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

[Scuffy35]

Can't believe she is doubling down on the Asian Grocer story. Confounding.

It sounds like she is aledging that someone tampered with one bag of Asian grocery mushrooms? I.e some bad person put death caps in this one bag that she happened to purchase.

 

[Shortfusepsb]

DBM

 

[Detechtive]

It sounds like she is aledging that someone tampered with one bag of Asian grocery mushrooms? I.e some bad person put death caps in this one bag that she happened to purchase.

Still doesn't explain why she would dehydrate the dehydrated mushrooms she purchased. They were already dry. It is completely nonsensical. I feel quite angry at this point, she is just playing with peoples heads.

 

[MsMarple]

I'm trying to understand why she thinks it makes sense to anyone that if she bought *dried* mushrooms from an "Asian Grocer" why should would have to put them in her dehydrator to *dry* them!?! What am I missing?

The death caps were found in her dehydrator!!

Yes, that’s got me scratching my head too. Oh and now she’s well versed in mushroom identification. Poor jury…

 

[Lord Peter Flimsy]

Reading all this I wonder if the Defence might have been better going down the route of diminished responsibility but for the fact so much of the evidence points to premeditation.

 

[Eloise]

I'm trying to understand why she thinks it makes sense to anyone that if she bought *dried* mushrooms from an "Asian Grocer" why should would have to put them in her dehydrator to *dry* them!?! What am I missing?

The death caps were found in her dehydrator!!

extremely good point, hope the jury pick up on that

 

[southgoldengirl]

So it sounds like her defense is : she foraged for wild mushrooms but inadvertently picked DC's she dehydrated them , thought they looked too mushy and smelt bad, so threw them out. Decided to use dried mushrooms she had earlier bought from an Asian store in the BW.
She didn't eat much of her meal and threw up what she did as she has an eating disorder, the explanation for her not getting very sick
Conclusion : the Asian store bought ones must have been Death Caps, not her fault.

Wow! will the jury see this as reasonable doubt?

 

[Eloise]

So it sounds like her defense is : she foraged for wild mushrooms but inadvertently picked DC's she dehydrated them , thought they looked too mushy and smelt bad, so threw them out. Decided to use dried mushrooms she had earlier bought from an Asian store in the BW.
Conclusion : the Asian store bought ones must have been Death Caps, not her fault.

Wow! will the jury see this as reasonable doubt?

but traces of death caps were on the dehydrator; why would she dehydrate already dried mushrooms?

 

[katydid23]

Yes it seems Simon had a 4 month old child with him.
His child.

EP didn't exactly leave her baby with a stranger. She left the baby with the baby's father.

No, he's not a stranger. But if they were on a road trip, camping out from place to place, how is one adult supposed to be the driver and the sole parent caring for an infant?

 

[Detechtive]

No, he's not a stranger. But if they were on a road trip, camping out from place to place, how is one adult supposed to be the driver and the sole parent caring for an infant?

Seems like a lot of people are trying to play the sexism card here. That just isn't true, IMO. I don't know any mother who would drive solo with a young baby that far. What a nightmare drive that would be for anyone.
Not to mention quite dangerous. That drive goes into desert, and extremely inhospitable places - it's dangerous to take a baby into that environment especially with only ONE adult.

Imagine if a father left a mother to drive that far with a young baby. They would be called a "deadbeat dad" (again!).

 

[MsMarple]

but traces of death caps were on the dehydrator; why would she dehydrate already dried mushrooms?

I blame unicorns.

 

[Cliff Hardy]

Can't believe she is doubling down on the Asian Grocer story. Confounding.

She seems to be just digging a bigger and bigger hole for herself.

 

[southgoldengirl]

but traces of death caps were on the dehydrator; why would she dehydrate already dried mushrooms?

she dehydrated what she thought were wild mushrooms but they were death caps unbeknownst to her

 

[Detechtive]

She’s already accused her friend of lying and Simon too. So now is her daughter a liar too or was she coached before Erin changed the story?

