IT COULD ALL HAVE ended so very differently. In England, less than a month later a mother the same age as Kathleen Folbigg walked free from an almost identical trial. Pharmacist Trupti Patel, 35, had been charged with deliberately suffocating 22-day-old Amar Patel in 1997, 15-day-old Jamie Patel in 1999 and 13-and-a-half week old Mia Patel in 2001. When the jury returned its not-guilty verdicts Mrs Patel’s family and friends erupted in a gigantic cry of ‘Yes!’ from the public gallery. She came out of the dock to embrace her loyal husband and was reunited with her surviving eight-year-old daughter. Her solicitor, Margaret Taylor, said to the media: ‘Few mothers will ever have to experience the death of one baby, let alone the death of three. Virtually no mother, however, will subsequently face the trauma of being accused of deliberately suffocating her children. The jury have today concluded that she played no part in the tragic death of Amar, Jamie and Mia. She walks from the court as a free woman.’
Two women who suffered the loss of their children. Two very different outcomes. While Trupti Patel returned to her everyday life, Kathleen Folbigg was in prison, planning her appeal. She had always maintained that she was innocent. The jury in her case did not agree.
Kathy had been receiving death threats. Whenever she walked out of her high-security cell, guards would walk on either side of her to protect her from attacks from other prisoners from the front and sides while another walked behind to stop attacks coming from the rear. She was invited to have input in this book. She at first agreed and then declined. In her first letter she admitted that she was facing life as ‘the most hated woman around at the moment’. She was hurting badly and undecided if she should try to get her side of what really happened into the public eye. She was worried that Craig had done too much damage. She wrote:
I have already suffered greatly at the hands of Craig and his capability to deliver with his tongue. And his quite amazing ability to turn simple into exaggerated and extravagant tales. I do not and will not permit myself to be attacked such as that again.
It was also very hard for her to trust again:
I am non-trusting, suspicious, wary and protective beyond all in regards to my life. Already I have been misquoted, my diaries misunderstood and inferred incorrectly, my personality and demeanour savagely attacked thus my character assumed to be anything other than what I really am. I am not stupid. To allow any encroachment I believe would merely be means to attempt more of the same.
I am coping, just. As for my stress and strains of the past few weeks – that is an understatement. My stress has been for years, not weeks, and it was just a culmination of all that occurred recently. Much more is yet to come. I now face being the most ‘hated’ woman around at the moment and death threats are a real consideration. Loneliness, devastating heartache about all that has happened, delayed grief for my children, especially Laura, and much more. In this regard observations made about my ‘stoic, cool, unemotional’ demeanour were correct. It’s the only way to survive such an attack on one’s soul. Also ‘they’ fail to see one important factor – I didn’t have the choice to be any other way. I would not of been useful in own defence. I succumbed once to my feelings during the trial and proved to myself that becoming devastated by all, could not help me now. The day may come where it is time to release all, but till my battle is done in clearing my name and reputation, that day is not yet.
She was upset because she mistakenly believed that Craig and his family were receiving financial rewards ‘at the expense of my life and memories of my children’. And in her second letter posted the very next day she decided that she could not speak out because at that stage:
My appeal process has yet to be finalised. I still do not agree with my memories and life and my children’s lives being exploited in this manner. I am a private person and will remain so. My distrust is too deep.
In jail Kathy received a devastating letter from Lea Bown, the sister who provided the police with a series of tapes of telephone conversations they had shared. Kathy’s barrister Peter Zahra, SC, had observed during the trial that Department of Community Services reports into her foster family indicated there were underlying tensions in the family. The relationship between Kathy and Lea had always been particularly difficult, despite periods where their relationship seemed amicable. In part the letter told Kathy that Lea hoped she could get the help she so badly needed because it was the only way she would ever be able to find peace and ‘come to terms with things’.
Kathy replied to this letter and her sister handed the letter straight over to the Daily Telegraph in Sydney, which used it again on the front page under the headline ‘I’m the most HATED woman alive’. Lea told the paper that she no longer felt the need to protect or stand up for Kathy because she now saw her for what she was – a monster and murderer.
In the letter to her sister Kathy had written:
Dear Lea,
What do you say to people who refuse to hear? You are amongst that group. Such a shame. Lea – I will not answer you in regard to what you think I have done. I’m tired of saying the same thing again and again, only to be ignored and have everyone else tell me I’m a liar.
Lea – you chose to betray me. You chose to believe Craig and [the] police.
You chose to only see the worst and take it as fact.
You chose to pull back and sacrifice me.
You chose your inability to think for yourself over me.
Lea – you chose – I didn’t.
Yes, you’re correct. I am not my father. I questioned myself about that once. But I have always fought my father’s connection.
