Erin Patterson - We the members of the MN jury find the defendant Guilty or Not Guilty?

[Dustyblue]

Well here we are, after 2 years of head-scratching speculation and many weeks of trial detail-thrashing. It looks like the Judge will give his directions to the jury on Tuesday, after which they'll be sequestered in a local motel (I do not envy them this) to reach a verdict.

Clearly we're not privy to every last piece of evidence shown at the trial, but those of us who've been following closely will surely have formed an opinion one war or the other.

So, I ask you- if you were on the jury- what would your verdict be?

I don't think there's been satisfactory evidence that she specifically intended to kill them to satisfy that question beyond reasonable doubt.

As I've said, I don't think there's any doubt that her actions DID kill them, and I think if it was on 50/50 it's more likely that she intended to kill them than not. But I think the defence case theory (a cowardly and panicked cover-up of her actions that unintentionally but definitely led to the deaths of the victims) is a plausible alternative.

A major truism in law is "reasonable minds may differ" and I know you disagree absolutely with me :) and the jury may well do too- certainly from this poll my opinion is very much the minority one. I started this (pre trial) convinced she was guilty, early in the trial I felt like the defence theory was actually plausible and then waited for prosecution evidence that I felt satisfactorily proved intent (as the burden of proof is on the prosecution) beyond reasonable doubt. To me, that moment never came.

I keep checking in because I'm really interested in the outcome! I can't pick at all what the jury themselves will decide, they've definitely got a real job.

PS from your question "what specifically proves not guilty from the evidence"- that's not how criminal guilt is determined, and not at all how I have approached it.

The assumption in law is innocent until proven guilty, the prosecution bears the onus of proving guilt, if guilt is not proven on evidence beyond reasonable doubt, a finding of not guilty must be made.

Yes, obviously I am not a legal type, and don't know the correct language. But you know what I mean!

But I think the defence case theory (a cowardly and panicked cover-up of her actions that unintentionally but definitely led to the deaths of the victims) is a plausible alternative.

But this would require a series of miraculous events to explain how no-one in Erin's immediate family - herself, her two children (allegedly fed the same meat from the same meal) or her dog - encountered any Death Caps.

I agree with both @velvetandsatin and @Yazzi .

Although a bit more with Velvet 😍

I'm utterly convinced she is guilty. With intent. Oh yeah- she absolutely tried to kill her husband previously. It's a shame those charges were dropped on the 1st day of the trial, but for clarity's sake I can see why the prosecution did that.

EP then went on to attempt to kill him & his family (if he'd turned up on the day he'd likely be dead too) and was largely successful.

However, Yazzi has reminded me of some important points, uncomfortable as they are. I did a master of bioethics that included courses on "Ethics & the Law". I'm remembering now why it's important to separate these. For example- we don't want the law to reflect the 'morality' of the day. Bad things have happened this way. Eg, people being sent to prison for being homosexual. Ok, that's a clumsy example, but it reminds me why we must separate law and ethics/morality.

Sorry for the derail!

She may well be guilty but that's a fucking ridiculous reason for convicting. I cheat with some aspects of a more complicated meal all the time, it doesn't make me a murderer.

I took that as a tongue-in-cheek post about packet gravy - crimes against food?
I agree though, it's baffling!

Packet gravy is nasty! If we did a poll on that I think we'd get a resounding vote.

If I was making the BW meal, as EP said she did, I'd have made the gravy from the leftover mushrooms in the pan. Perhaps with a bit of cream, garlic etc. Mmm, delicious!

I've only made BW with a full eye fillet. Making them as seperate pasties means nothing, really. Except she spent far too much money buying individual eye fillets. I'll say again- this is farming country- she could've shown the recipe to the local butcher and they would've provided the fillet down to the gram.

from the leftover mushrooms

Just to really seal the deal lol

LOL, so says the defence!

Well this jury just can’t make a decision, and that’s because they don’t know . It’s such an unusual case . Eenie Meenie Miney Moe.

Ha ha, as if that would actually be grounds to be guilty. It was just a throw away comment on a social media platform, not what the jury would actually consider.

Packet gravy is a weird choice and a ‘food crime’ as you say, I’d add the mashed potato to that too, but never mind, she was clearly an inexperienced cook at this culinary level. But it plays into the bigger meal plan for the murder, I.e. several jigsaw pieces here which I’ve been increasingly uncomfortable with.

These are:
a) inviting just Simon’s side of the family, including Simon’s aunt (note: not EP’s aunt) and husband. They were surprised at being invited so clearly not close.
b) the invite was under a false pretence of telling them the cancer lie. Why would she need to do that? Seems a pretty weak excuse to poll the four people about how she should tell the kids.
c) the choice of menu if she was inexperienced at this, and the switch to individual portions (we all know why!)
d) then all the stuff about coloured plates, bingeing eating the cake, throwing up etc. the latter two points were conveniently invented later on to explain why she wasn’t ill.

