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

[katydid23]

Neither Erin nor her defence have blamed an Asian grocer.

From the outset they have said it was a tragic accident.

But was it just a tragic accident? How does this accidentally tainted meal get served to 6 people, and only the 4 visitors become severely ill?

Is that just a coincidence?

 

[MrJ]

Interesting...
1m ago
Erin says she had to stop during trip

By Joseph Dunstan

Erin says both of the children were in the car on the way to the flying lesson.

She says about 30 minutes in, she felt she needed to use the toilet, so they pulled over at a stretch where there was some bushland.

"I went off into the bush and went to the toilet ... I had diarrhoea," she says.

"I cleaned myself up a bit with tissues and put them in a dog poo bag ... and we hit the road again."

During a stop at the BP Caldermeade, Ms Patterson says she put the dog poo bag containing tissues she'd used while toileting in the bin.

She says she bought food for her children, but tells the court she bought nothing for herself.

 

[iamshadow21]

Who had gravy?

Don't know, but they tested it and the gravy was death cap free.

MOO

 

[Megnut]

1m ago02.56 BST
Patterson tells court she does not own any grey dinner plates

Patterson says her children were at the movies with a friend during the lunch.

Mandy asks Patterson about the lunch guests’ arrival at 12.30pm.

She says the group went into the garden before returning to the kitchen.

Patterson says she started serving mashed potato, beef wellingtons and beans.

Mandy asks what plates she used.

“Just the dinner plates I had,” she says.


Mandy asks if she owns any other plates or grey plates. Patterson replies “no” to both questions.

Earlier in the trial, Ian Wilkinson said Patterson served beef wellingtons for her guests on grey plates while she ate from an “orangey-tan” coloured plate.

Patterson says she plated up five beef wellingtons and put the oven tray with the remaining beef wellington in the oven to “worry about later.”

Patterson says at this point Gail asked if she was coming to an upcoming birthday celebration.

Patterson told Gail she would attend, the court hears.

Patterson says she assumed “everybody grabbed a plate”.

She says she accepts Ian’s evidence that Gail and Heather “took two plates each” to the table.

Rbbm

To worry about later? Odd choice of words.

While 4 grey plates were bussed to the table, and Erin had her back to them, while attending to the gravy (that didn't require attending), she must have been gathering her orange-plated BW....

I wonder if Erin felt Simon might show up last minute. Did she have another grey plate, just in case? And a spare BW? What all was in the pantry?

JMO

 

[Detechtive]

Interesting...
1m ago
Erin says she had to stop during trip

By Joseph Dunstan

Erin says both of the children were in the car on the way to the flying lesson.

She says about 30 minutes in, she felt she needed to use the toilet, so they pulled over at a stretch where there was some bushland.

"I went off into the bush and went to the toilet ... I had diarrhoea," she says.

"I cleaned myself up a bit with tissues and put them in a dog poo bag ... and we hit the road again."

During a stop at the BP Caldermeade, Ms Patterson says she put the dog poo bag containing tissues she'd used while toileting in the bin.

She says she bought food for her children, but tells the court she bought nothing for herself.

WOW! So she has listened to all of the holes in her story, and has been sitting in the box at the back of the court coming up with an answer for literally everything.

Why would she have dog poo bags in the car? Her dog roamed freely on her property and wasn't walked by her. IMO

 

[MrJ]

Gross....

Just now
Flight lessons cancelled and Pattersons return home

By Joseph Dunstan

On the way back, after the flying lesson was cancelled, they stopped at the Koo Wee Rup donut van.

Erin says her children took her ATM card and bought some things, including a coffee for her.

She says she didn't ask for a coffee specifically, and it would have been "habit" for her son to get something for her.

Ms Patterson says as soon as they arrived home, she ran "pretty quickly" for the toilet.

"The diarrhoea was continuing but my nausea wasn't such a huge issue anymore," she says.

 

[MsMarple]

3m ago03.46 BST
Mandy then turns to what occurred after the lunch guests left.

Patterson says her son helped her tidy up. She said the leftovers included the remainder of her beef wellington and the entire sixth one.

Patterson says “quite a lot” of the cake Gail had brought was leftover. She says about two-thirds of the cake remained after lunch.

She says afterwards she began eating the cake and continued to eat slice after slice.

Mandy asks how many pieces of cake she ate.

“All of it,” she says.

Asked what happened afterwards, Patterson says she “felt sick”.

“I felt over-full,” she says.

“So I went to the toilet and brought it back up again.”

She says she began to have loose stools about 5.30pm that evening.

 

[katydid23]

It does introduce reasonable doubt, absolutely. However, there are still some things that cannot be explained away easily: first, the fact that she used a different plate for her portion than the one she used for her guests and secondly, the fact that she somehow managed not to get a dose of the poisonous mushrooms. Death cap mushrooms are extremely toxic: even a very small amount will kill you. How does a mixture of mushrooms somehow avoid the poisonous ones?

"How does a mixture of mushrooms somehow avoid the poisonous ones?"

It can't.

Here is part of the duxelles recipe:
Heat a large skillet over medium to medium-high heat, add half the plant-based butter or oil, swirl to melt to coat the skillet.

Add the mushrooms, shallot, thyme, a pinch of salt, and a pinch of black pepper. Cook while stirring until the mushrooms release their liquid. Continue stirring and cook until the liquid evaporates and the mushrooms begin to brown.


So once she added ALL of the mushroom and began to simmer them, EVERYTHING would be deadly toxic. The poison would permeate everything.

the ONLY WAY that her WB would not be deadly would be if she had made a separate portion of Duxelles for her specific Wellington. If so, why would she do so? I'd love to hear that explanation.

