Australia - 3 dead after eating wild mushrooms, Leongatha, Victoria, Aug 2023 #11 *Arrest*

[JBowie]

Wait, didn't the prosecution get 5 weeks?

They didn't get 5 weeks of EP on the stand. To date they have zero minutes of that.

 

[seekingjustice**]

Did Erin divide 5 filets 8 ways? Or did she already have filets from her freezer? Did she prepare two full meals and hadn't yet decided how to play it?

Jmo

I wonder if the deciding factor was whether Simon turned up or not. If he did, he might possibly have been the only victim, and then she would have the family all to herself and get rid of her 'problem'. Plan B was to pay him back for not turning up.

 

[Detechtive]

I agree but what if it were banking details, passwords saved on phone, etc.

You've got no right to remove evidence from your phone in a homicide investigation.

 

[Warshawski]

Her defence have versed her well. She's going to walk, I'm telling you.

IMO she’s doing a pretty amazing job on the stand.

She’s been carefully setting the scenario all along the way.

Her story had to start at the beginning imo to give maximum opportunity to get the emotional buy-in that she needed, as different things resonate with different people & on different levels. It’s been interspersed with just the right amount of sniffles & tears for those so inclined (noting she only needs it from 3 jury members to be safe, 2 balloted off leaves her 1 supporter)

* after a less than ideal childhood, a solid friendship with Simon developed over considerable time into love and marriage ( nothing frivolous there )

* there’s a tug at heart strings when announcing that her parents didn’t attend their wedding as her parents were On A Train in Russia ( no mention of her sister)

* there’s a nod toward her care & consideration of Heather & Ian - got married elsewhere so Heather & Ian could relax instead of being responsible for the Ceremony

* at this point she becomes the recipient of a substantial inheritance - the full realisation of which will take some time to come to fruition due to all the property to be sold, however it sets them up to embark on Simon’s travel dreams ( a kind, supportive & generous wife )

* there’s acknowledgment of her relationship with & her love of Gail / her in-laws in talking about how they came to WA and stayed in other accommodation in order to help her after her first born

* another tug at the heart strings - this time of any woman who’s has a traumatic birth, and also any man who thinks a relatively normal birth is traumatic, since they have no idea!

* also let’s be sure to announce her battle with postnatal depression - and the extremes it pushed her too. She had to fly back to Perth & leave her husband to cope with a 9 month old, while driving across the country! .. only for him to be banished from the cottage she’d rented in the interim. Such was the toll she was enduring.

* we heard about her efforts to get ahead, with her foray into a 2nd Hand Book Shop & how she travelled all over to source stock. … must have been so exhausting but hey, them’s the levels you go to when fair dinkum ! (or were they leisurely day trip outing with her little one I wonder )

* but things got better & she got pregnant again, and the family moved back to Vic, to the warm arms of her in-laws and the comfort of a room in their home ( until they got a rental themselves)

To me it appears that as the inheritance started to flow, she busied herself with home & child duties while investing in more property & planning their trips, both intra & external to Australia. Simon I think was busy now in his engineering role.

* and she was so generous to Simon’s siblings, giving both of them considerable interest-free funds ( with open ended pay back) to enable each to purchase a home.

* things started to fall apart again, after a few separations, those independent living conditions became permanent in 2015, when they did an informal division of assets.

* she enjoys Mushrooms, they are healthy and through seeing them growing in the wild she’s developed a fascination for them.

* she did forage mushrooms and spent a lot of time educating herself on the various species.

* she did buy dried ‘wild mushrooms’ from the Asian grocers, one lot was particularly pungent when she was going to use, so she put them back in the pantry.

* she then got a dehydrator and started experimenting with drying them herself

* she stored her dried mushrooms in containers in her pantry, adding each batch to the other ( subtle suggestion here of all the dried mushrooms possibly getting mixed together imo)

* planting in the quite feasible body image issue with eating disorders, since she needed a reason not to die like everyone else after the BW lunch ( which was followed by cake & fruit which her guests brought for desert)

I recall son saying when he & his mate got home there was cake & fruit on the table - I think mate took some fruit.

* unbeknown to anyone else according to EP, she Binges & is Bulimic ( as a result of the way her mother treated her as a child ) so she ate lunch + 3/4 of the cake - then vomited it up (as she often does apparently)

* but she had the runs next day & had to use a bush by the road on trip to flying lessons !! Oh No, poor thing !
( No mention of that from the children but good cover for the 9 second Servo toilet visit. We figured it was hiding some sort of evidence )

* said her kids don’t like mushrooms so she scraped them off the leftovers that she gave them ( guess people do do things differently)

Having said all that, and despite how well I think she’s research and prepared, I do think there have been a few little contradictions & I will be interested to see / hear how she handles the cross by the prosecutor.

