Ep. 190: kathleen folbigg didn't kill her kids

one two 3 now very interesting to me there and this isn't a part of it but you went one two 3 when it's normally we do 3 two one and no you always say that and that's not true ah I don't know why it is but somewhere you got in your head that I go backwards but I I don't ever do that I always go may do I'm the one who goes backwards maybe maybe you're a backwards counter and you've gotten us confused all right all right all right all right so um as is customary as I like to do what we're going to go on as a journey we're going to go to a different place we're going to go to a different place that place so steeped in joag law so rich in joag Tradition friends come please won't you with us to Australia oh boy I always love when we go to Australia yeah well you won't um oh because if if there was any joviality or jolity in my voice there then it ends here right because okay uh I want to tell you the tale I want to tell you the tale of Kathleen fbig uh that's f o l b i WG uh Kathleen she was born Kathleen Donovan she was born in 1967 June 1967 in a town in New South Wales called balain now I'm afraid to say that Kathleen had a tragic tragic early life okay in fact [ __ ] it spoiler warning it's all tragic for Kathleen but it started badly uh at just 18 months old in 1969 January 1969 her biological father a guy by the name of uh Taffy Britain John Britain he went by the name Taffy yeah yeah we how do you suppose you get the nickname Taffy uh well you you may or may not know it's it's a common kind of almost derisory nickname for a Welshman over here is Taff all right Taff Taffy [ __ ] off interesting okay yeah uh so anyway her dad um a story domestic abuser ah murdered her mother he murdered her mother Kathleen May Donovan stabbed her 24 times Jesus uh and was was sent down uh and following that and the year that followed she was kind of rotated between various relatives family members before she finally was fostered various kind of children's homes institutions ended up living uh with a couple in New South Wales and throughout her youth that was pretty much her life until she was 18 in 1985 and she met her husband to be a guy by the name of Craig Craig fall big and they married after two years okay um and things you would think seem to be looking up she uh Craig and her their first child came along in 1989 okay a boy they named Caleb nice respect Caleb Caleb he was Ill from the beginning all right Caleb uh suffered from his very very early days a condition called uh Leno Mala or lingo malaia it's a condition that affects the throat the larynx causes breathing difficulties and tragically Caleb was found dead in his crib at 19 days old oh man geez yeah rough um his death was attributed to those four letters that every parent [ __ ] wakes up in a cold sweat at SIDS sudden infant death syndrome s yeah that terrifying concept oh so so so scary and tragic though this was in uh just a year later June 1990 Craig and Karen had their second child child by the name Patrick a boy they call him Patrick now um Patrick was born severely uh partially cited uh with with a condition called cortical blindness okay uh was also epileptic jesz which is why when he died at eight months old in 1991 uh his cause of death was initially attributed to a seizure all right Still Still Karen and Craig persisted in trying to start and to maintain a family in October 1992 she had her first first ever daughter a girl who she called Sarah but a few months after her birth Sarah herself started to fall ill with respiratory infections right up until she was found dead and her CAU at 10 months old jeez Lise yeah [ __ ] up the death uh was also attributed to SIDS this is like this is wild I feel like you know when it comes I mean this is one of the bajillions of reasons I could never have children is just like the concept of this kind of thing but like you know women Mis carry all the time like constantly incredibly uh common it's like something like 25% of pregnancies end in miscarriage yeah and and those are you know miscarriages that get noticed a lot of miscarriages happen without you know without like no fan fa right exactly and like that is you know if you know and you have a miscarriage like that's devast ating both to your body and to your mind and you know all of that kind of things like it's a terrible thing to have happened to you to have your children carry children all the way full term give birth to them and for them to keep on dying like I guess you know a century ago this was normal um but in this day and age like that's like such a devastating thing to have I would like one would be enough three yep absolutely not absolutely not how about four ah come on uh Craig and Karen had a second daughter in 1997 who they named Laura okay uh Laura was from her first days also prone to respiratory infections and Laura died at 18 months old in March 99 uh but it was after after Laura's death the things took a turn right things took a took a turn for Karen because after Laura's death in 1999 Craig went to the police I was going to say people are starting to get suspicious aren't they indeed Craig went to the police and handed them diaries that Karen had written oh jeez over the previous years and the Diaries contained phrases and passages which from a certain perspective read like confessions oh dear uh one passage one line in particular uh said my guilt about the all still haunts me another pretty normal well another red what scares me most will be when I'm alone with the baby uhhuh