The mushroom poisoning in Vic.... I am gripped

[Dustyblue]

This has been all over the news. I live one town over from Leongatha and believe me, it's the talk of the towns.

We have loads of mushrooms around our place but wouldn't dream of eating them. About 90% of foraged mushrooms in Australia are poisonous.

Then again, you do get groups of people who think they know what they're doing, and perhaps they do.

Meanwhile this is suss-as.

Three people died from suspected mushroom poisoning after sharing a meal. Here's what we know - ABC News

This article says that the two couples who were poisoned met up for a meal together every Thursday. But it also says that they all started feeling unwell within hours after eating this lunch prepared by Erin.

So, I don’t know. I have read from some government health articles about death caps that symptoms can occur from 6 to over 24 hrs later and that if you suspect that you have ingested death cap mushrooms to seek medical attention before symptoms occur.

So, I wonder if it’s possible that the mushrooms were consumed earlier and elsewhere.

It’s too early in the investigation for any of us to be certain of her guilt.

https://amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/aug/09/mushroom-mystery-family-lunch-leaves-australian-town-reeling-after-three-die-in-suspected-poisoning

Different mushrooms have different seasons.

• Poisonous mushrooms including Death Cap mushrooms and Yellow-staining mushrooms occur in Victoria during Autumn, as the weather becomes wetter and cooler.

Poisonous mushrooms growing in Victoria (health.vic.gov.au)

The Austin is also where the major liver transplant centre is.

It’s a great piece of medical detective work.
The professor was grinding up a drug to lower blood sugar called a sulfonylurea. His wife was seen with unexplained hypoglycaemia ( low blood sugar). She was investigated for a rare pancreatic tumour called an insulinoma which makes insulin to lower blood sugar. After he killed her a very astute endocrinologist refused to sign death certificate ( usually GPs job to sign but Professor put pressure on endocrinologist to sign) . The endocrinologist became increasingly suspicious and forced a police investigation. The psychiatrist was deported back to South Africa after he served his prison term.
It turned out that the psychiatrists son had murdered his own wife previously in South Africa!
The psychiatrist was called Colin Brouwer.. his motivation was that he was having an affair with another psychiatrist
There is a fascinating docudrama called “ Bloodlines” about it.
Complete and utter bastard… his poor wife.

There was a case in 2015 where a woman was suing Woolworths for mushrooms that had been purchased there, being contaminated by death cap mushrooms. She was hospitalised, liver failure, coma and survived.

Investigation cleared Woolworths however the investigation was 14 days after the purchase of the mushrooms.

It means that it could be possible (however unlikely) that the mushrooms were purchased from a grocery store.

https://amp.9news.com.au/article/f913d2ac-232d-4c68-bce1-48b2076d5520

What I did notice was a load of reporters on her property! That's pretty poor. Allowed in Australia and not trespassing?

People can come onto your property to knock on your door, ask you a questions etc... it's trespass if you tell them to leave and they don't.

Some of us are actually being informed by the police who are making regular carefully worded press appearances updating on the case.

My tiny sample of facts includes having witnessed, over the years, numerous press conferences and doorstops where the murdered or "missing" person's husband or partner, or the "missing" and murdered child's parents make a plea for help or declare their grief. Some of them have not rung right to me, and lo!, those have been the ones that have been shown, at a later date, once the body has been recovered, etc, to have been the actual killers. She was dodgy as hell.

Obviously, the police use investigative tools and don't just go on their own responses to a suspect, but they would be also experiencing a similar immediate gut reaction after their own years of experience of working on actual cases, while trying to maintain to the public that at this point she is just a person of interest and these events could all be "innocent".

They also have the fact that she alone of the adults had no symptoms of poisoning, accidental or otherwise; that she initially told them she bought the mushrooms at a local shop, and is now refusing to comment when requestioned on this; that her dehydrator appears to have been dumped at the local tip shortly after the first two who were poisoned died.

Victoria suspected mushroom poisoning: lunchtime dish believed to have been a beef wellington pie | Victoria | The Guardian

It becomes even harder to imagine how she did not get poisoned also from this meal.

Just to throw a spanner in this theory, she owns the house she's in now and the house he's living in. And a few others in town. Money wouldn't seem to be a motivator here.

She could have had a reason why she didn't eat it, e.g. vegetarian. She could have had the dish on the table with a number of others and nobody really paid attention to who took serves of what. She could have pushed the food around her plate a bit, then feigned illness, or excused herself to the kitchen/bathroom.

