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

[Smelly Squirrel]

BBM for focus. MOO throughout.
For the first issue, say person A approached person B, a stranger, who was standing at the edge of a subway platform, and gave them a hard shove from behind as the subway was pulling in. B dies. Do you believe there is a motive for such an act from A? If not, do you believe that is good evidence that A had no intent for B to die?
For the second issue, can you cite a case where a person has lost their children to child protection because they accidentally served a food that poisoned others? "Accidentally" meaning the person did not deliberately add a poison to the ingredients or the food. I can't find a case where that has happened. I don't believe that's a reasonable belief, but I welcome your citing of a case in which that has happened.

On your first issue, see this similar case, where a woman pushed an elderly woman she didn't know and caused her death. The motive is still not known.

Woman pleads guilty to fatally shoving 87-year-old grandmother on NYC street

Lauren Pazienza pleaded guilty in court on Wednesday to fatally pushing 87-year-old Barbara Gustern on a New York City street last year.

abcnews.go.com

 

[MsMarple]

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[Tortoise]

Has anybody ever considered that this was part of the plan?

Maybe she thought she was so clever that she was playing 5d chess, and the whole idea that nobody would murder 4 people without apparent motive was how she thought she'd get away with it.

Yes that's what I've always thought, but only as a plan for murdering Simon at the same time. A plan that served two purposes IMO, getting him there if others went, and hiding her target in a crowd.

 

[Smelly Squirrel]

‘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​

It says he never directly worked for the hospital and hasn't worked there since last year, so they can't fire him.

Webster was working at Leongatha Hospital when he received the call from Morgan – a registrar at Dandenong Hospital – who told him they suspected Don and Gail Patterson, who arrived at the hospital the previous night, were suffering from toxic mushroom poisoning.

However, he was not directly employed by the hospital’s operating Gippsland Southern Health Service at the time. Instead, he was a visiting medical officer.

Calls for his employment to be terminated at the hospital are therefore useless. A spokesman for the health service said Webster last worked at Leongatha Hospital in February 2024. The service has since ceased its partnership with the local practice under which he was contracted.

 

[MaxDecimus13]

It says he never directly worked for the hospital and hasn't worked there since last year, so they can't fire him.

Webster was working at Leongatha Hospital when he received the call from Morgan – a registrar at Dandenong Hospital – who told him they suspected Don and Gail Patterson, who arrived at the hospital the previous night, were suffering from toxic mushroom poisoning.

However, he was not directly employed by the hospital’s operating Gippsland Southern Health Service at the time. Instead, he was a visiting medical officer.

Calls for his employment to be terminated at the hospital are therefore useless. A spokesman for the health service said Webster last worked at Leongatha Hospital in February 2024. The service has since ceased its partnership with the local practice under which he was contracted.

He did speak on The Trial podcast today (although recorded on Wednesday) and he seemed pretty upset by it and like it could be damaging to him.

 

[Montrealaise]

And a doctor has every right and responsibility to breach patient confidentiality if ...

• express or implied consent by the patient
• mandatory disclosure under compulsion of law e.g. child abuse, notifiable diseases, subpoena
• an overriding duty to disclose information in the “public interest”.

They have an overriding duty in the “public interest” to disclose information where it is “necessary to prevent or lessen a serious or imminent threat to an individual’s life, health or safety, or a serious threat to public health and safety”.

Confessions Regarding a Criminal Act - MDA National

Absolutely! Now what I don't understand is why some people have made a complaint against the doctor by accusing him of "misogyny". What is that about?

 

[MaxDecimus13]

Yes that's what I've always thought, but only as a plan for murdering Simon at the same time. A plan that served two purposes IMO, getting him there if others went, and hiding her target in a crowd.

It was one of the reasons why I have been tempted at times by the poisoning gone wrong angle. If she could have say killed Simon with the others poisoned to different degrees (including herself), she could have claimed it was an accident. After all, we know from the children's evidence that she was claiming to be ill on the day. It requires her to have not realised how effective blitzing the mushroom would be, which many people believe anyway.

 

[MaxDecimus13]

Absolutely! Now what I don't understand is why some people have made a complaint against the doctor by accusing him of "misogyny". What is that about?

I suspect it's because of use of the word that says she is a female dog.

 

[Montrealaise]

I suspect it's because of use of the word that says she is a female dog.

