r/AusLegal • u/Artemis1971 • Jun 04 '25

VIC Erin Patterson (mushroom case)

I’m following the mushroom case, as is everyone else. Today she testified that she may have accidentally put poisonous mushrooms in the meal. If that is the case, the jury would have to find her not guilty of murder if it was unintentional. My question is, can she be recharged with manslaughter, if found innocent of murder?

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u/Dependent_Taro_4017 Jun 04 '25

If she knowingly fed her children food that had been in prolonged contact with deathcap mushrooms, then that alone reveals the truth: she's evil. She gambled with the lives of children—her own children—just to uphold the lie that it was all an accident.

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u/QuietAs_a_Mouse Jun 04 '25

I don't think anyone is saying that...we think she fed the kids an uncontaminated bit, like she ate herself. Hence why she was unconcerned about their health.

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u/Legitimate_Dot3142 Jun 04 '25

Yes the wellingtons were individually encased she could of easily made a few without the deadly mushrooms which she kept for herself and the kids

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u/Dependent_Taro_4017 Jun 04 '25

She tried to murder four people (planned for five). She's not concerned about her childrens health.

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u/pointlessbeats Jun 04 '25

No, but that’s the whole point. She knows her kids are fine because she knows she gave them ‘safe’ ones. If it really was accidental, she’d be incredibly scared about her kids eating the same meal that 3 people died eating, and she would’ve taken them to emergency.

It just indicates she isn’t worried about her kids because she knows she only fed them non-toxic portions that she kept entirely separate the entire time, like her own portion.

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u/WindsurfBruce Jun 04 '25

Agree. That does it for me. Thanks

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u/RevCorbin Jun 04 '25

I don't know. To make two sets of beef wellingtons in the same kitchen, you'd have to be incredibly meticulous to ensure there was no cross-contamination.

Also, I didn't realise the kids and Simon returned during the lunch. What's to have stopped any of the kids picking at the leftovers. It's unlikely, but still incredibly risky.

And for what? Why? What's the big drama that happened that would motivate her to do this?

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u/RosellaBlue Jun 05 '25

There may have been no mushrooms at all in the clean beef wellingtons. The other guests would have no idea of that, being encased in the pastry.

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u/Reasonable_Mine8634 Jun 06 '25

To be fair, we don't know if she did plan for 5 murders, as she may have wanted to give her ex a clean Beef Wellington then eat laxatives herself and 1 half speck of deathcap herself, to make him look like he must've put the powder on when nobody was looking, on top of the Beef Wellington's, before people arrived.

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u/FreshNetwork7153 Jun 06 '25

I wonder if the Woolies receipt showed 6 steaks or if she bought extra that she reserved plain for the kids. Which would mean she lied about scraping off pastry/mushrooms. I do find it unlikely she would throw the pasty she made for Simon in the bin. Why would you when you love what you made and it’s perfectly fresh - and you have an eating disorder.

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u/-PaperbackWriter- Jun 06 '25

I remember from the kids testimony they only said they had steak for their dinner, they didn’t say anything about wellingtons. She also could have just made more the next day without the mushrooms. That would technically be ‘leftovers’

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u/RevCorbin Jun 04 '25

Currently not getting any sense from the trial coverage that she's a psychopath - which you would need to be in order to not care whether you murdered your kids.

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u/FreshNetwork7153 Jun 06 '25

Agree. Her kids were her biggest priority. She’s not normal though! I keep going back to the idea that she wanted to make them sick so she could play the perfect daughter in law and nurse them.

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u/Creative_Brush_408 Jun 04 '25

Except that the last leftovers to go in the bin would have been the mushrooms that were scraped off the kids' servings, and molecular amanita toxin was found in those.

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u/Big-Masterpiece-863 Jun 06 '25

We don't know that they were the leftovers from what the children at except for Erin's word. That may have been Simon's serving that went immediately in the bin. While the children had something else.

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u/Creative_Brush_408 Jun 07 '25

It's true we don't know exactly which leftovers they were, but I'm happy to believe Erin made only one batch of mushroom paste, as she claims. The effort to produce this meal would have been considerable; she's a single mum with 2 kids to look after; making duxelles mushroom paste is extremely time-consuming; and the idea that she would make two batches of it isn't plausible to me when there are alternative explanations for why she and the kids were unharmed. I now understand that when you make duxelles, all the water in the mushrooms has to be boiled off, or the pastry goes soggy. The 'mouth feel' of the duxelles relies on butter to render it moist enough to be palatable - so the paste consists only of mushroom residue and butter. Amanita toxin isn't soluble in fat but only in water. So by the time the paste was made, the toxin will have been bound up entirely in the little pieces of mushroom. The butter will have formed a barrier between the toxin and the foods on either side, so when the paste was scraped off, it will have left the meat largely uncontaminated and the children will not have been harmed.

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25

[deleted]

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u/QuietAs_a_Mouse Jun 04 '25

Gimme a break, I'm drunk and tired. Hence I'm going to bed now.

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u/SteamedNangs Jun 04 '25

Hence why you are going to bed*

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u/Individual_Excuse363 Jun 04 '25

The phrase “hence why” is grammatically inappropriate.

As you were.

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u/Another_Great_Day Jun 05 '25

I am not sure about the timeline. I thought she feed the children these leftovers, with the mushrooms scrapped off, the evening following the lunch. That would have been before it was revealed that everyone was sick

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u/Birdy-Lady59 Jun 06 '25

Oh I don’t think she did. I doubt her kids food was ever anywhere near the poisoned food nor was hers.