Australia - 3 dead after eating wild mushrooms, Leongatha, Victoria, Aug 2023 #13 *Arrest*

[Lisa4]

This is a complete thought experiment, but: what if they didn't?

Technically Don's might not have, as we know he ate half of his wife's as well as his own.

I have noticed in testimony that Erin seemed to have a particularly close relationship with him and she has spoken repeatedly both on the stand and in the early interview by the car about how much her children loved him.

It could have been he was intended to be spared but things went awry when he decided to eat Gail's leftovers.

In that instance, could it explain Heather & Ian being invited - so that not ONLY Gail got sick, making things look less targeted on Gail?

It's a bit "out there" but technically plausible.

Technically a plausible theory, yes. But people only survive if they get rapid treatment. If she had wanted one to survive, she needed to go down the path of quickly "remembering" and admitting to using foraged mushrooms so that they could be treated urgently.

 

[Old Soul]

‘One of the best meals I’ve had’: Patterson’s son recalls lunch leftovers​

Patterson’s son told a detective the leftovers from the lunch were one of the best meals he had ever eaten.

After returning home from the drive to his cancelled flight lesson, the boy said he and his sister played computer games.

He said his mother informed him and his sister about 5.30pm that it was dinner time, and they ate potatoes, beans and the left over meat from the lunch, before watching a TV series together then going to bed.

Patterson’s son: “The meat - it was very soft and it was probably one of the best meals I’ve ever had actually.”

Interviewer: “Was it beef, pork, chicken?”

Patterson’s son: “Beef. I think it was eye fillet.”

Interviewer: “And how was it cut?”

Patterson’s son: “I think it was a block cut up into cubes. Maybe 5cm (cubes).”

Interviewer Did it have anything on it?

Patterson’s son: “No.”

Interviewer: “How do you know it was leftovers?”

Patterson’s son: ’Because mum said it was leftovers.”

Interviewer: “So no gravy?”

Patterson’s son: “No.”

Interviewer: “And nothing else on the meat as well?”

Patterson’s son: “No.”

The boy said he had seen his mother cooking the meat on the Saturday morning, hours before the lunch, in an electric frying pan.

Interviewr: “To the best of your knowledge, was the meat pre-cooked or was it something mum cooked fresh that night?

Patterson’s son: “I think she cooked it all on the Saturday and heated it up for us on the Sunday.

Interviewer: “So when you came out of the computer room, dinner was already on the table?”

Patterson’s son: “Yes.”

Interviewer: “So you didn’t see how she prepared it?”

Patterson’s son: “No.”

The boy said his mother did not eat much of the food she prepared for herself that evening.

He said his mother mentioned that evening that Don and Gail were feeling sick and she had wondered if she and his grandparents were feeling ill because of the lunch.

‘He did things to hurt mum’: Erin Patterson’s son reveals his parents’ disputes

Erin Patterson is accused of killing three people with poisonous death cap mushrooms.

7news.com.au

BBM
Imagine how the son and daughter felt hearing this after just being fed leftovers from said lunch

 

[lazymaiden07]

I personally have never read much into people's opinions of how people should/would behave. I see it in a lot of cases where somebody is up for murder etc.

The reality is that people act very differently. There is no correct or acceptable way to act in a situation that we genuinely can't comprehend. I remember the day my dad died, finding it strange that the family was sat around that evening laughing watching the apprentice and having a takeaway. Grief didn't occur like I expected it would, with constant crying for days etc

I used to have this argument with people who were claiming her hiding the dehydrator as being absolute proof because you'd only do it if you were guilty. Another from my wife is that had it been an accident, she'd have been at the hospital 24/7 trying to help. For both of these, I can imagine trying to make it so that I didn't get the blame and also feeling too guilty that I'd stay away.

I've been pretty clear recently that I'm increasingly doubting Erin's innocence. However, this is based on facts and not some pop psychological stuff or claims about how she should be answering questions etc. None of us, innocent or guilty, have ever sat in a courtroom trying to convince people we didn't murder people. We've no reference point for how we would behave.

