GUILTY Australia - 3 dead after eating wild mushrooms, Leongatha, Victoria, Aug 2023 *Arrest* #19

[TootsieFootsie]

Being in prison is the punishment.
Anything further than that is beneath contempt.

 

[Deleted member 363451]

Personally, I believe if she's obviously guilty then it would be a very good lawyer who says to her plead guilty, explain what your motive was, be very remorseful and get a few of your friends to give character references and that way you will be out in 25 years and not die in jail.
If she insisted on going ahead with the trial and thinking she can outwit Nanette Rogers with her 8 days of questioning on the stand, then IMO Mandy should have made it clear to her she will come unstuck with her lies.
If Mandy said to Erin, I'll take your case on and we may be able to get some legalities to come into play, along with the judge who will be making certain there will be no appeal with so many instructions to the jury that it will confuse them into thinking there's reasonable doubt then the $2m may be worth it and we'll see each other again when your 75.
Philip Dunn should have earlier in the proceedings impressed on Erin the opportunity to avoid life without parole by pleading guilty otherwise he also wasn't doing his job imo.
If she had earned the money herself instead of inheriting it then perhaps it's OK but I would like to think she could have passed that money on to her children and not use it to pay lawyers.
She was never going to get away with trying to murder everyone at her lunch, even without the jury knowing she tried to possibly murder Simon using a similar method regularly over the last few years.
If Mandy took the case on without making it clear to Erin that there was no way she could kill three people and get away with it, then I think that's how he did her a disservice.
And if Colin Mandy thinks she came out of the cross examination unscathed, either he's a bloody idiot or was lying when he told the jury that in his closing address.
Her time on the stand was pathetic just like she is IMO.

Why do you care about her? She is not the victim here.

 

[Deleted member 367982]

Why do you care about her? She is not the victim here.

I care SFA about her. She can die in prison well before her sentence ends for all I care.
I just hate the idea of her totally innocent kids missing out on their inheritance because it was grabbed by lawyers who achieved diddly squat for their mother.
Now, if someone thinks Erin can do whatever she likes with her money then that is showing care for her because she is a cold blooded murderer and IMO as part of the punishment her assets should be taken away from her.
IMO the victims, apart from everyone she's trying to kill, include her children.

 

[Jake18]

Why? He gave her the best defense possible with nothing to work with. I wouldn't call it Ineffectiveness of Counsel.

He was great. Look the evidence he managed to keep out - the scientific paper on the computer about the fatal dose of the death caps and the trip to the dump straight after the meal.

The dump trip must have been especially galling for the prosecution, given that Erin later claimed that’s the rough time period that she was (supposedly) binging on cake.

 

[Deleted member 363451]

I care SFA about her. She can die in prison well before her sentence ends for all I care.
I just hate the idea of her totally innocent kids missing out on their inheritance because it was grabbed by lawyers who achieved diddly squat for their mother.
Now, if someone thinks Erin can do whatever she likes with her money then that is showing care for her because she is a cold blooded murderer and IMO as part of the punishment her assets should be taken away from her.
IMO the victims, apart from everyone she's trying to kill, include her children.

It's a pity she didn't consider her children when she decided to commit these cold blooded murders. Not only are they going to miss out financially, but imagine the emotional impact that this has had on them? Erin Patterson had a privileged life and the financial security that most of us can only dream of and she still wasn't happy. Simon should keep the kids well away from her...

 

[Detechtive]

