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

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ch_13 said:
I'm sure there's a minority of folks (like some of us) who are invested in this case and have followed every twist-and-turn with great interest.

But I question if that means that a court would be unable to find an untainted jury pool. I live half a world away so I don't have a good sense of how much this case is being discussed in Victoria, but I would expect that there are many who have not heard about it, or perhaps have only the most cursory knowledge and haven't formed any opinions. People are busy living their own lives and many don't pay attention to the daily news cycle.

In fact, I just checked the r/melbourne group on Reddit. The first post about this case was 25 days ago and received over 300 comments. The most recent post was 15 days ago and garnered just 16 comments. If anything it seems like local interest is waning, probably because there hasn't been much to report of late.
Click to expand...

(Just jumping off your post)

If there is really a fear of getting an unfair trial (should EP be charged for these deaths), her lawyer can petition for a judge-only trial. If the judge agrees, it will be granted.

Eg: Simon Gittany requested a judge-only trial in NSW. for the murder of his girlfriend, Lisa Harnum, in a highly publicised manner (threw her off their 15th-floor apartment balcony in broad daylight). It was granted. He was convicted, strictly according to the evidence and the law.

But what happens in Australia is that once a person is charged, sub judice goes into effect. Which means that very little is then published in the media. Mostly just scheduled court appearances. No prior bad behaviours are allowed to be mentioned. Nothing that will taint a jury pool.

Then by the time the case finally gets to court, a year or two later, some other subject is generally occupying social media speculation. imo
 
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Deputy Commissioner Steendam was highly critical of the fact Ms Patterson's statement had been covered by the press.

Speaking to the ABC on Thursday morning, the Deputy Commissioner said reporting on the statement may have hindered authorities' ongoing investigation into the matter.

"Working on an investigation through the media is unhelpful to our investigation," she said.

"The matter needs to be dealt with by us, looked at (by) us, and determined by us thoroughly what's actually occurred, and using the evidence that we have to determine and understand exactly what's happened and if we can explain what caused the deaths."

She said the statement was not an official police document, as it was prepared and provided by Ms Patterson's legal team.

Deputy Commissioner Steendam warned on Thursday that the inquiry into the deaths of Ms Patterson's relatives would be lengthy and added that police had been "very clear" in informing the public they were yet to determine the cause.

"We're keeping an open mind about what has actually occurred," she said.

August 17th,


www.skynews.com.au

'Unhelpful': Vic Police blasts media over mushroom chef coverage

Media coverage of a statement given to police by the woman who cooked a mushroom meal that is believed to have killed three people in regional Victoria was "unhelpful", the state's Deputy Police Commissioner Wendy Steendam has claimed.
www.skynews.com.au www.skynews.com.au
 
SouthAussie said:
If there is really a fear of getting an unfair trial (should EP be charged for these deaths), her lawyer can petition for a judge-only trial. If the judge agrees, it will be granted.

Eg: Simon Gittany requested a judge-only trial in NSW. for the murder of his girlfriend in a highly publicised manner (threw her off their apartment balcony in broad daylight). It was granted. He was convicted, strictly according to the evidence and the law.

But what happens in Australia is that once a person is charged, sub judice goes into effect. Which means that very little is then published in the media. Mostly just scheduled court appearances. No prior bad behaviours are allowed to be mentioned. Nothing that will taint a jury pool.

Then by the time the case finally gets to court, a year or two later, some other subject is generally occupying social media speculation. imo
Click to expand...
Source is here

 
Regarding the different houses EP bought and sold over the years I *think* the rough timeline is this:

EP sold her mother’s house in 2019. At that time she bought a house and flipped it after seven months for an 85k profit.

She also bought land on which she eventually built her current house.

In the interim she bought the Mt. Waverley house (the one with the graffiti on the dining room wall). She sold that house in August 2022. There’s no date I could find for when she actually moved into her current house.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Fatal mushroom cook's multimillion property portfolio

The woman who cooked the beef wellington pie with Death Cap mushrooms has a multimillion dollar property portfolio funded by an oceanfront property inherited from her mother.
www.dailymail.co.uk www.dailymail.co.uk
 
kittythehare said:
Source is here

Click to expand...

Yes, I read the article. Thanks. :)

It is an ongoing argument, in just about every high profile case. The courts are learning to deal with a social media onslaught by spacing the trial from the arrest, the use of sub judice in the intervening period, and by restricting what a jury can listen to/look at, once a jury is selected. And, of course, by careful jury selection.

imo

Just to add: due to sub judice, the media get all they can into the public eye before any sub judice starts (before anyone is charged), then they get all they can into the pubic eye after the case has concluded. Also publishing whatever a judge allows during the trial.
 
