GUILTY Australia - 3 dead after eating wild mushrooms, Leongatha, Victoria, Aug 2023 *Arrest* #18

[MrJ]

Alright let me pose this question. If Erin accidentally poisoned her lunch guests, why wouldn't she immediately get her kids into hospital and stay there for herself also to receive treatment?

 

[JBowie]

‘I was freaking out’: Doctor defends caustic comments on Erin Patterson

Complaints have flooded in about a Gippsland doctor who testified in Erin Patterson’s triple-murder trial, after his later comments made headlines.

www.theage.com.au

‘I was freaking out’: Doctor defends caustic comments on Erin Patterson​

I nominate Dr Chris Webster for an AO.

 

[Yh5r]

Alright let me pose this question. If Erin accidentally poisoned her lunch guests, why wouldn't she immediately get her kids into hospital and stay there for herself to receive treatment?

Because it didn't happen - she knowingly poisoned her lunch guests as found guilty by the jury and kept herself and the kids away from the toxins.

 

[Monstradamus]

Alright let me pose this question. If Erin accidentally poisoned her lunch guests, why wouldn't she immediately get her kids into hospital and stay there for herself to receive treatment?

Because she would rather her kids and herself die of toxic mushroom poisoning than admit she'd made a terrible mistake?
I don't buy it.

 

[MrJ]

Exactly right. I think those who doubt the guilty verdict should at least spend some time thinking about her actions and how it might stack up if it were accidental. Too many things don't add up

Because it didn't happen - she knowingly poisoned her lunch guests as found guilty by the jury and kept herself and the kids away from the toxins.

 

[JBowie]

For the doubters, I guess Patterson can spend her time penning:

"How to Appear to be 100% Guilty of Mass Murder: Step by Step Instructions" (With an extensive appendix on the Science of Lying).

All proceeds from the sale of the book will go to the Australian Mushroom Growers Association.

 

[katydid23]

<modsnip>

As I said, I don't have a strong opinion on whether Erin actually murdered anyone. It's essentially unknowable.

I don't agree that it is unknowable. That is what trial's are for.

What has struck me though is the lack of evidence against her. For me, it's enough to create reasonable doubt.

Yes, for you it created reasonable doubt. But apparently the jurors, who listened to every word of testimony and saw every picture and video, it was enough to clear the bar of BEYOND reasonable doubt.

Prior to the trial I was actually on the side of guilt. It's such a compelling story when you zoom out - 5 people have lunch and they all get really sick except the cook. But in a trial, you can't just rely on narrative, you have to focus on each individual action and introduce evidence to prove them. I thought the prosecution was going to be able to do that, but apparently they couldn't.

Apparently they couldn't? How can we say the prosecution failed when they delivered a unanimous Guilty Verdict?

10 weeks of trial, and the prosecution was never able to point to any real motive,

There were a few obvious motives that became evident. Basic ordinary ones, like a woman and mother going through divorce and wanting no interference from her ex and his family. She took the kids out of the religious school and moved them further away from her in-laws---seemed like she was moving on from them.

It also became apparent that EP was a habitual, if not pathological liar. And she had anger issues that we saw pop up. It created the possibility that she had emotional disorders which would mean she did not need a logical or rational motivation to do this compulsive act. IMO

never able to show any evidence regarding intent,

Intent was shown in several ways.
--Buying the dehydrator but then lying about it's very existence. And tipping it.
--Spending so much time learning to 'hide' mushrooms in people's food in order to fool them.
--Looking up info about Death Caps but then claiming she accidentally picked some ---
--Picking wild mushrooms but never identifying them or checking them for safety, just putting the in her pantry to serve to others
--Lying to the guests about her cancer scare in order to lure them to her luncheon
--Then lying about her scheduled bariatric surgery to explain her Cancer Lie
--Making sure her kids are not at the lunch, to protect them, then backtracking later and denying she did so
--The mismatched plates
--Pretending to have 'explosive poo' every 10 minutes, but then putting on white pants to go on a 3 hour road trip
--Feeding her kids the leftovers, even though she knew her lunch guests were severely ill
--Lying to the Doctors, CPS and Public Health officials about the source of the poison
--Making up stories about the elusive Asian Market full of deadly dried mushrooms

And I'm sure there is more...

never able to conclusively disprove Erin's version of the story.

They blew her story apart, imo. She looked very much like a deceitful, dishonest person.

All they could do was show a few flimsy items (eg two messages venting on facebook, vague cellphone pings) and ask the jury to draw inferences from there.

You ignored so much of the incriminating evidence apparently.