Deirdre and Neville Marlborough were my parents, my influences, traits, gifts, etc are from them. Are they capable of such things? Are you? No, so why am I, Lea?
Why would I do anything that makes me even remotely like such a man.
Lea – I hold no grudges or hatred or anything else anymore. I’ve been through too much to bother with such negative emotions.
You surprised me greatly. Lea – you purposely lied, deceived, manipulated me. Only comment about my diaries is exactly that. They’re mine, not yours, not anyone’s . . . mine, what I was feeling and what I wrote, and all I’ll say is everyone has no right to be so presumptuous as to know what I meant or was saying.
They are not literal, definitely not a window to my brain – how ridiculous. They were a place for me to offload and then wipe my hands and move on.
There’s a huge difference from inferring murder to doing it. But I will not explain to narrow-minded people who refuse to even try to think about it.
Everyone forgets how this situation started, Craig’s . . . vengeance for leaving him.
Has it ever occurred to you that of all my diaries, 1996–98 were the only ones kept.
They were the darkest years of my life. I did nothing but overanalyse and self criticise and just tear myself apart. I did not ask questions, but they were so critical and deep, I doubt anyone could possibly understand. You like so many others certainly didn’t.
But enough, I know you’re not believing any of it. And it doesn’t matter. You have convinced yourself you’re right and just nothing I say will make a difference.
Lea – I know my failures and have taken full responsibility for them, but I will not be forced to take responsibility for something I have not done. I have no more energy to battle with people who won’t hear.
Lea – try to imagine your life being spread out, ripped to pieces, examined, opinions cast, character assassinated, your every word, action, thought, doubted, and you’re told you don’t know yourself.
Add to that, because of all of the above, becoming the most HATED woman alive.
You can’t. I now live with that every day. I’m strong enough, you’re obviously not. I endure all of this knowing that vindication will one day be mine.
I cry every night at the thought that there are people out there that think I’m capable of such things. I cry because I discovered my own sister thought that.
Well, I won’t comment further on such terrible thought of me. Lea, I don’t like being hated so why would I do something that ensures I am? That is the last time I’ll state – I did not kill my children.
Oh, I know you’re thinking I’m in denial etc, etc. I’m not. I know what the truth is. I can’t help it if so many others can’t.
Lea – for 12 months Craig did the same . . . all in an attempt to get me to confess.
But it never happened, because I have nothing to confess.
Lea – it took four years to come up with a totally circumstantial, non-factual, hearsay case.
It’s a sad day when a mother can be put away for merely being a normal mother, who wrote down her emotions, anxieties and frustrations in bloody books.
You know, as well as I do, I’m not capable of such disgusting acts of violence.
I am fine, if you care. Press were wrong, as usual. Obviously, you still haven’t learnt that they never tell the truth. I never have been in danger, was never moved from where I am.
Lea, I love my family, I always have. I am not ashamed of myself or feel I have shamed any of you.
Oh, it doesn’t matter, I know you didn’t want to believe me, it would mean you’d have to concede that you were wrong and I know you Lea, you will never do that.
Say hello to the rest of the family. If you wish to.
Regrettably,
Your sister,
Kathy.
On Friday 29 August 2003 Kathleen Folbigg again travelled to the Supreme Court for her lawyers to make submissions on her sentence. Gathered were the same cast of family, friends, lawyers, media and onlookers who had last seen her led from the dock in tears three months previously. Craig did not attend the sentencing hearing. He had been expected to stand up and give a victim impact statement. In the end he decided against it. His brother Michael’s wife attended with his stepmother and said Craig was dealing with a lot of issues. Avoiding the media glare and resultant publicity was one way of coping. Michael said Craig was trying to get on with his life with his new partner. Perhaps one day they would have children – even though Craig knew that this would rekindle the media interest in his life. According to Michael, Craig did not need to attend the court because he did not expect to find out why his wife killed their children.
‘Craig has got his peace. He knows how his children died and he is resigned to the fact he may never know why. At the end of the day we really don’t know the answers. Kathy needs to say “Yes I did this”, but at the moment she is maintaining her innocence,’ said Michael.
The three months since Kathy’s last appearance before Justice Graham Barr had not been kind to her. She entered the dock looking tired and wan with a corrective services officer at her shoulder. She had put on weight and the black smudges from lack of sleep were starkly outlined beneath her eyes. Her hair, so perfectly groomed during the trial, looked barely brushed and now had dark grey and brown patches growing through the red dye. She was wearing the same blue jacket, burgundy pants, cheap high-heeled shoes and, most tellingly of all about her state of mind, no make-up. Her skin was pallid. Being the most hated woman inside the most violent prison in New South Wales was clearly taking its toll. She flicked a quick glance around the court, took in the reassuringly friendly presence of Major Joyce Harmer, and then angled her body away from the journalists sitting next to her in the media box of the bright modern courtroom. She studied a neutral piece of carpet. A burgundy handkerchief remained clenched tightly in her hands. Her face betrayed no emotion.
