00:00 Police are certainly keeping their lines of inquiry close to their chest at the moment
00:05 but what we do know is that detectives once again visited a rubbish tip south of Leongatha,
00:11 that's the Coonwara transfer station which is about 135km south east of Melbourne to
00:16 speak to staff there and it's also where the ABC understands detectives seized a food dehydrator
00:24 last week.
00:26 Two girls from the Gippsland region, Heather Wilkinson, her sister Gail Patterson and her
00:31 brother-in-law Don Patterson all died after going to a lunch last month where it's believed
00:37 they ate poisonous mushrooms.
00:40 Now their symptoms were consistent with having consumed the death cap variety and they had
00:47 gone to eat the lunch at Gail Patterson's daughter-in-law's home, Erin Patterson.
00:53 Now she remains a suspect, according to police they say that that is because she cooked the
00:58 meal and also didn't display any symptoms of illness, however they do say that they
01:03 are keeping an open mind and that is also because all of these deaths at the moment
01:08 remain unexplained.
01:10 Erin Patterson has already told reporters that she's devastated by what has happened
01:15 and that she didn't do anything.
01:17 And we've also heard from forensic experts as well and they say that it could be weeks
01:22 before toxicology reports from those three people who have died are known.
01:28 That is because these substances are quite rare.
01:31 The death cap mushroom itself is obviously something that comes from overseas and so
01:37 some of these samples might have to get sent overseas where there are labs that do a lot
01:41 of this testing on things like death cap mushrooms.
01:45 So we are still going to have to wait for those toxicology results to come back and
01:49 in the meantime there are still vigils out there for Ian Wilkinson.
01:55 Now he is somebody who also went to this lunch and unfortunately he remains in a critical
02:01 condition in hospital.
02:03 All of these people were much loved and well liked members of the local community so there's
02:08 still a lot of grief and there are a lot of prayers that are being held for Ian Wilkinson
02:13 who also happens to be the local pastor from the area as well as he clings to life.
02:18 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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