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

[Tortoise]

Maybe I'm going to regret asking this... but assuming the children live with her, why would a parent be deemed ineligible for family tax benefit if separated? Is it because they then allocate a portion of the benefit to both parents?

 

[Charlot123]

Ordinarily, yes, but in this case she knew the kids had not consumed any DC mushrooms.

IMO, her claim that she didn't want to alarm the kids would have triggered any doctor in the circumstances.

Just the fact that the loving mother might be experimenting with a strong poison in her house, in the presence of two kids, is a verifiable indicator of EP being absolutely nuts.

She bonds with Don Patterson over shared love of science. They even experimented in his backyard, if I remember correctly. It is reasonable to assume that at least one of the kids inherited her scientific inclinations as well? In the meantime, in the house, there is a dehydrator used to dehydrate death caps, something to pulverize them, then leftovers of poisonous beef, then something on red plate for herself. What if one of the kids wants to test the dehydrator? You turn your house into a poisonous lab and the kids come home from a movie?

 

[Jake18]

It's going to be really hard for her kids because she was in other regards a really good mum, ensuring they had a lovely home, great education, holidays, saw their wider family (now mostly deceased), had social lives, friends, activities and hobbies. I can't imagine what those poor children have been through this whole time the case has been in court and going forwards.

JMO but there's a huge similarity between EP and Sarah Boone suitcase murderer in terms of the sadistic, vengeful, cruel tortuous murders -but- SB was already known for being a terrible mother and hopeless volatile drunk so her child was already in custody with his father. I do wonder how much EP was drinking. It hasn't been mentioned but she could have been quite the alcoholic IMO.

JMO MOO

Lots of regular drinking would resulted in elevated liver function tests, and Erin’s weren’t. Which is good, as it may have muddied the waters re “mild” death cap poisoning

 

[Deleted member 363451]

I can’t get into the loans as I don’t know the details - it is still more a “he said, she said” situation and invites more questions than provides answers. However, I remember a totally different episode. Does anyone have any recollection of the time when Erin used to edit a local news leaflet? She complained about the locals to her online female friends. Poorly educated, and why was she even doing it for them… This is where I thought, you either do it or you don’t, but why do it and then, get irritated with the people who are reading it?

JMO, Erin is smart but she also has to feel that she is the smartest one in the room. Remembering what Simon said about Erin having poor self-esteem, being the “smartie” could have been her way to compensate. Allegedly between her and Simon, she was the organizing power, but Simon was a civil engineer, so, quite a match for her, IMHO. Yet she really self-asserted by putting him down (remember how she lamented, she invited people to clean the house and he didn’t notice, such stuff.)

So coming back to money. I don’t know what was the purpose of her loans to his family, tax is the first thing that comes to mind, but maybe, she was not minding the loans at first because it was in 2007, and at that time she viewed the Pattersons as her family. Financial relationships are so hard to understand, we probably shouldn’t even try, but I strongly suspect that at a certain point, she felt taken advantage of. And this where her cluster B-type anger must have become overpowering. She had an accounting degree, she was doing the taxes, she was independent and the money was hers. This is when she probably saw red.

Did she expect to improve her financial situation by killing them all, or was it a mere splitting where she and her kids were on one side, and the rest of the world, on the other one, hard to say. Perhaps just being angry with the Pattersons for all, perceived or real, financial transgressions, could have been enough to decide to kill them.

So ultimately, I think that these were her poisonous Cluster B traits that were the reason behind her crimes.

Who do you see as her parallel? Maybe Kaitlin Armstrong?

I think that finances must have been at least part of her motive. Was Simon renting when she murdered his family?

 

[Monstradamus]

I think that finances must have been at least part of her motive. Was Simon renting when she murdered his family?

His house was paid for in the financial settlement. Everyone talks about her money, but they were still married until they officially separated, so technically it was "their" money.

 

[Ellery84]

I agree, drunk driving is not usually a precursor to mass murder, but EP's case was far from typical and was quite revealing of her character, I think. This was when she was 29, not a teenager.

She didn't just get tested because she was speeding and found to be over the limit, she crashed the car, damaging property.
The car was not registered.
She gave a false name and address to police (lying even when she was bound to be found out).

Mushroom chef crashed car and fled the scene

Erin Patterson, 48, lost her licence for 30 months in 2004 and was fined $1,000 for crashing her vehicle in the eastern Melbourne suburb of Glen Waverley.

www.dailymail.co.uk

If you want to be precise in understanding why someone commits murder in middle age I think you have to look not just at triggers but at the person's previous character. I was just modifying the picture presented of someone previously totally law-abiding suddenly committing a hideous crime.

