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

[katydid23]

1m ago
Erin tests wild mushrooms and eats them

By Joseph Dunstan

Erin says she found field and horse mushrooms in the paddock near her home and "eventually" consumed them.

"It was a process over several months in the lead-up to it, but when I got to a point where I was confident about what I thought they were ... I cut a bit off one of the mushrooms, fried it up with some butter, ate it, and then saw what happened," she says.

"They tasted good and I didn't get sick."

1m ago
Prosecution makes an objection

By Joseph Dunstan

Part-way through the questioning, the prosecution asks to raise a matter in the absence of the jury and the public hearing is paused.

We'll take a break and be back with more soon.

OOOHH, very slick. Very smooth...." Oh, I just saw some mushrooms and tried a bit of one , and fried it up, NO PROBLEM.... I didn't get sick"

OBJECTION!!!!!

So is she going to say she just picked some wild mushrooms in the paddock near her home, LIKE SHE HAD DONE BEFORE WITH NO PROBLEM, and oh wow, everyone died but me this time?

 

[JBowie]

So is she going to say she just picked some wild mushrooms in the paddock near her home, LIKE SHE HAD DONE BEFORE WITH NO PROBLEM, and oh wow, everyone died but me this time?

Whatever she says, I hope that the prosecution goes after all of this waffle.

I note it's reported that they raised at least one objection today which required the jury to leave the room.

Damn frustrating not being present.

 

[katydid23]

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.

Exactly. My neighbour's grandson has had 4 open heart surgeries and he is only 12. I think Erin should be grateful that her children have had relatively benign hospital experiences in their young lives.

 

[Detechtive]

Exactly. My neighbour's grandson has had 4 open heart surgeries and he is only 12. I think Erin should be grateful that her children have had relatively benign hospital experiences in their young lives.

I'm not sure many "Aussie battlers" will relate to her privileged story.

Her life seems incredibly easy, to me. I don't know anyone who has had such a cruisy life.

 

[JBowie]

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.

Defence is clutching at straws, IMO.

I'm surprised we haven't heard about her ingrowing toenail. Maybe tomorrow?

 

[katydid23]

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

Jodi Arias was on the stand for about 5 or 6 days IIRC. It was exhausting. Total narcissist, btw.

 

[mamamama9873]

And it’s maddening that earlier she mentioned shopping at various Asian stores at various times yet couldn’t come up with a description of even one of them.

This is the supposedly intelligent woman who took courses and read books? She was able to describe building IKEA bookshelves from years ago. She remembered all the places she traveled to. But couldn’t remember one grocery store, not even its general vicinity? Good luck with that nursing degree, you’ll need a decent memory to pass your exams.

what a great point! I always thought it’s very suspicious that someone who has their daily life well under control, someone who can cook an elaborate meal and makes sure she gets her kids to school and activities on time, can’t remember which grocer she purchased the mushrooms from.

 

[Detechtive]

Jodi Arias was on the stand for about 5 or 6 days IIRC. It was exhausting. Total narcissist, btw.

I still haven't watched her entire testimony, but I did watch clips of it. She reminds me of Erin, a lot.

 

[katydid23]

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

And so hyper-sensitive. Everything apparently 'hurts' her feelings.

And the defense opened their case by portraying Simon as a controlling, deadbeat Dad with 'no feelings.' And yet he does not come across that way in their texts or communications.

If anyone seems controlling or unsympathetic it's her, imo.

 

[JLZ]

We have only heard a soft sell from her today though, haven't we? It's all been about poor old Erin and her weight, and hypochondria and how much she loves her kids and how good Simon's family was to her etc. etc. We saw the real Erin in her exchanges with her online friends, when she was cursing and belittling Simon and his family. That's the Erin who had a rage and resentments against those who she believed had wronged her.

"The real Erin". I suggest that there isn't one presentation that's real and the rest are fake. I think she isn't connected up underneath, and whatever she's performing at the time is as real as she gets. I'm thinking of the religious conversion experience, the series of contrasting vocational interests, the striking difference between her online and local personae, and her dependence on external validation.

 

[katydid23]

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



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.



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

So she foraged for wild mushrooms and routinely gave them to her children?

 

[mamamama9873]

Sorry, been hectic and no time to keep up.
Has it come up why she felt the need to include the strong/funny smelling dried Asian mushrooms in this particular meal when they were not in the recipe and she had loads of woolworths mushrooms?

I hope the prosecutors ask her this exact question!!! Has been on my mind for a while and whichever way I twist it, I cannot come up with a reasonable innocent answer.

 

[katydid23]

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.

But she has already said she only ate 1/2 of her Wellington. I don't think she can change that now.

 

[southgoldengirl]

IMO she is a master manipulator and as others have suggested may have Munchhausen Syndrome.
Interesting that she purports to hate hospitals because of traumatic experiences and misdiagnosis but finds herself regularly there due to her own fake symptoms and attention seeking.
Once again laying the blame elsewhere whilst garnering sympathy from Simon and his parents

 

[Detechtive]

But she has already said she only ate 1/2 of her Wellington. I don't think she can change that now.

She can claim she had bulimia and vomited it.

 

[JLZ]

Whatever she says, I hope that the prosecution goes after all of this waffle.

I note it's reported that they raised at least one objection today which required the jury to leave the room.

Damn frustrating not being present.

BBM, because the defence appear to be resiling from the agreed facts? If the defence hadn't conceded certain facts the prosecution might have wanted to bring additional evidence.

 

[JLZ]

But she has already said she only ate 1/2 of her Wellington. I don't think she can change that now.

Not my cleverest thought.

 

[mamamama9873]

So far nothing I have heard makes me think she is an awful person. It just makes her human.
Just a human being with all our complexities and imperfections.
I'm not interested in throwing stones.

Maybe some on the jury might have the same opinion.
I would not be surprised.

I don’t think she is an awful human per se. She was lonely and made poor choices in her life (well before the lunch).
I am also trying to keep an open mind but whichever way I twist it, some things just do not add up.

It’s also not about subjective opinions where the jury members think she’s a normal human but where they decide beyond a reasonable doubt that she intentionally put death caps into the food to kill the lunch guests.

 

[SouthAussie]

BBM, because the defence appear to be resiling from the agreed facts? If the defence hadn't conceded certain facts the prosecution might have wanted to bring additional evidence.

I was trying to think about what the agreed facts are. These are the ones I can find ...

• The Victorian supreme court heard this week that it is not in dispute that the beef wellingtons contained Amanita phalloides, or death cap mushrooms
• It is not in dispute that Patterson put them there
• both the prosecution and defence agree that Patterson had never been diagnosed with cancer
• lied to police when she told them she had never foraged for mushrooms, Mandy said
• lied to police about not owning a food dehydrator, nor using one, he said

Deliberate poisoning or a tragic accident? The question at the heart of Australia’s mushroom murders trial

Jury hears of a collapsed marriage, cancer claim and mushroom foraging in week one of the trial of Erin Patterson

www.theguardian.com

 

[katydid23]

The prosecution made the objection

I'm wondering what their objection is based on? [I'm behind so haven't gotten there yet]

Just wondering if she is now saying things that have not been in Discovery----like she never admitted before that she regularly fed wild mushrooms to hr children since 2020?