As of now, I’m ‘betwixt & between’ when it comes to making a call on the outcome. Currently I believe she planned to kill them, however I think there may be elements of empathy / sympathy creep into some members of the Jury, which may impact their judgement.
We also don’t know what the final directions will be as to whether there may be a range of options at the disposal on which to rule, or if it’s only 1st degree murder. I’ll suggest that if manslaughter is on the table, that will be the ruling.

All just my own personal opinion.

 

[Warshawski]

I know you're in the USA Katy, where social welfare is very different to here. In Aus, child support and family tax benefit is generally NOT means tested. It is income-based. So yeah, theoretically someone with $5-8m in assets could still get it.

But i think the important point here is that it was *only* 15k a year. It is not a lot of money when you consider the kids school fees were 40k+ a year. Simon was paying those prior. Her math is illogical. I think she threatened the child support and family tax benefit to make him comply, rather than having done the math - because, she was an accountant, she surely knew she wouldn't be eligible for much from Simon, but I think she tried to threaten him which didn't work.. he seemed disengaged and called her bluff (perhaps, finally?) "Go right ahead Erin, you will be worse off if you take that tactic with me..." (is what i imagined him projecting to her).

This may help:

https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/why-you-need-to-apply-for-child-support-while-you-get-ftb-part?context=22151

 

[Warshawski]

Is this the photo that Tom May said had the characteristics of death cap mushrooms?

imo

This is where the ‘accidental’ comes in, IMO. It’s majorly important to sow that seed as that’s their only defence

 

[Warshawski]

Not to mention (1) that she was initially charged with 3 counts of attempting to murder him, and (2) his near death experience after one of her meals (16 days in an induced coma).

Frankly, I can't work him out.

“I collapsed at home, then was in an induced coma for 16 days through which I had three emergency operations mainly on my small intestine, plus an additional planned operation,” he wrote.

“My family were asked to come and say goodbye to me twice, as I was not expected to live.

https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/news/mushroom-chefs-exhusband-reaches-out-to-locals-after-nearly-dying-from-mystery-illness-last-year/news-story/7c5bea17efbb5046040f9dac4251888d

IMO - Police have decided better to prove her culpability here first, as this is the only case they have compelling test results to substantiate their claims again her.

IF they get a conviction here, they may then bring back the other charges re Simon - or not

 

[Cedars]

IMO she’s doing a pretty amazing job on the stand.

She’s been carefully setting the scenario all along the way.

Her story had to start at the beginning imo to give maximum opportunity to get the emotional buy-in that she needed, as different things resonate with different people & on different levels. It’s been interspersed with just the right amount of sniffles & tears for those so inclined (noting she only needs it from 3 jury members to be safe, 2 balloted off leaves her 1 supporter)

* after a less than ideal childhood, a solid friendship with Simon developed over considerable time into love and marriage ( nothing frivolous there )

* there’s a tug at heart strings when announcing that her parents didn’t attend their wedding as her parents were On A Train in Russia ( no mention of her sister)

* there’s a nod toward her care & consideration of Heather & Ian - got married elsewhere so Heather & Ian could relax instead of being responsible for the Ceremony

* at this point she becomes the recipient of a substantial inheritance - the full realisation of which will take some time to come to fruition due to all the property to be sold, however it sets them up to embark on Simon’s travel dreams ( a kind, supportive & generous wife )

* there’s acknowledgment of her relationship with & her love of Gail / her in-laws in talking about how they came to WA and stayed in other accommodation in order to help her after her first born

* another tug at the heart strings - this time of any woman who’s has a traumatic birth, and also any man who thinks a relatively normal birth is traumatic, since they have no idea!

* also let’s be sure to announce her battle with postnatal depression - and the extremes it pushed her too. She had to fly back to Perth & leave her husband to cope with a 9 month old, while driving across the country! .. only for him to be banished from the cottage she’d rented in the interim. Such was the toll she was enduring.

* we heard about her efforts to get ahead, with her foray into a 2nd Hand Book Shop & how she travelled all over to source stock. … must have been so exhausting but hey, them’s the levels you go to when fair dinkum ! (or were they leisurely day trip outing with her little one I wonder )

* but things got better & she got pregnant again, and the family moved back to Vic, to the warm arms of her in-laws and the comfort of a room in their home ( until they got a rental themselves)

To me it appears that as the inheritance started to flow, she busied herself with home & child duties while investing in more property & planning their trips, both intra & external to Australia. Simon I think was busy now in his engineering role.

