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

[ch_13]

View attachment 595826

Apologies to Eric Idle and Robbie Coltrane for this quick photo edit job. Nuns on the Run: EP Edition

Erin in The Fugitive.

 

[al66pine]

She sent that message to myself and friends.
It wasn’t evidence.
I put the websleuths watermark on it because the media keep stealing stuff people are posting, for their stories.

@Detechtive
TYVM. Glad to see the source.

 

[MaxDecimus13]

Cynically wondering if podcasters present in a way that keeps audience listening and engaged. Bring pro-Erin gets listeners thinking - what have I missed?

Defense to expert witness:

How many cases of accidental ingestion and person self induced vomiting shortly after ingestion & before symptoms started ?
Witness: none

Is it possible that a small meal, and 2/3 orange cake (size?), followed by self induced vomiting, by an experienced vomiter, prevented a toxic amount of aminita from entering the body?
Witness: possible? Because there no other cases award of.

So it’s possible, EP, by virtue of her bulimia, and being an experienced and thorough vomiter, expelled the DC before a toxic amount could enter her system?

Etc

I get what you're saying, but it is scientifically established that amatoxin starts entering the system very quickly. After all, it is not likely that she threw up soon after the meal.

I found it interesting that Erin wasn't able to say when she had been sick. Another one of those instances of selective memory I suppose...

 

[MaxDecimus13]

There has been some criticism of Colin Mandy today, but personally I think he did exactly what he has to do.

If this forum is anything to judge by, there will be a significant number of the jurors who are basically thinking about what they are going to do after the trial. They've had Erin pegged as guilty since very early on, and no doubt have a clear idea of what they think happened that won't be swayed by Mr Mandy.

He needs to target the jurors who are like me. Those who did have serious doubts for a number of key reasons a while back, and to poke those old sores to the point where at least one has reasonable doubt. This is mostly what he did. He had to account for the lying and he did in a not very convincing way but he focused on those key points. The reality is that there are a few main issues with a guilty charge:

1) A lack of obvious motive
2) The people that Erin chose to kill being unusual choices
3) The lack of gain for Erin in the murders
4) The seeming lack of care taken by Erin in the lead up regarding showing the dehydrator etc
5) The inability to recognise that it was obvious that she would be suspected
6) The slapdash panicked way that she tried to cover her involvement

For many these on here, and I suspect the jurors, these aren't really issues and they usually find the rest of the evidence so compelling that they are happy to accept answers to them that without the rest of the evidence would be relatively unlikely.

For some of us, these are still serious issues to consider. A lot of what other people consider to be excellent evidence (pinged towers, the facebook messages, lying to police etc) I don't find nearly as compelling and easily explainable if we found out she was innocent. Mainly, I still really struggle to get my head around the idea that she would not have considered/been bothered that she would very obviously be suspect number 1, and that she would meticulously plan a murder but not have thought about what would happen afterwards; she was a true crime nut and I just don't find it convincing when people say murderers don't consider what happens afterwards.

The reason I doubt very much I could be swayed, is because I've reached the point where there would need to be just too many coincidences to have happened for Erin's story to be true. I often zoom out and remind myself why this trial was so big in the first place (the strange nature of the cook not getting ill) and how much we didn't know and to consider what could have happened in the two years that would have virtually exonerated her, which haven't happened. Every subsequent fact has been more and more damaging.

The prosecution don't need to prove motive and I love how they said you can never know why a person does what they do. Some of those things will always remain a mystery and I have my own theory to account for them, but that is irrelevant to this case. There is just too much evidence that points towards it not being accidental - MOO.

 

[MissTilly]

I get what you're saying, but it is scientifically established that amatoxin starts entering the system very quickly. After all, it is not likely that she threw up soon after the meal.

I found it interesting that Erin wasn't able to say when she had been sick. Another one of those instances of selective memory I suppose...

also in her testimony (iirc) she said that she didn’t vomit until after she had eaten the entire remains of the orange cake, so that would have added even more time for the toxin to enter her bloodstream
moo

 

[MaxDecimus13]

In the above post, I referenced what things could have virtually exonerated her or at the very least seriously helped her case. 2 years ago, all we knew was that there had been a meal where a number of people were seriously ill or had died and the chef was seemingly fine. This singular fact made it huge news around the world. As I said, once we found out more details about the case, the suspicion could have greatly reduced, but in my opinion they have only got worse. I decided to write some of the things that could have been discovered after the initial media circus that would have helped her a lot:

