Her best friend Tracy Chapman said Folbigg’s first night of freedom was spent on her northern NSW farm with the just-released woman figuring out how to watch television.
Folbigg, who has spent two decades in a technology time warp, was “bamboozled” by the iPhone and fascinated by streaming TV.
“She’s going, ‘oh my God, look at the television – it’s got so many capabilities!’,” Ms Chapman told reporters on Tuesday.
“I explained … you don’t have to sit there at 7:30 and watch the show any more.
“She was just like, ‘I’m gonna be watching binge TV’.”
Ms Chapman described Monday as “pandemonium” and Folbigg didn’t have a chance to say goodbye to her prison friends.
The 55-year-old received an unconditional pardon and was released from Grafton jail after an inquiry heard new scientific evidence pointed to reasonable doubt about her guilt following her 2003 conviction over the deaths of her four children.
Ms Chapman said her friend harboured no hatred about her treatment and was overjoyed by her sudden freedom.
“She actually said to me this morning, ‘my face muscles hurt from smiling so much’,” she said.
Folbigg spent most of Monday on the farm getting to know the animals and was just happy to get her first “proper” sleep in 20 years.
“She slept for the first time in a real bed, had a cup of tea in a real crockery cup, real spoons to stir with,” Ms Chapman said.
“That sounds basic to you all, but she’s grateful. Decent tea, real milk.”
However, there was no time to cook the dinner of T-bone steak Folbigg had dreamed of for years in jail. Instead, the party of about 12 settled for pizza.
But Folbigg did get one special request granted.
“She asked for a Kahlua and Coke. It was a flashback to the last 20 years,” Ms Chapman said, laughing.
Lawyer Rhanee Rego said the next hurdle for Folbigg’s legal team was to get her convictions quashed in the Court of Criminal Appeal, followed by compensation.
“She not only lost one child, she has lost four and been in jail for 20 years.
“The system has failed her at every step.
“Instead of trying to understand why her children died, potentially through an inquest … we threw her in jail, locked her up and called her Australia’s worst female serial killer.”
Ms Rego rebuffed repeated questions about the potential size of any payout.
“In terms of compensation, which I know is on everyone’s mind, it’s too early right now,” she said.
Just as Lindy Chamberlain protested her innocence, the former Hunter Valley hospitality worker always denied responsibility for the deaths of her children, Caleb, Patrick, Sarah and Laura, who were all under the age of two when they died between 1989 and 1999.
There is the prospect she will join a select few in Australia, including Ms Chamberlain, in being awarded seven-figure sums following wrongful convictions.
Robyn Blewer, director of the Griffith University Innocence Project, said the amount Folbigg received might depend on what the government was willing to pay.
NSW Premier Chris Minns said compensation wasn’t for him to determine, but he agreed a price could not be placed on two decades in prison.
He said the law was not perfect, but the state’s attorney-general had reached the right decision to free Folbigg following the public inquiry.
Greg Barns, from the Australian Lawyers Alliance, called for an independent body to be set up with powers to investigate claims of wrongful conviction.
Former chief justice Tom Bathurst is yet to release his final report into Folbigg’s convictions following the inquiry.