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

[tillytatler]

Yes! “The stare” is a BPD thing too. She has been reported as ‘staring intently’ at the prosecutor in the trial coverage a few times now.

I wonder if the whole thing was just a big BPD episode triggered by Simon putting himself as separated on the tax return and Gail and Don distancing themselves. That would certainly trigger the intense fear of abandonment that BPD is known for. All MOO.

She said she needs to be able to lip read when she is listening to people speak, so her staring intently is one of the few things that there is definitely an innocent explanation for in this case.

 

[MsMarple]

I believe those figures are amitoxin on it's own.
The quantity of fresh deathcap required to kill an adult is cited as being 30 - 50 grams.
Erin had over 500grams of deathcaps on her scale prior to dehydrating them.

Assuming she used all of them, it should have been more than enough to kill all of the house guests, Simon, both of the kids, the dog and Erin herself.

Isn't it remarkable that Erin, the dog and both children escaped unscathed?

Thank you!

And there’s still that sticky problem of timing. If they ate around 1 pm and the guests left around 3:30 pm that’s already 2.5 hours of the mushrooms sitting in Erin’s stomach. We don’t know exactly when she allegedly binged on the cake but in her testimony she said evening, which could be anywhere from 5-7 pm.

So at the earliest (5) the mushrooms would have been digesting for approximately four hours and maybe longer. At that point vomiting would have done very little. IMO

I’ll try to find what time the kids came home, maybe that will tighten up the timeline.

 

[CuriousDetective]

I think the actual nastiest creatures have two legs.

Not specific to Australia though.

 

[CuriousDetective]

It was in my region in NSW but it wasn’t called foraging, just mushrooming in Autumn. We also drove to areas where there were blackberries, we collected pippies, went prawning and fishing, all normal for my family but no-one does it now. Iam a city girl now with great memories.

We definitely picked blackberries in Gippsland. But you had to be careful that they hadn’t been sprayed with round-up by farmers or the council. Where I live now in QLD is coastal and collecting pippies and fishing are very common activities.

 

[iridized]

She said she needs to be able to lip read when she is listening to people speak, so her staring intently is one of the few things that there is definitely an innocent explanation for in this case.

Has there been any testimony that she is hearing impaired? Or was she just trying to assert herself over the court proceedings?

 

[MrJ]

EP's lawyers this weekend realising she has at least a few more days of cross examination to go

 

[Megnut]

So she admits she didn't tell anyone that the meal which made her in-laws violently ill may have contained foraged mushrooms?- And then she disposed of the dehydrator which contained the mushrooms in a site far from her home?

She says that she is afraid she would be blamed for their illness - if she had simply made a mistake, as the defense claims, she would not be facing criminal charges. Even experienced foragers make mistakes: as the expert witnesses have pointed out, the death caps look like other, harmless mushrooms. If she had told the doctors about the possibility of foraged mushrooms, they would have started the appropriate treatment earlier and could have saved lives.

It looks too me like she was holding out for 48 hours.

Pushing off the health department... so there'd be no trace of the toxin....

It looks like someone expected guests not to discuss the luncheon.....

JMO

 

[Megnut]

Thank you!

And there’s still that sticky problem of timing. If they ate around 1 pm and the guests left around 3:30 pm that’s already 2.5 hours of the mushrooms sitting in Erin’s stomach. We don’t know exactly when she allegedly binged on the cake but in her testimony she said evening, which could be anywhere from 5-7 pm.

So at the earliest (5) the mushrooms would have been digesting for approximately four hours and maybe longer. At that point vomiting would have done very little. IMO

I’ll try to find what time the kids came home, maybe that will tighten up the timeline.

The son returned home while the guests were still there, they commenced with prayer over Erin and her Stage 4 Sympathy Stunt iirc.

JMO

 

[Lisa4]

I think if a simple act of vomiting after eating death caps could mean you do not experience any illness, that would be one of the important recommendations.