Inferring stuff is fine, but when your entire case depends on it,. The reason why this case is so interesting is that it's completely based on needing to prove intent. It's not disputed that Erin killed people, it's only disputed that she did so with intent. But the prosecution had very little direct evidence that spoke to intent. Usually, when circumstantial evidence is presented a jury is asked to make inferences to fill in gaps between direct evidence, but in this case there was basically no direct evidence to rest on and the jury was essentially asked to completely infer intent. I don't think that's enough to clear the bar of the highest possible legal standard.

Evidently it was enough to clear the bar because she was convicted.

If you were to ask me to make a positive case for Erin's innocence, I'm not sure I can do it without making the same errors as the prosecution (i.e. relying on baseless speculation). But of course defendants don't need to make a case for their innocence.

I suppose the best I can do is point out that Erin's story of an accidental poisoning seems to fit the facts better than the prosecution narrative of Erin as a smart, calculating murderer. If Erin had actually wanted to murder people, she would have immediately told the police she used foraged mushrooms and tried to play the whole thing off as a mistake.

She should have done so. She probably would not have been charged with murder if so.

Why didn't she do so since she DID, in fact, serve them foraged mushrooms. Do you have a theory why she didn't just own up to her mistake?

I have one. I think she has some personality disorders which made it hard for her to admit anything. She wanted to walk away free. No accountability. That was her goal, imo

She certainly wouldn't have bought a dehydrator with her own card and then posted photos of it.

That was months ago. She may not have had her plan fully thought out yet. At the time she was just ibuying a kitchen appliance. She did not think it through apparently.She had no idea it would/could tie back to her.

Sure, sometimes people do stupid things, but the prosecution argument wasn't that Erin was a bumbling idiot who had a go at poisoning people, it was that she was a cold blooded killer who spent over a year planning this. Just doesn't make sense to me.

How many mass murders have you followed? It is entirely 'normal' for the perpetrator to have an organised, methodical plan, but somehow messes up here and there. So it makes total sense to me.

She overlooked the importance of the dehydrator because she underestimated the hospital's ability to focus in on death caps so freaking quickly. It did put her in a tail spin because she had not planned for that.

And that's without getting into the lack of motive. Nobody has been able to give a convincing reason why she would want to murder people.

Murderers do not usually have convincing logical reasons for doing such things. Murder makes no sense to rational people.

There's a couple of facebook messages, but that's not sufficient to override the rest of the evidence showing she had a good relationship with her in-laws. And why kill Heather and Ian too?

Those questions can only make sense if you think non rationally about it. There is no logic involved.

Erin felt disrespected by her ex and her in-laws, IMO. She did not want them to continue to interfere in her parenting decisions. She did not want the kids bonding with her in-laws and their religious views. Erin wanted to part ways. And she wanted to move on so in her illogical, devious way of thinking, it made sense. As she said "she was done with them.'

 

[Moll]

Every Websleuths murder case I've followed has contained posters who lament lack of 'direct evidence', because most murder cases depend on circumstantial evidence. When there's a mass of circumstantial evidence and it all points in the direction of guilt, as here, and when the jury has been unanimous following a painstaking investigation and trial, as here, I find it just mischievous to keep on with this 'argument'.

All the points being mentioned now have been discussed at length (almost ad nauseam!) before. I admire the people who still reply patiently.

 

[Yh5r]

Exactly right. I think those who doubt the guilty verdict should at least spend some time thinking about her actions and how it might stack up if it were accidental. Too many things don't add up

Whatever way you twist this case, it is very clear that Erin is guilty, it was no surprise at all that the jury returned an unanimous verdict.

I would also ask the doubtful posters the question - why didn't the defence call more witnesses to prove Erin's innocence - someone stating how much she loved her ex in laws, someone that she was known to forage, an expert stating that she had bulimia, an expert stating that vomiting would have negated the effects of death cap toxins etc.

 

[Jake18]

Signal and Facebook was retrieved from the people she messaged with but yes searches could have been very interesting and damning indeed!

Yes, but the Facebook messages were retrieved because honest members of the group came forward. The Signal messages with Simon’s family were easily obtained.

Erin seems to have a few friends left who remain (to me) wilfully deluded regarding her true nature. I doubt they would willingly come forward with any shared communication, and obviously nothing can be gleaned from Erin’s main phone or even her back up phone.

 

[Sarahlou]

Every Websleuths murder case I've followed has contained posters who lament lack of 'direct evidence', because most murder cases depend on circumstantial evidence. When there's a mass of circumstantial evidence and it all points in the direction of guilt, as here, and when the jury has been unanimous following a painstaking investigation and trial, as here, I find it just mischievous to keep on with this 'argument'.

