> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://goodoil.news/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Fancy a Coffee After Your Beef Wellington? - URL: https://goodoil.news/fancy-a-coffee-after-your-beef-wellington/ - Published: 2026-08-18T04:00:42.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-18T04:00:42.000Z - Description: Beware of exes bearing beverages. - Author: Lushington Brady - Tags: Australia, Crime “Poison”, it is pronounced in *A Game of Thrones*, “is a woman’s weapon.” Historically, the evidence suggests this is very much the case. Not that male poisoners have never existed, but female murderers most often seem to resort to poison. Hell hath no fury than a woman scorned, and the female with a little drop of poison is clearly more deadly than the male, as Australia recently learned. The entire country was gripped by the [“Mushroom Lady” case](https://goodoil.news/she-has-received-a-life-sentence/). Then 48-year-old **Erin Patterson** committed murder when she dosed the lunches of a group of elderly in-laws and acquaintances with beef Wellingtons laced with poisonous mushrooms. The presumed primary target of the plot, her ex-husband, wisely begged off the invitation after previous unexplained illnesses following meals prepared by his grandiose narcissist ex. Suspicions of food-tampering at a former workplace also emerged during the trial (astonishingly, after her conviction, she was initially put to work in the prison kitchen!) Now, another case of a middle-aged woman trying to exact revenge on an ex by means of poison has emerged, right here in Tasmania. We’ve had Mushroom Lady in Victoria, now Tasmania’s infamous Trout Lady is being joined by our very own Coffee Lady. > [A Tasmanian woman](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-15/tasmanian-woman-allegedly-sends-poisoned-coffees-ex-partner/107041748?ref=goodoil.news) is set to face court after allegedly sending poisoned coffees to her ex-partner multiple times in a “targeted attack”. Good old Launceston has produced its contribution to the sisterhood of the vial. A 43-year-old woman was arrested this week and charged with two counts of attempting to unlawfully administer poison with intent to harm. Police allege she bought takeaway coffees, dosed them with an unknown substance, and then outsourced the delivery via the Airtasker app to her former partner, a 47-year-old man. Getting a free coffee delivered from his apparently psycho ex triggered the intended victim’s self-preservation instincts. Instead of drinking it, he called the cops. That single act of caution triggered a months-long investigation. Just to prove that Tassie is the goods when it comes to producing unintentional comedy, the investigation was led by none other than Inspector Crack. > “The victim has received the initial coffee, found it to be unusual, and reported the matter to police and that’s what’s provoked the investigation,” \[Tasmania Police Inspector **Aleena Crack**\] said. If at first you don’t succeed… police allege the woman arranged several such deliveries over a period of months. So far she faces charges over two of them and more may follow once the forensic labs finish their work. Early indications point to a particular substance, but the full analysis is still pending. Crack declined to say whether it was potentially lethal. The pair’s relationship had ended some time earlier. Motive, as ever with these domestic vendettas, is not hard to guess. What elevates the case beyond the usual bitter-ex theatre is the method. Ordering strangers via a gig-economy app to ferry the doctored drinks shows a certain entrepreneurial flair, if nothing else. Police are clear the delivery contractors themselves are not suspected of any knowledge or involvement. As Crack noted, Airtasker jobs of this sort are routine and there is no reason to believe the people who simply dropped off the cups knew what was inside. The inspector described the whole affair as rare even by national standards: > This is a rare one, not something that I see often and not something that we come across very regularly in Tasmania… Police believe this was a very targeted attack and very isolated. Targeted and isolated it may be, yet the pattern is depressingly familiar. From Erin Patterson’s death-by-Wellington banquet in regional Victoria to this latest effort with lethal lattes in Launceston, a certain cohort of middle-aged women appears to favour chemical solutions when relationships sour. The historical record is thick with them: arsenic in the elderflower wine, cyanide in the tea and aconite in the pudding. Modern forensic science and CCTV make the classic poisoner’s life harder, so the contemporary variant adapts: buy the coffee, spike it, outsource the last mile and hope the target drinks first and asks questions later. In the age of food delivery apps, the fury of a woman scorned arrives in a cardboard cup with a plastic lid, carried by an oblivious stranger who thought he was just earning a few extra dollars for dropping off a coffee. The rest of us can be grateful most ex-partners limit themselves to passive-aggressive text messages and the occasional social media vaguetweet. --- 💡 ****If you enjoyed this article please share it using the share buttons at the top or bottom of the article.**