'KILLER MUM' PARDONED!

Spending two decades behind bars, Kathleen Folbigg is finally free to grieve the babies she lost

- Emma Levett, Maisy Rae.

After the deaths of four of her infant children, Kathleen Folbigg was sentenced to 40 years in prison and dubbed "Australia's worst female serial killer" But for two decades, she maintained her innocence and now, 7164 days after she was convicted for murder, she's walked out of jail a free woman.

During her trial in 2003, the New South Wales mother's lawyers insisted her kids -Caleb, 19 days, Patrick, eight months, Sarah, 10 months, and Laura, 18 months - had all died of cot death or heart conditions between 1989 and 1996, but the prosecution successfully argued that she'd smothered them during periods of frustration.

The case relied on the improbability of all four children dying of natural causes, citing the dubious "Meadow's law", which states, "One sudden infant death is a tragedy, two is suspicious and three is murder, until proven otherwise." It didn't help that Kathleen's diary seemed to suggest she had harmed her children and that her own father had murdered her mother when Kathleen was just 18 months old.