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

If wild speculation is the order of the day, let's at least be thorough.
Maybe one of the kids did it, and their devoted Mum is desperately trying to cover it up?

You don't have to do this at mine (England). You just rock up. They might ask where you live, but you don't need to book or take any docs.

Re mobile phone triangulation - yeah, if you have a phone; if you take it with you; if you switch it on; etc. And no, not everywhere in the world has this, there are loads of places with no phone signal so must be outside of the potential triangulation.

Well,there is wild speculation then there is this. I mean seriously?

Thank you. I was a bit taken aback by that post. I'm always happy to share info about where I live (London)

Re the tip and the dumped dehydrator: The police have asked for cctv of roads leading in and out of the tip. They have presumably been tipped off by tip workers about it showing up in a skip at the tip, given the tragedy.

It is not Erin P's local tip, 8k away, but a tip in a different town, 15 k away.

They are testing the dehydrator for DNA - hers and the death cap mushrooms. They may already have the results for that, but they're not sharing all the details of their case to the public, for obvious reasons.

Interesting article thanks.

Death caps are slightly different - Aminita phalloides.

Destroying angels are closely related and also Aminitas, but different.

It varies hugely by council. Where I live, we can dump one free load per year. Where my mum lives there’s no limit and there would be no CCTV within miles. TBH, now that I think about it, there are probably bodies in there.

Well why not.. I mean if PP can suggest their own son could do it, then anything's possible. Also in reference with the many Agatha Christie mentions here, does anyone remember the murder mystery, in which a little girl poisoned her wealthy grandfather because he wouldn't pay for her ballet lessons?

Because they are children who have lost most of their family and their mother is a person of interest in what could be a mass murder, and they’ve been taken into care, presumably for their own safety and so they can’t be influenced. That’s why. They are children.

@Seddon The amount of writing it took you to chastise that poster, you could have just answered the question 😂 you come across a bit hostile.

Sorry from an Aussie for this response. It is your forum and you have kindly allowed all us Aussies in after our forum was bought then blown up by a large media corp. I love it when you UK people post here!

I've been reading up on it. The death caps are more easily mistaken for edible mushrooms because they come in various colours, yellow/green/brown tints or very pale whereas the destroying angels are pure white.

Cheers Matara! I wasn't aware it was an Aussie section, was interested in the Toadstool poisonings and looked at MN- and saw this thread.

{From UK}

Edit : Maratara... so sorry for not having glasses on when writing your username.

How did they blow it up? (I appreciate you are not being literal!)

I love that I can talk and learn from people the other side of the world. I'm old enough to remember this not being possible.

Haha. No probs. I just got my new glasses after my 1 yo puppy chewed my brand new glasses into bits. I would have killed him but luckily he is cute. Never really chewed anything before. $300 glasses ( thats roughly 140 pounds I think) and I;d used my health insurance to buy the pair he chewed so no more free glasses until next year. Had to pay full price. I keep them up high now though!!

I'm old enough to remember having to book an international telephone call with the operator

They just closed it . Gone . Kaput. Gave 2 days warning originally and then after complaints 2 weeks warning. Then it just disappeared into the ether! Never to be seen again. Strange as they had just redone the whole site.

This has Agatha Christie written all over it! Just need some foxglove planted in the garden. I'm wondering who is going to play all the characters. I must admit I was a wee bit shocked when the ex had also been very unwell.

It definitely looks like a smoking gun.
Things aren’t looking great for the suspect.

However in U.K. there was a high profile murder of a young woman Joanna Yeats -

Her landlord was absolutely crucified by the press.

I know two people who knew the LL at the time, and both said “ It’s not Chris”

I said “ Who else could it be?”
( Front door hadn’t been forced)

Turned out it was a creepy neighbour-
Christopher Jeffries was exonerated and rightfully received a big payout from Press.

Maybe this woman is innocent-

Maybe not.

It’s human nature to point the finger.

Just hope the right person is arrested.

It's true that anyone perceived slightly odd-ball gets a pounding from the press and on social media.

Goodness knows what the 'perfect innocent' is supposed to look like these days.

That’s very true.
Circumstantial evidence coupled with vague eccentricity-

I shouldn’t be condemning this woman as she hasn’t been charged with anything yet.

Chris Jeffries taught us that.
Don’t be too quick to accuse.

This case and the Christopher Jefferies/Joanna Yeates case aren't really comparable in any way. All the police seemed to have when they arrested Jefferies was the fact that he was slightly eccentric, chatted to the press quite a lot and had access to the flat as the landlord. He had no apparent motive and no apparent means (someone of his size and age would hardly be able to overpower a young fit woman and then throw her dead body over a wall).

Whereas in this case, if all of the allegations and media reports are true, you've got a whole stack of circumstantial evidence. The alleged bad feeling between the person of interest and her 'poisoned' guests. Her impending divorce from their son/nephew. She cooks and serves the 'poisoned' meal, but doesn't eat any herself or give any to her children. She dehydrates the mushrooms and then allegedly takes the dehydrator to the tip soon after the 'poisoning'. The estranged husband was recently in a coma due to a mysterious stomach-related illness. She initially claims to have bought the mushrooms from a grocery store. She then gives a no comment interview to police (which, as people have said, is entirely her right. But you'd think that, like Christopher Jefferies, she would answer all of the police's questions if she had such an innocent explanation).

She could be entirely innocent. She hasn't been arrested, I don't think its even been confirmed that the victims were poisoned by mushrooms? But she's not Christopher Jefferies, people aren't pointing the finger at her purely because of the way she looks or presents on camera, but because the facts reported by the media make her look dodgy as fuck.

And yet the police have access to all this information and more, the crime scene, forensic evidence, have interviewed her, related parties, witnesses etc, and haven’t arrested her. But they should clearly listen to Brenda from Nuneaton who is obsessed with true crime programmes and who thinks she’s definitely guilty because of newspaper reports and her body language.