Three people have died after eating lunch at a private home in Australia last month, where they are suspected of ingesting poisonous mushrooms, authorities said.
Victoria Police's Homicide Squad is investigating the July 29 incident, where a 48-year-old woman served lunch to four adults at her home in Leongatha, Australia, police said. Two children were also present, police said.
Within a day of eating the meal, the four guests came down with symptoms of food poisoning and went to local hospitals, Detective Inspector Dean Thomas said in a press conference on Aug. 7.
They were transported to hospitals in the Melbourne area, about 85 miles northwest of Leongatha, and two women present at the lunch, ages 66 and 70, died on Aug. 4, police said.
By Aug. 5, a third person, a 70-year-old man, had died, police said. The fourth person, a 68-year-old man who attended the lunch, remained in critical condition at Austin Hospital outside of Melbourne, Thomas said.
Thomas said investigators are "presuming at this point it's mushrooms," adding the symptoms the people presented "are that of death cap mushrooms."
The two children who were at the lunch did not have any symptoms, as investigators believe they had a different meal than the others, Thomas said.
The 48-year-old woman, the daughter-in-law of one of the couples at the lunch, also has not presented any symptoms.
"That forms part of our investigation whether she did or didn't eat any of the mushrooms, or anything else that may have been eaten on that particular day," Thomas said.
Members of the homicide squad executed a search warrant at the home where the lunch took place on Aug. 5, Thomas said, and investigators also interviewed the woman, who was later released.
The woman is a suspect because she cooked the meal for the people, Thomas said.
"But we have to keep an open mind in relation to this," he said, "that it could be very innocent. But again, we just don't know at this point."
He added the deaths are not yet suspicious, but "unexplained."
"I'd like to say that because the homicide squad is investigating this matter, it doesn't automatically mean that the deaths are suspicious," he said. "I can say that at this point in time, the deaths are unexplained. And for that purpose, we are involved and we are working as hard as we can to try and identify why these deaths have happened and the circumstances surrounding."
Thomas said investigators have began running toxicology tests, but cautioned the results could take "quite some time."
He cautioned the public to question eating mushrooms they did not purchase from a store.
"I do ask people out in the community to think about mushrooms that they may have picked out in paddocks, farms, whatever it might be," Thomas said. "Please think about whether they are — you should eat them. My suggestion is if you haven't purchased them from a supermarket or something like that, perhaps stay clear of them."