Personally, I believe if she's obviously guilty then it would be a very good lawyer who says to her plead guilty, explain what your motive was, be very remorseful and get a few of your friends to give character references and that way you will be out in 25 years and not die in jail.
If she insisted on going ahead with the trial and thinking she can outwit Nanette Rogers with her 8 days of questioning on the stand, then IMO Mandy should have made it clear to her she will come unstuck with her lies.
If Mandy said to Erin, I'll take your case on and we may be able to get some legalities to come into play, along with the judge who will be making certain there will be no appeal with so many instructions to the jury that it will confuse them into thinking there's reasonable doubt then the $2m may be worth it and we'll see each other again when your 75.
Philip Dunn should have earlier in the proceedings impressed on Erin the opportunity to avoid life without parole by pleading guilty otherwise he also wasn't doing his job imo.
If she had earned the money herself instead of inheriting it then perhaps it's OK but I would like to think she could have passed that money on to her children and not use it to pay lawyers.
She was never going to get away with trying to murder everyone at her lunch, even without the jury knowing she tried to possibly murder Simon using a similar method regularly over the last few years.
If Mandy took the case on without making it clear to Erin that there was no way she could kill three people and get away with it, then I think that's how he did her a disservice.
And if Colin Mandy thinks she came out of the cross examination unscathed, either he's a bloody idiot or was lying when he told the jury that in his closing address.
Her time on the stand was pathetic just like she is IMO.

AFAIK Barristers aren't allowed to refuse a brief if they have capacity.
There aren't any character references - not a single person she knew is willing to say she was a good person, because she isn't. Even her closest friend Ali-Rose was obviously unwilling to or otherwise advised not to. IMO

I think Mandy was excellent - he had nothing to work with but still managed to get crucial evidence excluded from the trial, and before Erin took the stand (which, she would have been advised not to, IMO), there was a moment where I thought the prosecution would struggle to convince the jury of no reasonable doubt.

At the end of the day, her legal team can only act on instructions from Erin, not the reverse. If Erin disagreed with them saying she shouldn't take the stand, she just has to say that she is and they have no choice in the matter. The only exception to this is if her team knew she was going to perjure herself in which case they must recuse themselves as her counsel, IMO.

IMO.

 

[Detechtive]

@Aquawoman

"Philip Dunn should have earlier in the proceedings impressed on Erin the opportunity to avoid life without parole by pleading guilty otherwise he also wasn't doing his job imo."

He would have, IMO. But ultimately it is up to Erin to decide to go to trial. Erin is too arrogant to take a rational approach to these things, she thought she could beat the system! IMO

 

[LinasK]

He was great. Look the evidence he managed to keep out - the scientific paper on the computer about the fatal dose of the death caps and the trip to the dump straight after the meal.

The dump trip must have been especially galling for the prosecution, given that Erin later claimed that’s the rough time period that she was (supposedly) binging on cake.

And the attempted murder charges against Simon too...

 

[SouthAussie]

Personally, I believe if she's obviously guilty then it would be a very good lawyer who says to her plead guilty, explain what your motive was, be very remorseful and get a few of your friends to give character references and that way you will be out in 25 years and not die in jail.

The majority of alleged murderers in Victoria (as per a 2015 study) plead not guilty to murder.

I guess if a person has to roll the dice and take a chance on reasonable doubt VS a definite long sentence, it is not uncommon to plead not guilty.


The study found that younger offenders were more likely to plead guilty than older offenders and those sentenced of harsher crimes, such as murder, were the least likely to plead guilty (only 48 per cent of proven murder charges).

Victorian guilty pleas spike

The requirement to make judges state sentencing discounts has made a huge difference to the number of guilty pleas in Victoria.

www.thelawyermag.com

 

[Deleted member 363451]

And the attempted murder charges against Simon too...

Also her previous digital searches on various poisons...

 

[Deleted member 367982]

The majority of alleged murderers in Victoria (as per a 2015 study) plead not guilty to murder.

I guess if a person has to roll the dice and take a chance on reasonable doubt VS a definite long sentence, it is not uncommon to plead not guilty.


The study found that younger offenders were more likely to plead guilty than older offenders and those sentenced of harsher crimes, such as murder, were the least likely to plead guilty (only 48 per cent of proven murder charges).

