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       Australian Court Tosses Conviction of Mother Accused of Killing Her 4 Children

       Kathleen Folbigg, who spent years in prison, was pardoned in June, after an inquiry found that her children had most likely died of natural causes.

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       Kathleen Folbigg, right, was embraced by a friend, Tracy Chapman, outside the New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal in Sydney, Australia, on Thursday. Credit...Dan Himbrechts/AAPIMAGE, via Associated Press

       By Natasha Frost

       Reporting from Melbourne, Australia

       Published Dec. 13, 2023Updated Dec. 14, 2023, 12:29 a.m. ET

       An Australian appeals court on Thursday overturned the conviction of a woman who had spent 20 years in prison for killing her four young children, months after an official inquiry found that they had most likely died of natural causes.

       The woman, Kathleen Folbigg, 56, was found guilty in 2003 of killing the children and sentenced to 30 years in prison. Tabloids called her Australia’s worst female serial killer. But the country’s scientific community later rallied around her, citing evidence that the children had rare genetic conditions that led to their deaths.

       All four of Ms. Folbigg’s children died before the age of 2: Caleb, at 19 days, in 1989; Patrick, at 8 months, nearly two years later; Sarah, at 10 months, in 1993; and Laura, at 18 months, in 1999.

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       Natasha Frost The Times’s weekday newsletter, The Europe Morning Briefing, and reports on Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific. She is based in Melbourne, Australia. More about Natasha Frost

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