Erin Patterson’s murder trial heard she invited her estranged husband’s family to lunch to discuss her alleged cancer diagnosis. The meal resulted in the deaths of three people from mushroom poisoning
Relatives of those a mum killed at a toxic mushroom lunch have faced the murderer at a pre-sentencing hearing this morning. Erin Patterson, 50, has been convicted of three counts of murder, and one charge of attempted murder, after serving a beef Wellington laced with poisonous mushrooms in 2023.
The Victoria state Supreme Court heard how Patterson, 50, invited her ex-husband’s family to her home in the rural Australian town of Leongatha, Victoria, on July 29, 2023, after claiming she had a serious medical condition to discuss with them.
But upon eating the meal, her guests – including her parents-in-law Gail and Don Patterson, both 70, Gail Patterson’s sister Heather Wilkinson, 66, and Mrs Wilkinson’s husband, Ian Wilkinson, 68 – fell ill and were admitted to hospital the following day. Doctor Chris Webster was the first person to realise Patterson had poisoned her guests after he quizzed her on where she had bought the mushrooms for her home-cooked dish.
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She served a meal of beef Wellington, mashed potatoes, and green beans, but inside were poisonous death cap mushrooms.
All four guests were admitted to hospital the following day with poisoning from death cap mushrooms, also known as amanita phalloides, that were added to the beef and pastry dish.
Mr Wilkinson is the only guest who survived the poisoning after receiving an emergency liver transplant. Erin Patterson’s estranged husband, Simon Patterson, 50, was also invited to the lunch but declined.
After Patterson presented herself in hospital the following day, despite not eating the dish, Dr Webster ushered her into a room and told her he suspected she and her guests were all suffering from life-threatening poisoning from toxic mushrooms.
He quizzed her on the source of the fungi included in her home-cooked dish. “Her answer was a single word: Woolworths,” he told the BBC. “And it all just suddenly coalesced in my brain.”
“I thought, ‘Okay, yep, you did it, you heinous individual. You’ve poisoned them all’.”
The mum-of-two claimed she had cancer during the intimate family lunch. Prosecutor Nanette Rogers says it is the prosecution’s case that Patterson did not ingest toxic mushrooms, and that she was never diagnosed with cancer.
“She said the purpose of the lunch was to discuss some medical issues that she had and to get advice about how to break it to the kids,” Ms Rogers said. “The accused said that it was important that the children were not present for the lunch,” Ms Rogers added.
She added that medical tests had found no sign of cancer. During his opening submission, Patterson’s lawyer, Colin Mandy SC, told the court that it was also not in dispute that Patterson had never been diagnosed with cancer. The court previously heard Patterson told her lunch guests she had ovarian cancer.
After the meal, she discussed whether she should tell the children, the court heard. Prosecutor Nanette Rogers told the jury how Patterson had posted in Facebook groups about using a food dehydrator to reduce the size of mushrooms to use in cooking.
She said online she had been “hiding powdered mushrooms in everything”, the prosecutor says, including chocolate brownies fed to her children. The jury was also shown a CCTV photo showing Erin Patterson at her local tip on August 2 – days after the fatal meal.
Bank transactions show she paid $13.50 (£6.40) to dump some items, the prosecutor explained. Among the things she was seen disposing of was a large black box. When inspected a couple of days later, a staff member found a black Sunbeam dehydrator, Nanette Rogers says.
Fingerprints were found on the dehydrator and compared to Ms Patterson’s, Dr Rogers says – and they matched. It also tested positive for death cap mushrooms, the jury was told.
The Wilkinsons were surprised by the invitation because they had never been to Patterson’s large five-bedroom house. When Heather Wilkinson was taken to hospital the next morning, she told Simon Patterson she had been puzzled by Erin Patterson eating from a different plate than those served to the guests.
“I noticed that Erin put her food on a different plate to us. Her plate had colours on it. I wondered why that was. I’ve puzzled about it since lunch,” said Heather Wilkinson, according to the prosecution.
Simon Patterson told his aunt that his wife might have run out of plates. Two days after the lunch, Erin Patterson went to hospital complaining of diarrhoea and nausea.
By then, medical staff had diagnosed her guests as suffering death cap poisoning. Erin Patterson told authorities that she had cooked with a mixture of fresh mushrooms bought from a supermarket and dried mushrooms bought from an Asian food store, but she could not identify the business.
Doctors insisted that Erin Patterson’s two children, then aged nine and 14, be tested because their mother said they had eaten beef Wellington leftovers. Erin Patterson said the children were safe because she had scraped the pastry and mushrooms from the steak.
She explained the children did not like mushrooms. “The accused became teary and said she didn’t want to involve the kids,” Ms Rogers said.
“She did not appear to be concerned so much about the children’s health, but rather about stressing them out,” Ms Rogers added. Ms Rogers said Erin Patterson had not eaten poisonous mushrooms and had not fed her children the lunch leftovers.
Health authorities treated the poisonings as an isolated incident and no mushrooms were recalled, the prosecutor said. The trial is expected to continue for six weeks.
Erin Patterson is charged with three counts of murder and one of attempted murder. Murder carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment and attempted murder carries a maximum 25 years in prison.
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