Victorian guilty pleas spike

The requirement to make judges state sentencing discounts has made a huge difference to the number of guilty pleas in Victoria.

www.thelawyermag.com

In Erin's case it was a stupid roll of the dice. I think 90% of the people who saw this case before it went to trial would have thought Erin was guilty and what made the case very intriguing was that she pleaded not guilty.
I can see no way that she won't get life without parole. She was callous, unremorseful and totally lacking in empathy for her victims and all without a known motive.
She rolled the dice and lost.
I think she would have been better off to plead guilty early, have a chance at retaining some links with her kids, keep most of her $2m and be out of jail in less than 25 years.
Anything from here on like having a lawyer for her sentencing or having a lawyer to try and get an appeal is like chucking good money after bad.
Pleading not guilty for her was like getting on to a sinking ship and now it's sunk.
There was a bloke in Perth recently, Andre Rebelo, who pleaded not guilty to killing his mum when the whole world knew he did kill her and he's now going to rot in jail for 25 years and hopefully his partner will keep his son well away from him.
Murderers seem to be clogging up the courts with their feeble-minded thoughts about pretending to be innocent.
You need more than a hot shot lawyer to keep the gavel coming down on a guilty verdict. There are exceptions where someone is innocent and pleads not guilty but not many.

 

[MaxDecimus13]

I have referred to the leftovers being left in the bin, which they were.

We know that Erin directed police to the location of the leftovers and that one portion tested positive for toxins.

I am unsure how else to frame this, it’s all based on admissible evidence.

I'd be interested to hear what you make of the fact that one of the leftovers didn't test positive for toxins.

What would your theory be as to why that happened?

I'm not trying to catch you out or anything, I'm genuinely interested. From what I can see, you are picking holes in the established narrative of what happened without trying to proclaim her innocence.

Providing the tests are reliable, then the no-DC sample is pretty damning for EP IMO, as it essentially proves tampering. However, I'd be interested to know how you think they could have got there considering it would have been a significant oversight on the part of EP.

 

[Detechtive]

In Erin's case it was a stupid roll of the dice. I think 90% of the people who saw this case before it went to trial would have thought Erin was guilty and what made the case very intriguing was that she pleaded not guilty.
I can see no way that she won't get life without parole. She was callous, unremorseful and totally lacking in empathy for her victims and all without a known motive.
She rolled the dice and lost.
I think she would have been better off to plead guilty early, have a chance at retaining some links with her kids, keep most of her $2m and be out of jail in less than 25 years.
Anything from here on like having a lawyer for her sentencing or having a lawyer to try and get an appeal is like chucking good money after bad.
Pleading not guilty for her was like getting on to a sinking ship and now it's sunk.
There was a bloke in Perth recently, Andre Rebelo, who pleaded not guilty to killing his mum when the whole world knew he did kill her and he's now going to rot in jail for 25 years and hopefully his partner will keep his son well away from him.
Murderers seem to be clogging up the courts with their feeble-minded thoughts about pretending to be innocent.
You need more than a hot shot lawyer to keep the gavel coming down on a guilty verdict. There are exceptions where someone is innocent and pleads not guilty but not many.

I think with murder trials, it's worth rolling the dice. You just need ONE juror to hold out and you have a mistrial, unless the evidence is overwhelming - eg: A confession, perpetrator found over the persons body with a knife, etc. With this highly circumstantial case, it would nearly always be worth rolling the dice. 0 years v 25 years makes it so! IMO

 

[Detechtive]

What I find quite shocking about her not pleading guilty, is that she knew the evidence they had against her in the brief of evidence, but she still chose to roll the dice.

I get where you're coming from @Aquawoman - because if she plead guilty she would have had a large sentence discount, plus, if she showed remorse, probably more chance of a much lighter sentence. Her inability to take accountability and show mercy and remorse will be her ultimate undoing with the sentencing. I think she will get life without parole. IMO

 

[MaxDecimus13]

When it comes to this case, I would say that almost unusually for a high profile case, we're at the point where almost 100% agree with the proposition that she set out to deliberately poison people on the 29th June 2023.

However, the reality is that outside of this statement there are still a lot of things that are not agreed on, and there really is no agreed narrative for what exactly happened.

When the case was running, I regularly made the point that there were just too many coincidences and unlikely occurences for this to be an accident. These have only increased since the post-trial information has been released. However, the nature of coincidences means that some of these are probably actual coincidences.

