Australia - 3 dead after eating wild mushrooms, Leongatha, Victoria, Aug 2023 #9 *Arrest*

[Little Jack]

Dbm duplicate post

 

[Kemug]

I think manslaughter would be a much easier and more likely charge to prove beyond reasonable doubt, tbh. Death caused by recklessness or negligence.

RSBM
Which she had planned for months.

 

[Kemug]

Was the number plate of Erin's car not caught on CCTV at the tip?

 

[Kemug]

Unless her pants had tight elastic around the ankles.

Her cream-coloured pants.

 

[Megnut]

In my mind, the dehydrator isn't a smoking gun, because its existence along with the Deathcap residue and Erin's fingerprints is not disputed. The guests ate their own murder weapons, the tainted Beef Wellingtons. That is not in dispute either.

Her defence, simply put, is that she accidentally picked Deathcaps while foraging for edible mushrooms, unknowingly dehydrated and stored them, and unknowingly fed them to her guests in Beef Wellingtons at the ill fated lunch.
When questions were asked, she panicked, claimed the mushrooms to be store bought, and dumped the dehydrator.

If those actions alone were her only indiscretions, perhaps one could at least see it as being plausible.

I think the broader question is how Erin and her defence are going to explain away the massive trail of other indiscretions, and in my opinion, there are so many of them that it boggles the mind how she thinks she has any chance of walking free.

I'm curious whether she actually might take the stand in this trial, because without her testimony, how will she explain the aforementioned indiscretions?
Some might say she doesn't need to, and technically it's true. The defence tactic at this point in time is simply trying to cast doubt on each of the prosecutions witnesses. That's standard practice for defence attorneys, but thus far, I don't think its really working.

And how her portion contained no toxic mushrooms.

JMO

 

[Baby baby Jane]

Not really, only in theory. It would likely mean that for the rest of your life most people will shun you, and believe you are a murderer. It wasn't quite the same for Lizzie Borden of course, being in America, but after being acquitted of the axe murder of her father and stepmother, she kept on living in her home town, but then, and to this day, she is generally believed to be guilty. It would be quite a burden.

These days … she would probably end up on reality TV .. like Bush Tucker challenge …

 

[Detechtive]

These days … she would probably end up on reality TV .. like Bush Tucker challenge …

Or MKR

 

[Neet_Mc]

I've been saying this the whole time that even the DC powdered mushrooms could have been served in coffee or any strong tasting food. I also suspect that if EP is guilty she only used a tiny amount and had the idea that her guests would just become slightly unwell or begin to develop long term conditions that could never be linked to her meal.

As a sort of revenge maybe if she were unhappy with the relatives or maybe even so they would become infirm and need her assistance and this would 'bring her back into the fold' as it were.

JMO MOO

As evidenced by her Facebook friends, she had been adding powdered mushrooms to everything and feeding to her kids who don’t like mushrooms. So potentially she was using her kids to work out the threshold that mushrooms could be added to food before their flavour was detected. She may have told her Facebook friends she had added to x and y, but in fact been adding to x, y and z.
Once she’s established, via her kids, what foods she can add mushrooms too undetected (e.g a condiment or a beverage), she has then played this out with the dried DCs at the lunch.
Why she bothered with a BW was to have the red herring - a dish with mushrooms that could be tested if guests fell ill. Given Ian reports they look like a pastie, imo doesn’t sound too fancy, but perhaps fancy enough that it would be enough to lure the likes of Simon to the lunch which is ultimately what she wanted.

 

[Ellery84]

As evidenced by her Facebook friends, she had been adding powdered mushrooms to everything and feeding to her kids who don’t like mushrooms. So potentially she was using her kids to work out the threshold that mushrooms could be added to food before their flavour was detected. She may have told her Facebook friends she had added to x and y, but in fact been adding to x, y and z.
Once she’s established, via her kids, what foods she can add mushrooms too undetected (e.g a condiment or a beverage), she has then played this out with the dried DCs at the lunch.
Why she bothered with a BW was to have the red herring - a dish with mushrooms that could be tested if guests fell ill. Given Ian reports they look like a pastie, imo doesn’t sound too fancy, but perhaps fancy enough that it would be enough to lure the likes of Simon to the lunch which is ultimately what she wanted.

I wish the jury and court had her Google search history, but of course they (VIC Pol) never retrieved Phone A.

It’s such a shame. IMO

 

[SouthAussie]

“Death caps are said to taste very nice, so unfortunately taste and smell aren’t too helpful in that case at all,” Orlovich says.

“If I wasn't expecting someone was going to poison me and I didn't even know they collected some of them in the wild, then I can tell you I would sit down to that meal and probably not notice.”

