Australia - 3 dead after eating wild mushrooms, Leongatha, Victoria, Aug 2023 #4

[jepop]

JMO. What if these are two abstract-minded kids?

They lost maternal GM and are trying to process death. Big deal. To call them "satanic" as one MS did says more about the media source. I am surprised that the painter took photos. Kept - what for? Sold them to the media one year later. This is surprising and I don't even want to write more.

I would like to know the history of the parenting plan, it probably could tell us more about the relationship. The man who took the photos, since he ousted himself to the public, can probably be discussed. Who was he?

Imo he's someone who EP should consider suing if she ever gets the chance. He was hired as an indoor painter and took those photos, selling to tabloids a year later when chance to profit called whilst remaining anonymous but also making disparaging insinuations to the media. I'd be surprised if taking photos and then selling to tabloids was part of his job description. Moo

 

[Salah11]

Imo he's someone who EP should consider suing if she ever gets the chance. He was hired as an indoor painter and took those photos, selling to tabloids a year later when chance to profit called whilst remaining anonymous but also making disparaging insinuations to the media. Didn't know taking photos and then selling to tabloids was part of his job description. Moo

I believe if she is arrested for 3 Murders and 1 attempted murder that she may have a lot more pressing things on her plate.

IMO

 

[jepop]

I believe if she is arrested for 3 Murders and 1 attempted murder that she may have a lot more concerning things on her plate.

IMO

The damage to the children is my concern here.Moo

 

[DeDee]

Maybe she did have to. Or she may have put the toxic ingredients into a gravy or a mushroom sauce, so she only had to give investigators the beef wellington, minus the death caps?

Maybe EP baked two separate BWs; one with DC and one without DC but with safe mushrooms. We just don't know.

She claims in her sworn (read it was a sworn statement) statement, the portions of it that were leaked, that she scraped the mushrooms off the BW in order to feed the children leftover BW. EP ever mentions a gravy or sauce though.

 

[Trublue21]

Well I guess she showed them, huh? I’m being sarcastic. When some people feel powerless and/or a loss of control, they’ll do almost anything to get it back. Even for a brief moment. She may not have intended to kill them but she definitely intended to make them sick by poisonIng them. I’m sure her husband feels like he dodged a bullet, seeing as he was very Ill the year before. She held all their lives in her hands. Now that’s power. I feel no sympathy for her. She deserves to be punished for her actions. Intentional or not.
IMO

 

[jjenny]

didn't EP bring beef wellington "leftovers" to the toxicology people or the doctors after the fact for testing? if i remember that correctly, i wonder if she was sweating about that and had to make a whole new beef wellington with normal mushrooms lol. moo

She could have said there was nothing left rather than making a whole new one, so she presumably had something left. My guess whatever she gave for testing is DC mushrooms free.

 

[katydid23]

Maybe EP baked two separate BWs; one with DC and one without DC but with safe mushrooms. We just don't know.

She claims in her sworn (read it was a sworn statement) statement, the portions of it that were leaked, that she scraped the mushrooms off the BW in order to feed the children leftover BW. EP ever mentions a gravy or sauce though.

But I don't think that is medically possible. All of the articles posted here say that anything coming in contact with the mushrooms, would absorb the lethal toxins during the cooking process. No one needed to eat the mushrooms themselves to be poisoned.

If she had placed the shrooms on top of the porous beef and cooked them, the beef would be highly toxic, even if the shrooms were scraped off. So I don't believe that paste of the story. JMO

She may have baked two wellingtons, but making gravy would be much quicker, safer and make it easier to dispose of the evidence.

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

Do we have any facts on what LE is currently doing / testing / searching for?

I assume if they have the dehydrator they're analysing using DNA technology etc. But what about anything else? Are they waiting for toxicology or post mortem tissue analysis from the deceased?

What if they 'look for' death cap mushrooms and it's not that? Then what?

I guess the only person they can get some clues from is the profoundly unwell survivor, Ian, if he pulls through all this but maybe he's in a very poor condition and can't speak. I wonder how long it will take?

What if they draw blanks? Then what?

 

[katydid23]

Do we have any facts on what LE is currently doing / testing / searching for?

I assume if they have the dehydrator they're analysing using DNA technology etc. But what about anything else? Are they waiting for toxicology or post mortem tissue analysis from the deceased?

What if they 'look for' death cap mushrooms and it's not that? Then what?

I guess the only person they can get some clues from is the profoundly unwell survivor, Ian, if he pulls through all this but maybe he's in a very poor condition and can't speak. I wonder how long it will take?

What if they draw blanks? Then what?

I may be wrong, but I got the idea that the patients were being treated for death cap poisoning. That seemed to be evident, in the way EP was given preventive care for her liver, etc. And the way the news was reporting it.

And I think they can make a pretty quick diagnosis on a very sick poisoning patient. At some point, they must have asked EP about mushrooms, as EP described where she had bought some she used in the meal. And investigators sent her various market labels from mushrooms.

I think they can narrow down the type of the poison found in the deceased. And probably have already.

But I don't think they found any evidence of tainted mushrooms in the leftovers. JMO

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

I may be wrong, but I got the idea that the patients were being treated for death cap poisoning. That seemed to be evident, in the way EP was given preventive care for her liver, etc. And the way the news was reporting it.

