Tammy Marquardt: Child killer or victim?

Tammy Marquardt (above) was the final convicted killer still behind bars because of the tainted medical evidence of Dr. Charles Smith, a disgraced former Ontario pathologist whose errors may have helped imprison a dozen or more innocent people. Marquardt was released March 12, 2009, while she appeals her 1995 conviction for killing her 28-month-old son Kenneth. Marquardt has maintained her innocence since her son's death in October 1993. She said he died accidentally, tangled in his bedding. Smith, who has been discredited at a public inquiry as a bungling egotist who was poorly trained and unsupervised, testified at the trial that Kenneth was either strangled or smothered. The National Parole Board has considered Marquardt's case six times since she was jailed for life in 1995, with no chance of parole for 10 years. All of her parole records, published online here for the first time, appear after the jump.

The documents reveal that Marquardt has maintained her innocence throughout her imprisonment. They also reveal she was a troubled woman battling substance abuse and depression before her child's death. The board refused to release her when they first considered her case in 2004. After she was freed in 2005, she was caught using marijuana, cocaine and alcohol. Her release was suspended four times and she amassed six parole violations. In November 2007, she was ordered back to prison, where she languished until the Ontario Court of Appeal freed her, pending a review of her case, in light of Smith's now discredited testimony. Marquardt hasn't yet been vindicated, though the medical evidence against her was eviscerated. At the Goudge Commission inquiry, called to review Dr. Smith's errors, Dr. Pekka Saukko, a professor of forensic medicine at the University of Turku in Finland, testified about Smith's conclusion that Kenneth was smothered or strangled:

It is illogical and completely against scientific evidence based reasoning to give any cause of death if there's one or several causes that cannot be reasonably ruled out, and in such a case, the death has to be classified accordingly as un-ascertained.

[read all of Saukko's testimony

Saukko also described Smith's testimony at trial as "very confusing," "misleading" and "confusing and illogical."

(Reading the parole records: The document below contains six separate parole decisions, packaged together for simplicity, in chronological order. A new decision begins each time you see "Page 2" in the upper right corner. Click the icon at top right of the e-document to view in full screen.)

Read it all