All the points being mentioned now have been discussed at length (almost ad nauseam!) before. I admire the people who still reply patiently.

Absolutely. Seems disrespectful to the jury actually, because this isn't a case where the evidence is thin on the ground. Her guilt is obvious.

The ones that reply with detailed posts really have the patience of saints

 

[Lord Peter Flimsy]

Not sure what ‘intent’ we are looking for here. EP is never going to fess up and there isn’t a video of her making the meal smiling away as she individually laces the BWs with months old Death Cap mushrooms that honk a bit. This is a woman who can’t resist eating kilos of fungi just after she bought them.

Mind you heaven knows what was on her main phone the one she so conveniently disposed of.

 

[iamshadow21]

Every Websleuths murder case I've followed has contained posters who lament lack of 'direct evidence', because most murder cases depend on circumstantial evidence. When there's a mass of circumstantial evidence and it all points in the direction of guilt, as here, and when the jury has been unanimous following a painstaking investigation and trial, as here, I find it just mischievous to keep on with this 'argument'.

All the points being mentioned now have been discussed at length (almost ad nauseam!) before. I admire the people who still reply patiently.

The vast majority of cases these days are composed of circumstantial evidence. DNA? Circumstantial. Fingerprints? Circumstantial. Digital phone, car, and bank records? Circumstantial.

Direct evidence is a murder weapon, and eyewitness evidence. This case had both. It had the mushroom traces found in the dehydrator and the lunch remains and the toxin in the medical tests of two victims. It had the testimony from Ian that the poisoned meal was served to them, and that Erin's serve was on a clearly different plate.

MOO

 

[Smelly Squirrel]

This is a good question! It depends whether you believe Erin's testimony or not. She says she has an eating disorder and vomited after the lunch, I happen to find that believable because it's consistent with her other behaviour (eg having an existing appointment at a clinic for possible cosmetic medical intervention). The prosecution never presented any evidence to refute this (eg evidence that Erin didn't have an eating disorder, or that vomiting wouldn't have stopped absorption of the amatoxins), so I lean towards it being the most plausible explanation.

I also think we need to be careful not to make blanket statements like 'Erin never got death cap poisoning". She was treated in hospital and had symptoms consistent with death cap poisoning, albeit much milder than the others. Remember it was established during the trial there are 4 levels of death cap poisoning and not all patients reach beyond the first level. Also note there were beta-amanatins in the leftovers at Erin's house.

Thank you for answering, but you missed the point of my question. I'm asking why she was never poisoned from those same mushrooms before that day even, back to when she first picked them. If you haven't considered this question, maybe you haven't really examined the case all that thoroughly. My point is that since she was never poisoned before the lunch, it means she never once tried those mushrooms from the time she first picked them until she made that lunch. If she had she would have gotten sick. They were very potent mushrooms as can be seen by the results of the lunch. So why would this self-professed mushroom lover never have tried them before then? Never once from when she harvested them to when she dried them to when she put them in a container to anytime she went to the pantry where they were allegedly stored, and not even to when she added them allegedly to the BW because it was bland. She said she ate a kilo of store-bought mushrooms in the week before the lunch, so if you believe her, she can put the fungi away at a good clip. And DCs are reportedly very tasty. So then why did she never touch these before that lunch?

The answer is obvious. It's because she knew they were poison, because she deliberately looked for DCs and found them and saved them to be used on a special occasion against someone she hates.

To answer your comments anyway, your suppositions for why she wasn't that sick after the lunch are hard to take seriously, respectfully. You generously find the vomiting story believable, even though it's based solely on the testimony of this prolific liar. Nothing she says without corroboration can be credited. She never even mentioned this story till the trial. It would be bad work by a juror to believe her about it.

And it's not like it would have mattered if she had vomited. She would have been digesting that food for at least a couple hours by then. It would have been too late.

You also find it believable she had actual symptoms of poisoning even though those were only self-reported symptoms. Again nothing to corroborate her testimony. She clearly made up the roadside story, and there is no good reason to believe any of the rest of it. Her self-reporting is unreliable. To deny that is simply not a reasonable, objective position.

The only real objective measure of whether she was poisoned shows she was not. She didn't have any liver damage, her lab work was normal.

The most reasonable conclusion from this and all the evidence is she was not poisoned because she intentionally ate a different meal than the others.

That's why she left the hospital after 5 minutes, she knew she didn't need any care. That's why she wasn't worried about her children.