It’s not just the taste either. The colour and texture are unlikely to ring alarm bells either.

“When they caramelise, they do the same thing as normal mushrooms. They're not that different,” he says.

Yes, NZ has ‘Death Cap’ mushrooms. Here’s what to do if you accidentally eat them

 

[LinasK]

So, maybe too many laxatives?

Or Coffee...

 

[LinasK]

Yes, she wanted to see if her kids detected them in the muffins IMO.

So are we to conclude that the heat involved in using a dehydrator isn't sufficient to kill the toxins then?

 

[LinasK]

I see your point, and I had no doubt at all he murdered him on purpose, but during that trial I remember thinking that the defence did a pretty good job of making it sound accidental. I suspected he would have a good chance of getting off that charge at the time.

I can’t see that here, but we are dealing with cooking and not a gun, and people don’t want to believe that women can murder in cold blood, so I’m not totally confident.

Poisoners just take longer to kill their victims, but they are just as insidious of murderers, maybe worse so. It's premeditated and not done in impulsive anger. There have been many female poisoners throughout history, and many female murders. Watch the show "Deadly Women" for examples.

 

[Scooby-Doo]

So are we to conclude that the heat involved in using a dehydrator isn't sufficient to kill the toxins then?

Yes, the heat involved in using a food dehydrator is insufficient to destroy toxins in poisonous mushrooms.

Drying removes moisture, making it less likely for bacteria and molds to grow, but it doesn't kill toxins. It's crucial only to dehydrate mushrooms that have been positively identified as safe to eat by an expert.

This process primarily removes moisture, not toxins. Toxins in poisonous mushrooms are not destroyed by heat.

 

[SouthAussie]

So are we to conclude that the heat involved in using a dehydrator isn't sufficient to kill the toxins then?

Neither the heat in the dehydrator nor the heat of cooking kills the toxin. It is a very hardy toxin, considered to be heat-stable. There are articles about that back in the threads.


Here are a couple of links:

The Death Cap is aptly named—it is deadly poisonous. The toxin is not inactivated by cooking.
Death Cap –Amanita phalloides.

Its toxins are also extremely stable when heated and don’t break down when cooked, unlike other edible fungi that are only dangerous to eat raw.

Death cap mushrooms are extremely deadly—and they’re spreading

The invasive death cap mushroom is thriving in North America. While it can be difficult to distinguish from an edible one, make no mistake: It can do a number on you.

www.nationalgeographic.com

 

[BreakingNews]

“Death caps are said to taste very nice, so unfortunately taste and smell aren’t too helpful in that case at all,” Orlovich says.

“If I wasn't expecting someone was going to poison me and I didn't even know they collected some of them in the wild, then I can tell you I would sit down to that meal and probably not notice.”

It’s not just the taste either. The colour and texture are unlikely to ring alarm bells either.

“When they caramelise, they do the same thing as normal mushrooms. They're not that different,” he says.

Yes, NZ has ‘Death Cap’ mushrooms. Here’s what to do if you accidentally eat them

Wonder who taste-tested them???

 

[LinasK]

Poisoners just take longer to kill their victims, but they are just as insidious of murderers, maybe worse so. It's premeditated and not done in impulsive anger. There have been many female poisoners throughout history, and many female murders. Watch the show "Deadly Women" for examples.

Erin probably chose mushrooms (food) as opposed to using medicine to poison them so that her fall-back defense could be "accidental". It's not so easy to claim that when you use a drug or chemical to poison someone.

 

[Deleted member 363451]

I think you’re spot on. Simon said she told him she fell asleep on the floor for those 45 minutes. What a ridiculous story

She was definitely cleaning up the crime scene, IMO.

I think Simon was incredibly naive. I wonder if he's seen the light since?

 

[drsleuth]

Poisoners just take longer to kill their victims, but they are just as insidious of murderers, maybe worse so. It's premeditated and not done in impulsive anger. There have been many female poisoners throughout history, and many female murders. Watch the show "Deadly Women" for examples.

True, seems alot of women use poisoning to kill. There are heaps of books on them.

Here is a coroners case from last year, about strychnine poisoning & no one has been charged yet.........

https://coroners.nsw.gov.au/documents/findings/2024/Inquest_into_the_death_of_Douglas_Thrift.pdf

Inquest into poisoning death of farmer Douglas Thrift hears wife had no motive to kill him

The barrister for a woman whose husband died by poisoning has vehemently rejected rumour and innuendo that her client killed him.

www.abc.net.au

Inquest told wife had no motive to poison husband Douglas Thrift with pesticide at rural property​

 

[SouthAussie]

Wonder who taste-tested them???

My guess would be that people who have survived Death Cap poisoning have reported how they taste and smell, to health authorities.

imo