Carol Matthey defends Kathleen Folbigg

A mother who was cleared of killing four of her children has said Kathleen Folbigg ‘could be innocent’.  

Carol Matthey faced accusations that she killed her four children between 1998 and 2003 but the highly publicised case was thrown out of court because evidence centred on ‘cot death theory’ did not meet the judge’s standards. 

On 60 Minutes on Sunday night senior journalist Tara Brown interviewed Ms Matthey about her children’s tragic deaths. 

The dramatic interview came ahead of the a landmark inquiry reviewing the conviction of Kathleen Folbigg who was found guilty of killing her four children in 2003. 

 

Carol Matthey (pictured), who was accused of killing her four children before being cleared, has defended one of Australia’s worst serial killers who was convicted for killing her children

Carol Matthey faced accusations that she killed her four children between 1998 and 2003

Carol Matthey faced accusations that she killed her four children between 1998 and 2003

 Ms Matthey has spoken out ahead of the review to defend Folbigg who became known as Australia’s worst female serial killer. 

‘Medical experts can be wrong and are wrong,’ Ms Matthey said.

‘She could be innocent.’

Ms Matthey’s four children all died at a young age.

Jacob was seven months, Chloe, nine weeks, Joshua, three months, and Shania three-and-a-half when they were found dead by their mother.

Now Ms Matthey has defended Folbigg, who is serving a 30-year sentence for the murder of her children.   

Folbigg’s was convicted after experts testified it would be impossible for four children in the same family to die of cot death.

Other evidence used against Folbigg included diary entries where she said all she wanted was for her daughter to shut up and ‘one day she did’. 

Matthey said by speaking out she hopes it will help to overturn Folbigg’s conviction and help both of them clear there names in the ‘court of public opinion’. 

She said she can understand being judged in the court of public opinion and the deaths of all the children could just as easily have been a result of a ‘medical mystery’ like in her own case.

‘[I’m] someone dealing with an unimaginable amount of grief, I’d do anything to have all my babies back,’ she said. 

Ms Matthey’s son Jacob died in 1998 before his sister Chloe would die two years later.

Doctors would rule both deaths were a result of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), 9 News reported. 

Less than two years later Ms Matthey’s son, Joshua, died from a suspected blood infection before her daughter Shania also tragically passed away. 

It was the death of Shania that roused suspicion because at three-and-a-half, she was deemed too old to have died from SIDS. 

Ms Matthey faced the Victorian Supreme Court accused of killing all four children but the case was thrown out of court as there was not enough sufficient evidence to suggest foul play

Ms Matthey faced the Victorian Supreme Court accused of killing all four children but the case was thrown out of court as there was not enough sufficient evidence to suggest foul play 

Ms Matthey faced the Victorian Supreme Court accused of killing all four children but she was cleared and the case was thrown out of court as there was not enough sufficient evidence to suggest foul play.

Despite the case against her being dropped, Ms Matthew became an outcast in her community.

On Monday is was revealed that Kathleen Megan Folbigg will give evidence related to her personal diary entries at a Sydney inquiry into her convictions.

Folbigg was jailed for at least 25 years after she was found guilty of killing her four babies – Caleb, Patrick, Sarah and Laura – in the decade from 1989.

The four children all died aged between 19 days and 19 months.

A hearing into her convictions began at Lidcombe Coroners Court complex on Monday after the NSW government agreed to a judicial review of her case in August 2018.

Ms Matthey chose to speak out after it was announced a new landmark inquiry is being launched into the conviction of Kathleen Folbigg (pictured)

Ms Matthey chose to speak out after it was announced a new landmark inquiry is being launched into the conviction of Kathleen Folbigg (pictured)

‘Ms Folbigg is allowed to give evidence, if she wishes to do so, about the diary entries, possession of the diaries and her disposal of the diaries,’ counsel assisting Gail Furness SC said in her opening address.

Folbigg’s evidence and cross-examination will be restricted to those issues.

Ms Furness cited various diary entries by Folbigg which were presented to the trial jury as circumstantial evidence.

These included comments about baby Sarah who ‘left, with a bit of help’ and Laura being ‘a fairly good-natured baby’ which ‘saved her from the fate of her siblings’.

‘I think she was warned,’ Folbigg wrote in December 1997.

Laura, her fourth child, died in March 1999.

The inquiry will focus on medical advances and new research, including on multiple infant deaths in the one family attributed to unidentified natural causes.

 

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