The mushroom poisoning in Vic...... we are gripped!.....Part 3

[Dustyblue]

New thread! Cheers @echt for noticing!

She’s cooked

Mr Mandy is going to have to say something remarkable to counter all that!

The lying about the cancer, with the further lie that it was to cover up about weight loss surgery at a clinic that doesn’t do weight loss surgery is what removes the possibility of an accident for me. The idea that you host a lunch to all support for surgery you haven’t even had an initial consultation for is just ludicrous. She must have expected the lie to die with the victims.

Those poor children though. I hope they are sheltered from the trial a bit, though given how big it is, it is hard to see how they can avoid it.

has the prosecution given the reason why, not in her summing up

she will sum up tomorrow so perhaps that will be answered then

I was discussing this with DD on the weekend and agreed that we both know exactly where we bought stuff. Much is from habitual places, so anything new is a stand-out. Maybe not the day, but the place.

To be fair we both have very good memories, but the patchiness of Erin's is a bit suss.

She might not be able to remember which suburb the Asian grocers was in, but she can give an extremely detailed description of the packaging the mushrooms came in 🙄

She grew up in Glen Waverley. I'd think she'd know her way around the area. Glen Waverley was added later as a possible location for this mysterious Asian grocer selling dodgy hand-foraged dried mushrooms, after she'd sent the health department on a wild goose chase to Mount Waverley (where she has a house), or was it Oakleigh, or was it Oakleigh or Clayton...

She just made it up as she went along, once her plans didn't go as she had planned.

Mr Mandy defence says prosecution should have called evidence about why she was not affected by the meal, surely the defence could have called evidence

They have provided that evidence-she wasn’t affected because she didn’t eat it!

I think dumping the dehydrator was panic - but panic as she didn’t think mushrooms would have been suspected. She asked doctors if there was a test - my guess is she already knew there isn’t a test for death cap and she interpreted that to mean doctors wouldn’t know why people were dying / ill.

i wonder if she meant to make them ill and then panicked that they were very ill and got rid of the dehydrator
sounds logical to me

Except they are called death cap mushroom - not make you ill mushrooms. They do exactly what it says on the tin.

When you factor in that photo the prosecution showed (that Dr Tom May said were death cap mushrooms) of Erin's kitchen and a pile of mushrooms on her kitchen scales, showing just the right fatal DC weight for 5 people, it seems even more unlikely she just meant to make them ill. There are other mushrooms and other substances for that goal.

And she weighed out the dosage that would be enough to kill
(still not sure why she thought it was a good idea to take a photo of that!

perhaps she didnt have time to get rid of the dehydrator

She didn’t think she’d be suspected of involvement. SP had been seriously ill without any suspicion arising. It’s not a case of eating them and becoming straight away. My first thought would have been the meat, so it’s interesting she asked doctors if there was a test.

if you were planning to kill a bunch of people- wouldn’t you just use all the death cap mushrooms you had? Why limit yourself ti an exact dose when your goal is 💀

she could t possibly have expected to get away without being suspect of involvement when she cooked the meal that she intended to kill five people.

she would have known they’d look to her for explanations when five people dropped dead.

She doesn’t appear to think too deeply, as she’s come out with a multitude of lies which were easy to disprove.

However, you don’t get ill or die straight away; from what I’ve read on Google you have food poisoning type symptoms after so many hours then typically appear to get better for a while, before suffering organ failure (3-6 days after eating them). So if she’d done her research (and there is still a missing phone) it’s possible she thought they might have had further meals together before becoming seriously ill.

Also, evidence of DCM poisoning is apparently only detectable for two days after eating DCM, so there was a chance they wouldn’t have been able to detect the cause by the time they got to hospital or suspected it. A slightly different scenario, and it might well have ended differently.

I don’t know how close the couples lived or how many hospitals there are in the area, but weren’t there multiple hospitals involved? So they could easily have ended up at different hospitals with no communication between them.

Don’t forget that SP was supposed to attend too; she sent a message probably in the hope that he would change his mind after he backed out, so she may well have hoped that he’d turn up on the day after sending that.

All we know is she had death caps on her scale weighing the correct amount to guarantee death for five people. Whether or not she added more to be sure is unknown. I doubt she thought that photo would ever come to light.

You would weigh them to make sure you have enough. She could have added more, or stopped there (especially if the taste is strong - wouldn't want to add too many and make it inedible).

What I can't understand is why she took a photo. Really odd behaviour.

The only reason for a photo would be to remember something (maybe ‘this is what 50g of dried mushrooms looks like’) or to share it with someone else and there’s no evidence of anyone else being involved.

But the whole thing is really odd behaviour so I guess we just have to accept the photo is just part of a pattern of oddness!

Where was the photo found, on her phone?

it seems such strong evidence

I think it was on a tablet found in the house.
It shows her kitchen

Wow. So most likely it was taken by her, or a DC.