Erin Patterson trial: Jury indicates verdicts to judge in mushroom murder case
Court is expected to reconvene at 2.15pm on Monday.
Ms Patterson, 50, is facing trial after pleading not guilty to three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder stemming from a lunch she hosted at her Leongatha home, in southeast Victoria, on July 29, 2023.
The mother-of-two served a beef wellington meal to four members of her husband Simon Patterson's family containing death cap mushrooms.
Simon's parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail's sister, Heather Wilkinson, died from death cap poisoning in the week following the lunch while Heather's husband, Ian Wilkinson, survived.
Prosecutors allege Ms Patterson deliberately sought out and included the deadly fungi in the lunch intending to kill or at least seriously injure her guests.
Her defence, on the other hand, have argued the poisoning was an unintentional and tragic accident – questioning why Ms Patterson would want to kill her loved ones.
Over eight weeks of evidence, jurors in the trial heard from more that 50 witnesses, including family, doctors, experts and Ms Patterson herself.
The jury, of eight men and five women, were sent out to deliberate shortly after 1pm on Monday when they were told any verdict must be unanimous.
It has been 7 days since they were sent out.
Over the course of their deliberations, jurors are being sequestered at a hotel and have limited contact with the outside world having handed over their phones.
In his final remarks, Justice Beale said they would be deliberating Mondays to Saturdays and given as long as it takes.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
ABC News
43 minutes ago
- ABC News
How the world reacted to Erin Patterson's guilty verdict
It's an extraordinary mystery that has captivated not just Australia, but the world. In 2023, five people sat down to a beef Wellington lunch — only two survived. One of them was Erin Patterson. The 50-year-old would be charged with murdering three relatives and attempting to murder a fourth by lacing their meals with poisonous death cap mushrooms. Over a mammoth trial, this case — and the tiny regional Victorian town of Morwell — were thrust into the global spotlight as a jury heard evidence from more than 50 witnesses. Overseas journalists joined local media in bringing the high-profile matter to an international audience, working to appease enormous global appetite for details of the infamous "mushroom murder". Associate professor Xanthe Mallett, a criminologist from Central Queensland University, told the ABC the trial had attracted extraordinary global interest. "I can't actually remember an Australian case which has garnered quite this much international attention," she said. On Monday, after 10 marathon weeks, Erin Patterson was found guilty of all charges. International publications immediately lit up with the news, with several sites including Reuters, CNN, the BBC, Washington Post and New York Times alerting the verdict. Many outlets also published reports on the trial's outcome, including a number of detailed explainers offering step-by-step accounts of the case. The BBC poured its resources into covering every moment of the trial's long-awaited outcome in a live blog that led its online page. The global media heavyweight also published an in-depth breakdown of the trial, which it said had "gripped the world". The report outlined the weeks of evidence, including that Patterson, a "self-described mushroom lover and amateur forager", had told the court the deaths were a "tragic accident". "But over nine weeks, the jury heard evidence suggesting she had foraged death cap mushrooms sighted in nearby towns and lured her victims to the fatal meal under the false pretence that she had cancer — before trying to conceal her crimes by lying to police and disposing of evidence," the BBC reported. Caroline Cheetham, who hosts The Trial of Erin Patterson podcast for Britain's Daily Mail, travelled to the remote town of Morwell to cover the story and spoke to the ABC about the case. "It just resonated. It resonated with an audience all over the world," she said outside court. Al Jazeera and the Washington Post also published detailed explainers of the almost two-month trial, described by the Post as "replete with family drama, fungal ingredients and allegations of deception". "The 'mushroom murder case', as it is known in Australia, transfixed the country," the Washington Post report said. Meanwhile an online piece from the New York Times detailed the "overwhelming media attention" on the case, which saw the jury carefully sequestered during deliberations. The US publication highlighted Patterson would now be facing a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, adding it "was not immediately clear" when she would be sentenced.
