Australia - 3 dead after eating wild mushrooms, Leongatha, Victoria, Aug 2023 #3

[jjleroche]

Like many here, in cases like this, where my assumption is guilt, I always like to try and come up a plausible opposite narrative of innocence too. It’s certainly tricky with what we have so far!
But perhaps something like:

The suspect is preparing beef wellington. Realises she under-bought on the button mushrooms, and has no time to go and buy more. No problem - she has those dried ones in the cupboard she bought at an Asian grocer a while back! Rehydrates them and adds to the mix.
Lunch is served.

Her guests, who are all significantly more elderly and lower BMI than her all succumb very quickly. She only suffers mild sickness - perhaps somehow related to those two factors (older people’s health and organs are generally less resilient; BMI may have some impact on toxin levels?) or she eats less of the wellington than them for some other reason (on a diet or similar).

The kids eat the leftovers with the mushrooms removed because they are, like me, grossed out by eating fungus in any form and insist on it all being scraped off.

Some time later when everyone is hospitalised the doctors report it is suspected mushroom poisoning. At this point she starts to doubt the provenance of the dried mushrooms she used. *Were* they the Asian grocer ones she’d had, or could these be ones they had foraged some time ago? Now she’s not so sure.
Kids ask along similar lines and Dad overhears and makes the documented “is that how you poisoned them?” comment. Suspect panics, as she says, and in her wild panic irrationally thinks that removing evidence of any accidental poison mushrooms from her home will somehow exonerate her. Dumps the dehydrator and sticks with the story as she thought it was, prior to the sicknesses - that she was just using up some dried mushrooms from the grocer’s. Because that, in her mind, was the version of events where she was ‘innocent’.

It’s sort of possible, but for me I struggle to come up with any narrative that doesn’t involve the remarkable coincidence of neither her nor her kids eating (much of) the poisoned shrooms. Unless age really is a protective factor in mushroom poisoning, which so far I’ve found no evidence to suggest.

I’d be interested to hear anyone else’s attempt at a reasonable narrative of innocence!

Maybe EP hasn't done anything nefarious, and is thinking "What the heck happened?!"
At this stage we don't know what else was consumed at the lunch, or even if the lunch meal was the cause.
Presumably other food was consumed by the victims on that day.

I'm still far from convinced that she had motive to murder her in-laws. She had been able to move forward from the separation and establish her independence successfully. What would she really have to gain?
IMO there are others who had far stronger motive than she could possibly have.

Something which really strikes me when reading the posts is the comment which she states was made to her by
SP - "is that how you poisoned them?" Please hear me out here. I realise that he would have been distraught about his parents. Nevertheless, that is an unconscionable comment to make to EP IN FRONT OF THEIR CHILDREN. That comment IMO could deeply traumatise them, maybe for the rest of their lives. (I imagine the children could corroborate the statement if necessary.)

I have started to wonder whether EP had found herself in a quite abusive (verbally at least) and emotionally horrible marriage, which had prompted her to separate. I also wonder if her demeanour indicates low self-esteem, and a historical experience of being blamed for things which occur, whatever they may be.

I also am not convinced that SP's illness was necessarily related to ingestion of death cap mushrooms. There may have been some other cause entirely.
I have also wondered whether that illness may have been self-inflicted, and gone awry, with much more serious consequences than expected.
JMO MOO

 

[jjleroche]

What about somebody else putting them there or switching labels?

Entirely possible IMO

 

[MsMarple]

What about somebody else putting them there or switching labels?

But who? Not her estranged husband unless he was okay with his kids possibly getting poisoned too. They supposedly don’t like mushrooms but does dad know for sure? Would he take a chance anyway?

Not the paternal grandparents or aunt and uncle because, well, they were poisoned.

So who’s next? So far LE has labeled only one person a POI and that’s EP. If and when they name someone else then I’ll eagerly sleuth them as I hate to see a family destroyed.

Heck, I’d rather see EP admit she accidentally foraged death caps and never meant to harm anyone if for no other reason than the sake of her kids.
MOO

 

[jjenny]

Entirely possible IMO

And why isn't she on her death bed like the rest of her guests? She cooked the meal, but her guests are either dead or near death, whereases she just got a saline drip as her treatment (basically she got fluids). If somebody else put death cup mushrooms in her meal, one would think she would have eaten a nice portion of it herself and be near death or dead. But she is fine.

