Oshawa, Ontario

Woman freed: After 13 years in prison, a Canadian woman convicted of murdering her 2-year-old son was freed this week when new evidence showed that the child may have died of an epileptic seizure. The original case against Tammy Marquardt rested on the testimony of now-disgraced pathologist Charles Smith, who lost his license earlier this year after an investigation found that he had routinely lied on the stand to gain convictions of innocent parents. Smith was a star witness for the prosecution in dozens of child-death cases spanning two decades; seven convictions based on his testimony have been overturned. In the worst example, he testified confidently that a woman had stabbed her 7-year-old daughter to death with scissors. Later it was proved that the girl had been mauled by a pit bull.

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