• She could have had some sign of liver damage (a huge one for mine)
• She could have mistakenly fed poisoned leftovers to a child or her dog
• The mushrooms could have been picked by somebody else
• She could have been with the group/a group when the mushrooms were picked
• She could have asked an expert/friend at the time who said they thought the mushrooms were fine
• They could have been picked at a location where Erin had picked from multiple times with witnesses
• She could have been a completely inexperienced forager doing it without any knowledge/research
• Pieces of the mushroom could have been found in the duxelle or even in a container, confirming that they could have been an obvious error
• They could have located the asian grocer found to have toxic mushrooms
• The Beef Wellington could have been from a log that all witnessed being cut and randomly distributed
• She could have cooked the meal with one of the guests
• She could have been the one who finished the meal off another's plate
• Meals like this could have been a very regular thing for her and her guests with whom she was very close
• The plates could have been identical and food was laid out on the table with guests free to pick where they sat
• As soon as she heard about the illness, she could have contacted the hospital with a worry that she'd foraged bad mushrooms leading to timely life-saving treatment
• She could have actually had cancer

Obviously, all of these things could not have happened together. I'm more talking about if it had been innocent, how many little things could backed her up and none of these things or anything like it happened. On top of that, we discovered actually damaging features like individual BW, a different coloured plate, numerous obvious lies, an attempted cover up etc.

It's easy whilst we're in the thrust of the case to forget how innocent this could have all proven to be once it was investigated. Erin might be the unluckiest woman in the world, or she might have done this on purpose.

 

[MaxDecimus13]

Oh wait, one more.

• She could have worn dark trousers!

 

[MsMarple]

3.39pm

Big house, beautiful garden and a good place: Defence paints a picture of a woman content with her life​

By​

Inside courtroom four in Morwell, Erin Patterson, on trial for murder, looks teary in the dock as her defence barrister explains what she has to lose.

Colin Mandy, SC, maintains she never intended to kill anyone. He starts to paint a picture of his client as a woman content and looking to the future in 2023.

Losing his voice, he returns the jury to the dynamic between his client and her estranged husband. Even after they separated, he said, Patterson and Simon continued to treat their assets as joint assets. He added that the closeness between Patterson and Don and Gail and her children continued.

There was no doubt, he said, that Don and Gail Patterson had a great relationship with their grandchildren, and that Patterson was a devoted mother to her children.

Erin Patterson, her in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson (bottom right), and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson (top right).Credit: Matthew Absalom-Wong

“[In 2023] Erin was in a good place. She had a big beautiful house. She had just landscaped the garden,” Mandy said.

He said that at the time Patterson had her children with her, she was looking forward to returning to studying.
“All things considered, she was in a good place,” Mandy said.

“In that context ... it is most unlikely she would have planned to murder people, especially if it’s inevitable it would be discovered.”

Mandy said that it was, according to the crown, a “carefully planned event, this lunch”.

“They weren’t ever clear about this but some of the arguments that they made were that this was some woman that had been thinking about this event, this lunch and planning it for months, at least since she bought the dehydrator and possibly visited Loch on the same day, that’s the theory,” Mandy said.

Mandy said it was inevitable that the focus would have been on the cook very, very quickly.

“Investigation was inevitable given how unwell these people were. And that’s exactly what happened. It was a certainty,” Mandy said.

Mandy said that Patterson invited her guests to her house so that everyone else knew that they were coming to the house.

“It wasn’t a secret,” he said. “All invited well in advance. All of them discussed the invitations with others in their family. She decided to feed them all in her own house. She decided to prepare a lavish, complicated meal that took a lot of time and effort. Not just a simple bolognaise ... And that prosecution theory in our submission doesn’t make any sense,” Mandy said.

He said Patterson never intended this to happen and if she had been planning this from April she would have never bought a dehydrator in her own name and details using her card from a local store, take photographs of the dehydrator, take photographs of the mushroom of the dehydrator, share the photos online, and then wait for so long after the meal before getting rid of the dehydrator.

“Erin Patterson did the opposite of all these things... because she never planned to kill anyone.″⁣

Erin Patterson murder trial day 33 as it happened: Accused mushroom cook lied to authorities and in witness box, prosecutor says in concluding argument; defence argues no intent, panic explains actions

Inside courtroom four in Morwell, Patterson, on trial for murder, listened intently as prosecutor Nanette Rogers, SC, concluded her closing argument, and defence barrister Colin Mandy, SC, commenced his.

www.theage.com.au

So… the defense’s argument is that Erin couldn’t have planned a murder because she made too many rookie mistakes to get away with it?

