Australia - 3 dead after eating wild mushrooms, Leongatha, Victoria, Aug 2023 #15 *Arrest*

[CityKid]

10m ago13.22 AEST
Colin Mandy SC turns to the evidence from Erin Patterson that she bought dried mushrooms from an Asian grocer months before the July 2023 lunch.

He says it is “very probable” Patterson bought dried mushrooms from an Asian grocer in April, pointing to evidence that her account of the packaging was consistent with those sold in those stores.

Mandy says it’s unlikely Patterson would buy a dehydrator if she only required it for the beef wellington lunch.

“You can dehydrate things in the oven,” he says.

Mandy says it is “much more likely” to be for a “long-term project or hobby”.

BBM. Why would knowing how a product was packaged mean that you bought it? Mandy is running out of straws to grasp IMO.

 

[Kemug]

Ian previously told the court that Heather and Gail took the four grey plates to the table before Patterson carried the odd-coloured plate to her seat.

Mandy says Heather and Gail are not told which plates to take to the table before lunch.

“There was no instruction,” he says

“There was no holding back one of the plates.”

Mandy says the plates were “randomly selected by the guests.”

Ask any magician.

 

[CityKid]

She may have also wanted to give him the BW when he came to the house to drop off his son. Hoping, perhaps that he'd eat it for dinner. But even though his family was there, he stayed outside the house.

IMO she would not have let that BW leave her control without knowing SP had eaten it in her presence. Too risky for SP to have control of the pastie when she didn't know when the other guests might contact him and mention their gastro symptoms.

 

[L_B]

BBM. Why would knowing how a product was packaged mean that you bought it? Mandy is running out of straws to grasp IMO.

but forget about all the research done by the health authorities, that death caps aren't harvested commercially etc Also remember that not one other person that patronage an "Asian grocer" in those 3 suburbs the shop may have been in fell ill/died from also consuming death cap mushrooms.

 

[Montrealaise]

Oo, that's a curly one, isn't it? Who to believe - the kind, upright pastor, whom no-one has a bad word to say about? Or the self-confessed lying, potty-mouthed, arrogant person in the dock? Hmm, let me think.
MOO

Oooh, that's a tough one!

 

[Montrealaise]

but forget about all the research done by the health authorities, that death caps aren't harvested commercially etc Also remember that not one other person that patronage an "Asian grocer" in those 3 suburbs the shop may have been in fell ill/died from also consuming death cap mushrooms.

That in itself would have told police that Erin was lying. If she really did buy those poisonous mushrooms at a store, other people would have too and there would be reports of others becoming seriously ill and possibly dying.

 

[Kemug]

Didn’t Erin say she didn’t taste the duxelles again after adding the stinky dehydrated mushrooms? Things aren’t making sense, is Mandy just throwing out everything and hoping something will stick?

Well she said that, but of course she is a "Verified Liar".

 

[lazymaiden07]

BBM. Why would knowing how a product was packaged mean that you bought it? Mandy is running out of straws to grasp IMO.

This one stood out to me as particularly weak too....knowing what packaging mushrooms came in means you bought it, saying 'sorry' first shows EP was of good character.... the straws have officially left the building.

 

[Kemug]

Uh maybe you've been dehydrating store bought mushrooms in your oven but when it comes to highly toxic death caps you don't want to risk contaminating the appliance you use to cook your food in???

Yep, all those chicken nuggets and chips.

 

[CityKid]

Key Event
2m ago

We return to the July 29 lunch​

​

By Judd Boaz​

The defence turns to the July 29 lunch and the preparation of the beef Wellingtons.

Mr Mandy says that if the prosecution's argument that one Wellington was safe and the others were poisoned, Erin Patterson would have had to be very careful in preparing it.

He suggests to the jury the only way to differentiate the safe Wellington from the poisoned ones would be to mark the pastry in some way.

Mr Mandy then suggests Ian Wilkinson was wrong about his claim about different coloured plates being used at the lunch.

"He's wrong. Honestly mistaken," he says.

Mr Mandy then reminds the jury that Simon Patterson told the court that Erin did not own many plates, and that police did not find any plates matching the description when searching her home a week after the lunch.

He also raises the testimony of Erin's son's friend, who recalled seeing white plates on the day of the lunch.

Surviving lunch guest 'honestly mistaken', defence tells Erin Patterson jury — as it happened

Erin Patterson's defence lawyer is continuing his closing address to the jury after eight weeks of evidence in the triple-murder trial.

www.abc.net.au

BBM. It's not hard for the person preparing the individual BW pasties to mark one in a way others might not notice.

 

[Montrealaise]

RSBM
Words fail me.

So what if she only ate half a portion? Her mother-in-law also ate only half a portion, and it was enough to kill her. I can't really fault the defense attorney for grasping at straws, though. He has to come up with something, no matter how outlandish, to counter his client's devastating performance during the cross-examination.