 

[kittythehare]

But who? Not her estranged husband unless he was okay with his kids possibly getting poisoned too. They supposedly don’t like mushrooms but does dad know for sure? Would he take a chance anyway?

Not the paternal grandparents or aunt and uncle because, well, they were poisoned.

So who’s next? So far LE has labeled only one person a POI and that’s EP. If and when they name someone else then I’ll eagerly sleuth them as I hate to see a family destroyed.

Heck, I’d rather see EP admit she accidentally foraged death caps and never meant harm anyone if for no other reason than the sake of her kids.
MOO

I don't know.
I don't have a clue who was in her life, her home, her head..
We know nothing at all about her. even the gossip media couldn't find information.

i know one can be astute in business, which she apparently is and emotionally and mentally on another level entirely.
I'm also thinking I'm writing in a public board and my words have the power to hurt her considerably.

I'm really wary on this one.

What are her beliefs about police?
I think we'll have to just wait it out.
There's just too much unknown to make any kind of an educated guess apart from that which looks to be the most obvious.

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

What about somebody else putting them there or switching labels?

This is what I keep wondering. Has she been set up?

What if someone wanted to take out her and / or her children and thought contaminating the dried mushrooms would do the trick but instead she's gone and used the deadly substance for cooking.

Or what if someone (who clearly could not be her as she is familiar with mushrooms) thought it would be a bit of a prank to make everyone sick, not intending everyone to die. I would like to know what is the tiniest amount a person can ingest that would kill them?

 

[kittythehare]

This is what I keep wondering. Has she been set up?

What if someone wanted to take out her and / or her children and thought contaminating the dried mushrooms would do the trick but instead she's gone and used the deadly substance for cooking.

Or what if someone (who clearly could not be her as she is familiar with mushrooms) thought it would be a bit of a prank to make everyone sick, not intending everyone to die. I would like to know what is the tiniest amount a person can ingest that would kill them?

I wouldn't chance any quantity of it. No way.

 

[Ellery84]

The death caps are out of season, so if she did use them on purpose to lace the meal this means she had them on her person for quite some time.

This means the use of the mushrooms is premeditated OR it’s been a contingency plan / a just in case plan.

I’m struggling to understand how, when we’re looking at someone who supposedly has the wherewithal to preplan the execution of all of her dinner guests. From picking and dehydrating poisonous mushrooms months earlier, storing them safely, engineering a dinner where they would all be present, carefully handing the death caps so as she herself wouldn’t ingest them, making sure her children were safely at the cinema, but yet she’s not thought of a reasonable explanation on how it could have happened.

Surely someone with such murderous intent would have dumped the dehydrator months earlier AND not made it obvious she’s used poisonous mushrooms by making a dish where mushrooms play a key role.

And, on top of all that one of the key guests was missing! Was she that keen to kill she thought ‘F it’ I can’t be bothered to wait another week / month until I can get them all in the same room. Makes no sense.

Hi there Miss Twiddle….

The death caps are out of season, so if she did use them on purpose to lace the meal this means she had them on her person for quite some time.

I really like your post. Just a question, if you will, when are death caps “in season” in Victoria and how would one keep them for a meal in the off season time… drying? Dehydrating? I’m not a mushroom person so I don’t know much in this space.

Thank you in advance.

Ellery

 

[Ellery84]

This is what I keep wondering. Has she been set up?

What if someone wanted to take out her and / or her children and thought contaminating the dried mushrooms would do the trick but instead she's gone and used the deadly substance for cooking.

Or what if someone (who clearly could not be her as she is familiar with mushrooms) thought it would be a bit of a prank to make everyone sick, not intending everyone to die. I would like to know what is the tiniest amount a person can ingest that would kill them?

Theodore Woodward once said, “When you hear hoofbeats behind you, don't expect to see a zebra.”

Another way to put this is 'when you hear hoofbeats, think horses not zebras.’

What is more common? What is more likely to have happened?

 

[Salah11]

And why isn't she on her death bed like the rest of her guests? She cooked the meal, but her guests are either dead or near death, whereases she just got a saline drip as her treatment (basically she got fluids). If somebody else put death cup mushrooms in her meal, one would think she would have eaten a nice portion of it herself and be near death or dead. But she is fine.

Not forgetting she conveniently claimed she fed the left over to her kids and scrapped off the mushrooms.