But that's the thing- having a loved one very ill is actually comprehensible. I think most of us on this page have experienced a loved one being admitted to hospital. The subsequent calls from specialists asking questions about medications, symptoms, events leading up to the illness is not uncommon or unusual. To simply shrug your shoulders and say 'well, they're getting the treatment they need' breaches a duty of care EP should have demonstrated to her guests. The lunch was at her home and she was the only one who prepared that meal; that was never in question. Ethically and morally, she owed those guests a chance of survival by being as transparent as possible.

Grief can be expressed in a multitude of ways- but no one had died yet. I don't think it's pop psychology to suggest that EP's actions demonstrate callousness. She refused to meet a a basic obligation to her guests i.e. ensuring their safety, which she could have mitigated by providing crucial details to their treating physicians. The defence obviously think so too, and pursued this line of questioning.

 

[mamamama9873]

adly not quick enough for three of them.

Note, even the chief toxicologist wasn't sure. They only started the deathcap treatment when liver test results had worsened so quickly. And it only saved Ian.

Yes of course not quick enough and it’s an absolutely horrendous crime and a tragedy.

Under these horrific circumstances, it is ‘lucky’ that she didn’t get away with it and that they suspected her immediately.

 

[SouthAussie]

Rest of article behind paywall, but judging by this, she is paying her own way.

View attachment 593122

There is an interesting bit in this article that you screenshot.

Before the charges for allegedly attempting to kill Simon were withdrawn, they (formally, in court) changed the locations of said poisonings. I don't know where the poisonings originally allegedly were stated as taking place, but the revised locations were:

Korumburra – where Simon lives
Howqua - in the state’s northeast
Wilsons Promontory

May 7, 2024
Erin Patterson pleads not guilty to three charges of murder and five counts of attempted murder

 

[Deleted member 363451]

But that's the thing- having a loved one very ill is actually comprehensible. I think most of us on this page have experienced a loved one being admitted to hospital. The subsequent calls from specialists asking questions about medications, symptoms, events leading up to the illness is not uncommon or unusual. To simply shrug your shoulders and say 'well, they're getting the treatment they need' breaches a duty of care EP should have demonstrated to her guests. The lunch was at her home and she was the only one who prepared that meal; that was never in question. Ethically and morally, she owed those guests a chance of survival by being as transparent as possible.

Grief can be expressed in a multitude of ways- but no one had died yet. I don't think it's pop psychology to suggest that EP's actions demonstrate callousness. She refused to meet a a basic obligation to her guests i.e. ensuring their safety, which she could have mitigated by providing crucial details to their treating physicians. The defence obviously think so too, and pursued this line of questioning.

Yes and her responses to Nanette Rogers showed the real face of Erin Patterson.

 

[JBowie]

He said his mother mentioned that evening that Don and Gail were feeling sick and she had wondered if she and his grandparents were feeling ill because of the lunch.

[bbm]

Gee, I wonder what would put that idea into her head?

 

[katydid23]

With the lack of new info over the weekend, it gives you time to reflect on things that often you don't have time to.

As I've said elsewhere, there are a couple of good pieces of information that create doubt in Erin's guilt, and whilst we can come up with reasons for them, they aren't the most probable.

I actually thought of another today. If Erin planned to kill the 4/5 guests, what exactly did she think would happen next is she succeeded? It doesn't seem likely that she would think that everybody would just see it as a tragic accident and there would be no investigation. Also, she would surely know that it would look really bad on her as the one who cooked the meal and that would affect her life forever regardless of guilt.

This seriously leads me to consider whether that was her true intention. Again, I wonder whether she underestimated the effect it would have and either thought it might only kill one or thought they would become ill and she could be a Florence Nightingale figure and nurse them back to health.

If guilty, she was either extremely careless, stupid or arrogant in the extreme, or she didn't intend for them all to be affected as much as they were.

Definite food for thought.

I think she had been slowly poisoning Simon ,for a few weeks, last year. And it never came back to her. She got away with it even though he was in a coma for months.

So I believe she was emboldened by that experience. And I think that she believed that there was no clear cut way to medically test for Death Cap toxins in patients, which was true until very recently.

So with all the pandemics, and airborne illnesses going around, I think she was vainly confident that they would be tested for all kinds of other possible infections before they would consider her any kind of threat. After all, Simon wasn't even there. What possible motive could she have to harm her pastor and his wife and her beloved in-laws?