News.com.au
an hour ago
- News.com.au
Details about Erin Patterson's life revealed after mum of two found guilty of death cap poisonings
Over the course of a weeks-long murder trial, Erin Patterson was described as many things; a multi-millionaire and generous in-law, a devoted mother-of-two and a cold-blooded killer. The unassuming Victorian woman drew the world's attention after three of her husband's family died from a poisoned meal and a fourth fought his way back from death's door. Details about Patterson's life were revealed by those who knew her best as the Supreme Court trial played out in the regional town of Morwell over the last four months. She had pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder, with her defence arguing the poisoning was a tragic accident. At trial, prosecutors argued Patterson intentionally sourced death cap mushrooms, the most poisonous known fungi, and included them in the beef wellington lunch intending to kill or at least seriously injure her four guests. Don and Gail Patterson, her husband Simon Patterson's parents, and Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson died in the week after the lunch on July 29, 2023. Gail's husband Ian Wilkinson recovered after a lengthy stay in hospital. On Monday, jurors returned to the Latrobe Valley law court and returned unanimous guilty verdicts on all four charges following seven days of deliberations. During the trial, jurors heard Patterson first met her husband in the early 2000s when they were both working at the Monash city council. She was an administrative assistant engaged by animal welfare charity the RSPCA while Simon was a civil engineer at the council. Giving evidence, Simon said they got to know each other as part of a 'fairly eclectic' group of friends from the council before developing a romantic relationship. 'Erin is very intelligent. I guess some of the things that attracted me to her in the first place was definitely her intelligence. She is quite witty and can be quite funny,' he said. The jury heard Patterson had worked as an accountant and as an air traffic controller at Melbourne's Tullamarine airport prior to meeting Simon. Patterson told the court she met Simon in 2004 and they began dating in July the following year. She said she first met his parents, Don and Gail Patterson, in about March or April 2005 while on a camping trip with Simon and a few friends and they stopped in at his parents. Patterson described herself as a 'fundamentalist atheist' and initially sought to convert Simon, a devout Christian, but ' things happened in reverse and I became a Christian'. She pointed to a 'spiritual experience' while on that camping trip when they attended a service at Korumburra Baptist Church where Simon's uncle, Ian Wilkinson, was pastor. I'd been approaching religion as an intellectual exercise up until that point,' Patterson said. 'But I had what I would call a religious experience there and it quite overwhelmed me.' Simon told the court a month after their wedding on June 2, 2007, the pair set off on a cross-country trip. 'We planned, before we married, to pack up everything, get a four-wheel drive and drive across Australia and camp in tents, which we did,' he said. Their wedding was held under a marquee at Don and Gail's Korumburra home, with Simon's cousin, David Wilkinson, walking her down the aisle. Patterson told the jury her parents did not attend as they were on a holiday crossing Russia by train. By late 2007, Simon said, they settled down in Perth where he found work at a local council. The jury heard their first child, a son, was born in January 2009, with Patterson describing the birth as 'very traumatic'. On the stand, she said she developed a mistrust of doctors and questioned if they knew what they were doing. Patterson said Don and Gail came to stay with them after the birth, saying Gail was 'really supportive, and gentle and patient with me'. 'I remember being really relieved that Gail was there because I felt really out of my depth,' she said. A few months later the family packed up again heading north and covering the top end of Australia. After months of travel, Patterson said she'd had a 'gutful' and elected to fly back to Perth from Townsville leaving Simon and their son to drive back. 'It had been a good holiday but I'd had enough. I wanted to sleep in a real bed,' she said. The jury heard this led to the couple's first separation, in late 2009, for 'about six months' with Patterson and their son living in a rental while Simon lived nearby in a caravan. 'What I understood from Erin was that she was struggling inside herself,' Simon said. The couple underwent marriage counselling and the family reunited after Simon moved to the wheatbelt town of York for work as a council civil engineer. For a time, the couple also lived in Quinninup, in Western Australia's southwest, and Patterson started a second hand book shop in Pemberton which she operated in 2011 and 2012. Giving evidence, Simon said there were a few other periods of short separation while the pair lived in Western Australia before they returned to Victoria in 2013. Patterson's second child, a girl, was born in 2014, and the couple purchased a home in Korumburra to be close to Simon's family the same year. Simon's sister, Anna Terrington, said she developed a strong bond with Patterson because they were both pregnant at the same time. She gave evidence their children, born three days apart, were known in the family as 'the twins'. Many of Simon's family members called in the trial described Patterson as a devoted mother to her two children. The couple separated for a final time in late 2015, the jury heard. Asked about the separation, Patterson said she believed the key issue in their relationship was communication but that Simon and her remained close and co-operative in the following years. 