The Australian judiciary issued a pardon for a woman who was convicted in 2003 of killing her four children, after a new investigation raises “suspicions” about the extent of her involvement in the deaths.
New South Wales Attorney General Michael Daley intervened to order the release of Kathleen Volpig, based on preliminary findings of an investigation that found “reasonable suspicion” of her involvement in the four murders, after she had spent 20 years behind bars, reports Al-Rai daily quoting CNN.
Daly said in a press conference on Monday that he spoke to the governor and recommended an unconditional pardon for the convict, which was approved.
“This has been a horrific ordeal for everyone involved, and I hope our decisions today will bring some end to this 20 years,” Daly added.
Dubbed “Australia’s worst serial killer”, Volpig was jailed in 2003 on three counts of murder and one count of manslaughter after the deaths of her four children over a decade from 1989.
Kathleen always insisted that she did not kill her children, while the prosecution in her trial relied largely on circumstantial evidence, including that the occurrence of four deaths within the same family could not be a coincidence, according to Australian newspapers.
In 2019, an investigation concluded that there was no “reasonable doubt” that she had committed the crimes, but another investigation was launched last year after new scientific evidence emerged that provided a genetic explanation for child deaths.
Volpig was 20 when she married Craig Volpig, a man she met in her hometown of Newcastle on the New South Wales north coast.
Within a year, she became pregnant with Caleb, who was born in February 1989 and lived only 19 days. Then “Patrick” the following year, who died at the age of eight months. Two years later, Sarah died at the age of 10 months. Then in 1999, the fourth child died at the age of 18 months.
A police investigation began into the deaths of all four children, and after more than two years of investigations, Volpig was arrested and charged. By then, her marriage had fallen apart, and Kathleen’s husband was cooperating with the police to build a case against her. In 2003, she was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
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