* and she was so generous to Simon’s siblings, giving both of them considerable interest-free funds ( with open ended pay back) to enable each to purchase a home.

* things started to fall apart again, after a few separations, those independent living conditions became permanent in 2015, when they did an informal division of assets.

* she enjoys Mushrooms, they are healthy and through seeing them growing in the wild she’s developed a fascination for them.

* she did forage mushrooms and spent a lot of time educating herself on the various species.

* she did buy dried ‘wild mushrooms’ from the Asian grocers, one lot was particularly pungent when she was going to use, so she put them back in the pantry.

* she then got a dehydrator and started experimenting with drying them herself

* she stored her dried mushrooms in containers in her pantry, adding each batch to the other ( subtle suggestion here of all the dried mushrooms possibly getting mixed together imo)

* planting in the quite feasible body image issue with eating disorders, since she needed a reason not to die like everyone else after the BW lunch ( which was followed by cake & fruit which her guests brought for desert)

I recall son saying when he & his mate got home there was cake & fruit on the table - I think mate took some fruit.

* unbeknown to anyone else according to EP, she Binges & is Bulimic ( as a result of the way her mother treated her as a child ) so she ate lunch + 3/4 of the cake - then vomited it up (as she often does apparently)

* but she had the runs next day & had to use a bush by the road on trip to flying lessons !! Oh No, poor thing !
( No mention of that from the children but good cover for the 9 second Servo toilet visit. We figured it was hiding some sort of evidence )

* said her kids don’t like mushrooms so she scraped them off the leftovers that she gave them ( guess people do do things differently)

Having said all that, and despite how well I think she’s research and prepared, I do think there have been a few little contradictions & I will be interested to see / hear how she handles the cross by the prosecutor.

As of now, I’m ‘betwixt & between’ when it comes to making a call on the outcome. Currently I believe she planned to kill them, however I think there may be elements of empathy / sympathy creep into some members of the Jury, which may impact their judgement.
We also don’t know what the final directions will be as to whether there may be a range of options at the disposal on which to rule, or if it’s only 1st degree murder. I’ll suggest that if manslaughter is on the table, that will be the ruling.

All just my own personal opinion.

Yes, these are the factual details laid out in print.

But remember, the jury aren't reading a document, they're listening and looking at her. Her thought processes, speaking tone, emotional mood, facial expressions are extremely impactful on whether the jury finds her story 'reasonable', ie believable. The fact she's admitted she frequently lies, for example, is going to undermine confidence that her story is 'the whole truth'.

What she says may be true to her, but it's what she leaves out...eg, that the tupperware of death caps was deliberately added.

 

[Warshawski]

It’s not really a challenging/ traumatising life story at all IMO

Yes maybe her birth family wasn’t close to her and she carried some trauma from it but she found a loving man who still supported her after their break up (yet not to the extend she wanted to), she had two healthy children that she was close to. She was left A LOT of money that gave her complete financial freedom.

She could have chosen such a different path for her life past the separation but didn’t.

IMO it’s completely on her what she has chosen to make of it and there is nothing challenging/ traumatising about her adult life

lol - did you see my inverted commas around the words (challenging/ traumatising )

 

[Megnut]

I really want them to ask just one question, to start with. The question @SouthAussie asked previously.

"Where is Phone A, Erin?"

And give her three days of never answering.

JMO

 

[ch_13]

Patterson confirms she went to Subway but says video evidence is not her​

The mother-of-three told the court that on the day of the fatal lunch, she took her son to a Subway restaurant so he could get some “dinner”.

The court was then shown a photo from the Subway restaurant, with Ms Patterson saying she didn’t recognise the person in the image and denied that the subject was her son due to the sports clothing he was wearing.

She was shown a video of a car leaving the Subway restaurant and then coming back.

“My memory is that I waited for him (her son) in the car park,” Ms Patterson said.

The state could call her bluff on this. Show her video/photos of every car and every person who entered or left the Subway that evening. Ask her which one was her and her son. If she can't identify herself then she can only claim that the footage has gone missing.

 

[Megnut]

Did Erin have reason to believe (secret knowledge) that after 48 hours the toxin wouldn't be detectable?

So much stalling.