Kathy did not acknowledge her sister, Lea Bown, who watched intently from the packed public gallery. Also in court, with his wife Kel by his side, was newly promoted Detective Inspector Bernie Ryan. Now based in Goulburn, he had become something of a national expert on child murders. He had become the first point of contact for many police forces who, as a result of Ryan’s work on the Folbigg case, were looking into occurrences of multiple child deaths within individual families.
Before the submissions began, Kathy’s legal-aid barrister Peter Zahra SC had been anxious. Once in the court, appearing before Justice Graham Barr, he again put his heart and soul into the fight for the best possible outcome for his client. He called forensic psychiatrist Dr Bruce Westmore to the stand. This was the moment many in the court had waited for – could there be an explanation for what had so far been an inexplicable crime?
Psychiatrists had already been scratching their heads in bemusement about the possible causes of Kathleen Folbigg’s crimes. Forensic psychiatrist Dr Rod Milton had concluded: ‘I am sure we will never know why she did it. I think we will get 20 answers but I wouldn’t care to say how many of those are correct. The current state of psychology and psychiatry is not equal to explaining such a thing – but it will try.’ Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists New South Wales branch chairwoman Louise Newman felt the answer may never be forthcoming from Kathy herself because of dissociation. In forensic psychiatry this is the term used for people who block out their memory of traumatic events; people might be so overwhelmed by anxiety that they forget or repress the traumatic event that has happened. Louise Newman was also reported as saying that there was some research that people who abuse children may also forget what they have done or only have hazy memories of carrying out the abuse. Abusers can interpret these recollections very differently but it is not a conscious interpretation.’ ‘The interesting question is whether, in general, someone who has committed serious offences can actually believe themselves to be innocent.’
In court Dr Westmore said Folbigg was not psychotic but was suffering from a deep-seated personality disorder. It could not be classified. It simply did not fit into any of the 14 clinically defined personality disorders so fell into a final category of unclassifiable disorders. The origins of the disorder stemmed from her mistreatment as a child up to the age of three before she was put into foster care. Because such an early part of her life was traumatic, the pessimistic prognosis was that the disorder was untreatable. The psychiatric reports showed that as a baby Kathy had suffered physical, emotional and possibly sexual abuse. Her mother had regular dumped her with an aunt and uncle and, as a result, Kathy did not receive consistent care from her parents. After her father killed her mother when she was 18 months old Kathy was placed with the aunt and uncle and began to act out in a manner that suggested she had suffered sexual abuse. Her behaviour and development became so bad that it was feared she was retarded. It was only once she was placed with the Marlboroughs that she began to blossom and develop into what her foster mother Deirdre called a ‘sweet and helpful’ little girl. Her annual Department of Community Services reports and school reports revealed a normal and healthy child who appeared to be dedicated and work hard. There were a few behavioural problems in her teens that were attributed to the large age gap between Kathy and her foster mother. She clashed with her foster parents as a 15-year-old but calmed down again and was able to bond perfectly normally three years later with her boyfriend Craig. For Dr Westmore this was something he simply did not understand. She appeared to have perfectly normal relations from the age of three onwards until she killed her first child when she was 21. Her crimes were an enigma. From her diaries he said it was clear that she suffered severe depression and feelings of abandonment, isolation, inadequacy and vulnerability. Kathy herself acknowledged this in one diary entry and said she coped with it by eating chocolate and junk food. Dr Westmore referred to the long-held psychiatric belief that depression was internalised rage. Over time, particularly after arguments with Craig, he said Kathy may have taken out that anger on her children. Her depression and personality problems put in place a mechanism within her that could not cope with her children once they began to express their own wills. It meant she could not be trusted with any future children of her own or with the lives of any put into her care.
Crown prosecutor Mark Tedeschi QC spoke next. He said the diaries showed Kathy was aware of the danger she presented to her children. Instead of protecting them, she put her own life, marriage and good name first. As a result, the children died. But they did not go without a fight. Each baby struggled for up to four minutes before finally suffocated. ‘These were not peaceful deaths,’ said Mr Tedeschi. He asked Justice Graham Barr to impose a life sentence. He said the crime was far worse than that of Craig Merritt, who killed his three children in one alcohol-fuelled moment and then pleaded guilty before receiving a life sentence. By contrast, Kathy had carried out four homicides over 10 years and still maintained her innocence.