uh another phrase obviously I'm my father's daughter not great another one day she would leave the others did but this one's not going in the same fashion this time I'm prepared and I know what signals to watch out for in myself o yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yikes yeah so Karen was arrest ared April 19th 2001 she was arrested charged with four counts of murder four counts of infanticide being accused of suffocating all four of her children uh Craig was also initially arrested and interviewed but he was released without charge and in fact Craig went on to play a key role in helping the police build the case against Karen well he was the one who started it anyway sorry K Kathleen what am I talking about Kathleen yeah he he started the whole thing right like he was the one who reported it in the first place exactly yep okay exactly uh she was uh she was imprisoned until a trial took place in 2003 her Diaries were shown to the prosecution of course uh recordings of emergency calls that she'd made where she was you know sobbing my baby's not breathing I've had three Sid's deaths already you know now the central argument of the prosecution Cory was statis oh no oh boy here we go wildly wildly improbable sure that four of her children could have died suddenly of natural causes don't you agree no I mean this again what I just said was in this day and age we don't see that very often um because of medical intervention uh the idea of an entire family of children being born with similar things and dying I always say it's like you know my dad was one of 11 and they all lived to adulthood and that was like unheard of you know like it's insane that's statistically unlikely that's statistically unlikely that all of them lived that that long being born from like you know the early 40s on um so I'm not convinced yet you're I'm going to need more well let me tell you something I'll give you more how about this give me more I'm going the prosecution leaned very heavily on a uh a kind of a a a truism in Pediatrics at the time known as Meadows law something you've heard of or not no I don't think so okay it's it's uh it was a legal Concept in the kind of Realm of child safeguarding and uh had been used many times in many cases in cases of multiple sudden infant death syndrome right within within within a family within a single family and the law goes thusly one CAU death is a tragedy two is suspicious and three is murder unless proven otherwise oh Jesus Christ that's Meadow's law that's insane well what if I tell you a little bit more about that law uh it was coined by a uh a Brit called Sir Roy Meadow Sir Samuel Roy Meadow a guy who still lives to this day born in 1933 now retired uh British pediatrician that's an old dude very old um believe it or not he uh practiced in banb Oxford Shire just 10 15 minutes down the road from where I now sit uh he rose to prominence in the kind of field of medicine for his work on child abuse child neglect child murder published a paper it was it was this guy who first kind of popularized things like mun chosen proxy Mosen syndrome by proxy that kind of thing is that something VI of oh of course yeah right of course of course of course I meany Rose is like one of the bigest exactly exactly exactly criminal superstars in America so um but here's the thing uh sir Meadow was booted out of the British general what is it called the GMC I believe the General Medical Council yeah the British medical Council he was struck off after Meadows law was used in no less than three cases in the UK which were later overturned after the women involved had all done time right right yeah firstly uh a Sally Clark wrongfully convicted in 1999 for murdering her two sons which was overturned in 2003 her life never recovered she died of alol in7 her kids died and then she went to jail for it yep hard to come back from another case of Donna Anthony she was jailed in 1998 after losing two kids cleared and freed after six years in prison [ __ ] hell and the most wellknown of all is a case of of a lady by the name of Angela cannings she was sentenced to life in 2002 for murdering her seven-week old son Jason and an 18we old son Matthew uh the case was overturned in December 2003 after a [ __ ] BBC in investigation program uh revealed that her family had a history of Sids like her Granddad lost kids through SIDS and and other relatives there was [ __ ] SIDS in her family right like it almost to me like I can like that many feels more feels less suspicious almost you know cuz it's like if you were killing children like this is like obviously it's deep suspicious or whatever but the idea that like something keeps on happening because your family has a gene for it yes yes like that is very yeah very common I'm not say like again I you haven't finished telling me about this woman so maybe she's very clearly guilty I'm just saying from what we have so far I mean it feels like like shaking baby syndrome you know how like now we know that's [ __ ] and so many parents were you know uh Under Suspicion or jailed or things like that for shaken baby syndrome that's literally not a thing it's not real um and yet I remember when I was a kid that was like a constant thing like oh someone shook their baby and it died you know now they're in jail for this so I shook the hell at a Peto in and they F they're totally great no problem they loved it in fact they they're always like shake me shake me Daddy Shake Me Elmo we we all play with shake me Almo yeah exactly uh but just to say like you know like