Mushroom murder: Australian woman convicted of killing three with fatal beef Wellington lunch

South China Morning Post

4 days ago

Erin Patterson, the Australian woman who served poisonous mushrooms for lunch to her estranged husband's relatives, has been found guilty of three murders and one attempted murder.
The jury in the Supreme Court trial returned a verdict after six days of deliberations, following a nine-week trial that gripped Australia. Patterson faces life in prison and will be sentenced later. A date for the hearing has not yet been scheduled.
Patterson sat in the dock between two prison officers and showed no emotion but blinked rapidly as the verdicts were read.
Three of Patterson's four lunch guests – her parents-in-law Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson – died in hospital after the 2023 meal at her home in Leongatha, in the southeastern Australian state of Victoria. She had served individual beef Wellington pastries containing death cap mushrooms.
She was also found guilty of attempting to murder Ian Wilkinson, Heather's husband, who survived the meal.
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Jury concludes Patterson poisoned her guests on purpose
Whether Patterson has served the mushrooms or if the pastries killed her guests was not in question. What the jury was required to decide was whether Patterson knew the lunch contained death caps and if she intended for her guests to die.
The guilty verdicts, which were required to be unanimous, indicated that jurors rejected Patterson's defence that the presence of the poisonous fungi in the meal was a terrible accident caused by the mistaken inclusion of foraged mushrooms that she did not know were 'death caps'.
Prosecutors did not offer a motive for the killings but highlighted strained relations between Patterson and her estranged husband and the frustration that she had felt about his parents in the past.
A photo made available shows defendant Erin Patterson in Melbourne, Australia. Photo: EPA
The case's main question: whether Patterson meticulously planned a triple murder or accidentally killed three people she loved, including her children's 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 was a woman who publicly appeared to have a good relationship with her parents-in-law while having private, hidden feelings about them.
Her relationship with her estranged husband, Simon Patterson, who was invited to the fatal lunch but did not go, had deteriorated in the year before the deaths, the prosecution said.
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Every moment of the fatal lunch examined
The simplest facts of what happened that day and immediately afterwards were barely disputed. But Patterson's 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 were 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. Patterson said that she was unable to find the correct ingredients to make the recipe as directed.
An undated handout photo from the Supreme Court of Victoria shows annotated plates containing samples of a beef Wellington meal laced with toxic mushrooms, prepared by Erin Patterson. Photo: AFP/Supreme Court of Victoria
Nearly every other detail of the fateful day was scrutinised 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 did not become ill when the other diners did, and why she disposed of a food dehydrator after the deaths and told investigators that she did not own one.
Patterson acknowledged some lies during her evidence – including that she never foraged mushrooms or owned a dehydrator. But she said she had made the claims in panic upon realising her meal had killed people.
She said she did not 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.
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The case gripped Australia
The bizarre case has lingered in the minds of Australians and has provoked fervour among the public and media. During the trial, five separate podcasts analysed each day of the proceedings, and several news outlets ran live blogs, providing moment-by-moment accounts of more than two months of evidence.
At least one television drama and a documentary about the case are slated for production. Prominent Australian crime writers were seen in court throughout the trial.
At least 40 members of the public queued outside the courthouse in the rural town of Morwell in the hope of watching the outcome in person. News outlets reported that family members of the victims were not among those present.