Australia - 3 dead after eating wild mushrooms, Leongatha, Victoria, Aug 2023 #12 *Arrest*

[Baby baby Jane]

If EP is innocent and it’s just a mistake ….

She very easily could have killed herself and children by using those mushrooms in another dish prior to the lunch.

Odd that we never hear EP express any anguish over this possibility - never grief that she could have killed her own children with the leftovers or prior. Like - when she almost made the pasta dish but changed the mushrooms because they were smelly. IMO this would be BIG, and did she ever say - I’m so sorry I was careless- I could have so easily killed my children?
Did I miss her saying this?

Those mushrooms she saved for months - did she save ANY others?

 

[Aus94]

If EP is innocent and it’s just a mistake ….

She very easily could have killed herself and children by using those mushrooms in another dish prior to the lunch.

Odd that we never hear EP express any anguish over this possibility - never grief that she could have killed her own children with the leftovers or prior. Like - when she almost made the pasta dish but changed the mushrooms because they were smelly. IMO this would be BIG, and did she ever say - I’m so sorry I was careless- I could have so easily killed my children?
Did I miss her saying this?

Those mushrooms she saved for months - did she save ANY others?

My data analyst brain just can't comprehend how statistically that would be probable!!? Would be so interested to see some kind of experiment (obviously without anything poisonous), if it is even possible for the deathcaps to be disbursed in such a way that they magically missed her/her children's meals.

I too have missed any semblance of an apology...

 

[Detechtive]

I wonder if her sister will ever speak about it?

She won't, IMO.

 

[Detechtive]

We don't have the kind of wildlife that causes such a menace with bins in other countries.

MOO

Actually we don't have "trash cans" like other countries. We have tall plastic bins with lids on them to avoid any disturbance by wildlife. Cockatoos and crows sometimes get in them, but not much else can.

 

[Old Soul]

It would be interesting to know if the one whole beef Wellington and the other partly eaten portion were analyzed separately.
I wonder if it could be determined if one piece (Simon’s) contained toxins and the other (Erin’s) didn’t?
I suppose the liquids/juices had probably leeched into both portions by the time they were retrieved from the bin anyway so it is probably moot.

Replying to my own post:

“Dr Gerostamoulos said the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine tested meat, pastry and mushroom paste samples from beef Wellington located in Ms Patterson’s bin after the lunch.

In three of four mushroom paste samples no alpha-amanitin or beta-amanitin toxins were found, but in one sample they detected beta-amanitin.

Beta-amanitin toxins were also detected in one meat sample, he said.”

https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/courts-law/erin-patterson-trial-alleged-mushroom-poisoner-was-ill-intensive-care-specialist-tells-court/news-story/2a1417ea5465148399f0c13da4735ad2

If Erin’s testimony is that she added the Asian grocery store bought “Chinese mushrooms” (her words) from a Tupperware container that also may have been mixed with her own foraged mushrooms, why were there no shiitake/porcini or other exotic mushrooms traces found in the leftovers along with the Woolworths field mushrooms? I mean what are the chances that she accidentally foraged death caps and bought death caps from the Asian grocery store?!

According to Mycologist, Dr Truong:
"The mushroom I identified is called a field mushroom ... this is the typical mushrooms that you find in a supermarket," Dr Truong said.
"That is the only mushroom that I found in this food item."

Dumped food dehydrator shown to mushroom murder trial

Footage has been shown at a murder trial of a woman dumping a food dehydrator at a tip,...

www.illawarramercury.com.au

Dried mushrooms need a good soak to rehydrate too, not just a quick dash of water. They would have been as rubbery and chewy as old boots and even finely chopped easily identified in a forensic analysis.

Patterson said that as she was cooking the duxelles down, she tasted it a few times, but it tasted a bit bland, so she decided to add the mushrooms she had bought from the grocer in Melbourne to the mixture she still had in her pantry.

“I roughly poured water over them to get the crispness out of them. I chopped them up and sprinkled them over the duxelles and pushed them in,” she said.

Erin Patterson murder trial day 26 as it happened: Mushroom cook says fear of estranged husband’s actions led to phone resets; details dumping food dehydrator at local tip after fatal lunch

Erin Patterson has told a court her estranged husband asked her if she had used a dehydrator to poison his parents, and admitted resetting her phone out of fear police would discover photos she had of foraged mushrooms.

www.smh.com.au

I call complete BS on this tale, I believe she dehydrated and finely ground death caps, well ahead of the lunch, and sprinkled them over instead.

 

[Baby baby Jane]

I wonder if her sister will ever speak about it?

I do hope she writes a book or collabs with Simon on a series after conviction and appeals …
I also hope Simon & Ian & cousins sue Erin for wrongful death if that is a thing in Oz. Take away all her properties if there is anything left after legal bills.

 

[Detechtive]

I do hope she writes a book or collabs with Simon on a series after conviction and appeals …
I also hope Simon & Ian & cousins sue Erin for wrongful death if that is a thing in Oz. Take away all her properties if there is anything left after legal bills.

She won't be able to if she is convicted. Thankfully.

 

[CuriousDetective]

She won't be able to if she is convicted. Thankfully.

I thought they were referring to the sister?

 

[JBowie]

She won't be able to if she is convicted. Thankfully.

Correct:

Under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, if [...] any criminal derives any benefits that are associated with their crime, such as payment for a tell-all interview, film or book, authorities can step in to seize the income.

However, the benefits don’t have to be in cash. They can be in any form that results in some commercial benefit flowing back to the criminal from the proceeds of crime.

