This is about the trial in Australia that finished just last week and is popularly known as "The Mushroom Murders". Today, I'll ask the famous detective, Hércules Poirot (from Agatha Christie's novels) to explain to his exclusive audience of people involved in the crime and to us, the listeners of the podcast, what happened exactly, and who the murderer is.
This is a B2-level podcast with focus on the third conditional. e.g.
If I had studied more, I would have passed my Cambridge exams.
Listen for examples of the third conditional.
Madame Patterson, Monsieur Wilkinson, Docteur Webster, Inspector Lestrade, please be seated. I shall now go over the events and facts of this case.
First of all, Madame Erin Patterson invited her parents-in-law, Madame Gail and Monsieur Don Patterson and the mother-in-law's sister, Madame Heather and her husband, Monsieur Ian Wilkinson over to a lunch in her home in in Leongatha, Victoria, Australia on July 29, 2023. Erin also invited her own husband, from whom she was then separated. However, he turned down the invitation. Of that party, only Monsieur Wilkinson is able to be with us today. The other three members now dead from poisoning. May their souls rest in peace.
If Madame Erin's husband had gone to the lunch, he would have possibly died as well. A lucky escape, one might say.
Though we don't know whether Erin wanted to kill him. Because there is no clear motive to why Madame Erin wanted to murder any of these people in the first place. Motive, motive. Do we need a motive for a crime to be committed? Perhaps not always. People may do terrible things simply because they feel terrible about themselves. That may be motive enough.
However, if there had been a clear motive, this case might have been simpler and more straightforward.
Why did Madame Erin invite these people to lunch? Apparently they didn't get on: Madame Erin and these people, so inviting them to a special lunch might have sounded strange (and suspicious). I imagine that the guests obviously got on well enough to go to the lunch. But perhaps they were also curious. The English say 'curiosity killed the cat'! How true this was on this occasion.
At the lunch Madame Erin said she'd invited them because she wanted to announce that she had cancer which, as we know now, wasn't and isn't true. Madame Erin may have some health problems but definitely not cancer
And if all of the guests had died instantly, nobody else outside this party of people would have known about this strange announcement of having cancer.
Later, Madame Erin said she had really wanted to tell them that she was going to have major surgery to remove excess fat from her body, but she felt embarrassed about this in the end, and said she had cancer instead. Mmm... Can we believe that?
The dish she made was called beef Wellington, and these are the ingredients: beef Wellington typically includes beef tenderloin fillet, duxelles (a mushroom and shallot mixture), prosciutto or Parma ham, and puff pastry.
So, mushrooms are one of the essential ingredients.
Now it just so happens that a mushroom that grows in many countries of the world called the Death Cap mushroom (Amanita phalloides) grows quite close to where Madame Erin lives. In fact, in these places near her home where you can find this deadly mushroom, there are even signs placed for the public to beware of picking this mushroom for eating. You would think that anybody searching for mushrooms to eat would be doubly cautious. The Death Cap mushroom, even if cooked, dried, frozen or in any form, the toxin, the poison in it remains extremely dangerous. One mushroom is enough to kill a human being. The toxin attacks the liver, that vital organ in our bodies, and stops it working. Death is not instant but takes time. But there is no known treatment. Once this mushroom is in your body, you will probably die.
Now, we know that Madame Erin searched for places to find these mushrooms, and she researched what the symptoms were. We know this because this information was found on her mobile phone, which she tried to get rid of by resetting the phone. Nevertheless, the police found this information on the hard drive of her phone.
If the police had not found this essential information, Madame Erin's case would have been even more difficult to solve.
So, if she had known that death from poisoning was not instant but might takes days or weeks, why did she tell a lie about having cancer that her guests could tell police about before they died. It doesn't make much sense to me, or did she get her facts wrong? Did she believe her guests would fall into a coma from which there was no escape but death?
Only Monsieur Ian Wilkinson survived, although only just after a long time in coma.
And later, Monsieur Wilkinson told me that Erin served her plate of beef Wellington on a plate of a different colour from the others. She even apologised for it at the lunch saying she had no more plates of that colour.
If she had served the food on plates of the same colour, she might have made a mistake and served herself the poisoned food.
So did she make two beef Wellingtons, one without the poisoned mushroom and another with? We do not know. But perhaps we can guess!
We do know that Madame Erin dried the mushrooms before she cooked them. She used a special machine for drying food, which extracts the water so that it can be stored for longer periods. We also know that she threw the drying machine out afterwards, but that later it was found by the police with remains of the toxic mushrooms. Why would she throw away this rather expensive kitchen appliance, unless she wished to cover up the evidence?
But perhaps the biggest error that Madame Erin Patterson made was what she did after the lunch. That night, all four of Erin's guests went to the local hospital complaining of stomach ache, but Madame Erin didn't go. How could she miraculously escape the deadly poison. I believe Madame Erin Patterson assumed that the doctors in the little local village hospital would not know what was killing these people. She believed that they would not know why they became ill. Agreed, so they might think that the stomach aches was due to the lunch they'd eaten, but you know, sometimes food doesn't (how do you say in English?) agree with you, but with others it has no effect.
Well, Madame Erin did go to the hospital after a few days. She went to ask about her guests (so she says), who she had heard were in hospital.
Now, the doctor, Dr. Chris Webster, told me that he had sent a sample of the food from the stomachs of his patients to a laboratory where it was analysed. The laboratory got back in touch with the doctor the next day and told him that without a shadow of a doubt, the reason for the stomach aches was, in fact, because they had all eaten the Death Cap mushroom - Amanita Phalloides!
And yet, Madame Erin did not want to be admitted to hospital for tests. She refused to stay, and insisted on leaving. Very foolish, don't you think, if you have eaten the same food as your guests of mushrooms that will kill a person.
Madame Erin claims that she did feel a little ill, but that after the lunch, when her guests had left, she ate a huge cake, and was sick afterwards. Surely, she said, that was the reason she was not ill herself - she had vomited the whole contents of the beef Wellington!
But then she lied again to the doctor, when he asked her where she had got the mushrooms from. From Woolworth's, she said! Woolworth's, a reputable supermarket store known the world over. How can anybody believe that Woolworth's would sell the Death cap mushrooms to its clients!
If such a supermarket had sold these mushrooms to its customers, there would have been hundreds, if not thousands of people dead at this time.
Madame Erin Patterson. Your excuses and stories are all lies. The coincidences are so many as to make this story a comedy of errors.
But, mesdames, messieurs, this is no comedy. This is no laughing matter. Three people have been murdered. Yes, murdered. Madame Erin Patterson, I accuse you of murdering your three guests with attempted murder of Monsieur Wilkinson.
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