I don't think she was careless but do think she was stupid, or perhaps blinded by anger/resentment for perceived disrespect from Simon's family and from Simon.

And I think you nailed it with 'arrogant in the extreme.' I see that with her on the stand---mocking the Dr for using the term 'mushrooming' and mocking the 'silly' police for allowing her to talk on her phone in private during the search, and for daring to leave her seized phone on wifi long enough for her to wipe it clean.

Extremely arrogant enough to pose as an ovarian cancer victim and allow her kind relatives to pray for her health, all the while she secretly revels in her dark secret of their imminent deaths. Allegedly, IMO.

 

[katydid23]

This is a complete thought experiment, but: what if they didn't?

Technically Don's might not have, as we know he ate half of his wife's as well as his own.

I have noticed in testimony that Erin seemed to have a particularly close relationship with him and she has spoken repeatedly both on the stand and in the early interview by the car about how much her children loved him.

It could have been he was intended to be spared but things went awry when he decided to eat Gail's leftovers.

In that instance, could it explain Heather & Ian being invited - so that not ONLY Gail got sick, making things look less targeted on Gail?

It's a bit "out there" but technically plausible.

But then how did Heather and Ian get so sick so fast?

 

[Deleted member 363451]

But then how did Father and Ian get so sick so fast?

All of Simon's family were expendable IMO.

 

[MadDoc]

Here's an interesting academic poster on the psychology behind why poisoners poison (if anyone can find an open access version of the full paper, I'd be interested to read it!) https://pure.royalholloway.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/25153320/DFP_2015_Eryna_T_Poster.pdf

This bit in particular sounds like our girl Erin to a tee (BBM)



The interest in working in the medical profession is very interesting as we know that Erin was training to be a nurse (despite her hatred of hospitals!)
The easiest place for a serial poisoner to operate in order to do the widest harm. It's possible she (if the prosecutions case is correct) would have gone on to do much worse.

Much as when a poisoner is caught it is rarely the first time they've attempted poisoning, it's reasonable to assume it also wouldn't be their last, given the chance to continue.

If the allegations against Erin (and about possible past poisoning attempts) are true, then I believe that if she had gone ahead and trained as a nurse we would be looking at another "Lucy Letby" situation.

All speculation and my humble opinion.

 

[Deleted member 363451]

It's not really, often when you fall for someone these things aren't first of all obvious, and your red lines suddenly fade away when you find them out.

I used to have a big thing about smokers, and then a hot girl showed interest and suddenly I didn't care anymore!

Well speaking personally I would never date a smoker or a deeply religious person. Lol

 

[katydid23]

There is no medical evidence that Erin was sick. Ergo, Erin was not sick. That is, Erin didn't consume any DeathCaps.

My theory is that Erin was living in an echo chamber. Her world was very small and she was obsessed with revenge, so therefore she had small mindedness - or myopia, if you will. Mix that with a good dose of arrogance and perhaps she's gotten away with poisoning before, and it's not hard to understand.

She would have known that the toxins leave the body within 48 hours and are undetectable, largely. I think she may have thought that those people would all go back to their homes and not get sick for a long time so there was distance between her and the event, and that they would think it is just gastro and not seek urgent medical attention.

YES^^^^----I think that's what she expected. That's what happened with Simon's recent mystery illness.

I think she put too much Death Cap powder into the meals. If she had backed off a little, it probably would have gone more the way you described. They'd be very sick like with bad stomach bug, feel weak and stay home, start feeling a little better, but then their liver would shut down. That's how Death Caps sometimes work. But I think the fine powder as a loading mechanism was very lethal.

The powdered Death Cap toxins went immediately into the blood stream and the digestive tract and then onto the liver, very quickly. She overamped the poisons, imo.

Maybe she underestimated the violence of this type of 'gastro' and didn't expect these outcomes or that anyone would think it was more than a sad case of stomach flu.

I don't think a rational brain can figure out what she was thinking prior, because it's inherently irrational to plan to kill someone in a civilised society. It is the most extreme act of antisocial behaviour, which the majority of people can't comprehend.

Yes, we cannot possibly try to 'figure out' what she was thinking. It was not a normal, rational thought process.

But I think we can see what she was thinking post-lunch. She seemed solely focused on self-preservation, IMO.