Take the issue like Simon's poisonings. Circumstantially, they are very strong but I don't think they've been 100% proven and if somebody was to argue against it I don't their position should be ridiculed as if it has been proven. I was actually quite shocked to read in the pre-trial hearings that the defence had a doctor arguing that his symptoms were not in-line with somebody having ingested something.

This in itself isn't proof the other way (there was clearly an argument to be had), but we should be careful IMO presuming we know exactly what happened at each step of the way.

 

[drsleuth]

What I find quite shocking about her not pleading guilty, is that she knew the evidence they had against her in the brief of evidence, but she still chose to roll the dice.

I get where you're coming from @Aquawoman - because if she plead guilty she would have had a large sentence discount, plus, if she showed remorse, probably more chance of a much lighter sentence. Her inability to take accountability and show mercy and remorse will be her ultimate undoing with the sentencing. I think she will get life without parole. IMO

I think she was just so used to being in control & thought she could sweet talk her way out & say it was all just a accident & woe is me .

She knew alot of incriminating evidence was deemed inadmissible in pre-trial rulings too. She really only needed one juror to believe her.

But she was so wrong, her taking the stand was her un-dooing IMO

 

[JBowie]

I read somewhere that Mandy "did an absolute fantastic job with an astonishingly unrelatable and unconvincing client".
It may be correct about the client but anyone could have got her found guilty on all charges.
Erin served up Mandy a big slice of $2 million for his efforts, so he can't be completely ignorant.

IMO Mandy did the best he could with what he had to work with. I would love to know whether or not he actively discouraged her from testifying.

As for an appeal, as I've said here before, IMO (as a non-lawyer) any lawyer who took on an appeal would be just taking her money, and that's fine with me.

 

[Deleted member 363451]

In Erin's case it was a stupid roll of the dice. I think 90% of the people who saw this case before it went to trial would have thought Erin was guilty and what made the case very intriguing was that she pleaded not guilty.
I can see no way that she won't get life without parole. She was callous, unremorseful and totally lacking in empathy for her victims and all without a known motive.
She rolled the dice and lost.
I think she would have been better off to plead guilty early, have a chance at retaining some links with her kids, keep most of her $2m and be out of jail in less than 25 years.
Anything from here on like having a lawyer for her sentencing or having a lawyer to try and get an appeal is like chucking good money after bad.
Pleading not guilty for her was like getting on to a sinking ship and now it's sunk.
There was a bloke in Perth recently, Andre Rebelo, who pleaded not guilty to killing his mum when the whole world knew he did kill her and he's now going to rot in jail for 25 years and hopefully his partner will keep his son well away from him.
Murderers seem to be clogging up the courts with their feeble-minded thoughts about pretending to be innocent.
You need more than a hot shot lawyer to keep the gavel coming down on a guilty verdict. There are exceptions where someone is innocent and pleads not guilty but not many.

From her kid's perspective, I think they are better off not having anything to do with her.

 

[Detechtive]

IMO Mandy did the best he could with what he had to work with. I would love to know whether or not he actively discouraged her from testifying.

As for an appeal, as I've said here before, IMO (as a non-lawyer) any lawyer who took on an appeal would be just taking her money, and that's fine with me.

Given her personality, I think there is basically zero chance she won't exhaust every avenue she can. IMO

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

What I find quite shocking about her not pleading guilty, is that she knew the evidence they had against her in the brief of evidence, but she still chose to roll the dice.

I get where you're coming from @Aquawoman - because if she plead guilty she would have had a large sentence discount, plus, if she showed remorse, probably more chance of a much lighter sentence. Her inability to take accountability and show mercy and remorse will be her ultimate undoing with the sentencing. I think she will get life without parole. IMO

I've said it before but this case is shockingly similar to that of Sarah Boone nee Paulson in the USA who tortured and murdered her partner, tricking him into getting inside a suitcase, rendering him trapped and beating him with a baseball bat, pushing him down stairs inside the case, and leaving him to die over several hours of suffocation, pleading and crying for help.

She turned down a 15 year plea deal. She went through 8 lawyers. She's serving life with no parole.

JMO MOO