Mr Zahra told the judge that a life term did not have to mean natural life. Instead, he asked for a determinate sentence, possibly one that would take into account Kathy’s childbearing years to accommodate Dr Westmore’s belief that she could not be trusted with her own or anyone else’s child in her sole care. Dr Westmore said Kathy needed regular psychiatric consultations but would not receive them in prison. She would be isolated in her cell for her own protection for 22 hours a day. The other two hours outside her cell would also be spent alone. ‘It is essentially an experience of isolation,’ Dr Westmore said. ‘It will lead to a numbing of her social expressions, loss of social skills, isolation, depression and paranoia.’
At the end of the hearing, Justice Graham Barr announced that he would take time to consider his sentence and would let all parties know when he was ready to return it. Kathy stood as he left the court and then, looking pale and drawn from the ordeal, was escorted back to the loneliness of her cell. More waiting.
The view of Kathy’s isolated life ahead was confirmed after the hearing by the commander of women’s prisons in New South Wales, Lee Downes. ‘[Kathy] is not a person we would take a chance with. The nature of the offence means she would be forever separate. Her social contact is with staff, uniformed and non-uniformed, and I guess she will always be housed separately. We will assess if she can have limited contact with other women down the track, but it is a day-by-day, month-by-month case with anybody who has been so public, who has allegedly committed a crime other inmates take a set against,’ she said. This meant that Kathy was to be checked every half-hour as part of a suicide watch and was never to have a prison job for fear of attack. The only time that she would be able to move from the 40-prisoner isolation wing was to be when every other prisoner was under lock and key.
Alongside Kathy in Mulawa prison was Belinda van Krevel, who had conspired to murder her own father, and Katherine Knight, who had skinned her husband and cooked his head in a pot. Unlike Kathy, fellow Hunter-Valley killer Katherine Knight was doing well. In jail you are a hero if you kill your partner but a pariah if you kill your children. Ms Downes, who has been governor of Mulawa, Emu Plains, Grafton and Parklea prisons, said: ‘Prisoners have different reactions; some hit the law books and study for their appeal, some say what’s the point. Sometimes people go a bit mad. They get mental illness as a result of going to jail, or it worsens the mental illness they had. If someone sat around in the same place for 20, 30, 40 years they would go brain dead.’ She said the majority of the 500 women incarcerated in New South Wales are victims of sexual assault, incest, domestic violence or have witnessed physical abuse. ‘As adults, they get the same thing again and when they come into jail: we have a whole range of security procedures which unfortunately bring back these experiences.’ She felt that Kathy would inevitably become institutionalised.
Outside prison, Kathy’s husband Craig was still dealing with trauma himself. As the wait for the sentencing dragged on Craig suffered. ‘He is up and down like a pair of stripper’s knickers,’ said his brother Michael. He believed his brother needed the closure the sentence would bring and that it would also release Craig from the fear he felt. ‘I know of some stuff that happened between the two of them in the past; I mean, she has a very violent temper and will just lash out without warning. I think he is in mortal fear of her. He needs to know she has gone away and cannot come back to harm him – or his future children, for that matter.’ But despite the emotional upheaval, Michael said his brother also spent much of the time planning for his future and for his marriage to Helen Pearce.
The day had finally come. On Friday 24 October 2003 Kathleen Folbigg once again sat in the dock for what her family and friends hoped would be the final act in the tragedy of her four children’s deaths. Justice Graham Barr had now considered the submissions he received at the sentencing hearing on 29 August 2003, and was ready to hand down Kathleen’s sentence. It was to prove a day of yet more astonishing emotional bombshells.
Kathy looked pale and drawn, having now spent more than five months behind bars in Mulawa Women’s Prison since her trial. She angled her body away from the packed public gallery, as she had done during the sentencing hearing, and focused intently on the bench from where Justice Graham Barr would deliver the sentence. She was wearing the same blue jacket from the earlier trial but, unlike her previous court appearances, she had made no attempt to coordinate it with any of her other clothes. If it was the case that one could determine Kathy’s mood by the state of her hair, as her foster sister, Lea Bown, had claimed, then Kathy was in despair. Her hair appeared unbrushed and was pulled back from her face with a tight band. Life in prison – kept in isolation and flanked by prison guards for her own protection during the two hours she was allowed out of her cell every day – was clearly not an easy ride.
Craig waited until the representatives of every media organisation in Sydney had settled into their seats before he slipped into the back row of the wood-panelled room of the Supreme Court. His sister Patricia Newitt and brothers Michael and John accompanied him. Lea Bown sat in the front row with her husband, Ted, and a support group of friends. Detective Inspector Bernie Ryan grinned from the gallery at people he knew. Both legal teams nodded to familiar faces as they waited for the knock that heralded Justice Barr’s arrival in the crowded court.