One thing she did tell the truth about---she did get panicky because she thought they were suspecting her. So she clumsily tipped the dehydrator and then lied about it repeatedly.

I mean, for all we know, Erin was living in a fantasy world of being a mad scientist and flirting with natures poisons to observe the outcomes of her wacky experiments on her human lab rats. Maybe she was just bored and wanted some action in her dreary life. She is still guilty of murder in this hypothetical. IMO

I think she was engrossed by vengeance. Starting with her resentment and anger towards her own mother and thus became estranged from her family. She tried to join a new family, who were loving and accepting of her--at first, because she pretended to be like them and have the same beliefs and philosophies. She shared some of her wealth with her new family, helped with their family business and with the church tasks. But secretly she began to think they were not as smart as her, not as educated or sophisticated as she was.

And her arrogance and resentment grew. Eventually she was consumed by that darkness, imo.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

Hmmm the Lindy Chamberlain case comes to my mind.

Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Alice Lynne "Lindy" Chamberlain-Creighton (née Murchison, born 4 March 1948) is a New Zealand–born Australian woman who was falsely convicted in one of Australia's most publicised and notorious murder trials and miscarriages of justice. Accused of killing her nine-week-old daughter, Azaria, while camping at Uluru (known then as Ayers Rock) in 1980, she maintained that she saw a dingo leave the tent where Azaria was sleeping. The prosecution case was circumstantial and depended upon forensic evidence that was eventually found to be deeply flawed.

 

[Lisa4]

Apologies if anyone's already caught this nugget from Friday 6.6.25

"I just lost so much faith in the medical system that I decided that, anything to do with my health and the children's health, I'm going to have to solve that problem myself"

"I had been told that … people were getting treatment for possible death cap mushroom poisoning. So that was already happening."

Lost so much faith in the medical system...

Had every faith in the medical system...!

 

[Rumination1]

I don't know that Erin would be in their will, but her kids might have been and if Simon had have attended the lunch and died, you would think that their kids would be in his will.

Exactly . She wanted Simon n His siblings to get the money so she would t have to share hers

 

[Lisa4]

Hmmm the Lindy Chamberlain case comes to my mind.

Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Alice Lynne "Lindy" Chamberlain-Creighton (née Murchison, born 4 March 1948) is a New Zealand–born Australian woman who was falsely convicted in one of Australia's most publicised and notorious murder trials and miscarriages of justice. Accused of killing her nine-week-old daughter, Azaria, while camping at Uluru (known then as Ayers Rock) in 1980, she maintained that she saw a dingo leave the tent where Azaria was sleeping. The prosecution case was circumstantial and depended upon forensic evidence that was eventually found to be deeply flawed.

No. Lindy did not tell lies.


I can see why you may want to believe there is a similarity, but you really need to look into the details.

Just one quote from the fourth and final inquest in 2012:
The Chamberlains had the unwavering support of the other campers present that evening, and Indigenous trackers gave evidence that supported their accounts.

Furthermore, senior park rangers testified to dingo attacks on children having occurred in the area in the months preceding Azaria’s death.

Azaria Chamberlain inquest

2012: Fourth inquest into the death of Azaria Chamberlain finds that she died as the result of being attacked or taken by a dingo

www.nma.gov.au

Suspicion only came about when some officials refused to believe - despite all reports - that a dingo would or could take a baby. The first inquest was then overturned.

Lindy did not tell lies.
.

 

[Megnut]

[bbm]

Gee, I wonder what would put that idea into her head?

And how did she know the beef was safe?

Oh, wait.

 

[Rumination1]

Interesting theory, but the sole survivor mentioned that the plates were taken to the table by the women. If it was that targeted, Erin would have served them individually herself. IMO

A theory just occurred that when I plate up I often plate small for the women and big serves for the men

Perhaps it was plated thus and Erin knew the women would eat the smaller portion and as you say Gail was the target and the other three decoys who ate too much

 

[iamshadow21]

A theory just occurred that when I plate up I often plate small for the women and big serves for the men

Perhaps it was plated thus and Erin knew the women would eat the smaller portion and as you say Gail was the target and the other three decoys who ate too much

The surviving witness didn't mention anything about the servings being different sizes.

MOO