 

[MsMarple]

I am not one to freak out or "panic" under pressure, but if I thought that I had accidentally poisoned anyone, and especially people I really cared about, in particular my children, I can't imagine the turmoil I would be in and I wouldn't be able to sleep until I had figured it out and assisted in every single way possible. I wouldn't have slept for days. I would be holding bedside vigils and apologising profusely and assisting police and medical staff as much as humanly possible.

I noticed Erin had good sleeping routines after she was aware her meal had caused 4 elderly people "she loved" to be hospitalised and in the ICU within 24 hours of her 'special lunch'.

I can't get my mind around it, other than to think that she has the empathy of concrete.

Same here; my “panic” would be more about doing whatever I could in order to save my loved ones, not working hard to confuse and misdirect the doctors.

Erin’s over the top sense of self preservation at the cost of 4 innocent people turns my stomach. Does it prove intent? Not on its own but when her other behaviors come into play it paints a dire picture.

Do people react differently in an emergency? Sure. Do most decide to chuck the well being of their alleged loved ones in order to escape responsibility? I don’t know but Erin sure did.

I wonder how all the people she threw under the bus, especially Ian, feel? I wonder what her relationships with her remaining in-laws would be like if she’s found not guilty? Where would she go for that desperately needed sense of being loved? Would they all take her back and surround her with their support? Even good Christians can reach a breaking point. JMO

 

[Baby baby Jane]

In witness box … ErinErinErin has an answer to everything.
I predict that on cross examination she will have a lot of emotion and memory loss.

Things I would ponder -
1. Why is EP so obsessed with mushrooms…. They have lately become a “superfoood” “packed” with nutrition. But really, no one’s life is going to change from having powdered and chopped mushrooms added to everything. They are simply not that nutritious.
2. Supermarket mushrooms are always available & mostly inexpensive - why dry these?
3. Foraged mushrooms - why did she combine them? Foraged mushrooms are the kind of thing you would label (type, date, location?) - so you would know what you have for your recipe. Especially since you have sliced & dried, they would lose identity.
4. She tasted the duxelles - it was bland, she addded the DC - did she not taste it again? Ingesting the DC hours before the lunch, hours before bulimia-vomiting. It would not be huge amount but she would defo have tried it.
4. Second dose of DC …Then she got a second amount, in her GI tract for … dessert with the group, saying good bye, talking to her returning child, eating an almost whole cake. An hour at least? Vomit a A full clear out?
5. Smugly … the police missed the phones and didn’t switch off so I wiped it …. And so DID NOT Cooperate with the investigation! EP kept the secret til trial?
6. Pooping in the woods … seriously and put the tissue it in a bag and put it in handbag & dispose at petrol station? Poo in a dog poo bag still stinks and every dog owner knows this. she’s driving with diarrhea smell and son never mentions? She also forgot to mention washing her hands at petrol station - because she didn’t.
She was chucking the poisoned Beef Wellington leftovers. And her son did not mention poo in the woods.

IMO
She wanted Simon back. With no in-laws controlling him, or praying … he would be desperate and want his family back. He would have no one … but Erin to take care of him in his grief, (he would see how good she is..)

 

[browneyes]

IMO she’s doing a pretty amazing job on the stand.

She’s been carefully setting the scenario all along the way.

Her story had to start at the beginning imo to give maximum opportunity to get the emotional buy-in that she needed, as different things resonate with different people & on different levels. It’s been interspersed with just the right amount of sniffles & tears for those so inclined (noting she only needs it from 3 jury members to be safe, 2 balloted off leaves her 1 supporter)

* after a less than ideal childhood, a solid friendship with Simon developed over considerable time into love and marriage ( nothing frivolous there )

* there’s a tug at heart strings when announcing that her parents didn’t attend their wedding as her parents were On A Train in Russia ( no mention of her sister)

* there’s a nod toward her care & consideration of Heather & Ian - got married elsewhere so Heather & Ian could relax instead of being responsible for the Ceremony

* at this point she becomes the recipient of a substantial inheritance - the full realisation of which will take some time to come to fruition due to all the property to be sold, however it sets them up to embark on Simon’s travel dreams ( a kind, supportive & generous wife )

* there’s acknowledgment of her relationship with & her love of Gail / her in-laws in talking about how they came to WA and stayed in other accommodation in order to help her after her first born

* another tug at the heart strings - this time of any woman who’s has a traumatic birth, and also any man who thinks a relatively normal birth is traumatic, since they have no idea!

* also let’s be sure to announce her battle with postnatal depression - and the extremes it pushed her too. She had to fly back to Perth & leave her husband to cope with a 9 month old, while driving across the country! .. only for him to be banished from the cottage she’d rented in the interim. Such was the toll she was enduring.

