I couldn’t turn up that article in limited searches, but the Daily Mail has really been on a roll with the case.
A fellow prison inmate has accused Patterson of poisoning her with contaminated food, which sounds suspiciously like a bid for attention, but officials did, incredibly, give Patterson a job in the prison kitchen. 
Trying to solve their prison overcrowding problem, are they?
It was curiously said after the guilty verdict was returned, that Erin Patterson would be “spending her first night in prison” when in fact she has already spent (IIRC) nearly two years in prison awaiting trial.
Sloppy journalism, or am I missing something?
Does Australia have the same jail-prison distinction as the US? Jail is for short sentences and people awaiting trial, while prison is for long sentences for people who have been found guilty.
As I understand it, in Victoria, there is a remand-centre for men awaiting trial, but for women, they’re all housed at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre regardless of whether they’ve been sentenced or not.
@Monty While I’m in New Zealand, not Australia, the news networks have already started reporting on evidence not seen by the jurors. It was the lead item on one TV News channel when the verdict was read out.
And, unrelated to that point, the apparent lack of motive was not enough to lead to a Not Guilty verdict, as in cases of murder and attempted murder, all that’s required is for a jury to find a “culpable state of mind”. The sheer number of lies told by Patterson appeared to sway the jurors in believing that state of mind existed.
…maybe she was actually the first to enjoy the wrong kind of mushroom?
This sounds like the punchline of a joke.
Motive is rarely an element of any offence. The Crown has to prove that the person did it, and in certain offences, called specific intent, that the person did it for that purpose. Murder is a specific intent offence. The Crown must prove that the person intended to kill. “Why?” helps to make that point, but is not needed.
However, I would speculate that the lack of a clear motive contributed to the jury’s deliberations, which took a week. The “why” for a horrible crime is psychologically important for people to process it.
Anything of note you remember?
The two I remember were a drunk driving conviction in 2004 which resulted in her being disqualified from driving and having briefly been an air traffic controller - apparently her work colleagues described her as a loner.
They seem like the kind of details that don’t pertain directly to the case but could be prejudicial to her, so I can see why the jurors didn’t see them.
Wasn’t there also some religious difference? Not sure what, other than speculation, that adds to any possible explanation.
Makes you wonder about potluck day in the break room.
Go ask Erin, I think she’ll know.
Holy shit.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, other childhood heroes make similar discoveries..
Oh and thanks to the mods for changing the title of the thread to keep it current.
The Documents In The Case by Dorothy L Sayers uses the device of murder by mushrooms as a plot point (actually more complicated than that).
It’s bigger than that. The emperor Claudius was supposed to have been killed by a mushroom.
Tomorrow is sentencing-day for Erin Patterson.
I haz popcorn!