Ah yes, that must be it. Well, the woman did murder three innocent people and tried to kill two others in a very gruesome manner, but heaven forbid anyone hurt her feelings or those of her supporters.

 

[CityKid]

On your first issue, see this similar case, where a woman pushed an elderly woman she didn't know and caused her death. The motive is still not known.

Woman pleads guilty to fatally shoving 87-year-old grandmother on NYC street

Lauren Pazienza pleaded guilty in court on Wednesday to fatally pushing 87-year-old Barbara Gustern on a New York City street last year.

abcnews.go.com

That was the case in my mind when I made my example. (Barbara lived a block away from me and she was so lovely. People in our neighborhood are still angry there was a plea deal.) I agree with your point, and I used that example in a response to the post below.

mmatk said:
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.

 

[Baby baby Jane]

It says he never directly worked for the hospital and hasn't worked there since last year, so they can't fire him.

Webster was working at Leongatha Hospital when he received the call from Morgan – a registrar at Dandenong Hospital – who told him they suspected Don and Gail Patterson, who arrived at the hospital the previous night, were suffering from toxic mushroom poisoning.

However, he was not directly employed by the hospital’s operating Gippsland Southern Health Service at the time. Instead, he was a visiting medical officer.

Calls for his employment to be terminated at the hospital are therefore useless. A spokesman for the health service said Webster last worked at Leongatha Hospital in February 2024. The service has since ceased its partnership with the local practice under which he was contracted.

Honestly…

My opinion, is he would attract “customers” … not that Oz healthcare is customer driven but I don’t think he did reputational damage to himself or hospital. Just my opinion.

 

[MaxDecimus13]

As a mum who had really bad PND I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that she was in such a black place that she believed her husband and child were better off without her. I've been there.

Obviously, I cannot comment on that and will bow to your experience.

However, I couldn't help but pick up on your use of the phrase 'outside the realm of possibility'. Essentially, this is something that can be applied to a number of different individual things in the case, however it is the sheer weight of things that aren't 'outside the realm of possibility' that means her guilt cannot really be doubted.

It isn't outside the realm that she was the only one not to get seriously ill
It isn't outside the realm that she had gastro but wore white pants
It isn't outside the realm that she decided to use individual Beef Wellingtons
It isn't outside the realm that she foraged despite never telling people she had
It isn't outside the realm that she accidentally picked the wrong mushroom
It isn't outside the realm that she had a bad relationship with hospitals
It isn't outside the realm that she was bulimic
It isn't outside the realm that she threw up the meal but didn't tell anybody at the time

And so on and so on.

The cumulative effect being that all of a sudden it does become outside the realm of possibility.

 

[MaxDecimus13]

I've been thinking about reasonable doubt and how it is easy to get hung up on this to the point that somebody cannot make any claim without thinking there is doubt.

Take the Chris Dawson case. This is a situation where a body was never found and no physical evidence that a crime had taken place was ever recovered. I can remember thinking that she could have fallen somewhere that she was never recovered and nobody would ever know; she could have wandered out into the bush, drowned at sea or even been kidnapped and murdered etc.

In theory, you could never get past reasonable doubt in a case like this. If you don't know there has actually been a crime, how could you say one person is guilty?

The answer is by looking at all of the evidence combined, and dare I say applying a bit of common sense. Sure those things could have happened, but they are far less likely than the rather obvious conclusion and are not reasonable doubts.

Edit: Interestingly, it was a judge who found Dawson guilty not a jury. I think it's highly unlikely that a judge system would have found any differently that the jury did in the EP trial.

 

[Salah11]

I bet she isn’t feeling so smug now.

She obviously thought she was very clever and instead she has lost everything.

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

She's 50 and morbidly obese. I"m pretty comfortable with the fact she's going to die in jail, even if she gets a parole period, even if she doesn't get a 'life sentence'. She's pretty unlikely to last another 30 years. Unless jail inspires some kind of new health-conscious lifestyle?

It could you know...

Zero alcohol and limited food and the gym and swimming pool... she could be jogging around the yard like Ghislaine Maxwell before long

 

[otto]

As I said, I don't have a strong opinion on whether Erin actually murdered anyone. It's essentially unknowable. What has struck me though is the lack of evidence against her. For me, it's enough to create 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.

10 weeks of trial, and the prosecution was never able to point to any real motive, never able to show any evidence regarding intent, never able to conclusively disprove Erin's version of the story. 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.

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.

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

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. 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?

