Sunrise host Nat Barr has weighed in on the question every Australian wants to know about Kathleen Folbigg ahead of their highly anticipated one-on-one interview being aired.
Ms Folbigg, 55 spent 20 years behind bars after she was convicted in 2003 of the murder of three of her children and the manslaughter of a fourth between 1989 and 1999.
An inquiry earlier this year heard credible evidence that the four children may have died of natural causes and concluded there was ‘reasonable doubt’ about Folbigg’s guilt of the convictions.
Four months after she was pardoned by NSW Attorney-General Michael Daley and released from prison, Ms Folbigg will break her silence in a bombshell interview to be aired on Channel Seven on Sunday night.
Ms Folbigg has always maintained her innocence that she didn’t kill or harm babies Patrick, Sarah, Laura and Caleb, who each died suddenly before they reached their second birthday.
Barr grilled Ms Folbigg with every difficult question imagined on the case that has both fascinated and divided Australia.
But she said it was up to viewers to make up their own minds when co-host Matt Shirvington asked whether she believed Ms Folbigg is innocent and if her interview shifted her view.
‘We know you often get asked has it changed your opinion of the case, of her, of whether or not she did it?’
‘That’s not my job. My job is to go and ask the questions and to report,’ Barr replied.
‘I’ve been getting questions all week. ‘What do you think? I will never believe that woman. Or I can’t believe that we have to compensate that woman millions of dollars because of what she went through.’
‘Everyone will have their view. And that’s Australia will get to decide on Sunday night.’
Barr spent some time getting to know Folbigg and recalled her shock of how normal she was and nothing like the woman she had expected to meet.
Ms Folbigg has since returned to her quiet secluded life well away from the public eye.
‘She has talked to us but she’s not going to make a habit of talking to anyone,’ Barr said.
‘She was determined to get a story out. She knew we had to ask her every question, all the difficult questions. And she was determined to answer them.
‘It was really long, long interviews we did with her. And she said that will be it.’
‘She will not be living her life in the spotlight. She’s going to go away and have a very quiet life.’
Barr also shared a surprising insight of what Ms Folbigg was really like and admitted she was nothing like the woman she expected to meet.
Nat Barr (right) spent a weekend getting to know Kathleen Folbigg (left) just days after she was released from prison
The pair spent a weekend shortly after Ms Folbigg’s release from jail getting to know each other before the cameras even started rolling.
‘I walked in and I kept thinking what would I be like if I had just spent 20 years in prison for a crime I say I didn’t commit,’ she recalled.
‘I thought she would be bitter and twisted. She was nothing like thought she would be. She was determined and articulate and really really normal. And nice.’
Seven reportedly spent $400,000 securing the interview with Folbigg.
Barr and the Seven Spotlight crew travelled to northern NSW in June days after Folbigg was released.
‘She was like someone I’d grown up with,’ Barr recalled
‘She was similar age. She had grown up in a regional area kind of like I had. She was like someone you would hang out with.
‘And she was just a really normal Aussie woman. She wasn’t bitter and twisted.’
‘She said she’s buried a lot of the emotion. She hasn’t grieved.’
The segment also showed a preview of the harrowing moment of Ms Folbigg recalling the devastating loss of her first baby Caleb at 19-days-old in 1989.
‘When he died, that was just a shock. And it was for both of us, not…I’m not going to say just for me, because he had a father, you know,’ she told the program.
‘So it was a horrendous thing to go through. We were told he was…that he died from SIDS which we were also told was not likely to happen again. So we took a bit of comfort in that.’
Ms Folbigg was asked by Barr if she remembers the moment she found Caleb dead.
‘No. That’s all a blur to me. I don’t actually really remember much,’ she replied.
The experts who unearthed the key scientific and DNA breakthroughs which helped free Ms Folbigg will also appear on the program.
‘You know how they did it? They found the DNA, if you’re a parent, you know they do the heel prick tests and they put the little bit of blood because they prick the bottom of the heal in they prick the bottom of the heal in the baby, as soon as they’re born, and they have the little blood on a piece of card,’ Barr explained.
‘They went back and found those cards and found the blood and in that blood was the DNA and they found the DNA and it matched the genetic mutation in Kathleen.’
Barr also interviewed Lindy Chamberlain, another Aussie mum who was convicted and then pardoned of killing her own baby daughter Azaria in 1980.
‘There is nothing more horrendous than being accused of killing your own child,’ Ms Chamberlain said.
Kathleen Folbigg is pictured enjoying her first day of freedom after she was released from prison in June
She was convicted of the murders of Sarah (left) and Laura (pictured right) along with her two sons before scientists lobbied for Folbigg to be pardoned because the two girls’ deaths could be explained by genetics
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