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

[Kemug]

Yes but that's not what the evidence says. That's her word, which we know isn't reliable.

Dear Detechtive
I am wondering if the 3 friends supporting Erin daily are beginning to have some doubts. Which may show just a little in their faces. How I would like to be there. Maybe you have no idea, and maybe I shouldn't be typing this. Please feel free to ignore me. But still, I wonder.

 

[Kemug]

Just to add, in that article I posted about 60% of the toxin going to the liver, and 40% going to the kidneys, it says that a doctor's first experience with DC poisoning may also be their last experience with DC poisoning. It is so relatively rare.

The doctors desperately trying to save the 4 victims' lives would have thought it impossible that they were right in the middle of a murder mystery. Not even remotely considered it.

 

[Detechtive]

Dear Detechtive
I am wondering if the 3 friends supporting Erin daily are beginning to have some doubts. Which may show just a little in their faces. How I would like to be there. Maybe you have no idea, and maybe I shouldn't be typing this. Please feel free to ignore me. But still, I wonder.

My experience with people like them is that some will be die hard fans until the end because they’ve been manipulated to believe the ridiculous illogical stories they’ve been fed, but eventually all rats flee from a sinking ship. I suspect we will see that if there is a guilty verdict IMO

 

[Detechtive]

One thing we know for certain is that if she is guilty we'll never know why she did it.

Even if she is found guilty and is given life in prison, and one day admits guilt and explains why, we won't be able to trust it. She has demonstrated herself to be a liar to the level where she will twist anything to make herself look better.

I disagree with this. We don’t require Erin’s lies to work out why she did it.

Imo it’s very clear why she did it (if she is guilty of murder). Control and power and her losing it in the lead up. The details aren’t as relevant IMO

 

[Detechtive]

IMO she gave them such a significant quantity of DC’s that they became much sicker, much quicker than she had expected - which the medical staff responded to with appropriate concern and alarm.

All moo

Agree 100%

 

[Detechtive]

My experience with people like them is that some will be die hard fans until the end because they’ve been manipulated to believe the ridiculous illogical stories they’ve been fed, but eventually all rats flee from a sinking ship. I suspect we will see that if there is a guilty verdict IMO

These people were originally trying to convince everyone that Simon set Erin up

That’s the level of their delusion. Perhaps it’s waning now.

 

[Bats]

That was her testimony on the stand----she said she thought that was an incorrect diagnosis.

Oh, I must have missed that.

I remember reading Erin was puzzled by the potential DC diagnosis, but not that she thought the doctors' diagnosis for the 4 guests was incorrect.

 

[MrJ]

These people were originally trying to convince everyone that Simon set Erin up

I have to say that the fact that this sentiment has been floating around online is gobsmacking IMO.

 

[MaxDecimus13]

To anyone here that still thinks that Erin was merely trying to make her lunch guests sick, I suggest that you read this. Erin is a person who does her research.

Deathcap mushroom - Amanita phalloides

The Deathcap Mushroom - Amanita phalloides, identification, emergency phone number, one of several illustrated pages introducing Australian fungi.

www.anbg.gov.au

If we say that Erin is guilty, there are 2 main theories: that she intended to kill them all or that she didn't intend for them all to die and that some would only get sick.

The reality is that with what we can ascertain about Erin from the evidence both of these propositions contain problems that have to be accounted for.

1) Erin was very clever and thorough, and would surely have done her research about DC.

2) Erin would have surely known that she couldn't explain away the sudden mysterious deaths of 4/5 people.

It goes without saying that if guilty either could be true. I'm only assessing what I think is more likely.

I find number 2 much more problematic. Until Erin took the stand, I would probably have said it didn't meet the requirement of reasonable doubt because of reasons around this. There is a serious lack of motive to murder these specific 4 people IMO. Then you factor in that she panicked afterwards and tried to dispose of evidence in a way that seems unlikely with a planned-out murder.

With number 1 we actually have good evidence that Erin isn't necessarily always extremely thorough. She mistakenly thought the Enrich clinic did gastric-band. If she's guilty, she's had months to create this alternative scenario and make it water-tight. She didn't even look at the website to check if it really did.

My running theory is that from the searches in 2022, Erin had a knowledge of DC and made the assumption that they were 10-30% lethal based on the headline information. She was then on inaturalist one day and noticed that they were available and saw it as an opportunity. Throughout this period, she never questioned the original assumption.

 

[Little Jack]

You said previously that when you and others saw Erin's TV interview you hardly could recognize her.

Can you clarify if you meant based on h3r behavior or based on her appearance, etc?

ETA this was supposed to be in reply to Detechtive

 

[MaxDecimus13]

Given everything else, I'm satisfied that all of it is fact.

Although the phone expert agreed that the pings from her phone could have been from a different tower, fact is those pings were in the area of VIC that is in question.

All the pings did was to suggest that she had been in that general area on those days. The website views were hardly concrete either, and there's no actual proof she read or took in those posts. At best, it's only really a plausible explanation for how she got them but it isn't really fundamental to the case.

Probably the best thing to back up this theory is the timing of the buying of the dehydrator. That is another thing to chalk down to a strange coincidence if she is innocent.