kind of demonizing of parents for things that are like outside of their control that like the medical establishment says is a thing like obviously it comes from a good place it's not like they're trying to put innocent parents in jail but you know there's yeah often it's like we're so quick to jump to like judge like oh that would never happen to me so clearly they must have like they must have done it yes point being go on more details over here in the UK Meadow's law discredited widely discredited just completely [ __ ] discredited but no one told Australia yeah exactly this um the a a law professor in Australia uh a lady by the name of Emma Kliff she wrote a book all about Fig's case and to quote her Meadows law was heavily challenged by medical research always at odds with the principle that the state B is the burden of proving crime Beyond A Reasonable Doubt right now all of this was going on in the UK but Meadow's law was still being used to charge cases in Australia sure uh which is why after a swe trial where Craig was [ __ ] vem convinced of her guilt uh she was initially sentenced to 40 years in jail with a 30-year without parole that was appealed that was brought down to 30 years with a non-parole period of 25 years and she maintained her [ __ ] innocence the entire time in contrast with Craig right outside the [ __ ] Court to reporters Craig says my most humble thanks go to 12 my most humble thanks go to 12 people who I've never formally met who today share the honor of having set four beautiful souls free to rest in peace he went his whole life maintaining her Guild right Craig okay to his day he died early this year he only died in March this year okay uh and probably not that old right uh I'll look it up I'll look it up I I'll she was born in like 67 you said so you know they're not they're not that old no not at all you have an excellent ear for detail [ __ ] hell are you taking notes no notes just in your playe with my little hand strengthener excellent but look her family also right um Kathleen's family also maintained her guilt uh her sister-in-law um sorry cut out this pause I've lost the [ __ ] where am I here we go yeah her sister-in-law uh uh lee bone said in 2014 she's definitely guilty those four children should be here now I [ __ ] I get it right yeah a her sister-in-law is in like her husband's sister or is in her like brother's wife with because I can answer that question I I only asked you said like her family and so I'm like I mean if it's like the angry husband's sister then like obvious makes sense doesn't it you know uh as opposed to like her own like family um but I've said before you know one thing that I always find crazy when I watch something like date line or whatever is when someone did clearly do something and the family is just like I refuse to believe that my kid would never do that it's like well they were like standing over the person with a bloody knife yelling I'm killing you right now and they're like my my child would never do that so there's a part of me that when like the family you know uh does understand the person's guilt that's like well good good for you unless they're not guilty but unless they aren't guilty of course right um so look obviously the media completely [ __ ] went nuts tore it a shreds she was called Australia's worst female serial killer and she began serving out descendence her family completely turned her back on her um but all the while on the outside there was Grassroots kind of movement or her her longtime friend stuck with her school friend stuck with her and there were campaigns there were campaigns for a case to be reopened which it was right in 2017 okay uh New South Wales Governor a guy by the name of David Hurley he received a petition to review her convictions uh and in 2018 right evidence was found that two of Fig's daughters carried a genetic variant that could well have led to their death of natural causes wow yeah um in addition to other testimony that Laura her daughter could have died from something called myo card us which is a heart inflammation that can also cause sudden infant death the first one like actively had a breathing tube problem yes yes indeed yes indeed and two of her daughters Sarah and Laura they had a mutation in one of their genes in the calm 2 Gene uh called Cal 2 g4r super rare genetic mutation occurring get this in one in 35 million people wow and even this even this [ __ ] evidence was thrown out by the judge in 2019 who decided the evidence quote as a whole just reinforced her guilt what this is what is [ __ ] crazy to me like and it's the same thing with like the Lucy leby stuff where it's like now that we've like read about the actual situation like it is nearly impossible for her to have done this and yet like they keep on like coming up with new stuff that's like no actually we saw her do a thing and you know it's definitely and it's like there's just no nobody is coming to bat because the entire media has already decided the judge had already decided at this point before they got into the chamber the judge had already decided that that person was guilty you know like everybody has already made up their mind by the time they meet Lucy let be by the time they meet this person like there's no where can you go already are and you're with that that's crazy uh in Kathleen's case another two years later the a petition again went to the law uh Governor Margaret Beasley who was who was then maybe even now New South Wales Governor 90 scientists and academics from around the world