As I get more in the know about the case, her evidence simply doesn’t stack up, call it a gut feeling as the jigsaw pieces are joined together). It’s cleverly constructed by her and her team for sure. I’ve always had a view that juries are collectively wise and, given that they have access to much more info that we have, will come to the right decision.

I think she’s guilty but if the jury decide to deliver a verdict of not guilty, I still think the system has failed. It doesn’t give her any penalty for murder or reckless accidental poisoning. The three dead people and she’d get off scot free.

The locals in Morwell have done well!

Morwell became a world stage for Erin Patterson's mushroom trial - ABC News

I agree with your last paragraph in particular @Lesleyhill22

I am utterly convinced of her guilt in this case based on everything we’ve seen, regardless of the outcome. I’m often indecisive, but not in this case.

I really don’t understand the discounting lies thing when she’s lied under oath.

Obviously the test for the jury is whether they are sure being reasonable doubt, and when they decide that, who knows.

What's interesting to me is that almost no one seems to think she's innocent. Some people are fully convinced of her guilt and some people think she probably did it but that is plausible she didn't. No one really goes further than this to actually thin she's innocent.

If she's found not guilty, in most people's eyes she's still going to be 'that woman that probably murdered them'.

I just find it interesting that no one is really defending her any more than 'I guess it's kind of plausible'.

I am completely convinced in her guilt personally.

My thoughts exactly! I think some of this chatroom’s audience is giving the ‘reasonable doubt’ too much weight. It’s not like there’s a point system where you can score above or below the line. It has to come down to common sense and human instinct. Those people who demand ‘direct evidence’ to prove guilt are missing the fact that the food prep was in the home, there’s no CCTV or witnesses to that and no fingerprint analysis etc to help the case, i.e. none of the conventional evidence. It’s a case that has to rely on circumstantial evidence and there’s plenty of that.

Sure, she’s a neurotic oddball with weight issues but the defence has skilfully painted a picture of her being an unfortunate woman, devoted to her kids who doesn’t always do the right thing, so we should feel sorry for her as the victim of circumstance at every turn. She’s a clever, calculating killer in my view. “If it walks like a duck” etc….

It's beef country, right? Could not find a log! Had to buy fillets! How convenient, as the only way to ensure you yourself don't eat a poisonous pie is to make separate mini Wellingtons.

And she must have known (before she "couldn't find" a log of beef) she was always going to do the separate BWs, as she began buying the mountain of filo and puff pastry well before she bought the meat.

And dairy, but yes there's no shortage of beef farmers. My local butcher farms beef. Hell, a friend of mine owns land he leases to a beef farmer, their sausages are delicious. I could've helped her out!

Someone upthread said Aldi frequently sell whole eye fillets. So yeah.... I tend to think the individual BW pasties were the plan all along.

God the filo pastry still gets me. Gordon Ramsay would tear shreds off her for that.

"How convenient, as the only way to ensure you yourself don't eat a poisonous pie is to make separate mini Wellingtons"

The defence argued that also, on top of using a different-coloured plate, if you had planned it all out you'd want to mark out the non-poisoned BW itself in some way before putting it in the oven. I suppose we'll never know whether EP did or didn't though.
I can't remember where I heard that point. It might have been the Say Grace podcast which I feel is the best one by far (thanks PP for the tip).

The point is that she has never made a BW before, used a recipe book with a recipe for the traditional BW - a single long piece of meat, or log - and yet chose for some reason to make individual BWs, which is much fussier in terms of assemblage.

If she'd made a trad BW log, the poisonous mushroom duxelle would be distributed along the entire BW - and everyone at lunch, not just super lucky Erin, would be dead and/or with severe liver damage, like Ian Wilkinson. Also, her children, fed the "leftovers" with the mushrooms "scraped off" as she repeatedly told hospital staff who were concerned for their lives, would be dead.

Not the point I was making, and yes those are compelling bits of the closest thing there is to a culinary smoking gun

This says it all, really.

On another point- I've never accepted her points about refusing to take her kids to the hospital for testing. She seemed to have two excuses- 1) that she WASN'T refusing, she just had to go home first to attend to various things (ahem, like hiding evidence) and 2) that she had a fear of hospitals due to her son's traumatic birth, and various other incidents.

Point 2) is an interesting one. Lots of people have a fear of medical settings and hospitals due to prior trauma. But when it comes to your children, you tend to just suck it up and do whatever is necessary. I've done this and so have many other parents. It is very difficult to believe her.

Looks like the jury will be there until next week.

and 2) that she had a fear of hospitals due to her son's traumatic birth, and various other incidents.

This also doesn't gel with her intention in 2023 to study a bachelor of nursing and midwifery, which involves hospital placement at some point in the course.