I don’t think any of that was allowed into evidence at the trial so the jury would not have been aware of it.

IMO

 

[Ellery84]

Maybe I'm going to regret asking this... but assuming the children live with her, why would a parent be deemed ineligible for family tax benefit if separated? Is it because they then allocate a portion of the benefit to both parents?

No, you become ineligible for FTB when you earn too much.

 

[Tortoise]

No, you become ineligible for FTB when you earn too much.

Why would their separated status be linked to earning too much?

 

[HoneyBunOne]

Why would their separated status be linked to earning too much?

It's been a long time since I was in my family tax A and B era, but I would imagine being separated would work in her favour. If she was "married", Simon's income would come into play, meaning they earnt more as a couple, and likely eligible for less. Perhaps there were other financial repurcussions of being separated that didn't bode well for her. No way to put assets into his name for tax benefits, for example.

 

[Deleted member 363451]

His house was paid for in the financial settlement. Everyone talks about her money, but they were still married until they officially separated, so technically it was "their" money.

If he had have died, his house probably would have gone to their kids. If anything happened to Erin, Simon would probably get her properties. They aren't divorced. I knew a guy who had separated from his wife and then he got cancer. Him and his wife had already had their financial settlement, as Erin and Simon have and his wife stayed in the marital home. Because he was so sick, he didn't get around to divorcing his wife. He bought a unit and left it to his kids in his will and not long after he died. His wife contested the will and she got it. Suffice to say that it damaged her relationship with the kids...

 

[Moll]

I don’t think any of that was allowed into evidence at the trial so the jury would not have been aware of it.

IMO

No, it wasn't. But we can discuss it now.

 

[Ellery84]

Why would their separated status be linked to earning too much?

It’s not?

 

[Ellery84]

No, it wasn't. But we can discuss it now.

Sure can!

 

[jesse]

Probably the fact that Simon cancelled last minute was the ultimate straw.

Spot on. You understand this case extremely well. And you’re right, she did move money and hide assets, and I’m going to add that she was probably fraudulently claiming welfare that she wasn’t entitled to.

That’s my opinion.

He didn't cancel at the last minute, though. He never accepted the invitation.

 

[Tortoise]

He didn't cancel at the last minute, though. He never accepted the invitation.

He initially said yes.

 

[LinasK]

Yes, she will continue to lie to everyone, including her children. It's everyone else's fault, but hers. Another reason she's not a good mother, it appears she has shown them by example to lie to get the outcome you want.
Not a great character trait, imo.

Plus, good mothers don't hide things in their children's food beyond toddlerhood.

 

[LinasK]

I agree, she won't ever admit her guilt, IMO.

Even the way she murdered, hiding her weapon in food, also widening the net to poison people she had barely a connection with and from whose deaths she was unlikely to gain anything, possibly IMO to make it look like there were no targets, and not even admitting accident/foraging until she was out of options, shows her need to never take ownership and responsibility.

She would never be motivated to expose herself to a crime-related psychological evaluation because she resorted to murder rather than talk through her problems with the people she decided to kill, IMO. That is how she cuts off from her inner self, and even thinks narcissistically she is entitled to kill to preserve herself, rather than work through her inner motivations.

I think the prison assessment is just for placement purposes and protection of herself and others, and medications etc.

MOO

Funny you should mention "entitled to kill". I watched a couple episodes of the show "Signs of a Psychopath" last night where both males felt that they had warned the female victims and their families that they would kill them, so they felt entitled to do so. "I warned them", as if threatening made it okay to do so.

 

[LinasK]

I would disagree that she was a good mum. Was she a totally horrific mother? No. She did tick some boxes: she fed them, gave them a roof over their heads, allowed friends over, wanted a good education for them, gave them after school activities etc. However, a good mum models what love, empathy & kindness is. A good mum doesn't kill their children's family, including trying to take out their father who appears to not be a deadbeat, abuser, alcoholic or the like.

Exactly! Now they have no grandparents, or an aunt, and would have lost their father and uncle too. That's not the definition of a good mother. People also used to say that Casey Anthony, Rube Franke, and Sherri Papini were good mothers too.

 

[LinasK]

Ordinarily, yes, but in this case she knew the kids had not consumed any DC mushrooms.

IMO, her claim that she didn't want to alarm the kids would have triggered any doctor in the circumstances.

And that's why the ER doc reacted exactly as he did. Any doctor would have. His outrage in the newspaper was completely justified!

 

[Camp Chair 2.0]

DBM