The mushroom poisoning in Vic.... I am gripped - Part 2

[ImustLearn2Cook]

Hi everyone, Aussie Mumsnetter here. As some have requested a new thread be started by an Aussie I decided to do it.

I am still gripped by this case and like many, I am awaiting updates of new information.

Will a matching donor for a liver for Ian be found soon? I hope he makes a full recovery.

Will he be able to shed new light on the lunch they all shared?

And of course is she guilty of deliberately poisoning them or was it an innocent mistake?

Or anything presented as evidence already?

That's a very interesting possibility to consider.

i was wondering the same.

I’d assume the motive was killing her estranged husband.

I think that's generally accepted, but as they had been separated but on good terms since 2015, and she was the one who initiated the final separation and the one who left the previous times they were separated, one wonders why now.

The change in her attitude towards him after she somehow found out he had been declared as 'separated' on his tax form in late 2022 is interesting; it was either money or control, or both, I think.

Absolutely not. You mustn't be following the case very closely to think that.

I stand by it! When things don’t make sense there’s usually a reason.

This is what makes me not think he's in on it. Also, I think the police would have found something implicating him but they didn't.

For those wanting to catch up on the dropped charges regarding the alleged attempts to murder Simon, this article gives a summary: https://www.sgst.com.au/police/mushroom-case-she-tried-to-kill-her-husband-four-times-police-say

So... what would be his motive?

You never know what people have experienced during their childhood, sometimes at the hands of relatives, and religious folks are not an exception. That’s all I’m saying. Who knows what people are really thinking deep down, or if they are even thinking, rather than reacting to stuff.

Reading the article @TerrorAustralisposted it sounds as though there was a lot going on in her mind. They didn’t have a traditional marriage or lifestyle. But the husband must also have been quite an individual for him to agree just to pack up and go travelling. I think with people like that you can’t just ascribe mainstream theories of motive and behaviour because they are clearly outside the norm in their worldview. Which is fair enough, but it makes a case like this much more difficult to understand.

But you must think the detectives involved in this case are the Keystone Cops if they have somehow not noticed he was in on it.

It just doesn't stand up to a moment's thought, really.

according to that report she allowed the guests to chose their own plates, i think that is unlikely that all of the guests would leave the smallest plate to the host

That's an article from 2023. Even her defence has admitted she lied about multiple aspects, so I don't think her report of how the lunch unfolded from a statement that has now been shown to have been riddled with lies, and which her defence agrees were lies, should be taken as gospel.

There are half a dozen places of good repute giving rundowns on the case now. Many linked up thread.

Don't take the old article as a source for anything ER says. She's completely changed much of her evidence between now and then.

I only posted it for info on the (now dropped) charges of attempted murder of the ex.

Who knows regarding his involvement.

But having just read today’s proceedings I agree that if she deliberately travelled to a location where death cap mushrooms had been located and mentioned online, purchasing a dehydrator just beforehand and dumping it after the event, then it’s not looking good for her.

Who knows regarding his involvement.

He was the victim of three previous attempts on his life and the main intended victim of that lunch. He stood to gain nothing, and clearly loved his parents and his aunt and uncle. He accused Erin at the hospital, from her own account last August - although she is prone to tell lie after lie after lie:

In the statement, Ms Patterson admitted she lied to investigators when she told them she had dumped it at the tip "a long time ago".

She also lied to investigators that she'd ever owned a dehydrator.

Ms Patterson said she was at the hospital with her children "discussing the food dehydrator" when her ex-husband, the son of the dead couple, asked: "Is that what you used to poison them?"

Worried that she might lose custody of the couple's children, Ms Patterson said she then panicked and dumped the dehydrator at the tip.

Nah, no way was Simon in on it.

I firmly believe she tried to kill him before, as the police clearly did, but by now there wouldn't be any physical evidence left to prove it.

I agree motive isn't clear cut here... probably why the prosecutor is hammering the legal point that they don't need to prove it. Money is still possible even though she's quite wealthy, perhaps she hated the thought of Simon getting anything in the case of divorce. Including the house in his name. As for the inlaws, maybe she just hated them but kept it to herself.

Still, they were her kids grandparents, pretty horrible to rob them of that. Then again anyone who's prepared to kill like this is going to have a pretty warped moral code. I guess it's not surprising we can't grasp her motives!

Remember that they didn't die instantly, there was plenty of time for them to comment on things.

As for Erin being smart or not, I agree this doesn't seem meticulously planned but all accounts say she's pretty intelligent. She was an air traffic controller at one point and that's not a job for dumb shits.

It is a horrible, horrible way to die, and incredibly painful. As a mushroom forager and science buff, she must have been aware of that. It is really hard to ascribe a motive to someone who is warped enough to do that to anyone, particularly people who in the past she is said to have really loved - Don, in particular.

Perhaps that is why her brain glitched in her infamous press interview back at the start when she kept repeating she hoped Don would pull through, when it was Ian who was the survivor and Don was already dead after hideous suffering at her hands.

Right? Air traffic controllers also undergo rigorous psychometric testing to make sure they remain very calm in a crisis, almost pathologically so. Like pilots or surgeons. Which she does not seem to have demonstrated.

As we know, that interview was just awful. EP was not even able to keep track of the mortal status of people she supposedly loved!

I love this case, it's fascinating.

On the one hand, the absolute wild way the people were killed point to murder, and after the fact she seems shifty, evasive, hides evidence.

On the other hand, it seems unlikely that someone who plans five murders with such thought- particularly a fan of true crime to the degree of being in Facebook groups devoted so particular crimes- would have given so little thought to the aftermath as to make such stupid mistakes as contradictory and easily disprovable statements, ditching the dehydrator in such an obvious spot, etc.

To me, those things point to someone who made an enormous mistake in error resulting in the deaths of people they and their community love and respect, and are now trying to conceal it on the fly.

The lack of motive, while not legally decisive, is also massive. If her plan was to try and consolidate custody and assets, then going ahead with murdering the family of her ex while knowing he would be fine, is about the least likely deliberate strategy someone one would take.

But then the fake cancer story pulls it the other way!

So fascinating, the trial itself is being expertly ran by both counsel too.

I wonder if she thought they would die sooner, and there would be nobody about to contradict her story. I don't think she planned for the aftermath at all, really.

As a defence lawyer- don't feel too sorry for them, it's a great case factually!

perhaps she just wanted her own true crime story!