'Not even a forensic toxicologist could do that in a lab': Crown disputes children's meals
Dr Rogers said the “first time we see any effort made” by Erin to have her children medically assessed was hours after she’d first been warned of the danger they might have ingested toxic mushrooms.
Dr Rogers said the “perfectly reasonable explanation” for why she hadn’t rushed her children to hospital was because she knew they hadn’t eaten death cap mushrooms.
“The evidence strongly suggests that if the children had eaten leftover meat from the poisoned beef wellington, they too would have at least experienced some symptoms,” she said.
The jury heard the meat part of the leftovers retrieved from the bin at Erin’s home tested positive for death cap toxins.
Dr Rogers said this was evidence that the amatoxins had penetrated, or remained, on the cooked meat.
“The accused attempted to explain why the children weren’t sick by repeatedly saying she’d scraped the mushrooms off,
however scientific evidence suggest simply scraping it away would not have been enough to remove the toxins,” she said.
Dr Rogers told the jury to reject explanations from the defence that the mushrooms paste simply “couldn’t be separated” from the meat that was tested at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine.
“It is impossible, we suggest to you, that the accused could have served up a piece of leftover steak with all of the mushroom paste removed,” she said.
“Not even a forensic toxicologist managed to do that in a lab.”