Justice Barr delivered his words in a calm, measured tone, stopping regularly for drinks of water or to repeat a phrase that had been drowned out by coughing from the public gallery. He began with a brief history of Kathleen’s life with Craig and the birth of their first baby, Caleb. With economical thoroughness, he ran through the evidence surrounding the death of each of the four children. And then he attempted to do what everyone had wondered and wanted from the outset of the trial. He began to suggest a reason why Kathleen Folbigg had killed her children.
‘It is necessary to try to understand why the offender lost her temper and assaulted her children,’ he said. He explained that in an attempt to understand her state of mind he would draw on records from the government department that had been responsible for overseeing Kathleen in her youth, as well as her own personal diaries and the opinion of psychiatrists on that material.
It was particularly the government documents from over 30 years before that provided explosive revelations and offered significant insight into the behaviour of Kathleen Folbigg.
After Kathleen’s father had murdered her mother she was made a ward of the state and placed in the care of her mother’s sister, Mrs Platt. A departmental report on 21 May 1970 showed that Mrs Platt had reported she was having trouble teaching young Kathy the basic requirements of hygiene and acceptable behaviour. Kathy was aggressive towards other children, prone to severe temper tantrums and preoccupied with her sexual organs. She had been seen trying to insert various objects into her vagina. She was quickly referred to the Yagoona Child Health Clinic where she was assessed by Dr Spencer. In a report on 12 June 1970, two days before Kathy’s third birthday, he noted Mrs Platt’s complaints that Kathy was indulging in excessive sex play and masturbation. He concluded that Kathy had been sexually misused by her father during infancy. Some 33 years after this report was filed, there were audible gasps in the courtroom at this horrific revelation. Only Kathy remained unmoved, legs crossed, her gaze focused solely on the red-gowned judge who continued to recount the details of her deeply troubled childhood.
Kathy had been withdrawn from the Platts in July 1970 when she was three years old and sent to Bidura Children’s Home. Psychologists assessed her and found her to be of borderline retarded intelligence – remote, restless, inattentive and unresponsive when shown individual attention. She rarely smiled but over the following month became more approachable and interested in her surroundings and other people.
In September 1970 she was placed into the foster care of Mr and Mrs Marlborough and began to overcome her difficult start to life. For the most part, other than some moodiness, she seemed a likeable, friendly and intelligent child, and showed considerable affection for the Marlboroughs, who wanted to adopt her.
There were some periods of difficulty as a teenager. Things were not always easy for her in high school and she was discharged on two stealing charges. But otherwise she had appeared to overcome her early years of trauma.
In 1984, however, she suffered a severe setback when she was told her father had murdered her mother. The teenager made contact with the Platts who gave her some photographs of herself as a baby, and also of her mother. But she did not pursue a relationship with them. During this time her relationship with the Marlboroughs became strained until it finally broke down when she was seventeen. Not long after this, she began her relationship with Craig Folbigg.
Justice Barr said he accepted the evidence of psychiatrists who had visited Kathy in jail that by the time she was 18 months old she was a seriously disturbed and regressed little girl. ‘It is well established that children who are neglected and suffer serious physical and sexual trauma may suffer a profound disturbance of personality development. The evidence for such a disturbance in the offender is strong, as her diaries reveal,’ the judge said. He then proceeded to read from several passages of Kathleen’s diaries.
The diaries, written by Kathy solely for herself, painted a picture of a very lonely and depressed woman. During her trial she had not given evidence. Now, Kathleen was finally given a voice through the diary entries that Justice Barr read out as part of his judgment to demonstrate her state of mind.
On 16 July 1996, nearly three years after Sarah’s death, and one year before Laura was born, she had written:
Sometimes I feel life is a film scene, just practised and rehearsed, each actor perfect and surreal, times I don’t fit in the play, have never fit, but keep attempting to anyway for fear of being isolated and alone. Times – I feel alone anyway no matter who I’m with.
Three weeks later, on 9 August 1996, Kathy had recognised her feelings of depression and alienation and recorded in her diary:
Been feeling weird lately – depressed, indecisive, etc. Not my usual self. Can’t seem to put my finger on what’s wrong . . . Feeling lonely! I know that’s silly because I have friends I can see but I suppose it’s because I want friends that will come to see me and want to be with me. I usually feel that I’m intruding or pushing my way onto people. Okay, enough self analysing. It’s my ego and weight problem that’s giving me a bashing. Rang to go back to J/C – they haven’t bothered to return my call. Feeling left out, taken for granted, unattractive and self centred. There, I’ve purged myself. Now to change all this, is up to me – as usual.
It was during this time that she trying to become pregnant with her fourth child. A month later, on 11 September 1996, she confided:
Feeling inferior doesn’t help. Feeling inadequate because I’m not pregnant yet. Feel as though it’s my fault. Think it’s deserved. After everything that’s happened.
I suppose I deserve to never have kids again. I am just so depressed. Don’t know what to do. Feel like taking the rest of the week off. But know my pay will be grossly affected if I do.