And I think they can make a pretty quick diagnosis on a very sick poisoning patient. At some point, they must have asked EP about mushrooms, as EP described where she had bought some she used in the meal. And investigators sent her various market labels from mushrooms.

I think they can narrow down the type of the poison found in the deceased. And probably have already.

But I don't think they found any evidence of tainted mushrooms in the leftovers. JMO

Indeed it seems they were treated 'as if' death cap mushroom poisoning after a couple of days of wrongly being treated for 'gastro' but treatment isn't legally binding proof or evidence of actual mushroom poisoning, it doesn't matter if it matches the pattern etc, in a court of law they're going to need to see facts not suppositions.

If they did manage to find forensic evidence of DC mushroom poisoning, which I'm not sure they have, then they've still got a long way to go in linking it to EP.

I feel like this case could crumble without the testimony of the survivor, if he pulls through and is well enough to give a statement.

 

[LordCyrus]

this case could crumble without the testimony of the survivor

I agree. No amount of forensic evidence can rule out food tampering by another party.

The survivor may not have noticed anything unusual as any switching of food would have been done out of sight. It would be interesting to obtain the house plans from the local Shire Council to see how the kitchen and dining areas are positioned.

 

[katydid23]

Indeed it seems they were treated 'as if' death cap mushroom poisoning after a couple of days of wrongly being treated for 'gastro' but treatment isn't legally binding proof or evidence of actual mushroom poisoning, it doesn't matter if it matches the pattern etc, in a court of law they're going to need to see facts not suppositions.

If they did manage to find forensic evidence of DC mushroom poisoning, which I'm not sure they have, then they've still got a long way to go in linking it to EP.

I feel like this case could crumble without the testimony of the survivor, if he pulls through and is well enough to give a statement.

Even if he does hopefully pull through, his statement won't prove much, probably. He can describe the meal but it wouldn't prove anything.

 

[katydid23]

I agree. No amount of forensic evidence can rule out food tampering by another party.

The survivor may not have noticed anything unusual as any switching of food would have been done out of sight. It would be interesting to obtain the house plans from the local Shire Council to see how the kitchen and dining areas are positioned.

If someone else tampered with the food, why was EP the only one who walked away healthy and whole?
That is something I can't overlook.

 

[LordCyrus]

why was EP the only one who walked away healthy and whole?

Her defence will be that she got lucky and that can't be ruled out.

 

[SouthAussie]

Her defence will be that she got lucky and that can't be ruled out.

While I agree, I wonder how lucky it is for 3 people to walk away healthy and whole. EP and the two children.

 

[SouthAussie]

I was reading this medical study about how they prove mushroom poisoning. They studied a family in India who ingested toxic mushrooms.

In urine sample, amatoxins can be detected up to 4 days postingestion compared to the blood sample, where it is up to 30 h.
Further, in the urine sample, the toxin concentration has shown to be 10–100 times higher.


In the autopsy of the 25 year old daughter (whose baby also got sick to a degree from toxin that had gone into the breast milk), there was a lot of damage and reaction to the toxin in many areas of her body.

(This is an autopsy report, so please be warned.)
Clinicopathological Aspects of Death due to Wild Mushroom Poisoning: An Autopsy Report

 

[Salah11]

While I agree, I wonder how lucky it is for 3 people to walk away healthy and whole. EP and the two children.

Yes she was the cook (chef seemed to upset some) and yet she is absolutely fine.

Also so are her kids who would of still ingested poison even if she had taken out of the mushrooms as it was simply impossible not to.

Unless as the theory goes she had a untainted pie which her and the kids Ate

 

[SouthAussie]

Yes she was the cook (chef seemed to upset some) and yet she is absolutely fine.

Also so are her kids who would of still ingested poison even if she had taken out of the mushrooms as it was simply impossible not to.

Unless as the theory goes she had a untainted pie which her and the kids Ate

In the report I just linked (about the family in India who were poisoned by handpicked mushrooms containing amatoxin) ....

Young couple (one of them being a 25 year old woman)
One year old child
Middle aged parents
Brother

.. all ingested the toxic mushrooms (child through the breast milk) and the 25 year old woman was the only one who deteriorated and died. The others all got sick, then were released, and the 2nd wave never hit them.

A defence lawyer would introduce things like that, probably.

 

[Salah11]

In the report I just linked (about the family in India who were poisoned by handpicked mushrooms containing amatoxin) ....

Young couple (one of them being a 25 year old woman)
One year old child
Middle aged parents
Brother

.. all ingested the toxic mushrooms (child through the breast milk) and the 25 year old woman was the only one who deteriorated and died. The others all got sick, then were released, and the 2nd wave never hit them.

A defence lawyer would introduce things like that, probably.

Yes but they never got sick either. I know EP claims she did but if she walked into a hospital and claimed she was feeling sick and 3 people were dead from the lunch she prepared the hospital has to do due diligence on the patient.

 

[303gmf]

It was extremely irresponsible for the tradesperson to have allowed the media access to the photo, or to have discussed the matter with them at all.

I wouldn't be having such a tradesperson in my home in the future. I think they have likely negated their own reputation for customer privacy (if they had such a necessary reputation to begin with).

I do much of my job in peoples homes and yes, have taken photos of bizarre or amusing things. My clients trust me very well and know I’d never abuse the privilege however if any had suspicious deaths surrounding the home you bet I’d chat it up!