* we heard about her efforts to get ahead, with her foray into a 2nd Hand Book Shop & how she travelled all over to source stock. … must have been so exhausting but hey, them’s the levels you go to when fair dinkum ! (or were they leisurely day trip outing with her little one I wonder )

* but things got better & she got pregnant again, and the family moved back to Vic, to the warm arms of her in-laws and the comfort of a room in their home ( until they got a rental themselves)

To me it appears that as the inheritance started to flow, she busied herself with home & child duties while investing in more property & planning their trips, both intra & external to Australia. Simon I think was busy now in his engineering role.

* and she was so generous to Simon’s siblings, giving both of them considerable interest-free funds ( with open ended pay back) to enable each to purchase a home.

* things started to fall apart again, after a few separations, those independent living conditions became permanent in 2015, when they did an informal division of assets.

* she enjoys Mushrooms, they are healthy and through seeing them growing in the wild she’s developed a fascination for them.

* she did forage mushrooms and spent a lot of time educating herself on the various species.

* she did buy dried ‘wild mushrooms’ from the Asian grocers, one lot was particularly pungent when she was going to use, so she put them back in the pantry.

* she then got a dehydrator and started experimenting with drying them herself

* she stored her dried mushrooms in containers in her pantry, adding each batch to the other ( subtle suggestion here of all the dried mushrooms possibly getting mixed together imo)

* planting in the quite feasible body image issue with eating disorders, since she needed a reason not to die like everyone else after the BW lunch ( which was followed by cake & fruit which her guests brought for desert)

I recall son saying when he & his mate got home there was cake & fruit on the table - I think mate took some fruit.

* unbeknown to anyone else according to EP, she Binges & is Bulimic ( as a result of the way her mother treated her as a child ) so she ate lunch + 3/4 of the cake - then vomited it up (as she often does apparently)

* but she had the runs next day & had to use a bush by the road on trip to flying lessons !! Oh No, poor thing !
( No mention of that from the children but good cover for the 9 second Servo toilet visit. We figured it was hiding some sort of evidence )

* said her kids don’t like mushrooms so she scraped them off the leftovers that she gave them ( guess people do do things differently)

Having said all that, and despite how well I think she’s research and prepared, I do think there have been a few little contradictions & I will be interested to see / hear how she handles the cross by the prosecutor.

As of now, I’m ‘betwixt & between’ when it comes to making a call on the outcome. Currently I believe she planned to kill them, however I think there may be elements of empathy / sympathy creep into some members of the Jury, which may impact their judgement.
We also don’t know what the final directions will be as to whether there may be a range of options at the disposal on which to rule, or if it’s only 1st degree murder. I’ll suggest that if manslaughter is on the table, that will be the ruling.

All just my own personal opinion.

IMHO, almost all of the above is irrelevant and self serving to the charges she faces. This information is more for mitigation during sentencing, if convicted. Lots of people have disappointments and hard lives and don’t go on to serve a lunch that killed 3 family members and seriously damaged another. If she truly cared about family and being close, she would have cooperated from the beginning and possibly saved their lives instead of bull-stuffing around to save herself. Boo Hoo…Erin hasn’t had a life she loves. So many people are affected forever due to her fateful lunch. It cannot be forgotten that Simon was a target too. JMO

 

[Megnut]

Observation: even testifying, Simon painted Erin in the gentlest colors. Perhaps because he's mindful of his children... taking the high road.

Erin, however, isn't missing an opportunity to blame him for all of what ails her.

Her true colors are showing through.

JMO

 

[ch_13]

IMO she’s doing a pretty amazing job on the stand.

Rsbm.

I would suggest holding off on any conclusion about how she's doing on the stand until she faces cross. It's easy to tell a well-rehearsed tale to a sympathetic questioner. But keeping one's story straight while under an intense interrogation is another matter.

 

[browneyes]

Did they finish direct yesterday? <fingerscrossed>

 

[ch_13]

Did they finish direct yesterday? <fingerscrossed>

I believe Mandy said that he still had some more to cover but would be finished by Thursday morning.

I wonder if he'll ask about the statement that Erin released about one month after the poisonings. In it she was still claiming that the mushrooms were store-bought and not foraged.

 

[Megnut]

Did they finish direct yesterday? <fingerscrossed>

Oh,  she's finished. But no, he's not done with his direct. I can't imagine what's left for her to say but she's going to say it anyway. I think she thinks she sounds credible which I find incredible.

I hope she brought a cork for cross.

JMO