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?

Agreed. He was very measured and took the victims loss very seriously.

As for an appeal, I tend to think she will. If I were looking at prison until I'm dead (EP is one month older than me) I'd try anything.

But can she fund an appeal? Seems she's burned her inheritance & her house has been sequestered for future claims. Colin Mandy will be 1st in line to grab his bills.

None of her family are a) alive and b) willing to stump up cash in her defence.

@BeanQuisine 'As much vitality as a dried up mushroom' Omg, I almost lost myself

I think it's going to be very hard for Erin to appeal. Firstly she needs a valid reason to do so i.e. ''I don't like my sentence'' is not a valid one and secondly once that reason is exhausted she'll then need to come up with another one and provide new evidence for that as well and I doubt that will ever happen.

Oh, she's shown she's the dogged sort who will complain about anything, so I think she will of course attempt an appeal. But I doubt it will be granted.

It's the longest sentence any woman in Victoria has received, apparently.

And just because she is eligible to go before the parole board when she is 81 doesn't mean she will be granted parole.

How many rats and snakes will she crochet in the intervening years?!

I agree- I think she will appeal & and she now has 28 days to do so.

Thinking it's unlikely to be granted but she'll do it anyway. She literally has nothing much to lose at this point.

Well, if she's stuck in a cell 22/hrs per day but allowed to have crochet & knitting materials- that's a lot of snakes & rats.

Surely knitting/crochet needles would be considered weapons? Some of mine are pretty sharp.

Apparently she can't even access the prison library. So nothing to read in those 22 hours/day. I think I'd go barmy within 6 months.

Surely parole at 81 is a worst fate than dying in prison…. She’ll have no money, her family won’t want to know or support her. She might even have kids and grandkids by then but I’d be surprised if parole didn’t come with a restraining order (surely her children won’t maintain a relationship with her). I don’t know how much the Government support she would get but the world will have changed a lot which might be hard to catch up on at 81. She’s going to be pretty institutionalised too if she carries on in solitary. Sound a pretty miserable few years waiting to die.

Will she make money from the abundant docos/films/books about her? Maybe even an autobiography later?

No. In Australia it's against the law for convicted criminals to profit from their crimes in that way.

It must be pretty hard for her to take her new situation in. She really thought she'd get off. Her children will be in their forties when she is eligible to apply for parole...

Oh goodness. I hadn’t heard anything about her children and had assumed they were youngish adults.

Son born in 2009 and daughter born in 2014.

Apparently until the guilty verdict the children believed that their mother was innocent.

I don’t know if she’ll survive another 31 years in jail. That’s a long time of crap food, limited access to healthcare, almost no human contact and no freedom. Oh well. Shouldn’t have murdered people.

I think there’s been a conscious lack to coverage about the children in the media to protect them. I think in the sentencing remarks Justice Beale said her son was born in 2009, so will be around 16 now. The daughter was born in 2014, so about 11. Probably still in primary school.

almost no human contact

So she is in solitary to protect her from the other prisoners? Anyone know why? I mean, there must be prisoners in there who have done much worse crimes?

(‘worse’ meaning prolonged violence, children etc)

I’d say it’s because she’s high profile, you’d gain some status (within the prison population) if you’re known to have beaten her up.

Well, I guess this was to be expected.

Mushroom murders: Simon Patterson rejects TV deals to tell own mushroom murders story | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site for latest headlines

The father of two will collaborate on the podcast with Jessica O’Donnell, a management consultant and crisis comms expert.

Mr Patterson and Ms O’Donnell worked together at land developer Landgipps in Victoria’s Gippsland region from 2020 to 2022.

Ms O’Donnell, a one-time political aspirant who ran as the Labor candidate for the seat of Monash in the 2019 and 2022 federal elections, served as a government consultant on the Landgipps project while Mr Patterson was engineer on the project.

I met Jessica O'Donnell when she ran for the Labour Party in the 2022 federal elections. I was involved in local politics behind the scenes. She almost outed the Liberal Party member for Monash, but not quite.

I don't blame Simon for wanting to tell his story.

Plus there might be an element that his story will be told anyway. At least this way he has some say in the matter.

It does seem somewhat unfair that EP's attempt at poisoning Simon didn't proceed as criminal charges.

Given the massive media interest, I don't blame him for trying to take control of the narrative.

Jessica O'Donnell is a great person, he's done well to hook up with her. But I might be biased here.

Apart from being an ALP stalwart, she and I have sons with the same name. Although she spelled it wrong 😘

@NoCommentingFromNowOn So she is in solitary to protect her from the other prisoners? Anyone know why? I mean, there must be prisoners in there who have done much worse crimes?

Supposedly, she pissed them off with the way she dealt with them. They didn’t like it. Other prisoners tend to do things to people who piss them off.

Do you mean hooked up as a business partnership, or hooked up....? (Either way, Erin will be spewing.)

Ha! No, I meant 'hooked-up' in a purely business sense!

Erin can spew all she likes at this point.

Bit OT but this Guardian article about the court artist who drew EP is really interesting. What an unusual & fascinating job to have!

The court artist whose Erin Patterson sketches went around the world: ‘I definitely need to get some therapy’ | Erin Patterson mushroom trial | The Guardian

I’d love to know if anyone on here who thought Erin was totally innocent, or who were sitting on the fence before the trial, have changed their opinions in the light of all the damning, ensuing evidence. She had some fairly strong supporters pre trial (I wasn’t one of them btw as I thought she was guilty). It has been fascinating hearing all the evidence during the trial and afterwards which were the jigsaw pieces referred to by the judge.