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?

I think they did.

I think the reason the prosecution aren't specifying a motive for Erin is the same reason they've had to ditch the attempted murder charges.
I don't think the prosecution have a very strong case. Everything is circumstantial. And they can't even tell us why, according to their version of events, she did it.
Are the jury expected to fill in their own preferred motive? Or accept that sometimes people poison other people just because, hey, why not?
Saying I don't think the prosecution case is strong isn't me saying I'm convinced Erin isn't guilty. I'm actually undecided. I just don't think if I was a jury member I could vote someone guilty if the prosecution couldn't even give me a motive.

Everything is circumstantial.

Most crimes are tried, judged, and sentenced on circumstantial evidence. It is the preponderance of evidence that tells the story. Very few murder charges feature direct eye witness or video evidence - the rest is circumstantial. And they have an absolute mountain of forensic and digital evidence still to be heard.

And they can't even tell us why, according to their version of events, she did it.

I think it is because her motivation is too warped to be understood.

Here in the UK we have a case in court at the moment where two guys are alleged (the evidence is pretty overwhelming TBH, they don't seem to be criminal masterminds) to have cut down a famous tree. Nobody has really put forward much of a motive there either.

It’s about proving it “beyond reasonable doubt”. I admit it looks bad for her, but to be fair I feel there is some doubt. Whether it’s reasonable or not I reserve til we have seen more. But everything so far could be explained as innocent or the result of a panic. I’m still on the fence. She’s a very unusual character. And there are lots of unanswered questions still.

The prosecution don't have to prove a motive

[overwhelming evidence] + [no motive] = I could vote "guilty"
[preponderance of evidence] + [clear motive] = I could vote "guilty"
[preponderance of evidence] + [no motive] = I really struggle with putting that past the "reasonable doubt" boundry.
There's more to come so this is just where I feel I'm at now.
I haven't even listened to today's podcast yet.
Does anyone know, has Simon agreed that he said to Erin, a few days after then lunch, "Is that how you did it / poisoned them?" - talking about the dehydrator? (Prompting her to then take the dehydrator to the tip).
Or is it only Erin's / defence barrister who has claimed that?

@Jellyjellyonaplate I was sure I'd read they didn't! 🙈 Can't find any certain info either way tho

Does anyone know, has Simon agreed that he said to Erin, a few days after then lunch, "Is that how you did it / poisoned them?" - talking about the dehydrator? (Prompting her to then take the dehydrator to the tip).
Or is it only Erin's / defence barrister who has claimed that?

Simon has said on the stand he did not say that.

And Erin wrote it in her statement to the police in August 2023, to explain why she suddenly dumped the dehydrator.

The Age and the ABC reported they did find traces. The SMH said they did not. I would trust the first two for accuracy in this.

The forensic and toxicology experts' evidence will be interesting.

Thanks @velvetandsatin

So the daughter reports that Erin started feeling ill and visiting the bathroom the day before the kids ate the leftovers?
I’m trying to work out what that implies in terms of what Erin knew:
If she poisoned the guests deliberately and was pretending to be ill herself it would be suspicious that the kids weren’t ill
If she poisoned them accidentally but became aware she felt ill then personally I wouldn’t have served kids leftovers of anything I’d eaten or prepared before feeling ill

I think there is a strong possibility that Simon was in it with her. I don't think she's innocent but it doesn't make any sense that she would do this alone.

Why would she even organise a lunch with her estranged husband's relatives at her home?

He's the one with more motive as he stands to inherit. When he inherits then he'll no longer want or need a share of Erin's inheritance when they divorce (which also gives her enough motive to go along with it).

He pulled out of the lunch at the last minute in case he accidently got poisoned too. He knew what was on the menu.

He alleges that one of the victims told him Erin's food was on a different coloured plate, conveniently Simon is the only person to have heard this piece of information - if you were seriously ill on your way to hospital, would you even remember what colour your own plate was, never mind anyone else's? The surviving guest can't even remember if the food was served on a tray or on the kitchen bench. I think Simon made this up to further incriminate Erin.

He asked her at the hospital if she used the dehydrator to kill them (though he now says he didn't say that). It seems really obvious that he knew exactly what happened before the doctors did and before any toxicology tests came back.

He was also a mushroom forager, have the police looked into his whereabouts in the weeks and months leading up to this lunch? His internet searches or Facebook groups?

Why would Erin need a burner phone? Who was she calling to make plans/arrangements with? If she was doing this completely off her own back she wouldn't need to call anyone from a secret phone. Perhaps Simon also had a second phone but nobody thought to check.

It's easier for a jury to believe that it was a terrible innocent mistake for her to feed them poison mushrooms as she had no reason to want them dead. She possibly agreed to take the blame since she could feasibly pass it off as an accident therefore receive a lesser sentence. If he had attended the lunch and not gotten sick it would have looked more suspicious.

I know there are some of you who are absolutely convinced that Simon is 100% innocent but I think this shows that there's room for reasonable doubt.

