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

[Franerti]

ntil yesterday it wasn't known as part of the evidence there definitely being 10 steaks right? it's always been claimed to be only 6 BW and that was the BW leftovers the kids ate, minus scrapped off mushrooms and pastry... But then it emerged yesterday she admitted she put 4 in the freezer, so our hunch the kids ate non-BW steak is probably right!

Surely you wouldn’t call steaks in the freezer ‘left overs’ though?
Wouldn’t you just say you fed the kids steak from the freezer? Did she make 10 BW and freeze the rest?
Make it make sense!

 

[JBowie]

Dispatch from Morwell, a shrinking country town now home to the trial of the century

Crikey spent time in the throng of reporters that descended upon Morwell for the murder trial of Erin Patterson. These were our experiences.

www.crikey.com.au

Dispatch from Morwell, a shrinking country town now home to the trial of the century​

Maybe behind a paywall. Posting it here for those who subscribe.

Not paywalled apparently.

On the Tuesday morning, with Patterson set to resume giving evidence-in-chief, members of the public began lining up for a spot in the courtroom at 6am, when the temperature was a brutal 2.2 degrees.
[35.96°F]

 

[Lisa4]

I didn’t do it, that’s my plea,
Though all the facts point back to me.
If lies were coins, I’d be quite rich,
With every tale a perfect glitch.

The plate was black, or maybe red?
Or kindergarten art instead?
I served them all with love and flair,
Except the ones I didn't spare.

I Googled things? That can’t be right.
Unless I searched them late at night.
If someone did, well, maybe me
But only out of pure esprit!

The cake I ate, the trip to Tyabb,
The vomiting, a mere confab.
I couldn’t tell you what I said
My memory lives half-alive, half-dead.

I fled the ward, ignored the doc,
But not on purpose, ticked the clock.
Each version flexes, bends, and sways,
A new excuse for each new phase.

My tears appear when I’m in need,
To plant a sympathetic seed.
But if you press, my face will harden
I’m really just a fragile garden.

So judge me not, or if you do,
Remember, I’m the victim too.
It’s not my fault, I swear, I’m blessed
Just cursed with lies that won’t confess.

Haha! Nice one

 

[Scooby-Doo]

Phone A 'may have been thrown out'​

Patterson said three computer devices had been in her house during the first police search on August 5.
She said two laptops were in use on November 2 when police conducted another search of the house.
'I don't know where it (phone A) was (on November 2),' she said.
Patterson said Phone A may have gone into a skip 'along with a lot of other broken stuff' in September 2023.
Patterson told the jury she got a skip once a year to do a 'clean out of the house and garage'.

Why Patterson switched back to old SIM​

Patterson was asked why she changed back to her old number despite previously saying she changed the SIM because of concerns about her security and Simon.
'As of Sunday evening when child protection became more involved it became clear Simon would need to contact me in regards to arrangements for the children,' Patterson said.


Daily Mail

 

[BreakingNews]

Oh, but her children are liars, according to Erin!

Did she actually call them liars? Or did she just disagree with what they said?

 

[Cliff Hardy]

Can I ask the Aussies about the prosecution's cross of Patterson? I'm puzzled by it. It seems Rogers simply posed "I suggest" statements, and EP either agreed or disagreed. We see that repeatedly. I don't remember Rogers asking any straightforward questions, she just basically made allegations and let EP respond.

Is this a quirk of Rogers' style of cross, or is there a prescribed pattern for the cross of a defendant in Australia (or maybe just Victoria?)

I also wondered about Rogers' approach to questioning Patterson.

It seemed she allowed Patterson the opportunity, in most cases, to be able to just defuse questions with her robotically delivered, short repartee of predetermined responses.

In the end, I still believe Rogers did enough to convince the jury Patterson is a serial liar and that she is guilty, two very separate things.

 

[JBowie]

'I don't know where it (phone A) was (on November 2),' she said.
Patterson said Phone A may have gone into a skip 'along with a lot of other broken stuff' in September 2023.

IMO she knows exactly where it went and when.

 

[JBowie]

Did she actually call them liars? Or did she just disagree with what they said?

Same thing IMO, in this context.

 

[Porky1]

Is there anything happening today?

Does this mean that the closing statements have been made?

(there are lot of posts but in scanning, can’t see any updates) thanks

 

[L_B]

Surely you wouldn’t call steaks in the freezer ‘left overs’ though?
Wouldn’t you just say you fed the kids steak from the freezer? Did she make 10 BW and freeze the rest?
Make it make sense!

This is where she started with the semantics... when Dr Rogers said to her "lunch leftovers", Erin was like I never said "lunch leftovers". I think this is one of the occasions where she overplayed it with the semantics, she was trying to be a smartarse about it but I think it's very telling even though she insisted previously they ate the meat where she scraped off the mushrooms etc, she now is denying the food is "lunch leftovers".

