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Australian Mushroom Murderer Erin Patterson Found GUILTY of Three Murders
Suspected Mushroom Poisoning: Erin Patterson Faces Australian Court on Murder Charges
An Australian woman charged with murdering three people in a suspected mushroom poisoning case is also accused of trying to murder her ex-partner on four occasions, court documents say. BBC 3 NOV 2023 https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cp..._patterson.jpg Erin Patterson, 49, was charged with three counts of murder and five of attempted murder on Thursday. The murder charges relate to a family lunch she hosted in July at her home in the town of Leongatha, Victoria. Ms Patterson continues to maintain her innocence. She appeared briefly in court on Friday, where her case was adjourned until 3 May to give prosecutors time to analyse computer equipment seized from her home during a police search. She did not apply for bail. About half a dozen TV crews were lined up outside the hearing in the small town of Morwell, about 60km (37 miles) from Leongatha. But for the cameras and curious locals there was no glimpse of Ms Patterson, who was moved from her overnight police cell into the court building via a connecting tunnel. In court documents released to local media on Friday, police allege Ms Patterson attempted to kill her estranged husband Simon Patterson three times between November 2021 and September 2022. The alleged fourth attempt was on the day she served a beef Wellington lunch to his parents Gail and Don Patterson, aunt Heather Wilkinson and her husband Ian Wilkinson. Simon Patterson did not attend the meal. Erin Patterson has said she made the dish using a mixture of button mushrooms bought from a supermarket, and dried mushrooms purchased at an Asian grocery months earlier. All four of her guests were later taken to hospital reporting violent illness, police say. Within days the Patterson couple, both 70, and Ms Wilkinson, 66, had died. Mr Wilkinson, 68, was taken to hospital in a critical condition but later recovered. Police say they believe the four ate death cap mushrooms - which are highly lethal if ingested. Ms Patterson was named as a suspect after she and her two children appeared unharmed after the lunch. But she maintains she never intended to poison her guests and says that she herself was taken to hospital after the meal and given medication to guard against liver damage. "I am now devastated to think that these mushrooms may have contributed to the illness suffered by my loved ones," she wrote in a statement in August. Police have stressed the complexity of the case, describing it as a tragedy that may "reverberate for years to come". "I cannot think of another investigation that has generated this level of media and public interest, not only here in Victoria, but also nationally and internationally," Homicide squad Inspector Dean Thomas said on Thursday. |
Australian Mushroom Poisoner Erin 'I Wanted to Improve The Flavour'
Australian Mushroom Murderer Erin Patterson Had One Word Response About Buying Deadly Dish
Erin Patterson 50, is accused of deliberately poisoning a beef wellington dish in an attempt to kill four members of her ex husbands family... She Denies ALL Charges The Questions at The Heart of The Mushroom Trial The Guardian Australia 14 MAY 2025 https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/article...0196365451.jpg Erin Patterson 50, is accused of deliberately poisoning a beef wellington dish in an attempt to kill four members of Simon Pattersons family on 29 July 2023. Her former in laws, Don Patterson 70 and Gail Patterson 70, died in hospital after eating the meal at her home in Victoria, Australia, as well as Gails sister Heather Wilkinson, 66. Ian Wilkinson, a local church minister, survived after receiving a liver transplant in hospital. Mum of two Patterson pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and one count of manslaughter and claims she was completely unaware the meal was laced with a deadly type of mushroom. https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/article...-072033JPG.jpg She is alleged to have used a death cap mushroom in the dish The trial began last week at Victoria state Supreme Court. Today, Dr Chris Webster, who worked at Leongatha Hospital where two of Pattersons guests were admitted, gave evidence and told the jury of her unusual explanation for their illness. He said Patterson had walked into his waiting room shortly before Ian and Heather Wilkinson were due to be transferred to another hospital, and that he had explained medics believed they had suffered from death cap mushroom poisoning. The doctor told the court he had asked her where she acquired the mushrooms for the lunch, and said: It was a single word response - Woolworths https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/article...422-PMjpeg.jpg Gail and Don Patterson, both aged 70, died after eating the meal He said he told her she should seek immediate treatment herself due to potential risk of exposure, but she checked out a short time later against medical advice. Dr Webster said: I was surprised. I had just informed her shed been potentially exposed to a deadly death cap mushroom poisoning and I would have thought being in hospital was the best place to be. He attempted to call her three times after she left the hospital, before ringing the police. https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/article...1_nine2JPG.jpg Heather Wilkinson also died in hospital A recording of the call to emergency services heard in court said This is Dr Chris Webster calling from Leongatha Hospital. I have a concern regarding a patient that presented here earlier that has left the building and is potentially exposed to a fatal toxin. The court had earlier heard that after eating the meal, all four guests were admitted to hospital the next day with poisoning from death cap mushrooms, also known as amanita phalloides, that were added to the dish. https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/article...e-newssJPG.jpg Patterson denies all charges and claims she had bought the mushrooms from Woolworths Mr Wilkinson survived after a liver transplant. Erin Pattersons husband, Simon Patterson, 50, was also invited to the lunch but declined to attend.The jury was previously told prosecutors had dropped three charges that Erin Patterson had attempted to murder her husband, who she had been separated from since 2015. She is accused of the murders of Don and Gail Patterson, Heather Wilkinson, and the attempted murder of Reverend Ian Wilkinson, Heathers husband. Patterson has pleaded not guilty to all charges. The trial continues. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJbKQNFvCoE Australias Mushroom Trial Week One Recap https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eftbIzEzCoQ |
Australian Mushroom Poisoner Erin 'I Wanted to Improve The Flavour'
Australian Mushroom Poisoner Erin Patterson Murdered 4 Family Members
