Australia - 3 dead after eating wild mushrooms, Leongatha, Victoria, Aug 2023 #14 *Arrest*

[CityKid]

Interesting. You couldn't do this research in the UK or, I believe, Australia, because jurors are prohibited from discussing their deliberations or reasoning even after the trial - it would be a criminal offence to do so.

Rules may vary so I can only speak to NY. This generally requires the permission of the judge. I was only asked to do this once, and I've been on four juries. This one was a buy-and-bust drugs case. It was a verdict one side was not expecting; that side wanted to ask us what information presented swayed us.

 

[MsMarple]

It’s hard to resolve Erin’s calm and composed demeanor on the stand with the alleged panicked, devastated and overwhelmed reaction that her defense presented as a way to explain her lies and cold blooded behavior.

Was she play acting in order to deflect her lack of empathy for her dying relatives? And why did she admit to tipping the dehydrator only after she knew she was caught? Is that why she refused to come clean about foraging for mushrooms even as her guests were suffering unimaginable agony?

Was there intent? The jury will decide. But as a person her behavior is reprehensible. I pity her poor children and their father Simon. Erin’s not a good person. JMO

 

[TootsieFootsie]

My opinion is that if EP is not guilty, should she just have said she did it, just to spare her children from any upset in their lives.

I don't think so.

 

[MaxDecimus13]

I've not followed the thread closely today, but I've not seen much about the final lie Erin was caught up in and tbh it's probably one of the worst.

She claimed today that there was a crack in Phone A that was causing her phone not to work properly so she stopped using it at some point in early August. The prosecution demonstrated 5 pages of phone calls showing that she used the phone extensively up until she switched the sim card when the police were there.

Outside of the cancer lie and her attempt to claim it was about a gastric band, this is probably the second worst lie that is definite. Of course there are many other possible/probably lies, but for ones where she has been categorically caught out this is bad.

 

[MaxDecimus13]

It’s hard to resolve Erin’s calm and composed demeanor on the stand with the alleged panicked, devastated and overwhelmed reaction that her defense presented as a way to explain her lies and cold blooded behavior.

Was she play acting in order to deflect her lack of empathy for her dying relatives? And why did she admit to tipping the dehydrator only after she knew she was caught? Is that why she refused to come clean about foraging for mushrooms even as her guests were suffering unimaginable agony?

Was there intent? The jury will decide. But as a person her behavior is reprehensible. I pity her poor children and their father Simon. Erin’s not a good person. JMO

One thing I will say is that regardless of whether she is found to be guilty or not guilty, and whether she is even innocent or not, she has been exposed in a number of ways.

Even if she was innocent, she has been found out to have lied to a number of people close to her she was having appointments and that she has cancer. That is something that is so out of the ordinary but it has almost been lost in the craziness of this trial.

 

[dalsglen]

I wonder what true crime fan Erin would think about the woman that's just been on the stand. Disparaging I bet!

 

[Neet_Mc]

I think this could be added to the below

100%
I’m convinced she stopped and disposed of evidence. Either in at the petrol station or at Tyabb (although my interpretation has been they never arrived at Tyabb - turned around when received the call and came home). That disposed evidence likey to have included remaining contaminated beef wellingtons, remaining mushrooms (still think the DC powdered mushrooms material was flushed in sink) and quite possibly phone A

 

[Neet_Mc]

This is so implausible to me. Explosive diarrhoea necessitating a stop on the side of the road, but cream pants are intact and, when faced with an actual toilet, doesn’t have further diarrhoea, doesn’t need to clean up a bit more and doesn’t wash her hands

Yet Simon is the unhygenic one she is concerned about!?

 

[Neet_Mc]

I kept wondering why Erin’s lawyers aren’t pulling her into line after her horrible performance during the cross-examination over the last few days. I found out that, under Victorian law, her lawyer is actually NOT allowed to talk to her while she is being cross-examined/under oath. So everything we are seeing (the hostility, semantic arguments, passive-aggressiveness) - it’s all based on her own beliefs and thoughts about what she needs to do/say to get herself out of 3 murder charges. I think if anything, this just shows how skewed her perception and thinking is. IMO.

Her personality suggests to me she wouldn’t listen to them anyway!

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

She allegedly poisoned him more than once. I don't understand why he kept eating food she had prepared after the first incident.

Good question, although I think when someone is open, honest, straightforward, there's a cognitive gap or some sort of denial when dealing with covert and extremely dishonest deceptive manipulators.


In this regard, it's tempting to lean into victim blaming 'why would you be so stupid as to do x y z...?' when in fact that victim has been long term groomed and observed by the perpetrator to the point where they have wrongfully gained complete trust and also are so duplicitous that the victim can't believe they'd ever be so demonic.

JMO MOO

 

[Montrealaise]

Good question, although I think when someone is open, honest, straightforward, there's a cognitive gap or some sort of denial when dealing with covert and extremely dishonest deceptive manipulators.