 

[katydid23]

I believe it was roughly 50gm, not 5gm, that would be enough to kill a person. I took it to be 50gm of mushroom - in it's natural state. If mushrooms lose about 90% of their weight in the dehydrating process (as per Erin - believe that if you will), that would mean a 50gm mushroom would then become 5gm and then powdered it would be a minute amount of dust. I can absolutely see someone going overboard in their use of powdered, dehydrated mushrooms if their aim was to kill. You'd really only need a sprinkle, much like a dusting of salt or pepper.

I think that if she had used LESS of the powdered mushrooms in each BW, she might have killed them but gotten away with it.

If the lunch guests had been 'less ill' at the start, they may have thought they had stomach flu or mild food poisoning. I think a lot of us have had 'mild to medium' cases of stomach flu where we just stay home and try to recover for 2 days.

If it continues to get worse then we would go seek treatment. If they had waited and not gone to Urgent Care until the 3rd or 4th day, things may have worked out better for EP in the end.

 

[owlmama]

I've been lurking here for a while, reading through all the threads. I'm up a lot at night with a baby who doesn't sleep well, so reading the threads helps me survive the endless sleep deprivation.

Something is really bugging me from Mandy's statements today. I can't remember which article mentioned it, but at one point Mandy was talking about lack of motive and how EPs life was supposedly so good back in 2023. He made a comment along the lines of 'she did have a body image issue, but she had a plan to fix that'. It was almost a throwaway line but it stuck with me. According to her own testimony, EP supposedly has a long history of binge eating and bulimia. This isn't just a 'body image issue', but a serious psychological problem. Also, the gastric bypass story has been shown to be a complete lie, so she did not 'have a plan to fix it'. Plus as several people have pointed out here, she wouldn't even be eligible for weight loss surgery given her bulimia.

Obviously the rest of his comments about her life being so perfect are also nonsensical, but this bit really annoyed me because it's so blatantly untrue.

Edit: it was the DM article:

Mr Mandy said Patterson was financially well-off, had just had her home landscaped and was proud of it, and had planned to study and effectively had soul custody of the kids.
Patterson had a body-image issue but had planned to fix that, the jury was told.
'All things considered she was in a good place,' Mr Mandy said.

 

[katydid23]

Was there evidence of when she purchased the dehydrator, or just when she disposed of it? Usually deathcaps and hallucinogenic mushrooms are out "between mothers day (May) and fathers day (September)", I remember an old emergency dept. nurses saying that was passed down at a hospital I worked at in the area. A pretty long growing time in the gippsland area over the cooler months, but they can grow all year round. If someone came in off their head or very sick and ppl unsure of the cause they would be asked if they had eaten any wild picked mushrooms. Unfortunately Erin lied and avoided telling the truth until it was to late. Psylocybe/Psylocybins and death caps grow all over Gippsland.

Deathcap (Amanita phalloides)

Amanita phalloides /æməˈnaɪtə fəˈlɔɪdiːz/, commonly known as the death cap, is a deadly poisonous basidiomycete fungus, one of many in the genus Amanita. Widely distributed across Europe, but now sprouting in other parts of the world, A. phalloides forms ectomycorrhizas with various broadleaved...

www.inaturalist.org

Psilocybe subaeruginosa

Psilocybe subaeruginosa is a potent psychedelic mushroom from Australasia and New Zealand, which has psilocybin and psilocin as its main active compounds. (Source: Wikipedia, '', http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybe_subaeruginosa, CC BY-SA 3.0 . Photo: no rights reserved, uploaded by Connor...

www.inaturalist.org

Yes, the prosecution showed confirmed evidence that she bought the dehydrator on the same day that she allegedly drove to Outrim looking for the death caps that she googled from the inatural website.

She admitted she bought the dehydrator on that day and said she was not sure if she drove through oiutrim on that same day as well. But there were pictures on her cell showing death caps being weighed on a scale and being on dehydrator racks drying out.

 

[MaxDecimus13]

So… the defense’s argument is that Erin couldn’t have planned a murder because she made too many rookie mistakes to get away with it?

I think it's more that the prosecution claim she meticulously planned a murder, but made mistakes that are not reasonable to believe.

For me, this makes sense if she thought she was going to be suspected of a crime.

 

[MaxDecimus13]

I think that if she had used LESS of the powdered mushrooms in each BW, she might have killed them but gotten away with it.

If the lunch guests had been 'less ill' at the start, they may have thought they had stomach flu or mild food poisoning. I think a lot of us have had 'mild to medium' cases of stomach flu where we just stay home and try to recover for 2 days.

If it continues to get worse then we would go seek treatment. If they had waited and not gone to Urgent Care until the 3rd or 4th day, things may have worked out better for EP in the end.