He alleges that one of the victims told him Erin's food was on a different coloured plate, conveniently Simon is the only person to have heard this piece of information - if you were seriously ill on your way to hospital, would you even remember what colour your own plate was, never mind anyone else's? The surviving guest can't even remember if the food was served on a tray or on the kitchen bench

Ian Wilkinson said Erin ate from a differently-coloured plate at the trial

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-06/erin-patterson-mushroom-murder-trial-pantry-lunch-plates/105257724

I think the police investigation proceeded along the lines of, if Erin is guilty her motive is a desire to kill Simon (anger, revenge for heartache caused, desire to have full control of decisions about kids &c.). So they looked and found evidence that Erin had tried to kill Simon in the past. And DPP initially proceeded with prosecution including several counts of attempted murder (of Simon).
Something was amiss with the police investigation. So the DPP has had to drop the attempted murder allegations, and also drop any mention of the initial motive that the whole case was built around.
That's consistent with it turning out that Simon is somehow involved. But it could also be the police getting carried away with a particular hypothetical. I'm not meaning to slag off the police here. If Erin did poison her guests intentionally it makes alot more sense if they were killed in an attempt to kill Simon - in terms of motive. The motive for poisoning her in-laws and pastor and wife are more like Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, a cold-minded, "Could I do this and get away with it?" But if that's what the prosecution think is going on why don't they say it?
(I know I'm repeating myself, but it's all I can think about!)
This is complete speculation, but if Simon is involved I agree with @ShockedandStunnedRepeatedly that his motive is about childhood abuse in his religious community - hence the desire to kill his parents and his pastor and pastor's wife.
I think I'm leaning towards tragic accident, though, as the actual explanation.

I think you are heading into libel territory here.

This is not a who-done-it, or an episode of Midsomer Murders - there is extensive evidence that focuses solely on EP, who has left a digital and forensic trail that is hard to refute.

It is EP who is up for three counts of murder and one of attempted murder, and it is EP who has left a trail of forensic evidence, and it is EP who has by her own defence's admission lied repeatedly to the police and the public.

Don't be silly, we can discuss theories without being libelous.
I think you must be personally related to Simon, or perhaps you ARE Simon. You're extremely defensive of him and eager to dismiss any other theory, despite there being suspicious behaviour from him.

There is only extensive evidence of EP's involvement as she was the only one investigated since she cooked the meal, for that she is obviously guilty, but it is reasonable to think that there may have been other involvement.

Mature response. Suggesting one of the victims is in fact the perpetrator or in cahouts with the perpetrator is bordering on defamatory.

It is also a bit offensive to the prosecutors, the senior police detectives, the Australian Federal Police, and all the forensic experts who have worked on this case to suggest they would not have looked at all possibilities.

I also, personally, find the victim-blaming offensive. SP and his siblings have lost their parents in a truly hideous fashion, and lost their aunt, and have had the horror of realising someone they knew and trusted had murdered them. And SP is left with realising the previous illnesses and hospitalisations (one of which nearly killed him, he was in an induced coma for weeks and his family were called in to say goodbye to him twice) were most probably also at this woman's hands. It is a heinous crime to poison trusting people, to sit across from them knowing the suffering they are shortly about to endure, and to keep the information that might have saved them from the medical staff in multiple hospitals, when multiple opportunities arose for her to say, actually, I did forage those mushrooms.

There is zero evidence pointing to Simon. Nor evidence of abuse at the hands of his parents just because they were devout baptists. That's sheer fantasy. The nvestigation was long, thorough and came up with nothing implicating him.

The fact that he was previously hospitalised more than once with mystery illnesses that look a lot like poisoning throws more doubt. This is pretty nasty victim blaming.

@ScotInExile You are being ridiculous to suggest a poster who's been on these threads since the beginning might actually be Simon Patterson. If you dont wish to be respectful then it would be nice if you stayed away.

Just to be clear, since I’ve been tagged.

I floated the general notion, quite a while back, that the fact that someone is religious and a pillar of the Community etc doesn’t automatically mean they are not capable of bad things. There have been lots of cases in the past so it’s hardly an outlandish theory. It’s just a theory though and nothing more than speculation. If they haven’t followed that line of enquiry then fair enough. It still doesn’t all add up, but that could be for all sorts of reasons. People do things for all sorts of reasons.

Back in 2023, when it first happened, people were speculating all sorts of things. But given the detectives involved have gathered an absolute mountain of digital and forensic evidence, and the DPP have agreed they have a case against EP for the murders and attempted murder she's currently on trial for, it does seem a little bit disregarding of the facts - that most posters putting forward these 'theories' don't seem to have even bothered reading in the summation of a day's evidence - to be putting out wild stories that somehow make EP the victim or at least less of an evil, callous perpetrator.

I simply believe one must always maintain an open mind. As PP says, a lot of the evidence is circumstantial and it’s hard to discern a clear motive. As per the title of this thread, I remain gripped.

I agree; to me, the prosecutions case just does not demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that Erin deliberately killed her guests.
I think there is a reasonable possibility at least of tragic/reckless accident.
However her actions after the fact in concealing that the mushrooms were foraged, would certainly incur serious criminal liability (and are reprehensible). I think she will either be found guilty of manslaughter or accept a plea deal for manslaughter before the end of the trial.