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

[MrJ]

Key Event
1m ago
Questioning of Erin Patterson resumes after break

By Joseph Dunstan

As cross-examination resumes, Mr Mandy asks Erin further details about her communication with the kids around the lunch.

She recalls dropping the children off to see the movie before heading home to host the lunch.

Mr Mandy then takes Erin to a photo of her living space, which shows the dining table between a living area and the island benchtop.

Erin has her glasses on again to look at the exhibit on a screen before her.

Mr Mandy asks if the guests had wanted to help plate up the lunch.

"At least one or both of them [Gail and Heather] said ... do you need help?" Erin says.

"It was, like, at the threshold of being about to serve."

But she didn't need help, she says, and replied with words to the effect of "it's fine".

 

[ch_13]

"Making the gravy" in this case means putting the gravy satchel into the microwave for 40 seconds. It was premade gravy in a plastic satchel that you reheat.

Ah, I see. I was thinking it was more like the Bisto powder that has to be mixed into stock or water.

That stuff looks disgusting. I can't imagine pouring that over good steak.

 

[Scooby-Doo]

We have never heard whether the dehydrator also had traces of normal mushrooms or any other foods, have we?

Security footage has been played to Erin Patterson's triple-murder trial, showing her dumping a food dehydrator at the tip in the days after she hosted a deadly lunch.

Prosecutors allege traces of death cap mushrooms were found on the black Sunbeam dehydrator, the same toxin ingested by four guests who ate beef Wellingtons at Ms Patterson's home on July 29, 2023.

Jury shown security footage captured at local tip four days after deadly mushroom lunch

Prosecutors in the triple-murder trial of Erin Patterson allege traces of death cap mushrooms were found in a food dehydrator Erin Patterson disposed of at a local tip.

www.abc.net.au

 

[browneyes]

I wish there was a vomit emoji

 

[MrJ]

1m ago
Photo shown of seating arrangement at lunch

By Joseph Dunstan

Erin says the last thing she did before going to the table was putting the gravy from the saucepan into the gravy boat.

She says the gravy would have probably taken only a couple of minutes to heat up on the stove.

To do that, she would have had to work at the stove that sits parallel to the bench, the court hears.

The court is then shown a photo of the dining table, with letters on the chairs where everyone was sitting.

Erin says it looks about right, although she recalled Don and Gail were swapped.

She says there was no assigned seating or plates for the lunch.

bbm

 

[browneyes]

Coming up: the excuse for not tasting it once the dried mushrooms were added. IMO

Edit: Oh but no that can't work...

I think she willl have to say she did, but that it was only an extremely tiny taste. She will have to say she ate the same mixture.

Such a coincidence she didn’t taste it after the extra mushrooms were added, she ate on a different plate, and she, her kids and the dog were never sick. As a reasonable person, this is too much to believe. JMO

 

[MsMarple]

1m ago03.16 BST
Mandy asks Patterson about her children’s movements on the day of the lunch.

She says she dropped her kids off at McDonald’s at about 11.45am to 12pm.

Mandy shows the court a photograph of Patterson’s dining room table in her room.

He asks about Patterson’s evidence that Heather and Gail spoke to her at the island bench in the kitchen before the group sat down to eat.

Patterson says “at least one or both” of them offered to help her serve.

She says she did not need any help.

Patetrson says she was preparing the gravy at the stove before she sat at the table

 

[Detechtive]

Ah, I see. I was thinking it was more like the Bisto powder that has to be mixed into stock or water.

That stuff looks disgusting. I can't imagine pouring that over good steak.

It's actually not too bad. Much better than the powdered Gravox which you mix with stock/water. But still, not something you would normally put on a 'special' lunch of Beef Wellington, IMO. The recipe called for a red wine jus.

But as we now know, Erin can't seem to follow a recipe. She omitted the proscutto, the mustard, the eye fillet log, and for some godawful reason decided to use Filo pastry instead of or in combination with puff pastry.
She also added in 'dehydrated mushrooms' apparently, oh, and omitted the red wine jus.

That recipe she allegedly followed seemed to have no resemblance to the method she took. She changed literally every part of it.

 

[iamshadow21]

Ah, I see. I was thinking it was more like the Bisto powder that has to be mixed into stock or water.

That stuff looks disgusting. I can't imagine pouring that over good steak.

It's actually great, we buy the lamb and rosemary flavour one all the time. My partner can and does make gravy from scratch on occasion, but with her health she's not always up to doing that on top of cooking a complicated meal. If you're thinking it's like powdered gravy, it's not, it's about as close as you can get to made from scratch with the pan drippings gravy. She'll sometimes add some seasoning or spices to it, but often, we'll just use it as is.

MOO

 

[Lisa4]

Such a coincidence she didn’t taste it after the extra mushrooms were added, she ate on a different plate, and she, her kids and the dog were never sick. As a reasonable person, this is too much to believe. JMO

*I don't think she has said yet whether or not she tasted it after the extras were added.

 

[browneyes]

1m ago
A break in proceedings

By Judd Boaz

Justice Beale jumps in and calls for a break.

We'll be back with more soon.

Thank you for keeping us updated.

 

[MrJ]

Just now
Erin asked about how much food each guest ate

By Judd Boaz

Mr Mandy begins questioning about the portions that each lunch guest ate.