 

[CityKid]

now06.30 BST

Colin Mandy SC says if Patterson made an unpoisoned beef wellington for herself she would need to mark it in a way to differentiate it from the toxic ones.

“In which case you would not need different coloured plates,” he says.

Earlier in the trial, Ian Wilkinson said Patterson served beef wellingtons for her guests on grey plates while she ate from an “orangey-tan” coloured plate.

Mandy says “it has to be the case that Ian Wilkinson is wrong about what he says.”

He says Ian is “honestly mistaken”.

Mandy says when police searched Patterson’s house a week after the lunch they were aware of the plate issue and found no plates matching Ian’s description.

Simon’s evidence was that Patterson had no sets of matching plates, the court hears.

Simon also testified that the day after the lunch Heather Wilkinson raised Patterson’s mismatched crockery. Mandy points to the evidence of Patterson’s son’s friend who recalled seeing white plates after the lunch.

The video from the police search at Patterson’s house showed two white plates, a few colourful plates and some black plates, Mandy says.

“There weren’t any orangey-tan plates,” he says.

BBM. Earlier Mandy said to believe the son about the (more than two) white dessert plates, so is he now saying to NOT believe the son because only two white plates were found in the house?

 

[CityKid]

Marking the unpoisoned pastry would be MUCH more obvious to your guests than say 4 matching plates and one other and claiming that you only had 4 that matched.

IMO the chef/host could mark a pastie in a way guests wouldn't notice. A slightly different crimp on the edge, a small extra bit of the pastry baked on the edge of the top, cooked slightly longer/shorter giving it a slightly different color etc. A host might serve the more attractive pasties to their guests while taking the slightly different one for themselves MOO.

 

[MrJ]

"In the trial, we heard that "event-based monitoring data" from mobile phone networks showed Ms Patterson's phone connected to towers near where death cap mushrooms grew.

Mr Mandy tells the jury that Ms Patterson's alleged phone pings to a mobile phone tower in Outtrim could not be identified as a regular occurrence due to the small sample size of phone data provided to the expert.

"The limitation of his analysis was the fact that he only had EBM data for a handful of days … it's 23 days out of 500," he says."

I mean... it's been established it was not a regular occurrence since her phone didn't ping at Loch and Outtrim base stations until the time specified?

 

[Monstradamus]

I call the narrative of the white plates BS. The kids and the son’s friend arrived after the lunch had ended, probably while or after they were having dessert. The small white plates the son took to the kitchen and put in the dish washer would have been the dessert plates. They had nothing to do with the four grey and the one orange/tan plate the lunch had been served on.

I reckon those BW tainted plates ended up in the bin during the Subway drop off later that night. IMO

 

[Monstradamus]

IMO the chef/host could mark a pastie in a way guests wouldn't notice. A slightly different crimp on the edge, a small extra bit of the pastry baked on the edge of the top, cooked slightly longer/shorter giving it a slightly different color etc. A host might serve the more attractive pasties to their guests while taking the slightly different one for themselves MOO.

She could have made it easier for LE bin checkers had she put their initials on them imo

 

[Neet_Mc]

I’ve been thinking about the Pistorius trial - which is how I came to this site in the first place - and how Pistorius worked so hard to try to show remorse.

Erin, in contrast, during her testimony wasn’t, was she? Oppositional answers, pedantic word games, huffing and puffing while being cross-examined.

I’m perplexed by this. Nobody likes a smart-alec. I’m wary of saying that defendants need to be likeable, and appreciate how demeaning that may come across, especially for women. But - I wonder why she isn’t trying to present herself to the jury as warmer and more caring?

Firstly, she would have to recognise her innability to interact with ppl warmly as a fault within herself. Given her grandiose superior opinion, this is the first hurdle.
Second hurdle would be to act warmly and, perhaps, more typically feminine and I believe she incapable of that

 

[Spectrix]

I think it does matter if she’s a liar. She’s been caught in quite a few.

How do you see that it matters to the actual murders? She has admitted to lying. But she has never lied about intentions to kill. I'm just trying to understand the law.

It matters because there are only two people who are suggesting that Erin is innocent of murder.

• One is Erin's defence attorney, and he is being paid a lot of money to make those claims.
• The other is Erin herself, and she's been proven to have lied, during the health investigation, during the police investigation, and more recently to the jury. The whole way through the trial.

I'd say that matters a whole lot to the jury, and they are deciding her fate.

-

 

[Skiede]

I reckon those BW tainted plates ended up in the bin during the Subway drop off later that night. IMO

Agreed. Maybe EP took “Trophy Photos” of the plated up BW on her phone A, before calling her guests to come and collect them. IMO.

 

[MrJ]

No matter how much Colin Mandy engages in semantics (i mean he hasn’t got a whole lot to go on with) the fact that the in-laws rarely went to EP’s home is very suspicious IMO