Australia - 3 dead after eating wild mushrooms, Leongatha, Victoria, Aug 2023 #2

[RickshawFan]

And/or overly confident of her self-perceived/delusional ability to outsmart everyone.

If she is intentionally involved in poisoning these people, I wonder what her motive was -
1. Intended to kill them? If so, why?
* Financial gain?
* Revenge?
* To hurt (emotionally) her ex-husband?
* Power / control - I have the power to end your life?

2. Did she intend to only make them ill so she could then either “save” them or take care of them as they recover so everyone- especially her ex-husband - would see what a wonderful caregiver she is so maybe he would come back to her?

Not that long ago there was a case on one of the “judge” shows (i.e. People’s Court) where a woman twice sickened her ex-husband with laxatives so she could take care of him hoping he’d come back to her.

It gives me some feelings of Munchausen by Proxy and/or nurses/caregivers who kill. If so, they definitely need to look closely at any past illnesses/deaths of people around her.

Yes, Munchausen by Proxy has been in the mix in the discussion here.

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

They do this in cafeterias.

yes usually in a heated thing you can pick a meal out of but in someone's home?

 

[k-mac]

Yes, but are they her red flags? Could she be frantically covering for someone else?

incriminating herself for someone else??
its a stretch.

 

[MsMarple]

One of the ways to preserve mushrooms is to dehydrate them. If she is a mushroom forager, she could have been using the dehydrator to dehydrate the mushrooms she foraged and then store them. That could have been done months ago-somebody mentioned that death cup is not in season now? Maybe that's why she was concerned about a dehydrator.

I think that’s exactly what’s going on.

 

[Blondiexoxo]

i wonder if the kids finished off EP’s ‘safe’ beef Wellington, one she prepared for herself to eat that day. As opposed to anything that had mushrooms in. Maybe, possibly, EP’s beef Wellington contained normal button muahrooms, therefore scraping them off wouldn’t leave any dangerous residue on the actual beef.

Maybe there were 4 extra beef wellingtons made (if they were mini ones) - one batch containing the death caps and one not, perhaps she made and cooked both just incase she decided not to go through with serving the one that contained the poisonous mushrooms. Incase she lost her nerve at the last minute..

I wonder if the talk about EP and her ex getting back together took place before or after they ate lunch. Possibly depending on how the conversation went, or appeared to be going, EP made her decision on which ones to serve. Then if she realised that her guests weren’t in favour of her attempting to get back together with her ex husband, she could serve up the poisoned ones. If they agreed to try and talk him into a reconciliation, she could serve the ‘safe’ ones.

I’m wondering if this did happen, the kids ended up eating the ones that she decided against serving to her guests. All MOO though and just thinking out loud….

All JMO

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

Possibly she's been mildly poisoning people for years and in this instance it all went extreme? I mean to say that maybe this batch of mushrooms was way stronger than any previous experiments?

 

[jjenny]

Possibly she's been mildly poisoning people for years and in this instance it all went extreme? I mean to say that maybe this batch of mushrooms was way stronger than any previous experiments?

I don't think this is one of the poisons where one can do it. Thus stuff is toxic. There are other poisons where one could use small doses to make people sick, but death cup mushrooms is too deadly.

 

[Stunned]

incriminating herself for someone else??
its a stretch.

You do anything sometimes for someone you love.

 

[Kemug]

There are so many media reports, it's hard to sometimes pick fact from, well, not fact. One bit of "information", though, is pretty obviously not a fact. One solitary claim (from the Mirror, so take that with a heavy dose of salt) said that Victoria Police has cleared her of all charges, declaring it a tragic accident, but that IMO is pretty rubbish. Haven't seen any Victoria Police statements to that effect, and even so, toxicology results haven't been in (that we know of). Way too early to make that determination.

Echoing other posters, I hope Ian pulls through and can give testimony to the police about what happened before he fell violently ill. Vital info to know for investigators. So many more questions than answers at this stage. I trust VicPol has a handle on this case, and hopefully we'll see official determinations relatively soon.

So it seems that, fortunately, we have 2 witness accounts - from a surviving victim, and from a deceased victim. Hopefully this is enough for LE to discover exactly what happened. We could have so easily not have had any of this information.

 

[Kemug]

It is not known what the lunch guest said to the paramedic.

Bummer!

Don't worry, we will know soon enough.

 

[MsMarple]

This whole situation is bonkers.