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MsMarple said:
Regarding the different houses EP bought and sold over the years I *think* the rough timeline is this:

EP sold her mother’s house in 2019. At that time she bought a house and flipped it after seven months for an 85k profit.

She also bought land on which she eventually built her current house.

In the interim she bought the Mt. Waverley house (the one with the graffiti on the dining room wall). She sold that house in August 2022. There’s no date I could find for when she actually moved into her current house.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Fatal mushroom cook's multimillion property portfolio

The woman who cooked the beef wellington pie with Death Cap mushrooms has a multimillion dollar property portfolio funded by an oceanfront property inherited from her mother.
www.dailymail.co.uk www.dailymail.co.uk
Click to expand...
I believe she still owns the Mount Waverley home. The house she sold (with the wall scribblings) was in Korumburra.
 
Observe_dont_Absorb said:
I'm waiting to hear more evidence and facts as this case is so strange.

However, taken on face value, if I were to believe that EP deliberately harmed her guests, it would seem to me that:

- she was beyond caring what becomes of her and did it in a state of vengeful rage and abject despair knowing full well she can never get away with it but feeling at the end of her life (possibly this could be true if somehow her children had already turned against her and expressed a desire not to live with her - otherwise she surely wouldn't risk losing her children just to exact rage?)

- or, she only wanted to make them a bit sickly or maybe die of organ failure slowly over the years and didn't expect people to literally die in the space of days

- or, she's so far gone arrogant and lacking in any form of empathy that she could be considered sociopathic and killed because a) she wanted to and b) she was arrogant enough to believe she wouldn't be detected c) she wanted to 'remove' the people from the equation in quite a logical manner = these traits would equal sociopathic personality
Click to expand...

The reason we don’t know the truth and are chewing on the same is because SM has no more information. I can guess why. It is a complicated case, and i can tell it without the details. Poison. Even if the causative agent is confirmed, and the food is identified, poisons are a hard thing to trace. Even more so to prove. "I collect whiskey, lots of people gift bottles to me, how the heck do I remember who..." or, "I love coffee, buy it everywhere, from Starbucks to any local grocery chain, recently bought one with Lions Mane mushrooms, go check all these places", or even "heck knows where this rice came from". Unless you virtually catch a person adding the poison, it is hard to prove. I am hopeful they will, because after all, this was an attack on four senior citizens. It has an additional load. But it might split into several civil cases.
 
ch_13 said:
I believe she still owns the Mount Waverley home. The house she sold (with the wall scribblings) was in Korumburra.
Click to expand...
Ah thanks, that makes more sense! Is the Mt. Waverley house one where SP is/was living?

ETA: I seen now that the DM article said EP bought 3 properties in addition to the land where her current house is. I missed it.
 
MsMarple said:
Ah thanks, that makes more sense! Is the Mt. Waverley house one where SP is/was living?

ETA: I seen now that the DM article said EP bought 3 properties in addition to the land where her current house is. I missed it.
Click to expand...

EP and her husband also owned a home in Quinninup, WA, which might have been the start of their rolling property purchases. If they sold that home at a good profit.

Homes in that area (now) are going for $995,000 .... $1,500,000 ... and some at the low end of $255,000 or so.

domain.com.au
 
SouthAussie said:
EP and her husband also owned a home in Quinninup, WA, which might have been the start of their rolling property purchases. If they sold that home at a good profit.

Homes in that area (now) are going for $995,000 .... $1,500,000 ... and some at the low end of $255,000 or so.

domain.com.au
Click to expand...
Crazy real estate right now, eh? I’m looking to move back to Miami and prices are insane there too.

I could easily see the division of property in a divorce causing much angst between the parties. Of course we don’t know if that’s already settled. MOO
 
Charlot123 said:
The reason we don’t know the truth and are chewing on the same is because SM has no more information. I can guess why. It is a complicated case, and i can tell it without the details. Poison. Even if the causative agent is confirmed, and the food is identified, poisons are a hard thing to trace. Even more so to prove. "I collect whiskey, lots of people gift bottles to me, how the heck do I remember who..." or, "I love coffee, buy it everywhere, from Starbucks to any local grocery chain, recently bought one with Lions Mane mushrooms, go check all these places", or even "heck knows where this rice came from". Unless you virtually catch a person adding the poison, it is hard to prove. I am hopeful they will, because after all, this was an attack on four senior citizens. It has an additional load. But it might split into several civil cases.
Click to expand...

Prior to any civil cases, it is likely the case would be put before the Vic Coronial Court, at an inquest, so a Coroner can weigh in with their opinion.

If the deaths remain 'unexplained', this would be the normal route the case would take.

The Coroner's job is to try to work out what happened in unexplained deaths, and to make recommendations about how to prevent those deaths in the future, and/or recommend charges against anyone who may have been (in the Coroner's opinion) responsible for the deaths.

