Australia is gripped by the mysterious deaths of three people in a suspected poisoning case that reads like a fictional thriller.
Two couples were invited to lunch at a palatial country home in the state of Victoria one Saturday in late July. They included a local pastor and his wife. All four were known to locals as pillars of the tightknit rural community.
That night, they all became seriously ill with what appeared to be food poisoning. A week later, three of the four were dead. One man remains in hospital in a critical condition, awaiting a liver transplant. The host of the gathering — a woman in her 40s — and her two children were unharmed.
Police suspect the victims ate death cap, or Amanita phalloides, mushrooms, one of the deadliest known mushrooms to humans. But whether the poisonings were intentional, or if the fungus is even the culprit, is shrouded in mystery. The guests’ symptoms were consistent with mushroom poisoning, medical experts and investigators say.
Homicide detectives have searched the home of Erin Patterson, the 48-year-old woman who hosted the gathering in Leongatha, about 70 miles southeast of Melbourne. She was taken in for questioning Saturday and released without charge later that evening.
During the search, investigators seized several items they say are of interest to the case. A food dehydrator found at a local landfill is apparently also being tested to see if there is any link, Melbourne’s Age newspaper reported, citing an anonymous police source close to the investigation. Police declined to confirm whether a dehydrator is among the items being examined.
So the 3 of the 4 people she invited died, the 4th needs a liver transplant. She fed her children something different and they’re fine. Her ex husband got very sick.
Hmm.
A real head scratcher…
To be fair, anyone in her family could’ve added poison to the food though.
Sounds like the setup to Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle.
Her ex-husband was supposed to be eating with the others who were poisoned (who happened to be the ex-husband’s parents and aunt) but he didn’t make it there.
Keep in mind, however, that this is a small regional community in Australia so the likelihood of people being part of extended family relations like this is much more likely to occur.
The ex-husband got very sick on a different occasion where he had a “mystery” bout of severe gastroenteritis where he was in a critical condition and put into an induced coma and at two points his loved ones were brought in to say their farewells to him because they thought that he wasn’t going to pull through, although after a few weeks he managed to recover.
I’m all for innocent until proven guilty, but man it would take some good explaining as to how she and her kids survived her own dinner.
My kids would be fine - they hate mushrooms (and most vegetables) right now. Me, on the other hand? I’d be dead.
Article doesn’t say anything about whether they grow locally to where the poisoning happened, or whether the person who cooked them also says that she picked them. These are the first things I’d want to know.
They do. The area she’s in issues a warning about them because they have a growing season there
I believe they grow around the world, and iirc from a news report, she declined to comment on where/if she picked them. Could be wrong, though.
She claimed to have purchased the mushrooms from a shop and when asked which shop by the police she declined to answer further questions.
My thought is she tried to put them through a trip. She’s used a dehydrator on what she thought was Psilocybin mushrooms.
I don’t understand why she would poison them on purpose like that while having kids. Makes no sense.
That’s why you post the pics to shroomery first smh
So a mushroom that is highly poisonous and tasty enough to be eaten…
Gonna check how it looks like… For, uh, a friend…
They look scary. You can easily find pics online (amanita phalloides). They supposedly don’t taste all that great. I would not try this myself, but it is supposedly safe to taste a teeny little bit, then spit it out and rinse your mouth out, and some mycologists have done that. For science, you know. Let me go a bit further and say don’t try it yourself.
How about I ask someone to do this for me?
I mean, the tasting?
Someone… Uh, I mean, you know, ahahahaa, someone I know and value very high…
I gotchu bro. I hate most mushrooms, but I’ll give 'er a go.
That’s why I get my mushrooms at the store. I don’t know shit about mushrooms. I ain’t trying to kill anyone else like that.
They don’t sell the good ones at the stores though. It’s even hard to get gourmet Oysters at anything but a special boutique
