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?

Well, I asked what sort of doctor you are. You said you were a doctor.

I don't want to give identifying /more details. But you're absolutely free not to agree /believe what I've said.

Okay. You said I was confrontational. I wondered if asking that question was perhaps seen by you as confrontational. The fact you refuse to clarify something as basic as whether or not you are a GP or someone with, for example a PhD in an unrelated field is bemusing, but whatever.

Following this from NI, and really appreciative of all your posts and the daily links to the abc blog coverage!

Just wondering if I've missed anything being said about preparing the mushrooms or has it not yet been covered? As in, if you handled death cap mushrooms but didn't consume them, is that enough to cause symptoms or blood markers? I don't imagine many people wear gloves to prepare their day-to-say food

Ah OK I misread your tone in your previous post. I thought you meant what kind of doctor are you that you don't understand lfts as in, what kind of crap awful medical doctor are you that you don't have a clue with LFTs mean? Rather than are you a medical Dr or a PhD one. Apology from me for getting that wrong and over reacting. Yep I'm a medical doctor but not a toxicologist. I tried to dm you but looks like your messages aren't open.

Yes, now you say it I only remember hearing that they found traces in the dehydrator, so the leftovers she directed them to probably didn’t contain them.

That's what I thought about the leftovers!! And that's why she was happy to tell the police where they were

I didn't realise before quite what awful deaths these were. The horror of it

Please quote a single doctor who has said "that she had not imbibed any DCs".

That is your own conclusion and it is a step beyond what the medical evidence has said or been asked.

If there were zero medical signs that she'd consumed death caps, is that not medical evidence that she hadn't? 🤔

Didn’t she invite the guests there for a meal to tell them something important about her health I.e. that she had cancer? Which was a lie? So why did she really want them there for a meal? Their being invited was an unusual event from what I recall.

That is your own conclusion and it is a step beyond what the medical evidence has said or been asked.

Actually, it isn't. But I am not prepared to repeat myself on this further. And I've already been told that I've repeated myself and the relevant quotes quite enough.

I expect the toxicologist will be asked to explain death cap poisoning and dosages and effects when he is recalled today.

From what I recall you would need around one DC per person to kill them, and less to be survivable, but that is from memory from the toxicologist quoted on the tv show episode on Under Investigation about the case in 2023.

In my view, it is a marvellous coincidence that none of these got into Erin's portion, the one she left in the bin for the cops, or the one she alleges she scraped the mushrooms off for her children to eat for dinner the following evening after her lunch guests were in hospital and she herself was allegedly suffering from diarrhea after eating.

Doctor tells court no evidence Erin Patterson suffered mushroom poisoning - ABC News

Here's the quote from Under Investigation. Dr Michael Robertson, leading Australian forensic toxicologist:

"One per person will make a person quite ill -- you might need two mushrooms to lead to death. The cap is where the majority of the toxin sits.

If all five [lunch guests] had the same dish, then there would be some variations care of the health or age of the person."

But the toxins would have gone into other parts of the meal? someone asked, regarding Erin's claim to have scraped off the mushrooms for the kids' dinner.

"Yes," he said emphatically. "You're going to have leaching of some of the toxin - but not all of it - it will then move into other parts of the food."

Dr Heiki Neuimeister-Kemp (I think!), a mycologist, said: "You'd probably need 10 full Death Cap mushrooms to have enough poison for five people."

Let's say she did consume some minuscule amount of DC and only became a little bit sick (assuming this is physically possible and despite the medical evidence that she showed no signs of being sick) how is it possible that her meal only contained said minuscule amount when everyone else at the table had a fatal amount?

If it was an honest mistake how did she accidentally not poison herself too?

Exactly, and how could she be so sure, despite being warned it was a matter of life or death, that none had contaminated her children's dinner?

As a PP said I reckon she gave them the leftover unused beef from the eye fillet she bought & leftover veg. By the time she supposedly scraped the mushrooms off the leftovers for her kids everyone else was in hospital. There's no way you'd risk it unless you wanted to kill them too, perish the thought.

I don't understand people insisting she might’ve consumed just a little bit of DC. There's no feasible way her serving would only contain trace amounts when rest were loaded.

Erin Patterson is an alleged mass murderer and family annhilator. (Simon was very lucky he didn't give in to that last manipulative text.) I think that is hard for some to accept, because she's a woman and a mummy. It does lead to some interesting leaps in logic.

I agree. So far I've seen nothing in the Defence to establish reasonable doubt.

‘Accidentally’ foraging and using 10 death caps - presumably there was a portion awaiting Simon if he had shown up - without poisoning yourself is quite a stretch of the imagination. I wonder if the ‘traces’ in the dehydrator are actually quite significant traces and link to 10 being dried. I am not clear what impact preparing death caps mushrooms with your bare hands would be. If she has no traces of poisoning but prepared the dish then is that evidence she must have been wearing gloves? Which no one normally does at home. If they can show she would normally have been poisoned while prepping the meal that also is evidence she knew she was working with toxic food.

I think you're correct on this from what I can find, in that the leftovers she directed to cops to didn't show traces of DC.

I stand corrected!

I've been wondering about this too. If I knew I was handling a deadly toxin I'd wear gloves.

Let's say she added the ground dried DC to fresh mushrooms to make the duxelle- I wonder if the toxin is susceptible to heat and if it can vapourise? Could she have inhaled a tiny amount over the frypan on the stove?

I don't forage but some great funghi grows on the reserve at the back of my house. This was taken in June 2023. I do see other people foraging there but I think they're looking for the magic ones 😃

I saw quite few of these (amanita muscaria) when on a mini-break in Gippsland a couple of weeks ago. Possession is illegal in Australia, not because they're poisonous, which they are unless processed, but because of their hallucinogenic properties.

Love this. You can pick death cap until the cows come home but if you want get off your tits on aminata muscaria, it's two years gaol time.

Go figure.

I think you're fine to touch them it's just ingesting them that is deadly. Although yeah you'd want to be as safe as possible you'd think just in case.