That's why in the videos of her at the hospital and at the service station (and at the tip), she looks perfectly fine and unbothered in her cream-colored pants, without exhibiting any of the discomfort that someone would who really had even ordinary gastro, let alone from actual DC poisoning. The video evidence refutes her symptom testimony.

She was not poisoned at all on July 29th nor on any day from when she first foraged those DCs. Because she planned to use them to horrifically kill her guests. It was an unthinkable act but she did think it and do it.

You can disagree and that's fine, the truth of the matter doesn't depend on anyone convincing you personally, I hope you know. And that's all I'll have to say on the matter to you, there are plenty of others here who will do so.

moo

 

[Jake18]

*How many mass murders have you followed? It is entirely 'normal' for the perpetrator to have an organised, methodical plan, but somehow messes up here and there. So it makes total sense to me*

Adding to this - Erin may have thought she was smart, but she didn’t actually plan very well, did she? The major thing she she got wrong, IMO, was how the guests and the medical staff responded to being unwell. They didn’t quietly go to their homes and die, they went to hospital and clever medical staff worked out that a toxin was involved, communicated with other medical staff including public health staff and suddenly Erin is having to make up lies on the go, about Asian grocers and the like.

She also got her own onset of symptoms completely wrong - it only takes a quick literature search to discover that Death cap poisoning has a relatively delayed onset of gastro symptoms but Erin states that hers came on way too early.

 

[Ellery84]

What do you all think would have been on Erin's phone/ sim card that she discarded?
Police still retrieved the dehydrated mushroom photos, inaturalist look ups, messages and photos shared with her Facebook friends. What more incriminating evidence would the phone have held?

It might have had some evidence of other relationships, or fetishes, maybe adult stuff?

Or maybe more evidence of death cap searches, or maybe it was totally benign and there was nothing much of interest on the phone.

 

[Ellery84]

Good point. I’m sure there are some people Erin communicated with who haven’t come forward with any shared communication.

What’s on Ali-Rose Prior’s phone? Did she have any useful evidence that she didn’t provide to police?

Not saying she’s done anything wrong, but she may know more about Erin than others do. Imo

 

[JBowie]

She also got her own inset of symptoms completely wrong - it only takes a quick literature search to discover that Death cap poisoning has a relatively delayed onset of gastro symptoms but Erin states that hers came on way too early.

Clearly, in addition to all of her other maladies du jour, she also suffers from Early Onset Gastro Syndrome.

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

I'm aware there isn't a legal requirement to prove motive. However, in a case entirely revolving around intent, with very little direct evidence, motive is very important. Or to put it another way, the lack of motive is very good evidence of lack of intent.

Your comments about Erin's actions post-lunch are interesting. For me, those actions are evidence against Erin's guilt, not in favour of it. The actions are consistent with a person who accidentally poisoned her family, then panicked and tried to hide it so she wouldn't lose her kids. They're not the actions of a premeditated killer.

Many of us have discussed this here over the months. I think they were the actions of a pre-meditated killer who thought that their crime was not ever going to be discovered or known so quickly.

The bit that took EP by surprise and she failed to account for is that SP had already shared his concerns with Don that he'd previously been poisoned by EP, that all the victims gained rapid medical intervention and that medical staff were immediately alerted to the concept of some form of poison / toxin delivered via food.

Were it not for that direct and swift action (which still yet did not save three lives sadly), EP would have got away with her crime. So, she was very nearly correct in her planning. She nearly got away with it!

JMO MOO

 

[Penny68]

Thinking of the meals that Erin had cooked for Simon which made him violently ill, needing hospital admissions and treatments. (Two times I think was mentioned he nearly died).

November 2021- Penne Pasta Bolognese - Then May 2022 'His chosen meal' making me think he asked for that to be cooked, not sure what that was.

The Beef Stew meal Erin made in July 2022, the Chicken wrap she made on September 2022.

Did she cook those solely for Simon, as for sure she or their children were never mentioned to have been rushed into hospital desperately ill as he was.

And finally the cookies she said were made by their daughter.
Erin continually asked him, via phone, if he had eaten them yet. Luckily he had his strong suspicions and threw those away.

I have no doubt whatsoever that Erin is guilty as charged.

My heart goes out to Simon and his children for the dreadful loss of his Mum/Grandma, Dad/Granddad and Auntie/Great auntie (God bless them).
And now in the realisation that those 5 attempts on his health/life causing him such severe illness was more than likely caused by Erin.

My thoughts and prayers are with Ian for all he has been through, and still going through. (God bless his wife Heather).