The trial of Erin Patterson has begun, nearly two years after a fateful lunch in which four of her family members were allegedly poisoned by dangerous mushrooms – and three died in agony
The trial of a woman accused of murdering three members of her family and attempting to kill a fourth with a dish laced with poisonous mushrooms has begun.
Erin Patterson has pleaded not guilty to the murders of her parents-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson, both 70; the murder of Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson, 66, and the attempted murder of Heather’s husband Ian Wilkinson, after a fateful lunch of beef wellington served at her home in Leongatha, in Australian’s Victoria state, on July 29, 2023.
The victims of that lunch died in hospital days later, having been admitted with suspected gastroenteritis. On August 4 of that year, Gail and Heather died and on the following day, Don also died in hospital. Ian, meanwhile, spent a prolonged time in hospital needing a liver transplant but eventually recovered and was discharged.
Toxicology tests on the victims found their symptoms were suggestive of death cap mushroom poisoning, and suspicion fell on experienced forager Erin.
The trial is expected to run for six weeks and the jury have been told they must reach a unanimous decision if they are to convict Erin, who has denied any wrongdoing and said she had “absolutely no reason to hurt these people whom I loved”.
Erin has had some charges against her dropped, with the Supreme Court judge telling the jury this week that they “must put them out of your mind” and “dispassionately” weigh the evidence in the case using their heads and not their hearts.
Those withdrawn charges were in relation to the attempted murder of her estranged ex-husband Simon Patterson, who was invited to the lunch along with his parents, aunt and uncle but did not go. The pair had separated in 2020 and their two children were at the cinema at the time of the lunch, but later ate some of the beef wellington leftovers Erin had prepared.
The children did not have any ill effects from the meal, but Erin later said they don’t like mushrooms so she had scraped the fungi off their serving before they ate it on July 31. And she revealed that she had also been admitted to hospital with severe stomach pains and diarrhoea, and had to be put on a saline drip and given a “liver protective drug” after eating a serving of the dish herself.
Now as the jury gear up for day one of the trial starting on Wednesday (April 30), a forensic toxicologist has revealed how the victims’ final hours would have been agony.
Dr Michael Robertson revealed that victims of death cap mushroom poisoning can go through unbearable pain as the toxins tear through their body, dissolving their liver. He told Channel 9’s Under Investigation that victims who ingest death cap mushrooms experience “violent” vomiting and diarrhoea as the first symptoms.
As the toxins race through the bloodstream, patients will generally fall into a coma – or else experience “absolutely horrific” pain. In an unhappy twist, during the last hours victims tend to start feeling better, but the damage will have already been done and the body will begin shutting down.
“It’s one of those toxins that gets into your system,” Dr Robertson explained. “It gets absorbed into the bloodstream, it then gets transported to the liver and absorbed. The body doesn‘t break this toxin down.
“We’ve got to get rid of it usually in the urine but also in the bile, and the bile duct drops bile back into the intestines. It’s triggering basically the death of the liver cells.”
Dr Heike Neumeister-Kemp, a mycologist, added that victims of mushroom poisoning may also start to hallucinate. “Mushroom poisoning is so nasty because we don‘t really have an anecdote,” she explained.
“On a DNA level, you’re regurgitating the toxin but slowly and consistently your liver dissolves.” Erin has claimed the mushrooms she put in the meal were a mixture of button mushrooms from a supermarket and some dried fungi from an unnamed Asian grocery store bought a few months previously.
The trial continues.