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

[Detechtive]

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.​

And there we have it folks. The reason she wasn't sick. Allegedly.

 

[MrJ]

Just now
Subway CCTV footage shown to court

By Joseph Dunstan

During the trial, we've heard about a trip Erin Patterson took to Subway with her son following the lunch.

Erin says when she went to Subway, she parked and waited in the car while her son fetched food from inside.

Mr Mandy then takes Erin to footage of a car at the Subway that night previously led by the prosecution, but she says while it's the same colour, "it's not the same car".

"Maybe, it looks a little bit different to my car, I can't say 100 per cent it's not," she says.

When a figure a green and gold top is seen walking across the carpark, Mr Mandy asks if that's Erin's son.

She says it is not.

 

[Megnut]

It’s too late for insanity but I think they’re trying to completely disarm the prosecution with the lying narrative. Which is their job.
Which isn’t working, it’s just reminding the jury that she’s a compulsive attention seeking liar with no credibility, IMO.

Can’t wait for cross.

I hope there’s a limit on how long this self absorbed Erin show carries on for.

I know she's reached my limit.

 

[browneyes]

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

You are correct. I misread. There is no way she tasted it though…or maybe it was a miracle. JMO

 

[katydid23]

What's been implied by her testimony today, I think what they are trying to suggest is:

- she did a lot of foraging as a matter of course.

- she did a lot of dehydrating mushrooms as a matter of course.

- at some point she did pick mushrooms from near an oak tree and these were dehydrated and stored.

- she was in the habit of storing her wild dehydrated mushrooms in a tupperware box and then sprinkling them into things; that box (multiple boxes) would contain a mix of different dehydrated wild mushrooms gathered previously at a range of times.

- for the meal her intention was to use fresh mushrooms from woollies and dried mushrooms from an Asian store. And that this is also what she believed she had done.

- when she purchased the dried asian mushrooms they were smelly so she stored them in a tupperware.

- implication is that she used the fresh mushrooms from woollies as planned, went to grab the dried shop bought ones from the tupperware, confused it with one of her many other tupperwares full of dried mushrooms (or perhaps had stored them all together), inadvertently introduced death caps accidentally foraged at a previous date into the meal unbeknownst to her.

- she then vomits up her meal

Vomiting her meal up would not protect her from severe illness. Experts say that the toxins enter the bloodstream very quickly so vomiting does not help much.

And what are the odds that she 'just happened not to get dosed? I say impossible odds because if she made the duxelles mixture and then added it to each individual BW, then ALL of the servings would have deadly toxins. Once any of the deadly caps were mixed with the others into that sauce it would quickly taint all of the other portions.

AND/OR as she is adding dried mushrooms randomly from multiple tuppers, she just happens not to get dosed.

It's not possible, imo, that she would not have been dosed.

Does it do enough of a job at introducing reasonable doubt? I

No, not imo.

t actually does a pretty good job, imo. After that you are left with explaining her behaviour in the wake of the dinner, which is largely circumstantial actions or could be attributed to guilt.

Do i personally buy it? On balance, I don't. But it's good enough to give me pause, and that's all the defense needs.

The defense needs more than thought, IMO. just giving a quick pause is not enough for all to vote NG. Because the Prosecution will have a rebuttal and have their chance to clear up the confusion, most likely. IMO

 

[MsMarple]

5m ago22.30 EDT

Patterson tells court 'I shouldn't have lied to' lunch guests about having ovarian cancer​

Mandy shows Patterson a photo of the dining room table and chairs, marked up by Ian to show where each guest sat.

My memory was that Gail and Don were reversed.

But I could have been wrong about that too.

Patterson says there were no assigned seats or plates at the lunch.

Mandy asks Paterson what was discussed at the lunch.

She says they spoke about what her children had been up to and a bit of politics and. She says Don’s mentioned a relative of his who had throat cancer.

Paterson says the conversation stayed on this topic.

I mentioned I’d had an issue a year or two earlier when I thought I had ovarian cancer.

Then – I’m not proud of this – but I led them to believe that I might be getting some treatment in regards to that in the next few weeks to months.

Patterson says she referred to “upcoming treatment”.

Mandy asks if she misled her guests.

“I did,” she says.

Patterson says they “all showed a lot of compassion about that.”

The guests then noticed Simon’s car pulling into the driveway and Ian suggested praying for Patterson.

“That’s what we did,” she says as her voice trembles.

Patterson says “I did lie to them.”

She explains her decision:

I was ashamed of the fact that I didn’t have control over my body or what I ate. I was ashamed of that and embarrassed. I didn’t want to tell anybody. But I shouldn’t have lied to them.

 

[browneyes]

I know she's reached my limit.

This is just too much unnecessary information. The poor jury must be bored to death. IMO

 

[MrJ]

Here comes the bowel movement testimony.

Just now
Erin says she began feeling ill near midnight

By Joseph Dunstan

Later that night, Erin remembers feeling "really nauseous", with diarrhoea beginning about 11pm or midnight.

"I would get this quite strong abdominal cramping, and then an urgent need to go," she says.

Ms Patterson says "it felt pretty frequent to me, every 20 minutes at some times, maybe further apart at other times".

"Enough that it was hard to go back to sleep," she says.

Erin says she took a drug to treat the diarrhoea symptoms at some point and was able to get some rest.

She says she got out of bed about 10am and went downstairs, where her son was in the TV room on the couch.

"I think I made some kind of herbal tea, like lemon and ginger tea, something like that," she says.