Just my theory - the fact that the police zeroed in on her, and this meal, so quickly makes me think the victims told them something which has led to that.

She could also have made individual pies, and served herself and the kids a safe version that didn't look different enough to raise suspicion.

The children ate a different meal entirely.

Small button mushrooms definitely do taste sufficiently mushroomy for me. Much as I like the flavour, some varieties can be too strong or have an unpleasant texture.

It is all very bizarre

It’s the oddest thing, So yes dehydrator found at tip definitely, not in the house. Maybe it’s broken. And ex husband now being reported as saying he thinks she previously poisoned him , and possibly multiple times, and his medical records now being reviewed again for that.

All four lunch guests deceased or in Critical condition. Suspected death cap poisoning from the lunch. An ex husband with signficant and near fatal gastro issues a year ago, her and her two kids not impacted from the same lunch event, a divorce in the offing, an implausible story of the mushrooms being bought from a grocer, no product recall or investigation at any grocer, a dehydrator coincidentally at the tip, kids removed from her care. Homocide investigating it. After stating she bought the mushrooms from the grocer and didn’t forage , now a refusal to discuss them, likely on legal advice .

of course it could all be innocent, but it’s starting to look more and more unlikely. Was it an accident, how is that possible if mushrooms bought from a grocer, did she do it, did she not, did she want to do away with her whole ex in-laws/husband or did she want to knock them sick,who knows but I think this will come to a quick resolution, she’s either going to be arrested very soon, or the police will say no charges.

Had the four met up for breakfast earlier and this is the source of poisoning?

Was it an accident?

Did she murder them?

Was she set up?

Also, if her ex husband suspected she was poisoning him, why did he not at least talk to his family about it? Or share his suspicions with the doctors treating him or go to the police?

And if he suspected that she has been poisoning him why would he initially accept lunch at her house? Why wouldn’t he warn his family that it might be risky to eat her food?

Perhaps he did but wasn’t believed. However, his claims would be backed up by the symptoms and serious mystery illness he had last year.

Still, it is odd that he accepted the invitation to have lunch at her place in the first place.

I'm also thinking, she doesn't seem like the sharpest tool in the shed, and it may be she foraged for mushrooms, and is a lousy forager; dried them, and included them in the gravy for the Beef Wellington for extra tastiness (which she didn't have as she doesn't like gravy on her Wellington) and accidentally killed them. But has panicked and rather than admit the mushrooms were foraged by her has lied to the police about it and chucked the dehydrator in the tip.

I particularly feel for the lone survivor, waiting on a liver transplant for any chance of survival (the waiting list is long) and a suitable donor, when he is in his seventies by the look of him.

He talked to someone according to this article https://news.sky.com/story/ex-husband-of-woman-accused-of-killing-three-people-with-toxic-mushrooms-claims-she-tried-to-poison-him-12937024

Going to her house for food could have been a fairly regular occurrence for all we know? We don’t know if it was a one off meal together since he became ill last year or whether it was something they did every now and again.

What stood out to me in the interview was the ‘they didn’t do anything wrong to me’.

Going to her house for food could have been a fairly regular occurrence for all we know? We don’t know if it was a one off meal together since he became ill last year or whether it was something they did every now and again.

It has been stated that they were meeting up as a sort of intervention/mediation session regarding her wish to get her husband back. Then he pulled out of the lunch at the last minute. (See linked article up thread.)

agree 100%

It just gets more peculiar. If the ex-husband had any suspicion about her having poisony tendencies, why would he let his family show up?

Wonder how long it takes to forensically test a dehydrator....

Clearly you’ve more control over your family than most other folks. 😂

Very suspicious then. I wonder if he’d mentioned his suspicions to them - probably not.

Exactly the same sort of things were said of Lindy Chamberlain and Christopher Jefferies. It’s convenient confirmation bias to remember only suspects who seemed dodgy, and indeed turned out to be guilty. There are many cases when this happens, but also many when the obvious suspect turns out to be innocent.

Any suspect in any case will be advised by their solicitor to answer no comment. It is not evidence of guilt; it is evidence of having hired a lawyer.

The police have not arrested her. They clearly do not believe that they yet have enough evidence, yet somehow you know better?

I’m not saying she is innocent. I’m just saying that - until she is found guilty in a court - we should keep an open mind.