On July 29, 23, five people sat down for lunch at a home in Leongotha, Victoria, Australia.

Leongoth is a small, sleepy town about an hour and a half's drive southeast of Melbourne,

surrounded by rolling green hills, award-winning wineries, and dairy cows, grazing, serenely in pastures,

the kind of place where everyone knows each other and people tend to leave

their doors unlocked. The hostess of the lunch, Erin Patterson, was a devoted mother who loved

her children more than anything, an incredibly generous woman who still loaned her husband's family

hundreds of thousands of dollars to help them buy homes, even after the two had separated yet

again, a bookish woman

who went to church, volunteered, loved to learn. A woman described as smart and witty, but not

dangerous. No one would have thought so, except for maybe one person. Her estranged husband, Simon,

after nearly dying three separate times in the past two years, getting horrifically sick after eating food made by Aaron each time, he was starting to wonder what his on-again, off-again partner and mother of his two children was truly capable of. And that's why he had turned down an invitation to this fateful lunch. But his parents, despite being warned that maybe Aaron wasn't who they thought she was. They still showed up, as did, uh,

his aunt and, fateful lunch. But his parents, despite being warned that maybe Aaron wasn't who they thought she was,

they still showed up, as did his aunt and uncle. And they had a truly delicious lunch,

told friends and family afterwards that it was a fantastic afternoon. But then late that night,

all four guests who had eaten lunch with Aaron Patterson became terribly violently ill. And within days, three of them

will be dead. And the fourth will appear as if he will soon join them. This week, I'll be sharing

a story about a fake cancer diagnosis, about an Asian grocer that did not exist, about a woman

much stranger and secretive than she appeared at first glance and some death cap mushrooms found under

some oak trees on another true crime why did they do it murder mystery how difficult will the coke

made it to tell uh make it to tell this tale edition of time suck this is michael mcdonald and you're listening

to time suck you're listening to TimeSuck.

Well, happy Monday. Welcome or welcome back to The Cult of the Curious.

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