An Australian woman accused of murdering her estranged husband’s parents and an aunt by serving them a beef wellington laced with poisonous mushrooms is on trial.
Mother of two Erin Patterson, 50, is charged with the 2023 murders of her former parents-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson, both 70, and Gail Patterson’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66, along with the attempted murder of Reverend Ian Wilkinson, Heather’s husband.
Patterson denies all the charges.
Her trial at the Supreme Court of Victoria finally began at the end of April, and has so far heard from the Patterson’s estranged husband and the sole survivor of the alleged poisoning, Reverend Wilkinson.
Their testimony in court has offered new details about what allegedly happened.
But what do we know about the incident so far, and how has Patterson responded to the allegations in the past?
Who was invited?
Patterson invited the four alleged victims for lunch at her home in Leongatha, a small town in Melbourne, on 29 July 2023, along with her estranged husband Simon Patterson.
Mr Patterson told the court that although he and Erin Patterson had separated amicably in 2015, their relationship had deteriorated by late 2022.
He said he had listed them as financially separated on a tax return, which triggered a series of child support payments that meant he would no longer pay their two children’s private school fees directly, he told the court.
Speaking to the court through tears, Mr Patterson said: “I was sure she was very upset about that.”
Their soured relationship meant he repeatedly declined invitations to his estranged wife’s home for lunch – including the one in question.
He told the court he did not feel comfortable attending.
Text messages between her and her husband read out in court revealed she found his decision not to come “really disappointing” as she had spent time and money preparing the “special meal”.
Reverend Wilkinson told the court that Patterson asked his wife Heather if the couple was free for the lunch.
He said they had most of their interactions with Patterson at social gatherings such as Christmas parties at Don and Gail Patterson’s house.
“There was no reason given for the lunch, and I remember talking to Heather wondering why the sudden invitation,” Mr Wilkinson told the court, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
But he said the pair were “very happy to be invited”.
It was later that the couple found out Don and Gail were invited, too.
Patterson’s daughter, according to the ABC, told the court that her mum organised a trip to the cinema for her and her brother in advance of the lunch.
Sole survivor gives details about the lunch
The four guests arrived at Patterson’s home together, and Reverend Wilkinson, then 68, recalls his wife being keen to see Patterson’s pantry because she was organising a similar space at their home.
According to the ABC, he told the court he noticed Patterson was “very reluctant” about them going to see it, and thought it was possibly because it was a mess, but he didn’t go to look.
He told the court that later, Heather and Gail offered to help plate up the food, but that Patterson rejected the offer and prepared the plates alone.
Each plate had a serving of mashed potatoes, green beans and an individually-cased beef Wellington.
Prosecutors said Patterson knowingly laced the beef pastry dish with deadly death cap mushrooms, also known as Amanita phalloides.
The death cap is one of the most toxic mushrooms on the planet and is involved in the majority of fatal mushroom poisonings worldwide.
The species contains three main groups of toxins: amatoxins, phallotoxins, and virotoxins.
From these, amatoxins are primarily responsible for the toxic effects in humans.
The alpha-amanitin amatoxin has been found to cause protein deficit and ultimately cell death, although other mechanisms are thought to be involved.
The liver is the main organ that fails due to the poison, but other organs are also affected, most notably the kidneys.
The effects usually begin after a short latent period and include gastrointestinal disorders followed by jaundice, seizures, coma, and, eventually, death.
Patterson has said the mushrooms were a mixture of button mushrooms purchased at a supermarket, and dried mushrooms purchased at an Asian grocery store in Melbourne several months ago, which were in a hand-labelled packet.
Reverend Wilkinson said the four guests were given large grey dinner plates, while Patterson ate from a smaller, tan-coloured plate.
He said he remembered his wife pointing this out after they became ill.
The reverend said he and his wife ate their full servings, while Don ate his own and half of his wife’s.
Reverend Wilkinson said that after the meal, Patterson fabricated a cancer diagnosis, suggesting the lunch was put together so that she could ask them the best way to tell her children about the illness.
The prosecution say she did this to justify the children’s absence.
The defence does not dispute that Patterson lied about having cancer.
Patterson’s children ‘ate leftovers after guests went to hospital’
By midnight on the day of the lunch, all four alleged victims had fallen ill and were experiencing severe vomiting and diarrhoea.
Patterson says she also became ill hours after eating the meal.
Her daughter, according to the ABC, told the court she remembers Patterson telling her she had diarrhoea that night.
Her four guests were taken to hospital the following day, with all of their liver tests showing “abnormal” results, the court was told.
Patterson claims she and her children ate leftovers from the beef wellington on the same day. Her daughter told the court she remembered this, and that her mum didn’t eat much because she was still feeling unwell.
The mum said she scraped the mushrooms off the plates in advance because she knew her children didn’t like them.
Patterson went to hospital two days after the lunch, where she initially discharged herself against medical advice, the court was told.
She had mild symptoms of illness, but further tests revealed no evidence of toxins consistent with death cap mushroom poisoning, the prosecution said.
A nurse at the hospital where she was treated told the court she “didn’t look unwell like Ian and Heather,” who were at the same hospital.
Hospital staff have said Patterson resisted attempts by doctors to have her two children tested after she told them they had eaten some of the leftovers, saying she did not want to frighten them.
Gail and Heather died on Friday 4 August 2023, while Don died a day later.
Reverend Wilkinson spent seven weeks in hospital but survived.
Police previously said the symptoms of all four of those who became ill were consistent with poisoning from wild Amanita phalloides, known as death cap mushrooms – which are responsible for 90% of all toxic mushroom-related fatalities.
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Days after the deaths, police opened a homicide investigation and confirmed Patterson was a suspect.
Prosecutors say the defendant denied ever owning a food dehydrator, but police traced one owned by her to a nearby dump that was later found to contain death cap mushrooms.
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Patterson was charged on 2 November 2023. She has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
The prosecutors have said that they are not suggesting a particular motive, but that they believe Patterson deliberately poisoned the victims with murderous intent.
What has Erin Patterson said?
She has always maintained her innocence, claiming the deaths were a “terrible accident”.
And while she hasn’t spoken in court at the time of writing, she submitted a voluntary statement to police in 2023.
In the statement, seen and reported by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and The Age, Ms Patterson detailed what happened before and after the lunch.
She said she wanted to “clear up the record” because she was “extremely stressed and overwhelmed by the deaths of my loved ones” and was hospitalised herself after eating the meal.
She said she had “absolutely no reason to hurt these people whom I loved”.
Patterson’s trial is expected to continue until the start of June.