 

[Detechtive]

Okay so this contradicts her daughter and sons testimony where they said that Erin had told them she wanted to discuss 'adult things' with the in-laws and so they were going to the movies.

Ms Patterson says her children weren't present and were at the movies.

She says in an earlier conversation she'd explained to her daughter that the lunch was happening and asked her if she wanted to join the lunch or see a movie with her brother.

She says the movie appealed more to her daughter, so she later discussed it with her son.

Erin says this conversation was had while her son was playing computer games with a friend, and that she explained the movie plan to him.​

 

[LinasK]

Just now
Erin concedes dried mushrooms may have been foraged

By Joseph Dunstan

She says that process took roughly 45 minutes and it was then that she made an addition to the Woolworths mushroom duxelles.

"As I was cooking it down, I tasted it a few times and it seemed a little bland, to me," she says.

"So I decided to put in the dried mushrooms that I'd bought from the grocer that I still had in the pantry.

"So I put them in, like a little, ... strainer with a handle ... and just roughly poured water over them to get the crispness out of them.

"I chopped them up and I, like, sprinkled them over the duxelles and pushed them in with an egg flip."

Erin does not say if she tasted the dish again after adding the dried mushrooms.

She says at the time, she believed the dried mushrooms were the ones she'd bought from Melbourne.

"Now I think that there was a possibility that there were foraged ones in there as well," she says, closing her eyes and blinking as her voice cracks.

Of course she didn't re-taste it!

 

[Lisa4]

She says in an earlier conversation she'd explained to her daughter that the lunch was happening and asked her if she wanted to join the lunch or see a movie with her brother.

She says the movie appealed more to her daughter,

A choice you could 99.9% guarantee from any kid!

Manipulative.

 

[MrJ]

1m ago
Erin learns Don and Gail Patterson are also ill

By Joseph Dunstan

She says she was still nauseous and had diarrhoea, but it wasn't as bad as it had been overnight.

Erin says her son told her he had a sore tummy and asked her if they could give church a miss and she wondered if he had a bug like her.

Ms Patterson says she recalls Simon calling at some point in the morning and asking if they were at church, and she explained to him why they'd given it a miss.

"He told me that Don and Gail had diarrhoea too," she says.

"We spoke twice that day, and he did tell me at one point they were getting fluids at Korumburra Hospital."

 

[Ellery84]

I think her son testified by way of the video recording something similar about the plates and their colour. But we already know that the son lied about not knowing anything about the foraging of mushrooms. Erin testified that she took the kids with her when foraging.

He might have thought he was helping her by saying he knew nothing about the mushroom foraging. I think he did a similar thing here by lying about having not seen any grey plates.

IMO

Me too.

 

[MsMarple]

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.

Some very bad words are going through my mind.

We heard experts say once ingested there’s no way to reverse the toxins. Yet Erin Erin Erin believes the jurors are too stupid to understand.

I really dislike the accused. She lies and lies.

 

[dothetime]

Good point and does she have insight into the impact of her alleged post-offence behaviour?

Whilst Erin was sucking on fentanyl and buying coffee and dim sums from Koo Wee Rup, her children’s relatives were facing organised failure and a painful and horrible death.

organ failure, yes

 

[MsMarple]

2m ago03.37 BST
Mandy asks about how much each guest ate of their beef wellington.

She says Ian and Heather ate all of theirs. Don ate all of his while Gail ate a lot of her, but not all of it, the court hears.

Patterson says she ate somewhere around “a quarter” or a “third” of hers.

When pressed by Mandy about evidence heard earlier that his client ate half of hers, Patterson says she cannot be precise.

She then says she ate “some” of her beef wellington.

Mandy asks her why this was. She says she was “talking a lot” and “eating slowly”.

 

[LinasK]

Hmm, why did she have to make the gravy at the last minute? Why not make it ahead of time and just keep it warm? Especially when it's ready-made. In fact, she earlier mentioned she had a Thermomix, which has a "keep warm" mode.

Could she have used the opportunity of making the gravy to ensure her plate was kept separate from the others? I.e., put out four plates and tell her guests to grab them, but leave the fifth one closer to her location at the stove?

Bingo! She had to make sure that she got the non-poisoned portion.

 

[Ellery84]

How many times did Erin vomit on purpose on the day that she served the beef Wellington lunch?

How many times did she vomit on purpose in the days after?

What other secrets did Erin have? Just the self reported “bulimia” or was there something else?

Next we will be hearing that she’s lied about being a Christian but is actually a Buddhist, or a closeted homosexual, or like into some sort of weird sexual habit. It’s the secrets.

Once you start keeping secrets - where do you stop?

What is real and what is a lie? And how did Don, Heather and Gail die?

Who or what killed them?

 

[MrJ]

Just now
Erin Patterson sets off for son's flying lesson in Tyabb

By Joseph Dunstan

Erin says over the day, the diarrhoea was becoming less frequent and was probably closer to "hourly" into the afternoon.

She says she wasn't timing it and says it is just a guess.

Ms Patterson says she decided to take her son to a flying lesson, which was pushed back from its original schedule.

She says before setting off for the lesson in Tyabb, she had water and maybe another ginger tea, as well as more drugs to prevent diarrhoea.

"[My son] had said to me, you know, if I'm not feeling well, it's fine, we don't have to go and I told him no, let's see how we go," she says.

"He's a compassionate boy, he didn't want me to go if I wasn't feeling well."

Erin says as the time to leave neared, she thought there was a "good chance" things would be ok with her diarrhoea and the trip to Tyabb.

 

[Gavel Rash]

Who had gravy?