Around the time Kathy became pregnant, she was still feeling very depressed and lonely. Her diary entry on 13 November 1996 revealed her feelings:
Not sure why I’m so depressed lately. Seem to be suffering mood swings. I also have no energy lately either . . . Why is family so important to me? I now have the start of my very own, but it doesn’t seem good enough. I know Craig doesn’t understand. He has the knowledge of stability and love from siblings and parents even if he chooses to ignore them. Me – I have no one but him. It seems to affect me so – why should it matter? It shouldn’t.
These feelings of low self-esteem were just as evident in the New Year. On 14 January 1997 she wrote:
Not happy with myself lately. Finally starting to physically show that I’m pregnant. Doesn’t do much for the self-esteem. Don’t get me wrong. I couldn’t be happier – it’s just Craig’s roving eye will always be of concern to me. I suppose this is a concept known by all women. We are vulnerable emotionally at this stage. So everything is exaggerated tenfold.
Kathy recognised some of the triggers of her stress, as described in her diary on 17 February 1997:
Found [Craig’s] jealous already of bub. He says he only has six months left to be with me and for me. Hopefully I’ve explained that’s not true – he should be for me, forever, just because a baby is entering our life makes no difference really. One day it will leave. The others did, but this one’s not going in the same fashion. This time I’m prepared and know what signals to watch out for in myself. Changes in mood etc. Help I will get if need be. I also know that my lethargy and tiredness and continued rejection of him had a bad effect.
Her fears about the stability of her marriage seemed to become even more exacerbated as her pregnancy wore on. On 30 May 1997 she wrote:
Got myself in quite an emotional state last night . . . Felt, feeling very alone, unattractive and now uncomfortable with the many thoughts that are running through my mind about the stability of our relationship. This is not the time to be upset and stressing over everything. He pulls away from me if I touch him in any other way than comforting. Feel as though I’ve lost him, that his feelings for me aren’t the same any more. Never felt so alone in all my life.
In the seventh month of her pregnancy, Kathy referred in a diary entry dated 6 June 1997 to her moods and also to her future baby’s survival:
From now on though I’m sure [Craig’s] attention and focus will change from me to his child and so it should. I couldn’t see that before. I was very selfish when it came to Craig’s attention. Hopefully this time we have both learned how to share it but still manage to keep a little something aside for just each other. We will see . . . maybe then he will see when stress of it all is getting to be too much and save me from ever feeling like I did before, during my dark moods. Hopefully preparing myself will mean the end of my dark moods, or at least the ability to see it coming and say to him or someone, hey, help I’m getting overwhelmed here, help me out. That will be the key to this baby’s survival. It surely will.
On 11 June 1997 Kathy revealed more feelings to her diary, reflecting her sense of worthlessness and an expectation of the mix of emotions the immediate future would bring:
If it wasn’t for my baby coming soon, I’d sit and wonder again what I was put on this earth for, what contribution have I made to anyone’s life? Only person I think I’ve made a difference to is Craig. And at times like this, I can’t do anything for him so I fail there as well. 30 years, first five I don’t really remember, rest I don’t choose to remember, last 10–11 have been filled with trauma, tragedy, happiness, mixed emotions of all desires. Maybe from now on I’ll be able to settle a little. But no. Immediate future brings turmoil happiness, sad memories, happy ones, depression, great pride and it goes on . . . life sux. You can never figure it out – is anyone meant to?
Laura was born in August. Six weeks later, in a diary entry written on 20 September 1997, Kathy’s feelings of resentment towards Craig, in the wake of the birth of their child, were evident:
I can’t even trust or depend on him to look after her properly. He refuses to bother to learn anything about her. He doesn’t pay attention when feeding her, hasn’t changed a nappy, doesn’t do washing or ironing, only washes up once in a while. His life continues as normal. Work, come home and I look after him. He doesn’t even cook tea every now and then unless I ask him to. And then it is begrudgingly. What do I do? The only break I get is when I go to aerobics three half hours a week. But these are times is not enough. I know, my feelings are normal – I’m just venting. But at the moment I, [indecipherable] wish I hadn’t made the decision to have her, but then all I have to do is look at her and all that melts away. Well, I just pissed Craig off, he’s up and out of bed now. Complaining he can’t sleep.
Six months later, Kathy was still expressing the same sentiments about Craig and her frustration with looking after Laura all of the time, as her diary entry of 13 March 1998 shows:
Feeling very dissatisfied tonight. With myself, my life, Craig. What can I do . . . I need him to take some of the stress of looking after her off me. He seems to be failing lately.
