The Tragic Death Of Sally Clark

The late '90s saw what was to become one of the most highly publicized and eventually infamous court cases in the United Kingdom when a solicitor named Sally Clark was convicted of killing two of her infant children (who'd died 14 months apart) in a decision that was later overturned (via Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine). The prosecution relied heavily on over-simplified, inaccurate statistical data that said the odds of SIDS affecting two children in a wealthy, non-smoking household was around 1 in 73 million. To make matters worse, another expert witness withheld the results of a test on one of the dead children that would have pointed toward natural causes.

Clark spent three years in prison before the case's second appeal found her freed, but the psychological damage had been done. The stress of losing two babies is already unimaginable, but Clark had to endure being loathed by the public who thought her a baby-killer and was a target within the walls of the prison. She never recovered, and didn't live for long past her traumatic trial. 

The tragedies that Sally Clark went through had a devastating effect on the solicitor, and according to those close to her, she was never able to completely return to the "happy, kind, and generous person" she was before the death of her sons and subsequent trial (via The Guardian). Clark was found dead in March 2007, having passed away in the night from acute alcohol intoxication. There was no evidence to suggest her death wasn't accidental, although Clark had drunk enough to be five times above the drunk-driving limit.

Clark's family hoped that her infamous trial and treatment would show the dangers of mishandling evidence in future court cases, just as a review of similar cases led to the freedom of other wrongly accused mothers. Clark's worldview had been irreparably destroyed by the miscarriage of justice she went through, and her tragic end is a grim reminder to all that justice is not always served.