 

[browneyes]

Don't know, but they tested it and the gravy was death cap free.

MOO

It was served separately.

 

[Detechtive]

Interesting...
1m ago
Erin says she had to stop during trip

By Joseph Dunstan

Erin says both of the children were in the car on the way to the flying lesson.

She says about 30 minutes in, she felt she needed to use the toilet, so they pulled over at a stretch where there was some bushland.

"I went off into the bush and went to the toilet ... I had diarrhoea," she says.

"I cleaned myself up a bit with tissues and put them in a dog poo bag ... and we hit the road again."

During a stop at the BP Caldermeade, Ms Patterson says she put the dog poo bag containing tissues she'd used while toileting in the bin.

She says she bought food for her children, but tells the court she bought nothing for herself.

I am sure her son would have mentioned that she stopped on the side of the road....

 

[Deleted member 363451]

But was it just a tragic accident? How does this accidentally tainted meal get served to 6 people, and only the 4 visitors become severely ill?

Is that just a coincidence?

Five people.

 

[southgoldengirl]

I can't wait to hear her excuse for factory resetting her phone whilst police were searching her house.
And where the other phone has disappeared to.

This woman is exhausting!

 

[LinasK]

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.

Oh, so there's where the bulemia comes in, only now it was pigging out on the victim's cake...

 

[MrJ]

I find this hard to believe. Didn't the son say they had steak? happy to be corrected by the way, but yeah the rest of this is a bit... hmmmmmm

1m ago
Erin tells court she served leftover Wellington to children

By Joseph Dunstan

When it came time for dinner, Ms Patterson says she took the leftover beef Wellington out of the fridge and removed the mushroom and pastry before cutting up the meat and microwaving it for her children.

Erin says she tentatively attempted some other food, but it "didn't go down well" so she stopped.

For the rest of the evening, she says she remained "a little bit off in the tummy" before going to be about 10pm or 11pm.

Overnight, she says "I felt the diarrhoea coming back a bit more strongly than it had been and that happened for a few hours".

"My best guess is around 1 or 2[am], or somewhere around there-ish," she says.

 

[da_worm]

Dr Tom May testified that you would need around 0.1g per bodyweight of deathcap mushrooms to cause death, meaning there was quite a lot of these mushrooms in the duxelle for it to be distributed properly... not just a sprinkle added for flavour

 

[Maat99]

I’m sorry but I am not crapping myself to take my kids to any sort of lesson ever.
I don’t find this believable at all tbh.

 

[MrJ]

Omg poor Simon.

1m ago
Erin calls Simon Patterson

By Joseph Dunstan

About 6am on the Monday after the lunch, Erin Patterson says she got up and started to get her children ready for school.

She says the bus to school picked them up about 7:20am, before she called her estranged husband Simon.

She says at this point, she believed she might need some fluids in hospital to assist with the diarrhoea she was experiencing.

"Every time I drank water it went straight through me, couldn't seem to retain it, so I thought … I should go in, for a little bit," she says.

She says she called Simon because she didn't want to go by herself to hospital.

She says Simon said he was tired and still in bed and she should drive herself — which she then did.

 

[Detechtive]

I find this hard to believe. Didn't the son say they had steak? happy to be corrected by the way, but yeah the rest of this is a bit... hmmmmmm

1m ago
Erin tells court she served leftover Wellington to children

By Joseph Dunstan

When it came time for dinner, Ms Patterson says she took the leftover beef Wellington out of the fridge and removed the mushroom and pastry before cutting up the meat and microwaving it for her children.

Erin says she tentatively attempted some other food, but it "didn't go down well" so she stopped.

For the rest of the evening, she says she remained "a little bit off in the tummy" before going to be about 10pm or 11pm.

Overnight, she says "I felt the diarrhoea coming back a bit more strongly than it had been and that happened for a few hours".

"My best guess is around 1 or 2[am], or somewhere around there-ish," she says.

Who reheats steak in a microwave?!

I can't believe she is sticking with the wellington leftover story, still.

 

[MsMarple]

3m ago22.51 EDT
Patterson says around 11pm she began to feel nauseous and was experiencing diarrhoea.

She says she experienced “quite strong cramping” and an “urgent need to go”.

She says it was “every 20 minutes” at times and was difficult to go back to sleep.

Patterson says this lasted several hours. She took an anti-diarrhoea tablet and was able to sleep for a little bit, the court hears.

Patterson got up around 10am the day after the lunch – 30 July 2023.

She says she made herself a herbal tea.

3m ago22.51 EDT
The jury is shown CCTV footage, previously shown to the court, from Subway in Leongatha.

The court was previously told the footage, captured hours after the lunch, showed Patterson dropping her son at Subway.

Patterson says she did take her son to Subway after the lunch but says the footage does not depict her son.

 

[Megnut]

Gross....

Just now
Flight lessons cancelled and Pattersons return home

By Joseph Dunstan

On the way back, after the flying lesson was cancelled, they stopped at the Koo Wee Rup donut van.

Erin says her children took her ATM card and bought some things, including a coffee for her.

She says she didn't ask for a coffee specifically, and it would have been "habit" for her son to get something for her.

Ms Patterson says as soon as they arrived home, she ran "pretty quickly" for the toilet.

"The diarrhoea was continuing but my nausea wasn't such a huge issue anymore," she says.

Rbbm

My nausea is ratcheting up. Thanks, Erin.