Simon is a liar, her friends are liars, and BOTH her children are liars, apparently, because they both said she didn't forage for mushrooms. The son said he remembers her taking a picture of a mushroom once.

Everyone is a liar except Erin, apparently.

 

[Detechtive]

she dehydrated what she thought were wild mushrooms but they were death caps unbeknownst to her

But she's still saying the mushrooms she put in the meal were from the Asian grocer and Woolworths, not withstanding that she said the mushrooms she purchased from the random Asian grocer nobody could find were already dried and didn't need to be dehydrated, and we know DC were found in the dehydrator.

I believe this is called gaslighting and or pathological lying.

 

[Scuffy35]

Still doesn't explain why she would dehydrate the dehydrated mushrooms she purchased. They were already dry. It is completely nonsensical. I feel quite angry at this point, she is just playing with peoples heads.

Yes, maybe tomorrow she wil go on to say that she was mistaken that they were already dried (when she told the council health person).

I think she might take this approach as she explained in the wittness box today that she reguarly bought different types of asian mushrooms while going to her house in Mount Waverley. Maybe sometimes dried sometimes not.

It beats me why she would take this path over simply saying they were from foraging and was a tragic mistake.

 

[Eloise]

she dehydrated what she thought were wild mushrooms but they were death caps unbeknownst to her

well, she claims it was unbeknownst.

But anyway, the point I'm making is: the foraged death caps were dried on the dehydrator. There are traces on there. But she's trying to pass the buck onto these mysterious Asian store mushrooms (that public health investigations couldn't find a trace of and she has no receipt for...) but they were already pre-dried. So she wouldn't have put them on the dehydrator, (if they existed at all) So whether she used them or not its actually immaterial if she also purchased mushrooms from the Asian food store, because she has used the death caps she foraged in the meal.

Yes, maybe tomorrow she wil go on to say that she was mistaken that they were already dried (when she told the concil health person).

I think she might take this approach as she explained in the wittness box today that she reguarly bought different types of asian mushrooms while going to her house in Mount Waverley. Maybe sometimes dried sometimes not.

if she changes her story she'll simply lose even more credibility. imo

 

[Old Soul]

Erin Patterson said,“There’s Facebook groups for mushroom lovers ... where people share what they found and talk about the identify. I scrolled a lot of them.”
Erin Patterson trial LIVE updates: Exotic mushrooms tasted ‘more interesting’, had more flavour, court hears

Interestingly, there is a Facebook group called “Australian & New Zealand Fungus Identification” where someone commented that before the mushroom lunch was served someone had asked “where do poisonous mushrooms grow?”
The poster wished in retrospect that they’d taken a screen shot.
You can find the post by searching Erin Patterson in the search function of the Australian and New Zealand Fungus Identification Facebook page,

For reference: The original post is from March 17 from someone that moved into the property next door to Erin’s and was concerned that their child, with a fascination for fungi, might accidentally pick a death cap.

After scrolling through many posts in this group recently myself, I believe it would have been very easy for Erin to have had any foraged mushrooms identified by the knowledgeable people in this group or similar fungi groups if she was uncertain.
In fact, it is my opinion, that with such a keen interest in fungi, she would have known very well what amanita phalloides look like.

 

[drsleuth]

29m ago07.40 BST
Erin Patterson says she planned to immediately use the dried mushrooms she bought from from an Asian grocer in April 2023.

But when she opened them they had a “pungent” smell. She put them in a Tupperware container which she then used to store them at her Leongatha home, the court hears.

Patterson says mushrooms she foraged in May and June of 2023 were dehydrated and stored at home.

Under questioning by barrister Colin Mandy SC, Patterson said mushrooms she foraged during this period were placed in a container that contained store-bought dried mushrooms.

12m ago07.58 BST
The court has adjourned for the day.

We’ll be back tomorrow at 10.30am to continue our coverage of the Erin Patterson trial.

Thanks for following along.

Erin Patterson trial day 25 – as it happened

This blog is now closed

www.theguardian.com

 

[Detechtive]

Not as important but it also makes absolutely zero sense that anyone would put Asian mushrooms in a classic English dish.