Death Cap Mushrooms
Like a lot of people lately, I've been intrigued by the Death Cap Mushroom murders in which three people died and another almost died after they ate a lunch laced with Death Cap Mushrooms in a rural town in Victoria, Australia. Did a divorced mother of two teenage children deliberately poison four guests as an act of spite towards her ex-husband? Being a stickler for the facts, I was worried that the jurors would convict a potentially innocent woman. Perhaps it was just a dreadful accident. I believe there should be irrefutable evidence in order to justify a conviction. I remember well the Lindy Chamberlain, ("A dingo took my baby"), case where the zeal of the Northern Territory Police to have her convicted based on their dislike of her religion, her lack of apparent emotion and their just-plain-bloody-mindedness to blame someone, put an innocent woman away for three years before she was exonerated.
As such my mind was open to the possibility of Erin Patterson (the accused mushroom killer's) innocence right up until the verdict, after which I read and heard more about the detective work that led to her conviction and began to believe the law had got it right after all. There was too much lying by Patterson. Yes, that could be explained by fear, but other things couldn't. She had stated she bought the mushrooms she used in the dish from Woolworths and some more from an Asian grocer whom she couldn't remember. Leongatha, her hometown, has a population of around 5,800 people. How many Asian grocers do you think it has in order for her to forget which of them it was?
Her mobile 'pinged' off two mobile phone towers in areas where the toxic mushrooms had been listed as having been found by two online sites. A week later she bought a food dehydrator, which she denies having done even though there were photos on her phone of mushrooms drying in a dehydrator. She was caught on video at the local dump, dumping the food dehydrator that she didn't have. The dehydrator was recovered and forensically tested. Lo and behold, it showed traces of Death Cap Mushroom toxin. She also had three mobile phones and only gave one to the police.
After learning of all this, the possibility of 'it was a terrible accident', as she had claimed, just didn't add up. She has been described as intelligent and had also taken and passed an Air Traffic Controller course. That is a notoriously difficult course, and she completed it. She has brains and nerve so why, in this age of forensics and the ability for technology to track our movements, did she think she could get away with murder? And why take the chance of killing four people at once and think you can pass it off as a tragic mistake? I honestly think Patterson must be extraordinarily arrogant to have underestimated the intelligence of the police and medical professionals in her local community.
How could you actually plan a meal with the intention to kill, prepare it, eat across the table from your victims, who were not even your ex-husband - (the person with whom you had the issue) - making small talk and then praying together? She had asked them to lunch to discuss her 'cancer diagnosis', which didn't exist, so they must have felt obliged to attend and, like lambs to the slaughter, they did.
The presiding judge in the case gave the jury about five days of instructions to explain what things they should consider, what they should not, and about finding a motive, but my feelings are that Patterson was convicted as much by the pertinent facts as by her character. She had been correctly portrayed as a liar both during the lead up to the case and in earlier instances in her life. Her behaviour when her victims fell sick was also incongruous. She had turned up at the hospital for tests after she was informed that her guests had poisoning and was advised she should also be checked as she had eaten the same meal. She arrived at the hospital unfazed and, five minutes later signed a document to allow her to leave against hospital staff wishes. She also showed no concern for two of her ill lunch guests who were just metres away from her in the hospital. She was setting off red flags that brought her under suspicion and led to the hospital doctor calling the police.
For a clever woman, she wasn't being clever at all. If she had gone to all the trouble to plan these murders, why try to take out four people at once? Why didn't she ditch her mobile phone on her travels? Why didn't she buy a dehydrator months ahead and use it regularly so it didn't arouse suspicion and why ditch it at the local dump where there are security cameras?
She is going to appeal, but the case has been covered by media all over the world. Getting an unbiased jury at this stage will be difficult if not impossible. One thing is for sure though, I bet Patterson is never given kitchen duties in prison.
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