BBM: "you have to focus on each individual action and introduce evidence to prove them."

Aristotle: “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”

The sum of the parts would be that each individual action, if not proven, means that nothing can be proven. That's not typically how prosecutions work. The argument is typically presented in linear sequential order to illustrate a timeline of actions that resulted in the deaths. Although there is no eyewitness to Erin picking death-cap mushrooms, we know the following:

1. Erin researched mushroom foraging
2. Erin researched mushrooms that harm humans
3. Erin's digital data placed her near a death-cap foraging location
4. Erin put mushrooms in the lunch
5. Her guests became ill and some died
6. The deadly ingredient was death-cap mushrooms.

The absence of an eye-witness to Erin picking mushrooms does not mean that the "whole" argument can be dismissed. The failure of one of the "parts" does not mean that the "whole" argument fails.

Motive was not specified during trial, but it seems obvious. As soon as her husband filed taxes as a "separated" person, Erin started arguing about money. She had also provided several "interest-free" loans to his family. She expected his parents to tell her husband to do what she wanted. Their response was that they would support her as a family member, but they would stay out of their financial dispute. That caused Erin to become more angry (e.g.: facebook comments).

Most trials rely on circumstantial evidence, such as DNA and digital data.

 

[Cedars]

I've been thinking about reasonable doubt and how it is easy to get hung up on this to the point that somebody cannot make any claim without thinking there is doubt.

Take the Chris Dawson case. This is a situation where a body was never found and no physical evidence that a crime had taken place was ever recovered. I can remember thinking that she could have fallen somewhere that she was never recovered and nobody would ever know; she could have wandered out into the bush, drowned at sea or even been kidnapped and murdered etc.

In theory, you could never get past reasonable doubt in a case like this. If you don't know there has actually been a crime, how could you say one person is guilty?

The answer is by looking at all of the evidence combined, and dare I say applying a bit of common sense. Sure those things could have happened, but they are far less likely than the rather obvious conclusion and are not reasonable doubts.

Edit: Interestingly, it was a judge who found Dawson guilty not a jury. I think it's highly unlikely that a judge system would have found any differently that the jury did in the EP trial.

I recall an old explanation of 'reasonable doubt' as being just the same as you would apply in your dealings with ordinary life situations.

For example, you go to a woman's house to eat a meal, she serves it and you eat it. You don't have to test every meal to prove absolutely that there is no trace of toxins in it. You have no reason to suspect she would ever kill anyone, or you in particular. Only a paranoid person would do that. So you have no reasonable doubt that the meal was safe. Similarly, once the contrary evidence has been laid out, there's no reason to doubt that she intended to poison her guests.

JMO

 

[KBlackRabbit]

I strongly disagree with this I'm afraid. 'My truth' refers to something that is actually factual and the other person has their own version of the truth.

This is simply a disagreement about a set of facts. As convinces as you or I might be, we should be able to accept that other people can look at the same evidence and come to a different conclusion. It's not necessarily that they're not listening, they're just not convinced.

This poster has argued their opinion, and done so without much drama from what I can see. I think they're wrong about there being much doubt about whether she now did it, but about the jury I can understand how somebody could come to that perspective.

“My truth” is nothing more than an opinion and attaching the word “truth” is an attempt to give an opinion more weight than it deserves. If you have an opinion, fine. Present it and it’s merits can be debated, but don’t call it truth.

As for Erin, I agree with guilty and premeditated. The searches for info on deathcaps, and getting rid of the dehydrator at the very least. If it was an accident, why get rid of the dehydrator? If someone thought there could be a problem with the dehydrator itself it should be investigated, reported, and the model recalled if necessary so it doesn’t happen again.

 

[Bekind89]

You have to be to be the kind of poisoner she is. She chose the poison she did specifically because of the suffering her victims would endure. It's easy enough to find information on the progression it takes. She knew what they would endure, and she did it anyway, rather than choosing something faster, or something that would mimic a heart attack or stroke, common enough at their age.

The protracted sadism was the point. Their deaths were a side benefit.

MOO

She reminds of convicted serial posioner/killer.

Jane Toppan took great pleasure in inflicting suffering on others.

Jane Toppan - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

( I hope I posted the link correctly, if not my apologies.)

 

[Bekind89]

I bet she isn’t feeling so smug now.

She obviously thought she was very clever and instead she has lost everything.

I do wonder if she was shocked at her guilty verdict. I hope she was devastated because she deserves to be.