After Kathleen Folbigg’s trial she was visited five times by a forensic psychiatrist named Dr Michael Giuffrida. Justice Barr drew heavily on his reports to conclude in his judgment that Kathleen did not suffer a conduct disorder or an antisocial personality disorder stemming from her difficult childhood. Unlike most mothers who kill their children, Kathleen Folbigg was not psychotic, in Dr Giuffrida’s opinion. She dealt with the psychiatrist as if she was not responsible for the deaths of her children. He thought her diary entries were the writings of a greatly tormented and exceedingly disturbed woman. The psychiatrist noted the prevailing theme of intensely depressed mood, expressions of worthlessness and low self-esteem, as well as the references to feelings of rejection and abandonment by her husband, family and friends. Those irreversible feelings were the result of the experiences she endured as a little girl.
Dr Giuffrida said that Kathleen had approached childbirth with intense anxiety and was fearful that the task of mothering was beyond her. The psychiatrist’s report attempted to explain how Kathleen Folbigg’s persistent state of depression contributed strongly to her killing her children. During the interviews he found her to be of at least average intelligence and with ‘remarkably little’ to implicate any of the serious personality disorders commonly found in women who kill their children. He noted that her reaction to the death of each of her children was characterised by almost an absence of normal grief and bereavement. There was no profound and long-lasting grieving process nor the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder he would have expected from her after smothering the children. The reason for this emotional detachment was that in her first 18 months of life she was highly likely to have been raised in a dysfunctional environment, suffering emotional, physical and possibly sexual abuse by her father. She was also neglected by her mother.
Dr Giuffrida found it highly significant that tests conducted on her in 1970 found her to be regressed and suffering behavioural difficulties when it was clear later that she was of average or above average intelligence. He was of the opinion that Kathy’s regression suggested she had been severely traumatised in the first 18 months of life. Three-year-old Kathy’s preoccupation with her genitals and the fact she was inserting objects into her vagina was prima facie evidence that she had been sexually abused. For the most part, evidence in medical literature indicates that children who endure serious sexual and physical trauma and neglect suffer a profound disturbance of personality development. In Kathleen Folbigg’s case this meant she had suffered possibly irreversible impairment of her capacity to develop any meaningful emotional bonding or attachment, which in turn meant she could not care for and protect her own children.
Justice Barr also drew on the evidence and the psychiatric report of Dr Westmore, which suggested Kathleen’s depression manifested as anger. Her diaries had become an outlet for her to express her internal feelings of rage, frustration and perhaps homicidal impulses and thoughts. It was possible to say from the diary entries that there was a relationship between the depression and the feelings of anger that led to the deaths of the children.
The judge took another sip of water and shot a glance across the court to where Kathleen Folbigg sat, unresponsive to everything she had heard so far. There were, he said, several factors in the case that made it liable to be viewed more seriously and as attracting a higher penalty. The five attacks took place on four children over a period of 10 years. The victims all depended on the offender, their mother, for their nurture and survival. She had broken their trust. But Justice Barr dismissed the prosecution’s claims that in having more children she had put her own desires ahead of their needs. He said Kathleen believed she would be able to overcome the danger she presented to each child. He concluded that the attack on Caleb, like those on the other children, resulted from her uncontrollable anger. With the second fatal attack on Patrick, Justice Barr said he was satisfied that in her anger Kathleen Folbigg had decided to rid herself of the child whose presence she could no longer tolerate. And there was no room for doubt that when she killed Sarah and Laura she intended to do so. The judge felt, however, that Kathleen was psychologically damaged and barely coping in her day-to-day life. The attacks on her children were not premeditated but happened when she was pushed beyond her capacity to manage. Afterwards, she falsely pretended the unexpected discovery of an accident and maintained her innocence because she could not admit her failure to anyone but herself. Her anger cooled as fast as it had arisen and her attempts to get medical help for her children were genuine. The judge concluded that Kathleen Folbigg was not a cruel mother. She did not systematically abuse her children; they were well clothed and fed and regularly attended to by doctors for standard medical check-ups. But the abuse she had suffered as a baby had left her unable to form any normal, loving relationships. She was unable to confide in her husband, Craig, and he left her to cope because he did not realise she was at the end of her tether.
The future that Justice Barr painted for Kathleen Folbigg was bleak. She would always be a danger if given the responsibility of caring for a child. ‘That must never happen,’ he said. Her condition was largely untreatable. The depression might respond to medication and the feelings of failure could respond to psychotherapy, although it was unlikely to be available fortnightly in jail, as Dr Westmore had recommended she needed. She was unlikely to ever admit her offences to anyone other than herself. If she did so it would make her a high suicide risk. ‘Such an end will always be a risk in any event,’ the judge said.