'Primarily what we struggled with over the entire course of our relationship … we just couldn't communicate well when we disagreed about something,' she said. 'We could never communicate in a way that made each of us feel heard or understood, so we would just feel hurt and not know how to resolve it.' Patterson told the court after their separation, she remained close to Simon's parents and continued to attend family events. 'It never changed. I was just their daughter-in-law and they just continued to love me,' she said. The jury heard Patterson received a large inheritance after her grandmother's death in 2006, with disbursements paid out twice annually until 2015. Simon agreed Patterson was 'very generous' with the money, with the couple lending hundreds of thousands of dollars to each of his three siblings and their partners interest free. 'We wouldn't have been able to do it without those inheritances,' he said. 'Money has not been the most important motivation to either Erin or me in our decisions.' He said he believed it totalled roughly $2 million. Patterson also received another large inheritance in 2019 after her mother's death split her estate between her two daughters. The jury heard Patterson used part of this money to buy a block of land at Gibson St, Leongatha, where she built her family home and the location of the deadly lunch. Living on the 3 acre block in the small dairy town, Patterson said she kept animals including sheep and goats. Despite their separation four years earlier, Patterson titled both the Gibson St property and a home in the Melbourne suburb of Glen Waverley as shared ownership with her husband. Simon told the court he viewed this at the time as a sign Patterson remained committed to the family unit and was hopeful they would reconcile. He said he believed Patterson had struggled with her self-image for many years although she never explicitly said this to him. On the stand, Patterson said she had body-image issues since childhood and struggled with her weight. 'I tried every diet under the sun,' she said. 'When I was a kid, mum would weigh us every week to make sure we weren't putting on too much weight.' Patterson told the court she had engaged in binge eating and purging since her 20s but no one knew. The jury heard from three witnesses who came to know Patterson in 2020 through an online true crime Facebook group that splintered off into a social chat during the Covid pandemic and continued into 2023. Non-profit manager Christine Hunt said Patterson had made a name for herself in the group as a 'super-sleuth', able to dig up details about true crime cases they discussed. Stay at home mum Daniela Barkley said she believed Patterson to be a wonderful mother, but recalled she vented about problems with Simon and his family. A series of messages Patterson sent to the group between December 6 and 9 in 2022, captured her complaining about her husband and his family. 'I'm sick of this s--t I want nothing to do with them. I thought his parents would want him to do the right thing but it seems their concern about not wanting to feel uncomfortable and not wanting to get involved in their son's personal matters are overriding that so f--k em,' one message read. Patterson told the jury she regrets the messages, but her defence noted they needed to be viewed in the proper context of a woman venting to her support network. Giving evidence, Simon told the jury they remained friendly and committed to co-parenting their two children but he first noticed a change in their relationship in late 2022. He said he believed this was after Patterson noticed he'd been listed as separated for the first time in his tax return and he understood the change to have financial implications. Patterson disagreed, saying while there was a change in the relationship, it occurred weeks later after Simon began to refuse to contribute to their children's schooling and medical costs. 'I wasn't upset, because him listing himself as single on his tax return meant I now have the opportunity to claim family tax benefit that I had been denied before,' she said. Simon said after the tax return, Patterson had filed a child support claim and he'd been instructed by authorities not to pay for things until a financial agreement was reached. Both agreed tensions had cooled down by the end of 2022 but their relationship became 'functional' after this point. She will return to court at a later date.
ABC News
2 hours ago
- ABC News
Coroner finds Kumanjayi Walker's death was 'avoidable'
Northern Territory Coroner Elisabeth Armitage has delivered her findings into the fatal police shooting of 19-year-old Warlpiri-Luritja man Kumanjayi Walker during an arrest in Yuendumu in 2019.
