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

[Detechtive]

I cannot for the life of me see the relevance of all this padding being provided by Erin with assistance from the leading questions provided by her council. Are they trying to bore the jury to death?

I can’t get my head around it either. It sounds like a sob story, but for what purpose? It doesn’t excuse murder. Are they trying to say she killed them because of her life traumas? Huh!? Make it make sense!

 

[Detechtive]

Bring on the cross examination

 

[Detechtive]

If her testimony is supposed to explain why she discharged herself from hospital her family’s medical history is doing a LOT
of heavy lifting.

Broken down : her daughter had an ovarian mass as a baby which was alarming but benign and didn’t cause any problems. There was some initial scepticism but the right imaging was ordered and no harm was done. Unrelated to that, an abdo X-ray when she was 4 years showed she was “backed up” i.e. constipated,

Erin’s son had a knee injury that was initially managed conservatively with physio and then it was eventually decided he needed an operation.

It’s just so insulting to families with children with severe, ongoing needs to try to claim that these issues were so traumatising for Erin that she couldn’t cope with medical professionals as a consequence.

I actually wondered if Erin’s hypochondria made her fish out a doctor who would finally operate on an otherwise manageable knee issue.

As for her traumatic birth, sounds pretty routine for a c-section situation where they would have previously used forceps and vacuum extraction.

The health anxiety is alarming me when she also includes that she delayed her midwifery and nursing degree because her daughter is sick. Not sick enough she couldn’t go to school full time, though, or to ballet lessons, so what is her illness, I wonder. Hopefully not gastrointestinal issues Or is it Erin conflating illness for control and attention and sympathy, again…

 

[mamamama9873]

I can’t get my head around it either. It sounds like a sob story, but for what purpose? It doesn’t excuse murder. Are they trying to say she killed them because of her life traumas? Huh!? Make it make sense!

If anything it points more to a motive for me personally

 

[MrJ]

I actually wondered if Erin’s hypochondria made her fish out a doctor who would finally operate on an otherwise manageable knee issue.

As for her traumatic birth, sounds pretty routine for a c-section situation where they would have previously used forceps and vacuum extraction.

The health anxiety is alarming me when she also includes that she delayed her midwifery and nursing degree because her daughter is sick. Not sick enough she couldn’t go to school full time, though, or to ballet lessons, so what is her illness, I wonder. Or is it Erin conflating illness again…

Munchausen’s by proxy… shivers

 

[Cliff Hardy]

The defence are trying to make out it is Simon who is on trial here.

No matter how well they succeed with their character assassination of Simon, it doesn't pardon Erin from murdering 3 people and close as darn it to a 4th.

 

[Detechtive]

The defence are trying to make out it is Simon who is on trial here.

No matter how well they succeed with their character assassination of Simon, it doesn't pardon Erin from murdering 3 people and close as darn it to a 4th.

They're not making him out to be a baddie very well. If anything, he sounds like a saint at this point.
He's had two marriage proposals in this thread today alone.

 

[mamamama9873]

When is the Erin show over? I haven’t followed any other trials as closely but is it typical for an accused murdered to detail their life story over several hours?

I wonder if she gets a kick out of it - finally all eyes and attention on her IMO

 

[Marg944]

We have another sketch…..


View attachment 591052

https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/courts-law/erin-patterson-trial-alleged-mushroom-poisoner-set-to-continue-giving-evidence/news-story/893acae94adbeb06096726bc61946b6c

The background of the sketch is a very similar style to the painting called The Scream, by Edvard Munch.

The Scream - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Detechtive]

It's odd that she was a hypochondriac except when her children were suspected to have eaten deadly mushrooms.

 

[Shortfusepsb]

Interesting that she has such an aversion to the medical profession, but was looking to commence studies in Bachelor of Science, Midwifery... which is a medical profession requiring the employed midwife to remain in hospital (except perhaps for lunch breaks).

 

[MrJ]

EP’s testimony so far has had the unintentional effect of portraying her as some kind of emotional leech. Financial as well IMO.