Australian woman on trial for mushroom murder of inlaws says she was trying to fix a bland lunch Australia AP 5 JUN 2025 https://tse1.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.H...=Api&P=0&h=180 Before Erin Pattersons in laws and their relatives arrived at her home for lunch, she bought pricey ingredients, consulted friends about recipes and sent her children out to a movie. Then, the Australian woman served them a dish containing poisonous death cap mushrooms a meal that was fatal for three of her four guests. Whether that was Pattersons plan is at the heart of a triple murder trial that has gripped Australia for nearly six weeks. Prosecutors in the Supreme Court case in the state of Victoria say the accused lured her guests to lunch with a lie about having cancer, before deliberately feeding them toxic fungi. But her lawyers say the tainted beef Wellington she served was a tragic accident caused by a mushroom storage mishap. She denies murdering her estranged husbands parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and their relative, Heather Wilkinson. The mother of two also denies attempting to murder Heathers husband Ian Wilkinson, who survived the meal. In a rare step for a defendant charged with murder, Patterson chose to speak in her own defense at her trial this week. On Wednesday, she spoke publicly for the first time about the fateful lunch in July 2023 and offered her explanations on how she planned the meal and didnt become sick herself. No one disputes that Patterson, 50, served death cap mushrooms to her guests for lunch in the rural town of Leongatha, but she says she did it unknowingly. Patterson said Wednesday she splurged on expensive ingredients and researched ideas to find something special to serve. She deviated from her chosen recipe to improve the bland flavour, she said. She believed she was adding dried fungi bought from an Asian supermarket from a container in her pantry, she told the court. Now I think that there was a possibility that there were foraged ones in there as well, she told her lawyer, Colin Mandy. Patterson had foraged wild mushrooms for years, she told the court Tuesday, and had put some in her pantry weeks before the deaths. What Happened at Erin Pattersons Mushroom Murder Trial Week Three https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQule7eq0SY |
Australian Mushroom Murderer Erin Patterson Found GUILTY of Three Murders
Mushroom Murder: Erin Patterson Found GUILTY of Murdering Three
Australian woman Erin Patterson was found guilty of murdering three of her estranged husbands relatives by deliberately serving them poisonous mushrooms for lunch. 9 News Australia 7 JUL 2025 https://content.api.news/v3/images/b...d06f22baf7b289 The jury in the Supreme Court trial in Victoria state returned a verdict after six days of deliberations, following a nine week trial that gripped Australia. https://content.api.news/v3/images/b...ca05411a7322e2 https://content.api.news/v3/images/b...723?width=1024 Pattersons EX Husband Patterson faces life in prison and will be sentenced at a later date. Patterson, who sat in the dock between two prison officers, showed no emotion but blinked rapidly as the verdicts were read. Three of Pattersons four lunch guests her parents in law Don and Gail Patterson, and Gails sister Heather Wilkinson died in the hospital after the 2023 meal at her home in Leongatha, at which she served individual beef Wellington pastries containing death cap mushrooms. She was also found guilty of attempting to murder Ian Wilkinson, Heathers husband, who survived the meal. It wasnt disputed that Patterson served the mushrooms or that the pastries killed her guests. The jury was required to decide whether she knew the lunch contained death caps, and if she intended for them to die. The guilty verdicts, which were required to be unanimous, indicated that jurors rejected Pattersos defense that the presence of the poisonous fungi in the meal was a terrible accident, caused by the mistaken inclusion of foraged mushrooms that she didnt know were death caps. Prosecutors didnt offer a motive for the killings, but during the trial highlighted strained relations between Patterson and her estranged husband, and frustration that she had felt about his parents in the past. The case turned on the question of whether Patterson meticulously planned a triple murder or accidentally killed three people she loved, including her childrens only surviving grandparents. Her lawyers said she had no reason to do so she had recently moved to a beautiful new home, was financially comfortable, had sole custody of her children and was due to begin studying for a degree in nursing and midwifery. But prosecutors suggested Patterson had two faces the woman who publicly appeared to have a good relationship with her parents in law, while her private feelings about them were kept hidden. Her relationship with her estranged husband, Simon Patterson, who was invited to the fatal lunch but didnt go, deteriorated in the year before the deaths, the prosecution said. The simplest facts of what happened that day and immediately afterward were hardly disputed. But Pattersons motivations for what she did and why were pored over in detail during the lengthy trial, at which more than 50 witnesses were called. The individual beef Wellington pastries Patterson served her guests was one point of friction, because the recipe she used contained directions for a single, family sized portion. Prosecutors said that she reverted to individual servings, so she could lace the other diners portions, but not her own, with the fatal fungi but Patterson said that she was unable to find the correct ingredients to make the recipe as directed. Nearly every other detail of the fateful day was scrutinized at length, including why Patterson sent her children out to a film before her guests arrived, why she added additional dried mushrooms to the recipe from her pantry, why she didnt become ill when the other diners did, and why she disposed of a food dehydrator after the deaths and told investigators that she didnt own one. Patterson acknowledged some lies during her evidence including that shed never foraged mushrooms or owned a dehydrator. But she said that those claims were made in panic as she realized her meal had killed people. She said she didnt become as ill as the other diners since she vomited after the meal because of an eating disorder. She denied that she told her guests she had cancer as a ruse to explain why she invited them to her home that day. https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/07...57_634x422.jpg Before the verdict, Australian news outlets published photos of black privacy screens erected at the entrance to Pattersons home. The case has provoked fervour among the public and media, and the courtroom in the rural town of Morwell was packed throughout the trial. https://content.api.news/v3/images/b...88959fecf776f2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfcIxrIRtb8&t=4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lrWAlQJs94 |
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