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've just woken up in the UK and heard this on the news. Definitely the right verdict.

I do agree that 7 days to go through all of the evidence and the judges charge of 365 pages is not a long time. Especially as they were not doing it for many hours a day.

I do wonder who her children have been living with, if it's their father? I feel incredibly sorry for them. What a horrible situation they are in.

Yeah I guess so. Although I've seen the stuff about her drink driving and fleeing from the police before.

I knew there was going to be more to her very short stint as an air traffic controller! Perhaps it's just because that's my dream job, but it seemed weird to me that you'd do so much training, and get such a good and respected job and then just give it up so quickly.

Someone on Reddit is saying that Erin's cat died shortly before the dinner, and that the prosecution believed it had been poisoned by Erin as a trial run, but they weren't allowed to submit evidence about it. Could be untrue, but we'll find out soon enough.

I agree- will be very interested to see if any appeal gets up, I think it's hard to see on what. Realistically though (depending on sentence) she'd likely throw everything at an appeal, because what does she have to lose at this point

She may not be able to find an appeal with a private defence team. To fund her current defence team through to end of this trial, it has cost her a 2M property she had inherited, and she had a mortgage taken out on the property she lives in so that will now be likely sold by bank to recoup mortgage given she won’t be out and making her mortgage payments. That’s all according to SMH. So, any appeal, she seems to have no hope of funding a defence team herself, so would now be public defence team. If that’s your only option, you’d take it, but she paid a hell if a lot for a crack team who couldn’t get her off!

To be fair to Simon, the dispute over child maintenance was quickly resolved, and it happened just a few months after he'd spent 16 days in a coma and nearly died, so perhaps he was too unwell to work at the time. His earning power will probably increase now that his wife isn't repeatedly trying to murder him.

I would have found her not guilty

Hard to say that as you weren’t in the court room and have all the evidence the jurors have. We are only going on snippets.

Psychopathic tendencies in that woman for sure.

I thought she was quite wealthy following substantial inheritances and property investment. I was wondering why a mortgage was needed for any property of hers. Is the wealth all gone now in legal fees or what?

Yes. That's what happened.

I feel very relieved that's for sure. But I think as we only got such a filtered account and the judge was trying so hard to be fair then I think it was inevitable it started to seem like it was tilting in her favour. It's just so very sad for her children - although I do believe a blessing in disguise as she sounds incredibly unstable and the way she's turned them against their dad is very sad.

Having followed the case so closely this is only the beginning of this story for sure. There is a whole lot more that has had to be hidden and now it has all started to come out bit by bit - there was an article in The Times including pictures of graffiti in her house saying 'your [sic] dead by my sword' and all sorts of weird stuff. It's behind a paywall but I read it on Apple News.

www.thetimes.com/world/australasia/article/how-erin-patterson-mushroom-murder-trial-verdict-pcqtjbfz6

Well that’s justice done! Most of us in the original poll had her as guilty, but the judge’s summing up seemed to lean heavily to the jury to finding her not guilty which gave us doubt, not on how we felt, but on the possible verdict of NG. (although I did think he wanted to explore all angles so it could be said post trial that it was fair and thorough to avoid grounds for appeal). That made most of us think she’d get away with it even though we knew in our hearts that she did it. This jury had a long and difficult job but took their responsibilities seriously. They of course had far more info than we ever had.

It was also interesting that the judge instructed a unanimous verdict (although I believe that’s mandatory in Victoria for murder cases). Neither was there an option for voluntary or involuntary manslaughter verdict.

imo I don’t think there will be an appeal on the verdict, she can’t afford it and I doubt if she’d ever find a defence team who could do a better job, they pulled out all the stops. Maybe there will be an appeal after sentencing on the length of the sentence if she and her defence think there are grounds.

BTW I think this forum has been a fascinating read, thanks everyone, I’ve been hooked! So interesting to hear all your views.😉

Just seen the news too. I’d not seen the previous charges over here but might have missed them.

Hopefully the children will be supported now as they’ll need it. It might be that they give them new surnames to give them a measure of privacy but they’re going to need therapy to get over this.

I don’t know enough about the Aussie legal system but surely there simply aren’t grounds to appeal (apart from ‘but I really didn’t do it’), especially given the gaps in what she was saying and the lies.

Unfortunately the pre-meditation involved (the dehydrator, single (single!) BWs, getting rid of the plates etc undermined her.

Hopefully she gets a long sentence and they never let her work in the prison canteen.

The footage on the news and ACA especially showing a half Beef Wellington - they were enormous! And looked as if made for the Flintstones.

The grounds for appeal would usually be that the judge made a decision to admit evidence that the defence argued was admissible - here a lot of what we would consider bad character (previous allegations and convictions) was kept out and the judge definitely seemed to be erring on the side of caution by not leaving manslaughter and by giving very balanced and fair directions. There may be issues over the admissibility of other evidence or possibly in time fresh expert evidence could be found.

From a distance at least she appears to have had a scrupulously fair trial. Time will tell about an appeal.

It does seem that all of the time the judge spent talking about court of law not morals, and lies etc. was for very good reason, and would lessen her chances of getting an appeal.

That's interesting. It did seem at times like he was pushing the defence POV. Very clever if that will deter frivolous appeals later.

The news and current affair programs are saturated with her right now . She was one real vicious psychopath. Pure dead evil .

I think she’s just an evil psychopath who when angry with people would lash out to this extreme length. She wanted to punish Simon, couldn’t get her hands on him so killing his parents was the next best thing. She also hadn’t realised the suspicions Simon had so didn’t think anyone would be on to her/thought she’d get away with it.

CCTV of her dumping the plates

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14870425/Erin-Patterson-cctv-plates-tip.html

A cell in the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre, the maximum security prison that is now Erin Patterson's home.

I hope she doesn't get a job in the kitchens in that jail.

When is the sentencing? Does anyone know?

I'll be very surprised if she gets anything less than life. If she does get life (which is highly likely) I assume it will be life with a non parole period of a certain amount (20-25 years I think) or life without the possibility of parole which means she will have never to be released stamped on her file and will die in jail.

Apparently there's a plea hearing first, probably in August when both defence and prosecution can bring forward information they believe relevant to sentencing, e.g. her having children, victim statements, comparative sentences in other cases.

That horse may have bolted!
See news reports of her tampering with prison food (can't link atm)

Mushroom cook Erin Patterson accused of tampering with prison food that allegedly caused another inmate to fall ill | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site for latest headlines