academics and scientists not just you know [ __ ] Reddit detectives and actual [ __ ] actual learned men of and Ladies of science um landed a petition with Governor Margaret Beasley calling for fall big to be pardoned right and this petition was based on a [ __ ] study an international study that found that the arhythmia syndrome was a reasonable explanation for the death of Kathleen's girls while the two boys carried Gene variant which which could actually cause [ __ ] epilepsy early onset epilepsy in mice jeez Lo um and that led to a second inquiry in 2022 which actually got her pardoned and released in June 23 [ __ ] sake yeah that is like nobody has those resources at their disposal you know the entire scientific Community coming together to petition yeah the powers that be to [ __ ] pay attention to this kind of stuff huge kind of moment in Alie legal history she did almost 20 years inside Jesus Christ after losing four children lost four kids her family and 20 years of her life uh the the the 2022 inquiry found Reasonable Doubt yeah you know like this it's terrifying to you to think of like like when you write in a diary a journal whatever which I've always done my entire life like you know it's with the understanding no one will ever see this and no one will misinterpret some [ __ ] that you wrote sometime and the idea of using people's uncensored thoughts as evidence against them what especially when they don't specifically say you know I went and I choked my baby out today or something like that you know like anything that is not tical kind of stream of Consciousness kind of person isn't right that's the point you know for processing your guilt for processing like all of these kinds of feelings and if it doesn't like specifically explain the method that you used to murder someone then it's like that that cannot be photos yeah right like that can't be the evidence unless there is that's on top of a whole chain of physical evidence you can't use someone's ramblings yeah as the prim primary evidence against them yeah that's wild to me and I think like you were right I have a you texted me before this you were like oh you're going to have a lot of feelings about this and I do um on top of that I think like there is such a a crazy culture of vilifying parents that I think part of it is the idea that like we like to think nothing can happen to our kids right like part of it is fear you know if if four children can die suddenly like can mine can you know like it's it's better for us to think it's impossible for horrifying things to happen to Children than like you know than like someone doing this right like someone being a monster is better than the chaos of the universe but like when I when I say joag rule number one you are not safe when I say that I don't just mean you're immediate physical well-being and safety I mean the [ __ ] structures around you right what you what you what you take for granted what is right and normal all of that can be [ __ ] upended upended exactly and this like you know I I think about this with like the shaking baby syndrome being proved to be [ __ ] stuff like this even like the hot car stuff you know like it's so easy for people to like vilify and be like I would never do that people who do this are monsters um when people do do things like this all the time and it's just you you know you're lucky that uh you it wasn't a thousand degrees when you did that or you know you remembered someone asked where so and so you know two minutes later or whatever like this we're so quick to just be like if something happens to a kid then that parent needs to be you know completely stor yeah right you know ruin their life it's like they're already ruined your their kid died like that's probably enough you know that's plenty it's yeah I have I have a lot of thoughts about that well listen I know that right up until maybe even last week or the week before I was still kind of caveat all of our discussions about Lucy Ley with I still think she did it MH I swear to [ __ ] God this case re studying and writing about this cold open really really makes me think really [ __ ] makes me think I think that's like I I think that's a you know that's perfect joag Journey [ __ ] right there isn't it but you know I think that that is something that we all have to get into the practice of because it certainly has made me more aware of seeing this all over and you know like obviously this is a thing that I do all the time on here is sort of like take something we think we understood and and like be like aha Scotch it interestingly um one of the Links at the bottom of one of the articles I read about this was uh why the phrase a dingo atat my baby isn't funny nice I mean it's it's directly related to this right it really is they're all the you know the same coin you know and and reading about the three women in the UK mm who were imprisoned on the back of some [ __ ] like hey one baby's bad luck two is [ __ ] sketchy three you're a killer right yeah [ __ ] what who the [ __ ] what kind of [ __ ] is that that like you would have been laughed off the planet with something like that a century ago are you [ __ ] kidding me come on that's kid kids die unfortunately life is very fragile kids be dying kids be dying like you know maybe let's let's pump the brakes a little bit before you punish grieving parents for it you know that's just that's my take on that whole thing maybe it's crazy but I think maybe we should be a little you know just take a step back before we just get mad yeah just a thought