. Ransom: I thing the thing your’re faced with in infants is that they often do not show at autopsy significant degrees of natural cause of death that might have been present. Tara: Nor do their tiny bodies bear the marks of murder if they’ve been smothered. Ophoven: I don’t know how you would ever hold a mother accountable for killing all of her babies by suffocation if you required evidence that you know would never be there. So, its in essence the perfect crime. Tara: Have you committed the perfect crime? Carol: No. I don’t know why anyone would want to murder their children especially four. Tara: Did you try to suffocate Jacob? Carol: No. Tara: Did you kill Chloe? Carol: No. Tara: Did you smother Joshua in the car park? Carol: No. Tara: In the back of your car? Carol: No. Tara: Again, Carol, did you do anything to hurt Shaniah? Carol: No. Tara: But armed with the opinion of three medical experts police arrested Carol in 2005 and charged her with the murder of all of her four dead babies. Carol: I got arrested – just came out of the blue. Tara: What was that moment like? Carol: Scary. Tara: But what is the mindset – if you haven’t done anything, do you think this is going to go on for some time or do you think that this is going to be cleared up pretty quickly. Carol, Well look ok, they’ll question me and then I’ll be home at night but no, that night I was in jail. Tara: Carol was held in remand for two months. The charges against her came at the same time New South Wales mother Kathleen Folbigg lost her appeal. She too had been charged with killing her four babies. And like Carol, it was the damning opinion of Dr Janice Ophoven that was critical to the police case against her. Ophoven: Do I think that Kathleen Folbigg or Carol Mathey killed their children, yes, I don’t have any question. Tara: In the case of Kathleen Folbigg, a jury agreed and she was sent away for thirty years. The parallels with Carol’s case were striking – which had her terrified.
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