 

[Shortfusepsb]

EP’s testimony so far has had the unintentional effect of portraying her has some kind of emotional leech. Financial as well IMO.

It blows my mind that her defence has allowed her to take the stand. It is NEVER a good idea for the accused to take the stand.

 

[HoneyBunOne]

Omg. Her way to test mushroom toxicity was to taste them?! Eat half of one to see if it's poisonous???? Who does that???

Jmo

Someone in the middle of a research project?

 

[JLZ]

Why is her eating disorder even relevant?! It's like she is making excuses for her weight, too. Nobody cares. IMO

It might be leading up to saying she hardly ate any of the lunch, because she has emotional issues with food and this was a stressful occasion.

 

[JLZ]

The defence are trying to make out it is Simon who is on trial here.

No matter how well they succeed with their character assassination of Simon, it doesn't pardon Erin from murdering 3 people and close as darn it to a 4th.

I wondered if they were trying to present him as a gold-digger, with the first inheritance coming just before they married.

 

[Jess D]

I actually wondered if Erin’s hypochondria made her fish out a doctor who would finally operate on an otherwise manageable knee issue.

As for her traumatic birth, sounds pretty routine for a c-section situation where they would have previously used forceps and vacuum extraction.

The health anxiety is alarming me when she also includes that she delayed her midwifery and nursing degree because her daughter is sick. Not sick enough she couldn’t go to school full time, though, or to ballet lessons, so what is her illness, I wonder. Hopefully not gastrointestinal issues Or is it Erin conflating illness for control and attention and sympathy, again…

There might be a bit of 'Munchausen syndrome by proxy' going on maybe?

 

[drsleuth]

It blows my mind that her defence has allowed her to take the stand. It is NEVER a good idea for the accused to take the stand.

They can't stop her , can only give her advice, which I guess she didn't take

 

[drsleuth]

45m ago04.09 BST
Patterson recalls a time walking in the Korumburra area when her dog ate some mushrooms.

I picked all the mushrooms that I could see because I wanted to try to figure out what they were.

She says she wanted to work out if the mushrooms would be a “problem” for her dog.

She says she discovered some were edible but she had concerns about one fungi species - inocybe.

37m ago13.17 AEST

Erin Patterson details her first time eating a foraged mushroom​

She says the lead up to it was a “process over several months”.

She says she was confident she knew what the field and horse mushrooms she had picked were.

I cut a bit of one of the mushrooms, fried it up with some butter and ate it.


They tasted good and I didn’t get sick.

Patterson said sometimes she would put mushrooms in meals she ate with her children.

I chopped them up very, very small so they couldn’t pick them out.

34m ago13.20 AEST
The court has adjourned until 2.15pm.

Erin Patterson trial day 25 – as it happened

This blog is now closed

www.theguardian.com

 

[drsleuth]

42 minutes ago

'They tasted good and I didn't get sick': Erin on picking mushrooms
After Erin began noticing mushrooms, she said her interest grew.
She said she identified mushrooms growing in paddocks where she had animals at the Shellcot Rd property.
“There were field mushrooms and horse mushrooms in those paddocks,” she said, adding she did eventually consume them.
She said it took several months to get the point where she was confident to identify and eat them.
“When I got to a point where I was confident about what I thought that they were, I cut a bit off one of the mushrooms, fried it up with some butter, ate it, then saw what happened,” she said.
“What happened?” Mr Mandy asks.
“They tasted good and I didn’t get sick,” she replied.
After that, she said she began regularly picking the mushrooms and cooking them in meals, including those for her children.
“How did you put them in the children’s meals” Mr Mandy asks.
“I chopped them up, very, very small so they couldn’t pick them out,” she replies.

40 minutes ago

Prosecution makes an objection
Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC has raised an objection and the jury has exited the courtroom.
The court will resume sitting at 2.15pm.

Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC has raised an objection. Picture: David Crosling

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/truecrimeaustralia/the-mushroom-cook/erin-patterson-trial-live-mushroom-cook-returns-to-the-witness-box/live-coverage/d38ddeff9157a7fe0ede32b695044a4f#/entry/32014061