I hear a lot about how the DC wouldn't have been detectable after 2 days, is this something that is definitely true?

 

[katydid23]

IMO he's doing that because, as I've opined here before, people naturally ask themselves "Why did he/she do <whatever>?", especially when they are put into a position to have to make a judgement on that action.

IMO Mandy is trying to address that natural tendency by telling the jurors that there was no reason.

It is really hard for me to understand why she allegedly put death caps in those 5 Beef Wellington's.
Mandy summed it up very well-- she'd be taking her kid's grandparents away, she'd be losing her kids, her house, her very life by doing so. But she did it anyway and it is hard to understand why.

All I can come up with, if she is guilty as charged, is she might be mentally unwell, and has no real control over her unhinged emotions?

 

[katydid23]

Something that leads to the no motive motive …. Is that there is not much presented in regards to Erin’s character, other than:

1. Doting mother
2. Unhappy partner / ex-partner to SP
3. Real estate portfolio
5. Built dream house which is complete
6. Bulimia / low self esteem

Is there anything else that defines her and how she spends her days? There just seems to be something “missing” …

Not dissing Introverts, nor home makers, idle or financially comfortable.
Just there’s not much information for understanding who EP is.

--She also loves to study and get educated in new career paths but never stays long in any of those jobs.

--She was also very sensitive, maybe overly so, in terms of feeling slighted, disrespected or left out. Even in terms of her ex-inlaws, she felt she should be included in their family events and get togethers---which is kind of unusual, imo.

 

[Moll]

I hear a lot about how the DC wouldn't have been detectable after 2 days, is this something that is definitely true?

Surely not? Where do you hear this? I think others who know more about this have posted details before, but not knowing where to find them I've just done a Google and find that the third stage typically starts three to six days after eating the death caps. Unless you think the toxins are not detectable once the worst effects occur? I hope someone more knowledgeable will comment.

Death Cap Mushroom Poisoning

Find out what you need to know about death cap mushroom poisoning, and discover how to identify it and what to do if you’ve been poisoned.

www.webmd.com

Death Cap Mushroom Poisoning

Death cap mushroom poisoning is extremely serious and requires medical attention right away. Death cap mushroom symptoms typically progress through three stages.

Stage 1: Gastrointestinal Phase. The first stage of death cap mushroom poisoning usually happens between six and 24 hours after eating the mushroom. Typical symptoms of this first stage include:

• Nausea and vomiting
• Bloody diarrhea or urine
• Abdominal pain
• Fluid loss, dehydration, and electrolyte imbalance
• Fever

Stage 2: Latent Phase. After 12 to 36 hours, the first wave of symptoms passes, and patients may begin to feel much better. However, during this stage, the toxins in the mushroom are still affecting the body and are beginning to damage the liver and kidneys.

Stage 3: Hepatorenal Phase. The final stage of death cap poisoning happens when the liver and kidneys are so damaged that they begin to shut down. This period is very dangerous and may require extreme medical intervention.

Symptoms of the hepatorenal phase typically start three to six days after eating the mushroom and include:

• Loss of liver and kidney function
• Jaundice
• Low blood sugar
• Delirium and confusion

:

​

 

[katydid23]

I hear a lot about how the DC wouldn't have been detectable after 2 days, is this something that is definitely true?

Yes, apparently it is no longer detectable in the blood stream after 48 hours. It was posted upthread somewhere that the 2 female victims were not tested until 3 days after, and neither tasted positive for death caps.

But both male victims did test positive so the doctors know the women were also poisoned, but they didn't test them immediately because they were already treating them as death cap victims anyway.

​

ScienceDirect.com
https://www.sciencedirect.com › topics › amanita-phalloi...




The amanita toxin is eliminated by the kidneys and usually is undetectable in the plasma 48 hoursafter ingestion. Therefore rapid therapeutic intervention is necessary...

 

[CityKid]

There has been some criticism of Colin Mandy today, but personally I think he did exactly what he has to do.

If this forum is anything to judge by, there will be a significant number of the jurors who are basically thinking about what they are going to do after the trial. They've had Erin pegged as guilty since very early on, and no doubt have a clear idea of what they think happened that won't be swayed by Mr Mandy.

He needs to target the jurors who are like me. Those who did have serious doubts for a number of key reasons a while back, and to poke those old sores to the point where at least one has reasonable doubt. This is mostly what he did. He had to account for the lying and he did in a not very convincing way but he focused on those key points. The reality is that there are a few main issues with a guilty charge:

1) A lack of obvious motive
2) The people that Erin chose to kill being unusual choices
3) The lack of gain for Erin in the murders
4) The seeming lack of care taken by Erin in the lead up regarding showing the dehydrator etc
5) The inability to recognise that it was obvious that she would be suspected
6) The slapdash panicked way that she tried to cover her involvement

For many these on here, and I suspect the jurors, these aren't really issues and they usually find the rest of the evidence so compelling that they are happy to accept answers to them that without the rest of the evidence would be relatively unlikely.

