by ALANA HOUSE
I went to school with Kathleen Folbigg. She was Kathy Marlborough back then. She’s probably the most famous person to attend my high school. She’s definitely the most infamous.
That’s because she’s serving 30 years behind bars for murdering her four children.
Her first baby, Caleb, lived 19 days. Her second baby, Patrick, lived eight months. Her third baby, Sarah, lived 10 months. Her fourth baby, Laura, lived 19 months. The first three deaths were initially labelled cot deaths. Then when Laura died, the police opened a murder investigation.
Kathy’s trial had shades of Lindy Chamberlain to it. She was accused of being cold, not showing enough emotion. Like Lindy Chamberlain, people decided she was guilty before the trial even started. Unlike Lindy Chamberlain, most people still hold that opinion.
Kathy has been in jail for 10 years now. That’s 3650 days behind bars, with another 5475 days still to serve. A mind-numbing monotony only relieved by the occasional two-hour weekend visit from a friend or the Salvos.
I started writing to Kathy in jail. Eventually I began visiting her too. And we became friends.
Last year, Kathy sent me a book: Murder, Medicine & Motherhood, written by a Canadian legal academic called Emma Cunliffe. Cunliffe spent six years researching Kathy’s case and concluded she shouldn’t have been found guilty based on the evidence presented in court. It makes compelling reading.
Cunliffe, to her credit, hasn’t stopped at writing a book about Kathy’s case. She’s speaking to barristers and law firms, searching for experts prepared to work pro-bono to fight for Kathy’s case to be reopened.
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Top Comments
I have just started reading the book after reading so many comments that you would realise 'what a monster' she is and that you couldn't read it and then think she was innocent. Personally, it's having the total opposite effect on me so far, I'm reading about a woman who is struggling with grief and the hardships of parenting after loss on top of caring for a child with disability and every reaction of hers is stereotypical to perinatal grief. I see a woman who stayed strong throughout a demanding life that included a man who was supposed to be her support that did NOTHING to help her. I've suffered a baby loss and suffered the same judgements from a partner who believed that because my grief wasn't like his it was unhealthy...now I work as a support worker for those who have lost children and everything that I have read so far that this ridiculous book makes out to be warning signs have been confessed to me by countless of grieving mums. I really hope those making judgements could take a moment to consider that you CANNOT define a 'normal' reaction to grief, especially in perinatal loss and those making judgements should possibly do some research before coming to a conclusion that you can't possibly understand until you have lost a child and networked with other bereaved parents.
I remember reading about this case & the evidence presented, it was like reading about my childhood & the way my mother was. I couldn't understand why I lived while these children died then I did, my mother worked full time from when I was a baby. My sister & I were abused mentally & physically. Our parents separated when I was a baby & divorced when I was 4 years old. My mother managed to get full custody by claiming my father physically abused her. When she remarried she had us adopted by her new husband. Many years later after I discovered my Mother had abused all 3 of her husbands I asked my father how he could not fight for my sister & I when he knew from his many injuries from her what she was like? he replied that he never thought she would abuse us & I said what did you expect her to do when you weren't around to be the punching bag anymore.