Erin Patterson mushroom trial day 30 – as it happened

This blog is now closed

www.theguardian.com

Erin Patterson questioned over what her children ate the day after fatal lunch

Prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC begins to ask Erin Patterson about evidence regarding what her children ate the day after the lunch.

In a pre-recorded police interview, Patterson’s children said their mother told them they were eating leftovers from the meal the following night. Patterson agrees she told her children they were eating leftovers for dinner on Sunday 30 July 2023.

Patterson says she told her children they were eating “leftovers” but not lunch leftovers.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

If the steaks in the freezer were leftovers from the meal, then yes I would call them leftovers.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

It doesn't seem that there are any updates today.
Perhaps a lot going on behind the scene with both sides legal team and the court.

 

[JBowie]

Is there anything happening today?

Does this mean that the closing statements have been made?

(there are lot of posts but in scanning, can’t see any updates) thanks

No court today. Closing statements will be next week, followed by judge's instructions. Jury may commence deliberations by next Friday.

 

[Lisa4]

(Some of the) Ascertained facts:

1. Visits iNaturalist
2. Buys a dehydrator
3. Visits a known deathcap location the same day
4. Death cap remnants found in that dehydrator
5. Mushroom powder made from deathcaps ends up in the meal
6. Guests die. Cook unharmed.

Let the jury decide.

 

[HoneyBunOne]

Yes, and I think it started from the very beginning because she wouldn't tell Police what she served, etc. I just can't imagine giving a no comment to police and immediately lawyering up when your 4 relatives are in ICU after dining at your house.

"Originally Patterson gave a no comment interview to police at the start of their investigation"

Australian police blast media over 'unhelpful' reporting of Erin Patterson poisoned mushroom case

Detectives probing the death of three people following a poisonous mushroom lunch say the leaking of chef Erin Patterson's police statement has been "unhelpful" and hampered investigators.

www.lbc.co.uk

To be fair, if you're ever seen to potentially be involved in any form of crime, lawyering up is a sensible move, along with following their advice. However, it does seem cold and uncaring the way Erin went about it in this case.

 

[Scuffy35]

If the steaks in the freezer were leftovers from the meal, then yes I would call them leftovers.

I doubt they were leftovers from the meal though. I doubt she ever got them out of the freezer for that lunch.

I think she was deliberately deceptive in testifying that she fed the kids "leftovers" by describing them as having the mushrooms scraped off.

 

[HoneyBunOne]

I'm not suggesting for a second the jury won't do their due diligence but the reality is, juries aren't made up of legal analysts. Crikies, when I served on a case years ago, I was an immature, single, early 20s guy with no responsibilities, who lived to play sport with his mates and then see who could drink the most afterwards.

Unless things have changed dramatically since I served, the jurors will have been gaining their own individual impressions and sharing them with each other, on and off in the jury room for the over 6 weeks that this case has been progressing.

Yes, the jurors will follow the judges instructions but these people are nothing more or less than random, rank and file members of the public and as such will likely use their heads and their hearts in equal parts and be largely guided by gut feeling in arriving at their own individual verdicts. Then they will be influenced by other jurors as they work towards a unanimous verdict. That was my experience when I served for 13 days.

I was shocked when I first learnt that a jury was literally a bunch of randoms and not a group of people with legal experience. It blew my mind, and even now it concerns me, given the type of people lurking in society right now. (Present company excluded of course)

 

[MrJ]

Let's put aside the issues of guilt and innocence because that's for the jury.

But on the optics side of things, everything falls apart. Lawyering up - that's fine, to be honest, not a bad idea. But allegedly swapping sim cards when you're alone to 'talk to your lawyer' - looks sus.
Throwing the dehydrator out with death cap residue, looks sus. Lying repeatedly, insinuating all the other witnesses - sworn under oath to tell the truth mind you - are mistaken, looks sus. Being unemotional during prosecution cross-examination, then emotional during defence questioning - looks sus.

If she's guilty, then the suspicion makes sense. But if she's innocent, why make it look like you're not? I'm confounded by her. An enigma wrapped in a riddle wrapped in a web of lies.

 

[Bats]

I was shocked when I first learnt that a jury was literally a bunch of randoms and not a group of people with legal experience. It blew my mind, and even now it concerns me, given the type of people lurking in society right now. (Present company excluded of course)

If you're on the electoral role, you may get called up one day!
You'll have a head start after learning everything from this trial hehe

...but you may just be on a case where some fool has embezzled one million $ from their company books.

 

[Lisa4]

I agree but at that stage it was a public health issue in order to save people’s lives, rather than a crime investigation.

I think it would be like if a nurse accidentally administered the wrong drug to a patient and the doctors urgently needed to know what kind of drug they administered because it’s time critical, and instead they say no comment forcing the doctors to guess.

Obviously medical personnel have a duty of care greater than a lunch host but she still had a duty of care to cooperate IMO.

That's a fantastic analogy @Detechtive