For some of us, these are still serious issues to consider. A lot of what other people consider to be excellent evidence (pinged towers, the facebook messages, lying to police etc) I don't find nearly as compelling and easily explainable if we found out she was innocent. Mainly, I still really struggle to get my head around the idea that she would not have considered/been bothered that she would very obviously be suspect number 1, and that she would meticulously plan a murder but not have thought about what would happen afterwards; she was a true crime nut and I just don't find it convincing when people say murderers don't consider what happens afterwards.

The reason I doubt very much I could be swayed, is because I've reached the point where there would need to be just too many coincidences to have happened for Erin's story to be true. I often zoom out and remind myself why this trial was so big in the first place (the strange nature of the cook not getting ill) and how much we didn't know and to consider what could have happened in the two years that would have virtually exonerated her, which haven't happened. Every subsequent fact has been more and more damaging.

The prosecution don't need to prove motive and I love how they said you can never know why a person does what they do. Some of those things will always remain a mystery and I have my own theory to account for them, but that is irrelevant to this case. There is just too much evidence that points towards it not being accidental - MOO.

Great points. I've been a jurist several times (not in Australia), and during deliberations (unless it's unanimous during the first round of discussions), these are the sorts of things that are discussed. For example, you didn't find the FB messages compelling in themselves. I agree; those could be dismissed as just venting to strangers, exaggerated complaining about how little a spouse does around the house, etc. When you're discussing that with your fellow jurors, someone else might say they felt the same way at first, and now they can explain why even without considering the FB messages, they came to their conclusion. There's a lot of talking in the jury room, a lot of people talking about their sticking points and sharing their thoughts and theories. I was on one jury that was 8-4 guilty on the first point and the longer we discussed and shared our concerns, it ended up 12 non-guilty.

 

[JBowie]

All I can come up with, if she is guilty as charged, is she might be mentally unwell, and has no real control over her unhinged emotions?

IMO, as an amateur psychologist, she has major mental issues.

If, as I strongly suspect, she is on the NPD spectrum, then she will require some serious attention.

NPD is a lifelong condition, meaning there is no cure. However, it is not a static condition and can be managed through therapy and, in some cases, medication. -- Dr Google

 

[katydid23]

Surely not? Where do you hear this? I think others who know more about this have posted details before, but not knowing where to find them I've just done a Google and find that the third stage typically starts three to six days after eating the death caps. Unless you think the toxins are not detectable once the worst effects occur? I hope someone more knowledgeable will comment.

Death Cap Mushroom Poisoning

Find out what you need to know about death cap mushroom poisoning, and discover how to identify it and what to do if you’ve been poisoned.

www.webmd.com

Death Cap Mushroom Poisoning

Death cap mushroom poisoning is extremely serious and requires medical attention right away. Death cap mushroom symptoms typically progress through three stages.

Stage 1: Gastrointestinal Phase. The first stage of death cap mushroom poisoning usually happens between six and 24 hours after eating the mushroom. Typical symptoms of this first stage include:

• Nausea and vomiting
• Bloody diarrhea or urine
• Abdominal pain
• Fluid loss, dehydration, and electrolyte imbalance
• Fever

Stage 2: Latent Phase. After 12 to 36 hours, the first wave of symptoms passes, and patients may begin to feel much better. However, during this stage, the toxins in the mushroom are still affecting the body and are beginning to damage the liver and kidneys.

Stage 3: Hepatorenal Phase. The final stage of death cap poisoning happens when the liver and kidneys are so damaged that they begin to shut down. This period is very dangerous and may require extreme medical intervention.

Symptoms of the hepatorenal phase typically start three to six days after eating the mushroom and include:

• Loss of liver and kidney function
• Jaundice
• Low blood sugar
• Delirium and confusion

:

​

I think you are referring to a different way of detecting---In other words, you are right that the impact of the death caps is detectable after 48 hours, as you described. The patients are severely unwell.

But the OP meant "was the death cap toxin detectable in blood tests of victims after 48 hours?"

And that answer is NO.

​

ScienceDirect.com
https://www.sciencedirect.com › topics › amanita-phalloi...


The amanita toxin is eliminated by the kidneys and usually is undetectable in the plasma 48 hoursafter ingestion.