The Victoria Police homicide squad is investigating the deaths of three people in a suspected case of mushroom poisoning.
Last weekend a 66-year-old woman, as well as her 70-year-old sister and brother-in-law, died in hospital after a meal at a home in the town of Leongatha in South Gippsland. The 66-year-old woman’s husband, a 68-year-old Baptist Church pastor, was in a critical condition as of Sunday.
Victoria Police have searched the home and a 48-year-old Leongatha woman has been questioned and released, but police said this was a very unusual case.
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“Of recent time, we have not had any cases like this,” Detective Inspector Dean Thomas said on 3AW radio.
“The deaths are really unexplained and we’re trying to get to the bottom of it to understand what has actually occurred.”
Children were also present but did not eat the meal, Thomas said.
The South Gippsland mayor, Nathan Hersey, said the families from the town of Korumburra were “very much involved in the faith community,” and that the local community had been gathering regularly to pray for the victims.
In a joint statement, the families said:
“They were parents, grandparents, siblings, children and pillars of faith within our community.
Their love, steadfast faith, and selfless service have left an indelible mark on our families, the Korumburra Baptist Church, the local community, and indeed, people around the globe.”
Victoria Health issued an alert at the start of a flourishing mushroom season in April that warned people not to eat mild mushrooms unless they know what they’re doing.
There are two varieties that grow across regional and metropolitan Victoria that can cause liver failure and even death – the Death Cap mushrooms and Yellow staining mushrooms. The most recent mushroom poisoning incident in the state was in 2020 when eight people fell ill and one person died.
