To think Erin Patterson could have got away with murder

[Cheesychipsandbeans]

If she'd just said from the beginning she went foraging for mushrooms, thought she knew what she was doing and made a "terrible mistake".

I think that's what I find most disturbing about this case. Her lies and deception after the fact is what tripped her up. I read the article where the doctor treating the victims stated he knew it was her once she said she bought the mushrooms at a supermarket. No one was dead at that point so her reasons to lie if she was innocent were nill and as they already knew it was mushroom poisoning, and absolutely no way they would have been bought in a shop, it was such a terrible lie. If she'd said straight away she'd been foraging and not tried to lie her way out of it, I genuinely think she'd have gotten away with murder.

I found this odd too! Did you listen to the podcast? I wondered why she didn’t just say I picked them and got them mixed up with edible mushrooms, but I suppose that doesn’t explain why she didn’t get ill compared to the others. I didn’t buy the vomiting after too much cake scenario!

Loads of murderers incriminate themselves because they can't lie when put on the spot.

No I haven't but I'm going to try this weekend. I had been following it but only had a chance to properly catch up on everything this evening.
But yes, that still would have been very suspicious alongside the plate. I can see it would have made it to court but I think there would have been a lot more room for reasonable doubt.

I’ve only been vaguely following this case but yes, that does seem very stupid to attempt to blame the supermarket.
Unless she was perhaps unaware they could test specifically for the mushrooms, and she just assumed they’d get seriously ill but it wouldn’t be possible to identify exactly why. In which case saying you’d foraged mushrooms would raise more questions I guess.

She needed to mix the mushrooms in the kitchen and stick to the foraging story. Then dose herself with laxatives, possibly burying/burning the packaging and lastly, act over concerned and remorseful for the others being ill.

I think she would have been suspected eventually as they worked out the cause.

The Dr who reported it only seen her for up to 5 min before he called police.

First her husband gave evidence that she had poisoned him several times. Second, she gave herself a separate dish to the others and wasn't poisoned.

Then she told a string of lies regarding buying them, she threw away the dehydrator and said she had an eating disorder and vomited the poison.

True. But I think he specifically asked her about the mushrooms. But I think you're right and she was probably not expecting that question, at least at that stage. It does seem that she didn't really plan out what she was going to do after.

Serving herself on a different colour plate was also a bit stoopid.

Taking the plates to the tip afterwards and being caught on camera was terribly stupid.

The plate thing didn't immediately convince me as someone who owns a 'fancy' set of crockery for 4 people and I have indeed served myself the less fancy plate when they're more than 4 of us. There were definitely many suspicious elements, but I think the reasonable doubt factor would have saved her if she hadn't tried to lie about where she got the mushrooms at the start. Especially as they never identified a motive.

Yeah if she'd have been a bit more clever she certainly could have got away with it.

I agree.

Apparently they can only test for death cap mushroom poisoning for a short timeframe after they’ve been eaten (a couple of days), and symptoms start off as food poisoning type symptoms. There was a good chance that they wouldn’t have suspected and confirmed what it was within the timeframe for testing.

It appears she had tried similar more than once on her ex, who was seriously ill and in a coma with a ‘mystery illness’ at one point the year previously, and she wasn’t suspected (other than by him - which is why he didn’t attend). I think she thought she’d get away with it again, and therefore she hadn’t thought her story through.

I’ve been following this case avidly. The podcasts are fascinating. I’d like to think there’s no way she could’ve got away with killing 3 people in such a terrible way. I guess she never thought anyone would survive and it seems remarkable that someone did. I hope she dies in prison.

It might have helped- still very suspicious that she was the only one not to become very ill. Also to sell the foraging she would have needed to put some effort in beforehand - have some witnesses to agree that she did actually forage, some internet searches related to mushroom identification. There have been cases where people have died and the forager hasn't been charged but in those cases the forager was also clearly impacted by the toxins and was known to forage generally.

She is apparently a very intelligent women, and her crime has more holes than a Swiss cheese, and not just in retrospect.

So, you’ve got to wonder if she somehow wanted to get caught, or just didn’t care about the consequences.

Thinking further - if she claimed to forage I'd think it would at least be manslaughter. Its well known that wild mushrooms are dangerous and death caps are incredibly easy to recognise as toxic - they have white gills for goodness sake - impossible to mistake for a field mushroom. So she'd either have to claim she just started foraging and had no idea how to identify a toxic mushroom from an edible one but thought it would be a good idea to serve them to four guests - criminally negligible surely. Or just a very shit experienced forager who'd been lucky until now.

I think sometimes awareness of their intelligence can lead to arrogance, which means that the murderer can't believe they might be caught.

I don't understand why they all agreed

To have dinner with her

There are just far too many unfortunate events here to make it accidental. Which leaves you wondering why. The lack of a motive is peculiar, although given what has emerged post-verdict, probably a bit less so.

Her kids are still quite young. I feel for them. Imagine growing up in the shadow of this case, and having many of your paternal family connections severed by your mother’s actions :(

I mean, the ex husband does not sound like father of the year but two wrongs… make for kids who are disadvantaged from the get go.

I hope there is someone loving and uncomplicated in their lives :(

I think as devoted Christians they wanted to have a good relationship with the mother of their grandchildren and were prone to seeing the best in everyone.

Yeah agree. I have known one definite psychopath , highly intelligent, really frightening because he just did not care. If you met him, you’d have marked him down intially as harmless as he showed no anger, aggression, bad intent, red flags etc. his bad behaviour was purely a series of logical steps to the goal he though was important.

i do wonder if that is what is going on here. A lot of the reportage suggests someone very psychologically damaged. Going home to let the dogs out after her loved ones were admitted and in a life-threatening condition? Nope: that doctor who had her number early on was right.

And also, her apparent lack of concern for her children who had eaten leftovers. I mean; that is just weird. If my kids had a 10,000/1 chance of having ingested death cap, they would be in that hospital faster than lightning. She didn’t bother with them, even after she had an inkling it wasn’t just “regular food poisoning”.

The prosecution, police and medical staff here did a really good job.

If her ex-husband thought she was up to no good with the meal, why did he let his parents go?

I don't think he was sure that she had even tried to poison him (suspicious sure but i think he still had feelings for her and didn't really believe it, and quite possibly he isnt the brightest spark) and didn't for a second think she want to harm his family. It still doesn't make sense why she did to many of us!
Everyone just seemed very keen to stay on Erin's good side for the sake of the children so weren't going to decline the lunch invite.