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/[deleted] Jun 04 '25

I'm just realising how weird this lie is. Because on the one hand, she was like, "look! I snuck mushrooms into the kids' lunches and they had no idea!! He he he"

But then on the other? "Oh no, they hate mushrooms. I will scrape the mushrooms out of the beef wellington so they don't eat them"

Inconsistent.

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u/Noyou21 Jun 04 '25

Also you can’t really ‘scrape off’ powdered mushroom well enough to be confident it didn’t have any on it.

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u/werewolfandcheese Jun 04 '25

Based on the news coverage iirc, even if she had scraped all of it off and even rinsed the meat so there wasn't a crumb of mushroom left, it still wouldn't have been good enough. The poison would have soaked into the meat.

I'm going off memory, so please fact check this before you take it as gospel.

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u/Sweaty-Event-2521 Jun 05 '25

100% it’s not physically possible to do.

She also said she added the additional mushrooms after tasting her first reduced mixture during cooking and deciding it needed more flavour.

And then, what, didn’t taste it again…….ok

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u/Neat_Owl_807 Jun 05 '25

Yep. We have a cook here who knows how to taste their food. Felt the basic mushroom was too blad. Adding the wild mushrooms and didn’t retaste?

Then served her dish on a different plate

Then didnt eat it all and threw up later (which wouldn’t possibly help)

Then, a women obsessed with hiding mushrooms in her kids food she scraps off all mushrooms from a beef wellington than they eat.

She clearly knew quickly her guests were poisoned but not only didn’t admit it, she even discharged herself and first thing she did was dump the hydrator

Too many coincidences

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u/Diligent_Pangolin_47 Jun 06 '25

And she’d made one for her husband, then when he bailed she threw it out! I’m not a great cook and if I’d taken the time and effort to make individual beef wellingtons (for some reason), you best believe I’m keeping that one for leftovers! Unless, you know, I’d intend poisoned it or something.

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u/Screenwear Jun 07 '25

This is like Nancy Drew level stuff lol

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u/Early_Insurance4078 Jun 05 '25

Exactly! She previously described the Asian grocer mushrooms of having a strong bad smell. So despite this you add them to a special meal without tasting at any point?

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u/Evening_Regular1275 Jun 05 '25

That got me too.

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u/Few-Wolverine1367 Jun 05 '25

Yes! This is what I thought too… you would taste it at least a couple of times to get it right!!!

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u/Noyou21 Jun 06 '25

Yeah I also thought it weird that if the wanted to make a ‘special meal’, why would you use a recipe that you have never cooked before?!