 

[Detechtive]

At 10:30pm, it sounds as if DC toxin was being considered. They were still trying to work out if it was food poisoning or toxin poisoning.
And the victims might have been in the short "recovery period" - hydrated and feeling a bit better - before being hit by the 2nd round of toxin assault and death.


About 10:30pm, Dr Morgan says she texted the toxicology department, who ordered her to find out more about what was served at lunch.

"I was concerned that this wasnt just gastroenteritis caused by food poisoning," Dr Morgan says.

"There was a discussion about the presentation and how it was quite severe, but the onset of symptoms was quite delayed.

"This would be more indicative of a serious toxin syndrome as opposed to a food poisoning."

Dr Morgan says the toxicologist on call told her that if it was a toxin poisoning, it was most likely due to the ingestion of the amanita phalloides (death cap mushroom) toxin.

Dying lunch guest's 'extremely abnormal' blood test results raised hospital alarm, court hears — as it happened

Ms Patterson is accused of murdering three relatives by serving them a beef Wellington laced with poisonous death cap mushrooms. Follow the trial in our live blog.

www.abc.net.au

I think this is such a crucial fact in this matter
That the presentation was severe.

When I’ve been googling about DC’s since this matter, nothing I have read says anything about the severity of symptoms. To anyone reading or researching, it looks as though the vomiting and diarrhea is just normal gastro bug symptoms.

But in reality, it’s much much more severe.
Ian testified that they were quite violently ill and that he had (IIRC) vomited 30 or so times the first night - so much so that him and his wife were camped by the bathroom.

Even still, I don’t think they would have gone to hospital if it wasn’t for Simon insisting.

And this, to me is the smoking gun.
I don’t think Erin could anticipate from research that the symptoms wouldn’t echo a normal gastro bout, but that they would manifest in violent vomiting and rapid decline.

Every other thing she did after medical intervention was because she couldn’t anticipate this one part that indicated to doctors that it wasn’t just a normal gastro bug. iMO

 

[Detechtive]

You said previously that when you and others saw Erin's TV interview you hardly could recognize her.

Can you clarify if you meant based on h3r behavior or based on her appearance, etc?

ETA this was supposed to be in reply to Detechtive

She was such a cold calm person the majority of the time. Seeing her fake emotions and obvious deception was extremely alarming. Also seeing her act like a bumbling fool was disconcerting.

Erin is sharp, methodical and cerebral.

Even when her mother died she was cold and unemotional.

But she also didn’t share recent photos with us. All of us except erin would share video updates often, but she never did. She only showed us pics of her kids, house etc. none of her, ever except from when she was 15 years younger when she gave birth. Some of us only knew her online, some of those friendships extended IRL, but when we all saw her on that original media interview we didn’t recognise her physically, emotionally, mentally, or otherwise. We started second guessing ourselves. Is it really her? Her name is Erin Patterson and she lives in Leongatha and she’s 48 but this isn’t the Erin we know. We knew it was her property and house because she shared that with us previously, but none of us could comprehend the Erin we were seeing.

 

[Megnut]

Logic. General theory.

If you have four enemies, and four people turn up dead, you are sus.

If you have two enemies and two friends, and four people turn up dead, you have reasonable doubt.

Murder handbook: also murder people with whom you have a good relationship in order to blur motive when you murder people with whom you don't.

JMO

 

[Detechtive]

Logic. General theory.

If you have four enemies, and four people turn up dead, you are sus.

If you have two enemies and two friends, and four people turn up dead, you have reasonable doubt.

Murder handbook: also murder people with whom you have a good relationship in order to blur motive when you murder people with whom you don't.

JMO

I still don’t think the aunty and uncle were the main targets. I still think they were utilised to coerce Simon to attend along with his parents. So was the faux health issues, IMO.

 

[MaxDecimus13]

Logic. General theory.

If you have four enemies, and four people turn up dead, you are sus.

If you have two enemies and two friends, and four people turn up dead, you have reasonable doubt.

Murder handbook: also murder people with whom you have a good relationship in order to blur motive when you murder people with whom you don't.

JMO

What if none of them are enemies, but four friends of an enemy?

 

[Megnut]

If it was intentional, it was so ill conceived. Evil conceived. But ill conceived in terms of getting caught.

Five fatal "food poisonings" and one feigned? And no one was going to investigate that?

SMH

 

[Sarahlou]

If it was intentional, it was so ill conceived. Evil conceived. But ill conceived in terms of getting caught.

Five fatal "food poisonings" and one feigned? And no one was going to investigate that?

SMH

There are so many crimes where you wonder how the person thought they'd get away with it. Maybe they aren't too bothered though. The desire to kill the person/people is stronger than the worry of getting caught. JMO.

 

[Detechtive]

I have to say that the fact that this sentiment has been floating around online is gobsmacking IMO.

It’s insane and cruel. iMO

He was orphaned, whether it was due to intentional homicide or recklessness, it’s obscene that he’s being blamed in any sense, IMO

 

[MaxDecimus13]

There are so many crimes where you wonder how the person thought they'd get away with it. Maybe they aren't too bothered though. The desire to kill the person/people is stronger than the worry of getting caught. JMO.

This is of course true.

But there's a big difference between thinking you want to kill a partner and think you could get away with it, and one where you kill 4 people that you don't have a clear motive for killing.