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

[SMK777]

I also agree that the father is a “victim” but according to MSM, the couple’s children have been ‘taken into care’ which suggests to me that the children were not placed in the care of their father. IMO.

To me, this makes me think, well perhaps the police are exploring a range of scenarios.

All JMO.

It does make you wonder, definitely.
First, they must be leaning toward guilt, or why remove the children at all?
Secondly, why place them into care services, and not with their father?
Of course he may have health issues now that make him ill-suited to care taking.
I’d really like to know what their investigation is revealing.

 

[LacieL]

Don’t get me wrong. It’s definitely suspicious, I just can’t imagine someone going to the trouble of making a beef Wellington only to hide poisonous mushrooms in it. She could have made something so much easier! Moo

I’ve been thinking on this.

She could have picked a complicated dish that would take a long time to prepare so that the preparation would feel like performing a ritual?

That would mean it was definitely very thought out. I’m not sure. An idea.

 

[imstilla.grandma]

Korumburra and Leongatha sit in Victoria's lush and green South Gippsland region

In Korumburra, Ian Wilkinson was the Baptist minister who also worked as a handyman at the local retirement village.

Heather worked at the Milpara Korumburra Community House where she taught English as a second language, while the Pattersons had run the local paper, the Burra Flyer.

In this small dairy town, the headlines about their deaths are deeply personal.

Here, the unanswered questions are less of a focus. Instead, people are dealing with the raw grief of losing friends, colleagues, community leaders and family members.

Jenni Keerie is a South Gippsland local councillor who also manages the community house that Heather had worked at for the past eight years.

*more at link:

Grief grips a small town in Victoria's south-east, while questions over deadly mushrooms remain

A rural community stunned by the sudden loss of friends following suspected mushroom poisoning is grappling with its grief, while under the unfamiliar gaze of national and international media.

www.abc.net.au

 

[RickshawFan]

Oh yes you're right, that looks very odd, she does it for both ears. I'm trying to think when I do that, it almost feels like a preparation or clearing of the face for something imminent, where hair will get in the way.

It's interesting to watch the video with the sound off.

I think her extended gaze upwards, towards the heavens, looks designed to suggest something spiritual about her nature too, but it seems exaggerated to me. JMO

I think she does it when she's about to go into acting mode, sorta like when you're about to make an announcement, just before you step up to a podium, when you imminently have to focus hard, etc.

 

[imstilla.grandma]

 

[Friday Fan]

She doesn't seem like a very sympathetic, likeable person
I still don't know how this will play out.

I think it's hard to prove intent without more evidence. (Such as internet searches on how to do this etc)

But I don't live in Australia

 

[Jess M.]

White gills probably kills.
KILLER Mushroom Deaths in Australia Explained/Piers Morgan Uncensored.

 

[Jess M.]

She doesn't seem like a very sympathetic, likeable person
I still don't know how this will play out.

I think it's hard to prove intent without more evidence. (Such as internet searches on how to do this etc)

But I don't live in Australia

The police have her phone and computer. Her search history might prove interesting...

 

[imstilla.grandma]

When first taking over The Burra Flyer from her then husband’s parents in 2018, Erin Patterson gushed over her “extraordinarily generous” in-laws and thanked them for their help.

The 2019 September-November edition of the newsletter included details of a local workshop teaching people in the community how to grow their own mushrooms.

In the Korumburra workshop people would be taught “how to grow gourmet mushrooms at home using easy to source materials and low-tech methods”.

“The class includes making your own oyster mushroom grow bag to take home, teaching notes and a delicious afternoon tea,” the notice in the newsletter read.

A mushroom growing workshop was advertised in The Burra Flyer. Picture: The Burra Flyer

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/coincidental-detail-in-local-newsletter-edited-by-erin-patterson-years-before-mushroom-deaths/news-story/0c6467f0054f2ab3faa442d8dd28bd3d

 

[Eloise]

I also agree that the father is a “victim” but according to MSM, the couple’s children have been ‘taken into care’ which suggests to me that the children were not placed in the care of their father. IMO.

To me, this makes me think, well perhaps the police are exploring a range of scenarios.

All JMO.

I read "removed from her care". I have a feeling that given their age they were probably able to nominate where they went. I've personally had cops show at my door with a teen who chose to come to our place after a massive fight with her mum, she ran off, got picked up by the cops and they asked her to nominate somewhere to go while the stuff with her mum got worked out. She had a dad she had a good relationship with, that's just not where she asked to go (our place was closer, for one thing).

 

[bombardier]

All I know for sure is........this thread is making me awfully hungry!

 

[SMK777]

All I know for sure is........this thread is making me awfully hungry!

