Introducing ... The Lab Detective
Hoaxed
Tortoise Media
4.8 • 2.9K Ratings
🗓️ 22 July 2025
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Introducing...The Lab Detective
Kathleen Folbigg was known as ‘Australia's worst female serial killer’ - she’d lost all four of her infant children and was convicted for killing them.
Until, after spending decades in jail, a scientist working in a lab uncovered the truth behind the deaths.
The Lab detective is the story of a shocking miscarriage of justice, and an investigation into why Kathleen’s story might not be the last.
This is episode one of four. You can listen to the entire series today by subscribing to The Observer+ on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or by downloading the Tortoise app. To listen, search for The Lab Detective wherever you get your podcasts.
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- Subscribe to TheObserver+ on Apple Podcasts for early access and ad-free episodes.
- Head to our website observer.co.uk
- Download the Tortoise app – for a listening experience curated by our journalists
Reporter: Rachel Sylvester
Producer: Gary Marshall
Music supervisor: Karla Patella
Sound design: Rowan Bishop
Podcast artwork: Lola Williams
Executive producer: Basia Cummings
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Observer |
| 0:07.0 | Do you remember the moment the police knocked on the door? |
| 0:13.0 | I'd been, you know, pottering around the house just cleaning. |
| 0:17.0 | And the detective knocked on the door and as soon as I saw her, my face just just dropped. |
| 0:23.3 | You've got to be, you're not serious here. |
| 0:26.8 | When Kathleen Folbig opens her front door |
| 0:29.4 | and finds a police officer standing in front of her, |
| 0:32.3 | she has a reaction I suspect a lot of us would. |
| 0:35.2 | There's a creeping anxiety |
| 0:36.4 | as she tries to figure out why this man has turned up at her home. |
| 0:41.3 | It's quite confronting. |
| 0:43.3 | It was sort of like, you know, good grief something's going horribly wrong here. |
| 0:47.3 | It's 2001 and Kathleen is 34. |
| 0:51.3 | She's a young woman who likes hanging out with her friends, |
| 0:54.8 | going to the gym, the usual kinds of things. |
| 0:58.1 | But she's also endured unfathomable loss. |
| 1:02.2 | Over the past 10 years, |
| 1:03.9 | she's faced the trauma of losing not just one, |
| 1:07.3 | but four of her infant children. |
| 1:10.8 | Enderance emergency. I need an ambulance. My baby is in a brief. one, but four of her infant children. In your emergency? |
| 1:12.1 | I need an annulose. |
| 1:14.0 | My brain is not breathing. |
... |
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