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

They really do smell of urine

It's true that different websites say different things - spectacularly unhelpful for foragers.

I watched this last night and was shocked that they haven’t even confirmed death cap poisoning because the toxicology report hasn’t come back. The police must be extremely confident that there is no other explanation.

From what I understand, they are being guided by the hospitals and poison experts and their experience of death cap poisoning - which is in line with the presentation and progression of the four victims, ultimately resulting in death for three. The poor fellow left waiting for a liver transplant is lucky to be alive at all, given the outcomes for death cap mushroom ingestion. Apparently it is not so easy to test for, as this professor explains:

Police believe poisonous death cap mushrooms are behind the Leongatha deaths. What happens when you eat one? - ABC News

i remember watching a series some years ago which showed Jamie Oliver’s friend, Jimmy, in the process of setting up his farm. He foraged for mushrooms and his wife was taken to hospital and was quite poorly.

I don’t know where the truth lies in this case but the interview was wholly unconvincing.

These are very tight knit communities (I live nearby) and when anything of media interests happens nobody likes the influx of 'blow-ins' from Melbourne nosing around, goading people into making the comments they want to hear & generally annoying people. They tend to clam up in the hope of making them leave.

Don & Gail were very well known & liked, even I knew of them, and I imagine the locals wouldn't be pleased at being badgered by journalists and feel protective of them even now.

Also AFAIK the ex-husband hasn't said a peep to the media. Everything being reported has been pulled from the internet apart from one really unsubstantiated comment "from a friend" with no follow up to it.

Such a curious case. I hope they can manage to find out the truth about what happened.

In other (Australian) news, I'm also curious about what happened to the dad and 5 kids in the house fire. Poor kids 😞

She looks guilty as hell in that interview but like pps say, shock can present in odd ways. She may not be feeling any real emotion right now and so feeling that she should be crying etc, so she’s acting that way, which makes her look guilty . It’s odd they’ve not arrested her yet which makes me wonder if there’s more to it.

It’s actually not remotely odd, in fact it would be odd if they had.

They need to get all the forensics back and do their investigations first. You can’t be arresting folks when you don’t know for sure a crime has been committed. So once it’s been confirmed what poisoned them , what’s on the dehydrator etc, then they will act. Not before. And from what I understand right now it’s suspected poisoned from death cap mushrooms, but the toxicology results are not back yet, as it’s actually a rare thing.

Serving etiquette is similar to the IK. Sometimes you plate up sometimes it’s a spread of dishes.

According to this article (if accurate), she has now ‘gone missing’. Keeping her head down to dodge the paps
more likely
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/melbourne/article-12392383/amp/Leongatha-mushroom-cook-Erin-Patterson-goes-MISSING-Lawyers-forced-camp-outside-home-hand-legal-advice-police-investigate-poisoned-beef-wellington-deaths.html

This is interesting:

"The four guests presented the following day at the Leongatha Hospital with gastro-like symptoms and were admitted.

Local paper the Gippsland Sentinel-Times reported a release from the hospital, saying: “A fifth person was discharged, after a short presentation at the Leongatha Hospital.”

As there were no other adults present, and Erin’s two children didn’t eat the meal, it will be a matter of keen interest to investigators as to why Erin presented at hospital when she appeared symptom-free."

How poisonous mushrooms at a Leongatha dinner sparked Victoria Police’s curiosity (smh.com.au)

Oh my gosh, that one is heartbreaking. You have to hope the poor kids were unconscious and suffered smoke inhalation without waking and realising.
And now that police have charged from non-suspicious to undetermined and further investigations. The accounts that the mother sleeps upstairs with the kids, came downstairs to tell their dad. Then he runs upstairs and perishes with them while she got out. It’s difficult to visualise.

PP - A woman in australia killed her husband and cooked him? What?

Good grief Film

That is a whole different case but yes, I know what you mean.

Not to mention the Qld Dad who killed his wife and 11-week old baby, then handed himself into police.

We might need another thread for all the true-crime happening in Australia right now.

I'm still agog at the idea of reconciling your broken marriage by inviting your in-laws and the local pastor-and-wife. As a warped sort of intervention/mediation. That's some crazy shit right there.

Apologies to any Baptists on this thread but, really, is this a thing?

Sounds very stereotypically southern American to me, like part of a Louis Theroux documentary

I understand that’s not what it was. They were staging an intervention, mediation type thing as she wanted him back, he didn’t want to go back and the family, agreed with him. Basically they were there to get her to agree to the divorce.

And of course now the investigation is she’s invited them all round to talk her into the divorce and done them all in instead,

Is divorce "no fault" and quick in Oz? Is there any reason a divorce could be challenged or otherwise delayed by one of the couple?

Seems strange to me that people would feel obliged to encourage her to go ahead with the divorce because reconciliation is not possible. Unless she could object legally in some way?

Those in Oz might have more info.

@ladeluge This is what legal aid in Australia says about divorce:

The only requirement for a divorce is the ‘irretrievable breakdown’ of the marriage. This is proved by both spouses having been separated for 12 months with no likelihood of getting back together.
Your partner does not have to agree to the separation, however they need to know that you think the marriage is over.
The court does not consider whose fault it was that the marriage broke down.

https://www.legalaid.vic.gov.au/divorce#

Interesting, and thanks for the link.

Maybe they haven't been separated for the required 12 months yet?

Otherwise it seems that there is no reason she could delay things or object. Curiouser and curiouser. Unless I am missing something!

Oh, and the bad part of me is coming out now, sorry.... but maybe she orchestrated things so the in laws and others died while she was still legally married even though separated.

Once divorced, nothing would come her way presumably? Am I an evil witch to think this? I probably am.