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

I don't understand how you could accidentally cook up a deathcap. They stink like cat piss. Surely that's the first warning not to eat them. I really doubt it was an accident.

It doesn't look as if she's genuine to me .

She actually didn't say "the mum I never had"

She says "the mum I didn't have because my mum passed away four years ago"

Which seems more natural.

Do we know for sure the kids aren't with him?

It was reported that they were taken into care initially, which would make sense if the police acted with some urgency, but they may have gone to him since. He's reportedly in hiding now so could well have them with him.

Or perhaps he's still too unwell/ shocked and grieving.

Give over.

Most people who claim to be delicate flowers who will need a fainting couch in a crisis are actually like the rest of us. Get on with life because you have to. Buy more toilet paper because you ran out, and a ready meal because you need to eat.

I think she will be going to prison regardless. If she unknowingly cooked and served poison mushrooms, then isn't that still man slaughter?

It does sound suspicious that her ex nearly died a year before. But surely if he suspected that she poisoned him and told his parents, there would be no way in hell his parents would have turned up for a meal prepared by her? Surely!? Or he would have told them not to go?

In the U.K. you’d have to have been doing something unlawful or grossly negligent to be convicted of manslaughter. Not sure accidentally feeding someone mushrooms would come under that although it would probably depend on the circumstances…..

https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/FINAL-Manslaughter-sentencing-leaflet-for-web1.pdf

Obviously the law may differ in Australia.

The whole point of the case against her (and this thread) is - did she knowingly do it? How likely was it to be an accident? In the UK that question would be the same starting point.

Sadly I think she is guilty.

I think she wanted to remove people from her ex H life who meant a lot to him. To punish him.

There's no way it was an accident.

Strange how she never had the mushrooms for dinner herself 🤔

I was reading that it was some sort of mediation meeting led by the pastor. She wanted to get back with the ex but his family was against it hence the meeting. Don’t know what the ex thought or how much notice he gave her about dropping out of the meal.

What I'm saying is anyone really who has a fully functioning ANS system would probably be devastated if they were being accused of triple murder if they were innocent.

On the other hand someone lacking a serious sense of empathy may still function quite well.

You woud be surprised how humans can cease to function when under great distress, I'm surprised you can't imagine it.

And my point is that in the midst of devastating tragedies, people can carry on, and do dull, day to day things because they have to be done.

A bereaved farmer will still be up at dawn the next day to milk the cows. Because it has to be done.

My mum died and I went home and made my kids dinner.

I did the same after my DF died. Grief can affect you on strange ways. Sorry about your DM

OMG!!!
I'm now invested in this.

My son died unexpectedly and I went to PC World six hours later and asked the tech team to help me move all the photos over to a new laptop and told them why without a single tear.
I then cleaned the kitchen and went to Tescos then we went out for dinner.

I continued functioning as normal, I went to work, I went to the gym/classes, everything was normal until the day after his funeral- and then I didn't get out of bed for a month. No one has any idea of how they would or wouldn't behave.

Sorry Fergus that sounds like I wasn't agreeing with you, I was and I'm sorry you lost your mam.

I also wonder if the husband has a girlfriend and one has to think about why the children have not gone to him.

We don't know that the children haven't gone to him. They were removed from her care, for obvious reasons - three people had died after lunch in her house, and one is in critical condition awaiting a liver transplant - but it does not mean they were placed in foster or residential care.

I'm so sorry about your DS @SunsetandCupcakes. I can't imagine how you're getting through his death and grieving

So sorry for your loss.

I have had patients who carried on as normal for months, sometimes years, and then get a massive grief reaction triggered by an anniversary. Sometimes the mind's way of protecting itself from something unbearable is to stick to a normal routine.

sunsetandcupcakes
I am so sorry about the death of your son 💐

Apparently they have no distinctive odour or taste, which explains their high kill rate. You'd just sniff the mushroom and know.

https://publichealthinsider.com/2019/10/31/deathcap-mushroom-season-is-here-mushroom-foragers-should-take-extreme-care/#:~:text=The%20death%20cap%20mushroom%20has,deaths%20from%20foraged%20mushrooms%20worldwide.

Thank you. It wasn't meant as a derail, I just know that what people see doesn't necessarily reflect what people are going through. People would definitely have thought I was guilty (and tbh I still think people judge for how I was) if there had been any suspicious circumstances.

People can act in any strange way following shock - but they don't generally lie to police (unless they are characters in a Nicci French novel).