In this regard, it's tempting to lean into victim blaming 'why would you be so stupid as to do x y z...?' when in fact that victim has been long term groomed and observed by the perpetrator to the point where they have wrongfully gained complete trust and also are so duplicitous that the victim can't believe they'd ever be so demonic.

JMO MOO

This reminds me of those thrillers where someone marries a person they think is absolutely wonderful and perfect, and brushes off the recurring mysterious "accidents" they keep having as just bad luck, unaware that they're murder attempts by their spouse.

 

[Lisa4]

My opinion is that if EP is not guilty, should she just have said she did it,

Any innocent person in these circumstances would, knowing otherwise they could not live with themselves for the rest of their lives.

 

[Scooby-Doo]

I know that with bowel surgeries the surgeons take biopsy samples which they store for 10 years, I believe? If there was poisoning I would suspect there would be some evidence of it, even now. IMO

And everything would have been documented.

And he was going to be possibly be the 5th one, perhaps dead at the lunch

His invitation was there

 

[Lisa4]

I met somebody once (not Erin), who just could not be wrong or take accountability or blame for anything. It wasn't a choice, it was the way their rigid mind worked.

For example, this person told me that snakes were not in a particular suburb where they lived and when I found recent news articles about people seeing snakes in that area, with photos of the snakes and snake catcher warnings, they couldn't deny it, but they still couldn't accept it could happen at their property even though it was in a 1km vicinity, so came up with all sorts of irrational explanations about why I'm wrong and why that information doesn't apply to them.

Then when I actually saw a snake at the exact location this person lived and they put it in a bucket to examine after originally denying it was a snake, and saying it was a lizard, they said it must have been transported from a different place because the neighbour had an excavation business and he must have inadvertently transported the snake from a work site 400kms away.

It was crazy stuff.

I wonder if this is what Erin does in her mind. IMO

Yes . This is the sort of absolutely mind blowing ludicrous behaviour you cannot make up.

And you cannot grasp that there are people like that in this world until/unless you ever have first hand experience of it.

 

[MrJ]

I find the Narcissist's Prayer very apt when listening to EP's 'corrections' to Dr Rogers' questions:

That didn't happen.
And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
And if it was, that's not a big deal.
And if it is, that's not my fault.
And if it was, I didn't mean it.
And if I did, you deserved it.

(not diagnosing her just this poem has come up in my mind quite a lot during the trial)

 

[Lisa4]

My opinion is that if EP is not guilty, should she just have said she did it, just to spare her children from any upset in their lives.

I don't think so.

Just occurred to me and I would like to clarify.
Are you meaning that "If EP is not guilty, should she just have said she did it intentionally..." ?

 

[Montrealaise]

Innocent or guilty of purposefully killing three adults, this Patterson woman has effectively killed the lives of her children by the forever torment and grief bestowed upon them by the choices she has made throughout this entire tempest in a toilet bowl.

My heart aches for them.

I've been following her testimony in the news - by disputing her kids' testimony and statements, she actually accuses her own children of lying? This will haunt them forever.

 

[Lisa4]

I find the Narcissist's Prayer very apt when listening to EP's 'corrections' to Dr Rogers' questions:

That didn't happen.
And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
And if it was, that's not a big deal.
And if it is, that's not my fault.
And if it was, I didn't mean it.
And if I did, you deserved it.

(not diagnosing her just this poem has come up in my mind quite a lot during the trial)

Wow that is so spot on for the person I knew.

I think I'd add a last line -

That didn't happen.
And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
And if it was, that's not a big deal.
And if it is, that's not my fault.
And if it was, I didn't mean it.
And if I did, you deserved it.
But it didn't happen.

 

[Bats]

Since the jury will be sequestered, I wonder what happens on the weekend? Will they still be deliberating? Playing Monopoly? Baking?
I wonder if the judge will try to avoid that by sending them in Monday week? Though, they may be deliberating for more than 5 days, i suppose.

Edit: Monday week being 23rd June

 

[Montrealaise]

Or maybe she could have cooperated with police, not tampered with and or dispose of evidence, not tried to disrupt the treatment of her 'beloved family' by being actually helpful and cooperative with treating doctors and the health department, not tried to manipulate the world by releasing a statement directly to the media which was full of lies, not implied her children are liars through her testimony, and spared her children a world of pain that way. She chose otherwise, which is why she is here whether she is guilty or not. IMO

If she had admitted, right at the outset, that she foraged for mushrooms and included some in her beef Wellington; if she hadn't tried to dispose of the dehydrator and her phone; if she had shown grief and remorse at her relatives' serious illness - it could very well have been thought of as a tragic accident, a mistake by an inexperienced forager who mistook poisonous mushrooms for edible ones. There would still be doubt cast on her story, mainly because she was the only person at the lunch who did not fall ill, but would that doubt have been enough to lay murder charges against her? What nailed her, IMO, is her string of lies and her attempts to dispose of the evidence.