Celebrity criminals and the proceeds of crime – why crime doesn’t pay

If a criminal derives a benefit from the proceeds of crime, such as payment for a tell-all interview, film or book, authorities can seize that income.

stacklaw.com.au

 

[Spectrix]

“I roughly poured water over them to get the crispness out of them. I chopped them up and sprinkled them over the duxelles and pushed them in,” she said.

I call complete BS on this tale, I believe she dehydrated and finely ground death caps, well ahead of the lunch, and sprinkled them over instead.

Yep, it was stated by the Mycologist that deathcap tissue was not found in the leftovers, only a single variety of button mushrooms. Yet toxicology confirmed that they were in there. They only way that would be possible is if the Deathcaps were powdered. And that's exactly what the prosecutor is alleging that Erin did.

Erin has made quite a few mistakes in her testimony, this is one of them IMO.

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

The senior constable said he found the leftovers at the “very bottom” of a red bin in a Woolworths brown paper bag.
“It was primarily one and a bit beef wellingtons,” the police officer told the court.
The senior constable said the bag was “seeping a bit from the bottom”.

https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/crime/more-witnesses-testify-in-accused-mushroom-cook-erin-pattersons-murder-trial-as-court-case-continues-in-regional-victoria/live-coverage/785ef0beeebcf9c7ca96755b52ae9eee

Wonder why she didn't flush them down the loo?

Maybe her home has a cess pit type of sewage system so she couldn't dispose of anything completely by flushing?

Also really a sign that she never thought anyone would be coming looking for her accusing her of poisoning people. If so, she'd have burned them or disposed more carefully ?

It is my firm belief she thought she'd make people poorly and then end up having them dependent and needy of her nursing care. Or, she no longer GAF and was super looking forward to having retirement in prison, reading books and not binge eating.

Future crime drama series : Kathy Bates Makes BWs for the Fam.

 

[Spectrix]

I guess you don't have bear? Black Bears repeatedly knock our cans over. We literally have to strap them down. lol

I mean, the native Australian Drop Bear has been known to forage bins that are left out under trees...

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

We don't have the kind of wildlife that causes such a menace with bins in other countries.

MOO

I live in an urban city centre in a country with not much variety of wildlife, however, I would still worry that rats, mice, squirrels, foxes, would do their utmost to get into a bin which smelled of lovely beef wellington. Not to mention pet cats and dogs.

Bearing in mind it would seem Simon's intended portion got wholly binned, did she not care a jot for the possibility that some form of creature even it were only small beetles or flies or suchlike would try to get at the disposed poisonous food?

Strange IMO.

 

[Kemug]

SO MANY things in both of the above posts strongly indicate that she did tell someone about the lunch being about her
After all of the above that the jury has seen in their messages EP then tries to deny that she ever said the lunch was supposed to be about her announcing her health concerns. And says that both Simon and Ian were not being accurate or truthful.

Well, to be fair, she doesn't seem to know a whole lot about accuracy and truthfulness!

 

[SouthAussie]

...... it beggars belief that she didn't take more urgent action! Makes her appear super suspicious at best and guilty at worst.

I think Heather was quickly suspicious. There must have been some reason that she even considered the fact that Erin had a "different coloured plate" might be relevant. Relevant enough to mention to Simon.

Heather likely wouldn't have been thinking "accidental" if she was already wondering about the plate. I wondered why her mind jumped to suspicion, if things were okay.

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

Has there been any evidence that EP was truly considering gastric band surgery?

For example had she contacted clinics or done online research or followed web forums or joined discussion groups?

I'm starting to wonder if this meal was her 'last supper' scenario and she was bowing out from reality and mothering her children. Or that something is so profoundly mis-wired in her brain that focus on wreaking revenge hijacked her thinking hierarchy and she became unable to consider the aftermath and any consequences.

I've heard it said here on this forum that perpetrators frequently 'forget' to consider the aftermath. Is this a psychological phenomena ? I could understand if it happened in a crime of passion or violent rage but to plan something so carefully and then clean forget the cover up is so bizarre IMO.

 

[303gmf]

Actually we don't have "trash cans" like other countries. We have tall plastic bins with lids on them to avoid any disturbance by wildlife. Cockatoos and crows sometimes get in them, but not much else can.

Bears in my hometown were trash menaces, a town ordinance now requires bear proof containers

 

[MrJ]

According to Mycologist, Dr Truong:
"The mushroom I identified is called a field mushroom ... this is the typical mushrooms that you find in a supermarket," Dr Truong said.
"That is the only mushroom that I found in this food item."

So just to clarify this was the leftover of the BW? or something else?

 

[Megnut]

I think Heather was quickly suspicious. There must have been some reason that she even considered the fact that Erin had a "different coloured plate" might be relevant. Relevant enough to mention to Simon.

Heather likely wouldn't have been thinking "accidental" if she was already wondering about the plate. I wondered why her mind jumped to suspicion, if things were okay.

If it's true that Erin only ate a third of hers, well, I would notice that. If the cook wasn't eating much of her own creation. I don't know what conclusion I'd draw, but I would notice it.

A different color plate? I'd notice that too.

JMO

 

[Kemug]

My thought is that if there was any leftovers from the beef wellington (the kind of leftovers that you might throw in the bin - bits and pieces) any of the dogs I have had in my lifetime would have had it as part of their dinner that night.

I would have thought Erin's dog would have loved it. If it wasn't poisoned.

imo

Actually, has anyone seen the dog lately?