The police then may or may not criminally prosecute the case (if the Coroner thinks an identifiable person is involved). Probably dependent on the prosecutor's opinion whether the case is winnable or not.

imo
 
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I've had some further thoughts about the conversation at the hospital and the dumping of the dehydrator. In previous posts I thought it was somewhat unlikely that SP said what EP said he said, and rather unlikely that he said it while he knew his parents were dying. I am now thinking that SP did say it and it was a set-up between SP and police. That SP, immediately suspicious, told police that EP foraged mushrooms and used the dehydrator to dry them. Police asked SP to suggest to EP that the dehydrator was used in poisoning the guests, so that they could see what she did. The reasoning being that if the dehydrator had not been used, EP would want it preserved in its current state, not, for example, soaked in bleach overnight or buried in the garden. But if it had been used there might be some interesting, incriminating activity. However, as other posters have pointed out, the prompt dumping of the dehydrator can bear other explanations.
 
JLZ said:
I've had some further thoughts about the conversation at the hospital and the dumping of the dehydrator. In previous posts I thought it was somewhat unlikely that SP said what EP said he said, and rather unlikely that he said it while he knew his parents were dying. I am now thinking that SP did say it and it was a set-up between SP and police. That SP, immediately suspicious, told police that EP foraged mushrooms and used the dehydrator to dry them. Police asked SP to suggest to EP that the dehydrator was used in poisoning the guests, so that they could see what she did. The reasoning being that if the dehydrator had not been used, EP would want it preserved in its current state, not, for example, soaked in bleach overnight or buried in the garden. But if it had been used there might be some interesting, incriminating activity. However, as other posters have pointed out, the prompt dumping of the dehydrator can bear other explanations.
Click to expand...
not working for me. Police would just go and get a warrant, they wouldn't involve him.
They did go get a warrant but not until the Saturday afterwards.
She could have just cleaned it.
We don't know what day the conversation took place in the hospital.
 
JLZ said:
I've had some further thoughts about the conversation at the hospital and the dumping of the dehydrator. In previous posts I thought it was somewhat unlikely that SP said what EP said he said, and rather unlikely that he said it while he knew his parents were dying. I am now thinking that SP did say it and it was a set-up between SP and police. That SP, immediately suspicious, told police that EP foraged mushrooms and used the dehydrator to dry them. Police asked SP to suggest to EP that the dehydrator was used in poisoning the guests, so that they could see what she did. The reasoning being that if the dehydrator had not been used, EP would want it preserved in its current state, not, for example, soaked in bleach overnight or buried in the garden. But if it had been used there might be some interesting, incriminating activity. However, as other posters have pointed out, the prompt dumping of the dehydrator can bear other explanations.
Click to expand...
But wouldn't everybody be some sort of a POI at that point? What if the police considered, for instance, that the two of them were in on it together? I can't see them bringing him into the investigation.
 
SouthAussie said:
Prior to any civil cases, it is likely the case would be put before the Vic Coronial Court, at an inquest, so a Coroner can weigh in with their opinion.

If the deaths remain 'unexplained', this would be the normal route the case would take.

The Coroner's job is to try to work out what happened in unexplained deaths, and to make recommendations about how to prevent those deaths in the future, and/or recommend charges against anyone who may have been (in the Coroner's opinion) responsible for the deaths.

The police then may or may not criminally prosecute the case (if the Coroner thinks an identifiable person is involved). Probably dependent on the prosecutor's opinion whether the case is winnable or not.

imo
Click to expand...
how soon is the Coroners Court likely to know?
 
kittythehare said:
not working for me. Police would just go and get a warrant, they wouldn't involve him.
They did go get a warrant but not until the Saturday afterwards.
She could have just cleaned it.
We don't know what day the conversation took place in the hospital.
Click to expand...
I'd assume it had already been washed in the ordinary way. The idea was to see if she'd be panicked into something excessive.
 
Forest_Wood said:
But wouldn't everybody be some sort of a POI at that point? What if the police considered, for instance, that the two of them were in on it together? I can't see them bringing him into the investigation.
Click to expand...
It isn't compromising anything for police to reply to SP, why don't you mention it to her, see what she says/does.
 
JLZ said:
I'd assume it had already been washed in the ordinary way. The idea was to see if she'd be panicked into something excessive.
Click to expand...
She was.
But no way to know whether it was the effect of his words on her psyche because she was emotionally genuinely devastated or she feared leaving it around lest somebody else interfere with it.
I don't know what size it was, many are quite tiny.
She could have just binned it in her own refuse.
Unless she felt it would not be safe there either.
From who though?
I have no idea.
 
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