All signs point to her knowing it was the mushrooms imo

 

[MsMarple]

And why isn't she on her death bed like the rest of her guests? She cooked the meal, but her guests are either dead or near death, whereases she just got a saline drip as her treatment (basically she got fluids). If somebody else put death cup mushrooms in her meal, one would think she would have eaten a nice portion of it herself and be near death or dead. But she is fine.

Msm reported she enjoys cooking and she must since she chose to make a somewhat complicated dish of Beef Wellington.

And as most home cooks know, we always taste as we go along, otherwise there’s no way to adjust the seasonings. Even tasting one or two scant teaspoons of the duxelles should have made her deathly ill by midnight. No way would she have been released from hospital.

A mushroom cook and her killer family lunch: The mysterious case gripping Australia

A bizarre case has enthralled people all across the globe – involving mushroom poisoning, a series of deaths, a tearful interview and now reports of a past mystery illness. Tara Cobham and Bevan Hurley report

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Stunned]

Not forgetting she conveniently claimed she fed the left over to her kids and scrapped off the mushrooms.


All signs point to her knowing it was the mushrooms imo

That was incredibly risky of her IF that’s supposedly how she poisoned everyone else. IMO

 

[SMK777]

Well it doesn't always makes sense. Look at Lori Vallow. Children's bodies were buried on the property of the boyfriend, for crying out loud. They could have hidden the bodies away from the property (lots of forest around), but here we are.

Exactly. People who commit murder, even premeditated, are often irrational and overlook many obvious things.

 

[Salah11]

That was incredibly risky of her IF that’s supposedly how she poisoned everyone else. IMO

I don’t believe she actually fed it to them just her lying again imo

 

[KooshBall]

People are having a hard time believing she would poison her guests, but think someone sneaking into her home to switch her mushrooms with poison ones, in order to set her up for murder, is a possibility?

 

[Salah11]

People are having a hard time believing she would poison her guests, but think someone sneaking into her home to switch her mushrooms with poison ones, in order to set her up for murder, is a possibility?

Exactly and not only that she walked away fine.


Her ex husband accused her of doing this so I think that proves that she was clearly capable imo

He would know her a lot better than anybody else as he lived with her and had children with her and he outright accused her in front of the kids.


MOOO

 

[Sjöberg]

I’m still open to it being an accident.
/---/
You can be awkward and a compulsive liar and also not a murderer.

If somebody else put death cup mushrooms in her meal, one would think she would have eaten a nice portion of it herself and be near death or dead. But she is fine.

There are many hard-to-explain things in the story, but her not falling seriously ill is not one of them, IMO. Firstly, were there some poison planted by someone else, it might have not been in the main dish at all, but in something more specific that she did not consume. And, secondly - and I am surprised no-one else has mentioned this - whenever (rarely) I cook elaborate meals, I simply cannot eat more than a few bites by the time the meal starts. I just feel so full from the cooking, mostly from being in the smell of the food for a long time (but also might be tasting some stuff and eating some scraps etc).

Does it look suspicos? Of course, like any time that there is a lone survivor of, well, anything. But are there lone survivors of stuff that are not murderers? Yes.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

People are having a hard time believing she would poison her guests, but think someone sneaking into her home to switch her mushrooms with poison ones, in order to set her up for murder, is a possibility?

Yes

 

[Salah11]

There are many hard-to-explain things in the story, but her not falling seriously ill is not one of them, IMO. Firstly, were there some poison planted by someone else, it might have not been in the main dish at all, but in something more specific that she did not consume. And, secondly - and I am surprised no-one else has mentioned this - whenever (rarely) I cook elaborate meals, I simply cannot eat more than a few bites by the time the meal starts. I just feel so full from the cooking, mostly from being in the smell of the food for a long time (but also might be tasting some stuff and eating some scraps etc).

Does it look suspicos? Of course, like any time that there is a lone survivor of, well, anything. But are there lone survivors of stuff that are not murderers? Yes.

Well if she was tasting her food as she went she wouldn’t be fine considering the others fate and all symptoms match to Mushroom poisoning and she has admitted she used plenty of those.

moo

 

[MsMarple]

People are having a hard time believing she would poison her guests, but think someone sneaking into her home to switch her mushrooms with poison ones, in order to set her up for murder, is a possibility?

I know, right? To be fair we’re allowed to suggest alternate scenarios just as we’re allowed to challenge them.

But EP’s claims are difficult to verify and she’s already admitted to one lie. Some parts don’t make sense. LE hasn’t confirmed anything she said in her sworn statement. It seems like right now it’s hard enough trying to make sense of her improbable story. JMO