But the idea of meeting up to discuss the state of one's marriage with the in-laws and pastor, but without the husband present, may be the single most bizarre aspect of this case.

I wonder if this was just one in a serious of get-togethers and whose idea it was to meet.

I too find it bizarre- for goodness sake EP is 48, not some teen bride. Unless the mediation was intended to help structure the children's visitations with the paternal grandparents I can’t fathom any reason for them to determine anything to do with the marriage.

 

[jjenny]

I too find it bizarre- for goodness sake EP is 48, not some teen bride. Unless the mediation was intended to help structure the children's visitations with the paternal grandparents I can’t fathom any reason for them to determine anything to do with the marriage.

Yea, but maybe the church feels otherwise.

 

[RickshawFan]

Possibly she's been mildly poisoning people for years and in this instance it all went extreme? I mean to say that maybe this batch of mushrooms was way stronger than any previous experiments?

I thought this might be true, that the "accidental" aspect was in the dosage, not the selection of mushrooms.

 

[Jules2021]

One of the ways to preserve mushrooms is to dehydrate them. If she is a mushroom forager, she could have been using the dehydrator to dehydrate the mushrooms she foraged and then store them. That could have been done months ago-somebody mentioned that death cup is not in season now? Maybe that's why she was concerned about a dehydrator.

In that case wouldn't she have chucked the dehydrator months ago? I wouldn't keep that hanging around once I knew what I'd put in it were death caps! Not like you can ever risk using it again I wouldn't have thought. Why panic and dump it at the last minute if this was all planned in advance? There would also be the airtight jar (or similar) she stored them in after dehydrating she' d have to get rid of too-unless it's still in her house. JMO.

 

[Kemug]

Yes, you wouldn’t want a suspect visitor given any chance to finish off a victim. We know from experience how quickly this can happen in a hospital because moms with Munchausen have introduced toxins to their children in hospital settings, even when staff are watchful. Another dose of mushroom powder, even for an instant in micro amounts, would likely be fatal.

I wasn't being completely serious - on slow days I like to stir up bit of discussion

 

[jjenny]

In that case wouldn't she have chucked the dehydrator months ago? I wouldn't keep that hanging around once I knew what I'd put in it were death caps! Not like you can ever risk using it again I wouldn't have thought. Why panic and dump it at the last minute if this was all planned in advance? There would also be the airtight jar (or similar) she stored them in after dehydrating she' d have to get rid of too-unless it's still in her house. JMO.

Well you can wipe it off I suppose and keep using it.

 

[k-mac]

You do anything sometimes for someone you love.

Its a stretch to incriminate others when there has been zero evidence to support it.

When there is a a4 sheet of red flags on EP. IMO

 

[JennieM]

Despite the red flags, Erin may be innocent.

If she is innocent, she has all my sympathy.

 

[SMK777]

Possibly she's been mildly poisoning people for years and in this instance it all went extreme? I mean to say that maybe this batch of mushrooms was way stronger than any previous experiments?

I’m reminded of the case of Melissa Huckaby who drugged and murdered an 8 year old friend of her daughter’s. Law enforcement investigation later found she had drugged others (another child, and an ex-boyfriend) but not fatally. She’d been experimenting.

 

[MadDoc]

Very odd indeed! I would say it's one of those phrases that disconnects the statement from the truth (forgotten the technical linguistic phrase, I watch the Behaviour Panel on youtube and they talk about these type of things).

They were button mushrooms from a supermarket. Done.

'In essence' is a type of qualifier - it takes them out of reality and into fantasy whilst keeping the core identity of 'mushroom'.

It aligns them with being in the same category but not the actual thing, ie 'in essence my cat is a wild animal'. No, your cat is actually a domesticated pet and wouldn't be able to live in the wild but yes, it *looks* the same as a wild or feral cat.

In essence my jacket is by Chanel. No, it's a knock off from the guys on the market who rip off the patterns and use similar fabrics but yes it does look the same at a glance.

In essence they were button mushrooms from the supermarket. No. You just red flagged all over the place.

People find it really really hard to barefaced lie. They will often add phrases to hesitate, to take a bit of time, to psychologically swerve it themselves.

In essence, she's an innocent woman.

She used to run the small-town newsletter. She would be used to writing articles and editorials, using flowery language, padding and embellishing sentences to meet the required word count.

That may be all it means here - someone who is good with words and likes to use a lot of them.

(And I say that as someone whose Grade 4 school report stated that the stories I wrote were "too verbose".)