Erin would not have been able to throw up for a few or several hours, as she ate around 1pm, they talked awhile, served dessert and then the kids arrived home and sat and talked together, and then later, she said she ate several servings of orange cake and THEN she felt stuffed and brought it back up/

By that time, the toxins were already in her blood stream and her gastro-intestinal tract and soon the liver.


Q: does vomiting immediately after ingesting death caps prevent illness?

While vomiting can expel some stomach contents,
it's highly unlikely to prevent severe illness from death cap mushroom poisoning.
Here's why:

• Delayed Symptom Onset: Symptoms like nausea and vomiting usually don't begin until 6 to 24 hours after ingestion, which is too late to effectively remove the absorbed amatoxins.
• Rapid Absorption: Amatoxins are quickly absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract and transported to the liver, where they begin causing damage, even if you vomit soon after eating the mushroom.
• Persistent Damage: Even if you vomit, the toxins already absorbed continue to harm your liver and other organs.

Also, if genuinely didnt know about deathcaps she would have tasted duxelle mix around 10-30-11:30am.

 

[katydid23]

That’s true. Our dogs are fed before us. If there’s anything safe, it may top the meal the next day but I was always advised not to give them mushrooms or tomatoes so it’s the bin for our leftovers

Sure, no mushroom or tomatoes. I never gave my dogs leftover 'human' meals. But beef or chicken scraps? Top of the line quality meat ? YES, they got scraps pf high quality meat when possible.

I bet Erin routinely gave her lab scraps of high quality meat when available....unless it wasn't safe.

 

[katydid23]

If the Defense's angle is that, in foraging for mushrooms, Erin accidentally collected Death Cap mushrooms without realizing it, and then when her BW hot pockets seemed bland to her, added her dehydrated but never rehydrated foraged mushrooms to her BWs, she had no idea they were toxic, then where is her horror and remorse????? Why is she lying, denying, hair-splitting, can't-remembering?

It's a curious defense she's putting forward, curious in that I can't figure out what it is.

JMO

I think if her defense was a very clear cut apology----a sincerely tearful rendering of how she accidentally picked the death caps and when she realised she was so devastated....and even now it is so tragic that she cannot accept how horrible it is, she is so very sorry---that might be effective....but that's not what we got so far.

It's more like she is still denying it. It's like pulling teeth to get her to admit what her attorney has already set forth as their defense.

 

[BreakingNews]

There is definitely a bias from the female presenter.

For her this is about how accused women are treated so she is viewing it through that prism. She might not realise it but she wants to believe her.

It is like another version of OJ. If Erin is innocent, it will be a victory for women regardless of the actual facts of the case.

It's probably innocent until proven guilty.

 

[MrJ]

to get her to admit what her attorney has already set forth as their defense.

THIS is what gets me most of all. Even under cross examination, she's deviating from her own defence testimony. Ah just like the deviations she made from the RecipeTinEats book beef Wellington recipe. At this point I think we should all call her falsehoods deviations.

 

[BreakingNews]

The poor dog also had body image issues after being fat shamed as a puppy and she was struggling with bulimia which no one knew about... except Erin.

I think the dog might have been vegetarian. So didn't eat the beef.

 

[Jake18]

It's probably innocent until proven guilty.

I’ve just listened to half of it taking my son to Saturday sport.

I do find her very irritating - there’s no scepticism at all. I’m up to when the reporter says that, at the lunch, Ian mentioned a friend with cancer which was - according to Erin - when the conversation turned to EP’s health concerns.

There’s no acknowledgement that this is vastly different for what Ian said, which was that EP told the group she had cancer and it was serious and she was going to need help. And that the topic was the focal point of the lunch, not something triggered by someone else’s conversation

 

[Old Soul]

Part of Erin’s defence is that her justification for looking up death caps on the internet including the iNaturalist site was to find out if they grew in South Gippsland as she was concerned that her dog might eat some.

“She says at “one point” she wanted to find out if death cap mushrooms grew in South Gippsland. She says she found out they did not.”
(I recall from another article that she added the word “effectively” to the end her sentence to give herself some wriggle room if challenged by the prosecution, IMO ).