Justice Barr acknowledged that jail was a particularly dangerous place for Kathy because of the risk of being harmed or murdered by other inmates and said that her regime of being kept in isolation and locked up for 22 out of every 24 hours was likely to continue indefinitely, thus making the serving of her sentence all the more difficult for her. However, Justice Barr spoke of the need for the sentence to reflect the outrage of the community and to deter other people from committing similar crimes – crimes so difficult to detect.
At last the moment had arrived. Kathleen was on her feet, awaiting Justice Barr’s sentencing. It felt as though everyone in the public gallery had taken a collective breath and held it. As if to prove everything the psychiatrists had said about her emotional detachment, Kathleen remained composed and calm. There was going to be no hysterical collapse this time. The court was completely silent and still. The tension was palpable. In his considered tone, Justice Barr began to deliver the sentence that members of Kathleen’s and Craig’s families had waited so long to hear.
‘Kathleen Megan Folbigg, for the manslaughter of Caleb Gibson Folbigg I sentence you to imprisonment for 10 years. The sentence will be taken to have commenced on 22 April 2003 and will expire on 21 April 2013. I decline to fix a non-parole period,’ said the judge.
‘For the intentional infliction of grievous bodily harm upon Patrick Allen Folbigg I sentence you to imprisonment for 14 years. The sentence will commence on 22 April 2005 and will expire on 21 April 2019. I decline to fix a non-parole period.
‘For the murder of Patrick Allen Folbigg I sentence you to imprisonment for 18 years. The sentence will commence on 22 April 2006 and will expire on 21 April 2024. I decline to fix a non-parole period.
‘For the murder of Sarah Kathleen Folbigg I sentence you to imprisonment for 20 years. The sentence will commence on 22 April 2013 and will expire on 21 April 2033. I decline to fix a non-parole period.
‘For the murder of Laura Elizabeth Folbigg I sentence you to imprisonment for 22 years. The sentence will commence on 22 April 2021 and will expire on 21 April 2043. I fix a non-parole period of 12 years, which will expire on 21 April 2033.
‘You will be eligible for parole on 21 April 2033.’
Kathleen Folbigg’s father, Thomas ‘Jack’ Britton, had been found guilty 34 years previously for the murder of her mother, in a neighbouring courtroom to the one in which Kathy had been found guilty of killing her children. The day’s proceedings had demonstrated that Jack Britton was effectively responsible for so much more than the one murder. His actions, and the abuse he had inflicted upon his daughter, had a profound influence on the outcome of her life, and the lives of her children. The abuse he had perpetrated on his daughter had impaired her capacity to develop any meaningful emotional bonds and contributed to a state of mind that led to her killing her own children.
For the murder of her four children Kathleen Folbigg was sentenced to 40 years in jail with a non-parole period of 30 years. She would not be able to walk free until she was at least 66 years old, well past her childbearing years. She was led from the dock. Most people in the courtroom were stunned. Craig’s sister wept. Finally it was over.
Outside on the steps of the courthouse, Kathleen’s solicitor, Peter Krisenthal, made an appearance before the media. ‘Mrs Folbigg has asked me to say that she is innocent of these offences. She did not kill the children or harm them in any way. She has instructed me to immediately lodge an appeal against her conviction and sentence,’ he said.
Kathleen’s foster sister, Lea Bown, used the media spotlight to call for all sudden and unexplained infant deaths to be scrutinised more closely by police and coroners. ‘It’s so much easier to put down “undetermined death” when a child dies. These children have no voices. It’s just inexcusable,’ she said.
Meanwhile, as Kathleen was being marched to the prison van that would take her back to Silverwater her husband was contemplating a very different life sentence. For once he would not talk. Surrounded by a media scrum, he gazed fixedly into the middle distance. Perplexed by his silence, the media’s questions about his impressions of the sentence quickly turned to questions about big money deals he may have stitched up with media fixers. His brother John angrily denied there had been a deal done with Harry M Miller. Craig said nothing and allowed his brother to hustle him across the busy road outside the Supreme Court of New South Wales in Sydney’s Queen’s Square and away to a new life, a new wife and a twilight filled with broken dreams and heartbreaking memories.
It was Detective Inspector Bernie Ryan who finally attempted to bring a note of perspective and closure to the tragic case. On the steps of the court he said: ‘Spare a thought for the four lost lives. If not for certain events Caleb would have been 14 now, Patrick 13, Sarah 11 and Laura six. What would they have achieved in their lives?
‘No matter what, this prosecution has always been about the Folbigg children and the search for the truth.
‘May they rest in peace.’
Kathleen Folbigg fought hard to prove her innocence. She exhausted the legal appeal process – taking her case to the highest court in the land – but when that failed she still continued to fight. With the help of supporters, and changes to the medical landscape, in 2018 she finally got her way. The NSW Attorney General ordered an inquiry into her convictions. Months later, in 2019, she entered the witness box to fight for her freedom and explain what really happened to her four children.