“Ian and Heather ate all of theirs, Don ate all of his, and Gail ate quite a lot of hers — not all of it,” Erin says.

“I ate a quarter, a third, somewhere around there of mine.”

Mr Mandy asks about evidence the court heard that Erin had in fact eaten half her meal.

“It was about that, I wasn’t measuring, I couldn’t be precise…it was some of it,” she says.

Mr Mandy asks why she ate less than the rest of the guests.

“I was talking a lot, I was eating slowly, that’s about all I can say,” Erin says.

BBM... wow!

 

[browneyes]

So why did Heather question about the ONE mismatched plate that Erin ate from? Was Heather a liar too?

I think she made a huge mistake denying she had gray plates.

 

[MrJ]

Key Event
1m ago
What was discussed at deadly lunch

By Joseph Dunstan

Erin says conversation during the lunch would have covered a bit of family news, politics and current affairs.

"At one point I remember Don talking about his brother that was battling throat cancer, I think it was," she says.

Erin says the cancer topic lingered in the conversation and at the end of the meal she mentioned that she'd had an "issue" a year or two earlier where she'd thought she had ovarian cancer.

"Then, I'm not proud of this, but I led them to believe that I might be needing some treatment in regards to that in the next few weeks, or months," she says.

"I do remember I referred to upcoming treatment, because primarily in my mind was thinking I might need help getting the kids to and from the bus and other activities, might need to explain why I'm going up to hospital for a day or two ... so that was really the focus of what I was talking about."

Erin agrees she misled her lunch guests, who all showed "a lot of compassion" for the health issue she had told them about.

"Then we saw Simon's car driving into the driveway, coming back with the kids, and so Ian said 'why don't we pray for Erin', and so that's what we did," she says.

Mr Mandy asks her why she lied.

"I was really embarrassed, I was ashamed of the fact that I didn't have control over my body or what I ate, I was ashamed of that ... I didn't want to tell anybody, but I shouldn't have lied to them," she says, sniffing.

BBM.... urgh that detail makes her look even worse.

 

[MrJ]

1m ago
Erin's children return home

By Joseph Dunstan

Erin says when her children arrived, her son fetched his flying book and was sharing it with his grandfather Don, and Ian had a meeting at church, so the lunch gathering dissolved.

She says her son and his friend then went into a room to play computer games, but probably helped clean up.

Ms Patterson says there were some "scraps" on guest plates, and the rest of her beef Wellington along with some potato she hadn't eaten.

There were also leftovers from the potatoes, beans and gravy.

"A lot of Heather's fruit platter ... she encouraged me to keep it for us to eat, so that was leftover and quite a lot of the cake that Gail had brought was leftover as well," she says.

The sixth beef Wellington, which Erin says was not eaten, also remained.

 

[MsMarple]

It's actually not too bad. Much better than the powdered Gravox which you mix with stock/water. But still, not something you would normally put on a 'special' lunch of Beef Wellington, IMO. The recipe called for a red wine jus.

But as we now know, Erin can't seem to follow a recipe. She omitted the proscutto, the mustard, the eye fillet log, and for some godawful reason decided to use Filo pastry instead of or in combination with puff pastry.
She also added in 'dehydrated mushrooms' apparently, oh, and omitted the red wine jus.

That recipe she allegedly followed seemed to have no resemblance to the method she took. She changed literally every part of it.

Just like her testimony.

 

[browneyes]

We have never heard whether the dehydrator also had traces of normal mushrooms or any other foods, have we?

I’ll have to read back to early trial days, but I believe they were found on the dehydrator. I’ll leave this here while I search.

Jury shown security footage captured at local tip four days after deadly mushroom lunch

Prosecutors in the triple-murder trial of Erin Patterson allege traces of death cap mushrooms were found in a food dehydrator Erin Patterson disposed of at a local tip.

www.abc.net.au

 

[Detechtive]

I think she made a huge mistake denying she had gray plates.

Agreed, because it basically comes down to a saintly church pastors credibility, over a known liar.
I can't see her winning that race.

 

[MrJ]

Here is what we all knew she'd say.

Key Event
1m ago
Erin says she threw up after eating leftover cake

By Joseph Dunstan

Erin says while her son played PC games with his friend, she had several pieces of cake, progressively eating all of the cake Gail Patterson had left behind — which she says was two-thirds of the original cake.

After eating the cake, Erin says "I felt sick, I felt overfull, so I went to the toilets and brought it back up again".

Yesterday, the court heard Erin say she had struggled with binge eating and bulimia throughout her life.

Erin says she later had some loose stools, which started about 5:30pm.

A reminder you can access the Butterfly foundation if this raises any issues for you on 1800 33 4673 or webchat.

 

[Scooby-Doo]

So why did Heather question about the ONE mismatched plate that Erin ate from? Was Heather a liar too?

She probably dumped the grey plates.


She says she used "just the dinner plates I had" to serve.

"I think there's a couple of black, a couple of white, one that's red on top and black underneath, and then I've got one that [my daughter] made at kindergarten," she says.

She says she didn't own any other dinner plates and didn't own any grey plates.

This conflicts with testimony from lunch guest Ian Wilkinson, who claimed lunch was served on four grey plates and one tan-orange plate.