Australias big murder case - poison mushrooms

Tommy Tainant

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Australians are generally sympathetic to the accused because some of their ancestors were wrongly convicted and deported to the country. She served dried mushrooms, which had been foraged, to her in-laws at the family lunch. Since she started gathering and cooking mushrooms around her home in the last few years, it's unclear if she knew that they were poisonous.



She said at the time she believed they were dried mushrooms purchased from Melbourne but then conceded they may have been foraged.

"Now I think that there was a possibility that there were foraged ones in there as well."

This week, Ms Patterson has told the court she developed an interest in foraging and eating mushrooms during Victoria's COVID lockdowns in 2020, eventually building up the confidence to cook and eat the mushrooms she gathered from areas around her Gippsland home.

 
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I cant believe they are spinning this out for weeks. She obviously did it.
They should string her up by the didgerydoo and be done with it.
Slab faced cow


Just making sure she gets a very, very fair trial., which can take a while ...as all the evidence is presented to the court.
A cool, calm, rational, measured trial. Wouldn't want any rush to judgement that could result in an innocent person being found guilty...would we.
 
Just making sure she gets a very, very fair trial., which can take a while ...as all the evidence is presented to the court.
A cool, calm, rational, measured trial. Wouldn't want any rush to judgement that could result in an innocent person being found guilty...would we.
Haveas corpus is so provincial.
 
Haveas corpus is so provincial.

USA:

Ray Krone...officialdom tried 3 times to get him onto death row and executed....as "The Snaggletooth Killer".
He was eventually discovered to be innocent, didn't murder the woman with whom he left the bar.

Black teen mom Sabrina Butler was nailed to the cross of injustice , for murdering her baby.
Innocent she was, waiting on death row to one day be killed by the state.
Enter Innocence Project folk, innocenceproject.org got her a retrial, where she was found innocent.
Rushes to judgement are very dangerous things to be doing.
 
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Haveas corpus is so provincial.

Then there's the trial of Lindy Chamberlain in Australia.
She was found guilty of murdering her baby Azaria at Uluru (Ayers Rock) camp ground.
"A dingo took my baby".
Total miscarriage of justice.
Lynch mob outside the court every day.
Found guilty, sentenced to 25 years.
Several years had passed, a British tourist fell to his death off Uluru...right next to dingo lair.
Where was discovered a jacket of a baby, exactly the same as the one baby Azaria was wearing.
Lindy got a new trial.
The 'baby blood' found in the car, as stated by the pathologist, was found to instead to be rust paint....etc.
So many mistakes.
Lindy was released.
Took them decades to officially find her innocent.
Very valuable lessons were learnt.
Tis why the "mushrooms" trial is so thorough.
We the downunder people want true and proper justice....demand it.
If we see injustice, we immediately think..." that could be us, or one of our loved ones."
 
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Jury has retired to consider the evidence and arrive at a verdict.
Verdict must be unanimous for a conviction.
Wouldn't surprise me if there's one or more who won't convict.
 
Joke. Guy says his first three wives died from eating poisoned mushrooms. The fourth wife died from blunt head trauma. Guy was asked about his 4th wife's death. He says, "She wouldn't eat the mushrooms."
 
Since she had little knowledge about wild mushrooms growing in her neighborhood, she didn't know that what she served for the family lunch was death cap mushrooms that can kill people instantly with one bite. The jurors won't buy the prosecution's argument that she deliberately picked death cap mushrooms to kill her relatives. But she is still responsible for the unintended deaths she caused.

Defense lawyer Colin Mandy SC said Patterson accidentally added foraged mushrooms to the meal, along with ones she bought from an Asian grocer in Melbourne.

“What happened was a tragedy and a terrible accident,” he said.

In his closing arguments, Mandy said the prosecution’s case was based on “ridiculous” propositions, including that Patterson “would intend to kill these four people, blowing her entire life up in the process without a motive.”

The prosecution doesn’t need to prove a motive. But it does need to convince the 12-member jury beyond reasonable doubt that Patterson intended to kill the two elderly couples – including her children’s grandparents – and that she deliberately picked death cap mushrooms to do it.

 
Since she had little knowledge about wild mushrooms growing in her neighborhood, she didn't know that what she served for the family lunch was death cap mushrooms that can kill people instantly with one bite. The jurors won't buy the prosecution's argument that she deliberately picked death cap mushrooms to kill her relatives. But she is still responsible for the unintended deaths she caused.

Defense lawyer Colin Mandy SC said Patterson accidentally added foraged mushrooms to the meal, along with ones she bought from an Asian grocer in Melbourne.

“What happened was a tragedy and a terrible accident,” he said.

In his closing arguments, Mandy said the prosecution’s case was based on “ridiculous” propositions, including that Patterson “would intend to kill these four people, blowing her entire life up in the process without a motive.”

The prosecution doesn’t need to prove a motive. But it does need to convince the 12-member jury beyond reasonable doubt that Patterson intended to kill the two elderly couples – including her children’s grandparents – and that she deliberately picked death cap mushrooms to do it.

I read about the judge's instructions to the jurors..."do not guess" included. [published in the Daily Telegraph newspaper yesterday Wed]
Prosecution's case, Defence's case.
If I were a juror, after all that, and I'd been told to retire to consider, think I might've said "this is all too hard, can I go home now".
I'm a reasonably intelligent person, so my guess is that it could also be "all too hard' for some of the jurors to decide.

"responsible for the unintended deaths she caused" doesn't seem to be an option for conviction.
Seems the options are 'deliberate murder' or 'innocence'.
 
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