Erin Patterson trial day 28 – as it happened

This blog has now closed

www.theguardian.com

Out of curiosity I entered “do death cap mushrooms grow in South Gippsland” on my browser and limited the search parameters to 2020-June 2023.
Unsurprisingly, the internet tells me that they do including readily found warnings on Facebook and Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria.

I also found an article in the Sentinel Times (the local newspaper from Erin’s region) from April 20, 2023, warning about poisonous mushrooms:

Poisonous mushrooms warning issued for Victoria - South Gippsland Sentinel Times

VICTORIANS are being warned of the dangers of consuming wild mushrooms, as wet and cooler weather provides the ideal growing conditions for certain types of mushrooms. Two particular wild mushroom species – Death Cap mushrooms and Yellow staining...

www.sgst.com.au

And another from the Gippsland Primary Health Network, April 13, 2022:

Poisonous mushrooms growing in Victoria - Health alert 13 April 2022 - Gippsland Primary Health Network

Status: Active Date issued: 13 April 2022 Issued by: Dr Angie Bone, Deputy Chief Health Officer (Environment) Issued to: Health professionals and Victorian community Key messages Poisonous mushrooms including Death Cap mushrooms and Yellow-staining mushrooms are currently growing around...

gphn.org.au

I tend to believe that Erin was a regular user of iNaturalist but managed to wipe her 2023 activity on the site during her many phone/device factory resets which is a real shame

 

[LinasK]

Bit surprised Erin professes to be a Christian. Doesn't the Ten Commandments say not to lie, Erin?

Also, "Thou Shalt Not Kill"

 

[LinasK]

That's how I read it, she has twisted the facts to make it seem like a plausible story but has actually made more problems for herself.

There are a couple of key reasons that point to a possible innocence. First a real lack of motive for murder and second her actions after the fact pointing to a panicked cover up rather than a planned murder.

However, in trying to make herself look better, she has inserted more doubt into her story and increased the possibility of guilt.

For instance, I think it's extremely likely that she knew she was including foraged mushrooms in the meal. Not only did she lie about this at the time for whatever reason, she has now concocted an unlikely version where she didn't realise until days later that she might have included them. This is an obvious attempt to account for her initial lies at the time.

This is hard to believe IMO, and simply increases the question of foul play. If she'd simply owned up to having included them and not knowing what they were, it would ironically be better for her.

The motive is revenge- to get back at her in-laws for not siding with her, and to cause Simon immeasurable grief. The "panic" is because her planning only extended to the murder, not the authorities figuring it out so quickly.

 

[Detechtive]

Oh I agree. She is showing her true colors.

I think she's only just warming her up! I expect Erin to lose it. IMO

 

[katydid23]

Yes, the leftover BW samples from her bin only had visual evidence of the Woolworths mushrooms.
Further forensic testing identified beta-amanitin toxins from death cap mushrooms in these same samples.

I think a visual inspection is faster which is why they started there. But I’m glad they did it that way. I think that evidence is key. Someone who accidentally adds death caps would treat them the same as other mushrooms. And Erin testified that she (kind of) rehydrated them and added them in with the others.

However, not seeing any death caps on visual inspection but finding evidence of their toxins in the lab implies that they were powdered. Which to me, means they were being hidden in the meal. And shows that Erin lied about how she prepared the Wellingtons since she didn’t mention powdered mushrooms at all. It negates the whole story of the mixed up stinky Tupperware mush. rooms.

THIS^^^^.
I agree that this was big for the prosecution. It makes that detailed, calmly told narrative by Erin incorrect. She appears to be lying about that story of impulsively grabbing the Tupperware of mixed mushrooms because the duxelles were bland---she described how she cut them up, threw water on them to rehydrate them, and then sprinkled them on top of the Duxelles paste and 'pushed them into the paste' using a flip tool.

So much detail and yet it is all BS?