I hope not for wild mushrooms.

 

[DFWNF]

I was also putting out there that you could have Munchausen by Proxy with adult victims, for example, in-laws.

I wondered about that. And how far it can extend. Jmo

 

[Jess M.]

When first taking over The Burra Flyer from her then husband’s parents in 2018, Erin Patterson gushed over her “extraordinarily generous” in-laws and thanked them for their help.

The 2019 September-November edition of the newsletter included details of a local workshop teaching people in the community how to grow their own mushrooms.

In the Korumburra workshop people would be taught “how to grow gourmet mushrooms at home using easy to source materials and low-tech methods”.

“The class includes making your own oyster mushroom grow bag to take home, teaching notes and a delicious afternoon tea,” the notice in the newsletter read.

A mushroom growing workshop was advertised in The Burra Flyer. Picture: The Burra Flyer

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/coincidental-detail-in-local-newsletter-edited-by-erin-patterson-years-before-mushroom-deaths/news-story/0c6467f0054f2ab3faa442d8dd28bd3d

I knew as a child that you never eat a mushroom with white gills. I'm sure most country folk would be aware of this...

 

[Jess M.]

I thought the ex Simon was living with his parents, but the Daily Mail says he is living in a house owned by Erin. She must of got a good inheritance from her parents, who BOTH died in 2019...

 

[mickey2942]

I thought the ex Simon was living with his parents, but the Daily Mail says he is living in a house owned by Erin. She must of got a good inheritance from her parents, who BOTH died in 2019...

Odd, I wonder if they had mushrooms for dinner.

Not related to this thread, but some people here in the United States got very sick from eating wild mushrooms too. They had been mushrooms from China, imported and served at a restaurant.

Health officials confirm Dave's Sushi morels were undercooked

The morel mushrooms tied to the Dave’s Sushi food poisoning outbreak in Bozeman this spring were prepared raw or lightly cooked and served to customers, according to a final health

www.bozemandailychronicle.com

 

[SMK777]

Odd, I wonder if they had mushrooms for dinner.

Not related to this thread, but some people here in the United States got very sick from eating wild mushrooms too. They had been mushrooms from China, imported and served at a restaurant.

Health officials confirm Dave's Sushi morels were undercooked

The morel mushrooms tied to the Dave’s Sushi food poisoning outbreak in Bozeman this spring were prepared raw or lightly cooked and served to customers, according to a final health

www.bozemandailychronicle.com

Frightening.

 

[JennieM]

Could Erin Patterson REALLY have poisoned four of her relatives?

RICHARD SHEARS: Three people have died, with another man in a critical condition, after allegedly consuming lethal death cap mushrooms during a family lunch hosted by Erin Patterson.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[JBowie]

I knew as a child that you never eat a mushroom with white gills. I'm sure most country folk would be aware of this...

My parents told us never to even touch anything like that, especially toadstools.

 

[JBowie]

Could Erin Patterson REALLY have poisoned four of her relatives?

RICHARD SHEARS: Three people have died, with another man in a critical condition, after allegedly consuming lethal death cap mushrooms during a family lunch hosted by Erin Patterson.

www.dailymail.co.uk

[bbm]

And then, through tears, she concluded: 'I didn't do anything, I loved them.'

Despite the heartfelt denial, Patterson refused to address where the mushrooms came from, who had picked them or even precisely what meal she had prepared for her guests.

(It would be days before a source close to the family revealed the fateful dish was indeed beef wellington.)

[One of the kids?]

Nor did Patterson reveal why she and her children had not eaten the same meal as their guests.

The only surviving guest, Ian Wilkinson, remains in a critical condition, fighting for his life. Even if he does survive, doctors say that he will require an urgent kidney transplant.

[Most reports that I've read say a liver transplant. Articles on the effects of death cap toxin mention both kidney and liver damage.]

Dressed in a baggy grey jumper and barely able to meet the eyes of the reporters around her, Patterson, portly and middle-aged, protested her innocence.

. . .

Last night, this extraordinary story showed no sign of slowing down. Patterson has since lashed out at the reporters camped outside her property, accusing them of making her a prisoner in her own home.

'I've got tons of friends who want to help [me] but I've told them to stay away while all the vultures are here because they don't want to be in the papers either,' she said.

'So I can't get help from my friends who all want to come and help me but they'll all be subjected to the c**p so do I have to move out of my own home?'

Events tooks a still more surreal turn on Thursday at 10am when Patterson was seen carrying a large suitcase out of the house, telling reporters she was off to meet her lawyers in Melbourne.

Farcically, however, her lawyers were at that moment also waiting outside her home trying to contact her because her electronic devices had been confiscated by police.