First photo shows deadly beef wellington

Yahoo

2 days ago

Pictures of the deadly meal Erin Patterson used to kill three members of her husband's family have been released by Victoria's Supreme Court.
The triple-murderer, 50, was found guilty of poisoning Don and Gail Patterson and, Heather and Ian Wilkinson with a beef wellington lunch she hosted on July 29, 2023.
Only Ian, the Korumburra Baptist Church pastor, survived the lunch after spending about a month and a half in hospital.
After seven days of deliberations, jurors unanimously found Patterson guilty of three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder on Monday afternoon.
Patterson had pleaded not guilty, arguing at trial she did not intentionally poison the meal with death cap mushrooms and did not want to harm her family members.
Following the verdict, Victoria's Supreme Court released a series of photos, videos and exhibits presented to the jury over the nine-week trial.
This included pictures of leftovers from the meal taken from the garbage bin outside Patterson's Leongatha home two days following the lunch.
The jury heard the existence of leftovers were first raised when Patterson attended Leongatha Hospital complaining of gastro on July 31, 2023.
Later the same day they were located by police and taken, first to Leongatha Hospital, before being transported alongside Patterson by ambulance to the Monash medical centre.
Leongatha Hospital's Dr Chris Webster told the jury during the trial he had placed Ms Patterson on the phone with Senior Constable Adrian Martinez-Villalobis and she gave him permission for the officer to enter her property.
Constable Martinez-Villalobis said Ms Patterson was 'co-operative throughout the exchange' and instructed him that leftovers would either be in her indoor or outdoor bin.
The leftover food was located at the bottom of her outdoor red-lidded bin in an 'seeping' brown paper Woolworths bag, the officer said.
'It was primarily maybe one-and-a-bit beef wellingtons,' he said.
'I used another one of the bags that were in the bin … because it was seeping a bit from the bottom and I didn't want to get dirty.'
Constable Martinez-Villalobis then took the bag to Leongatha Hospital where he handed it over to a nurse about 10.19am.
The jury heard Patterson prepared six individually-portioned beef wellington serves, five for her lunch guests and one spare.
Prosecutors alleged the sixth was earmarked for her husband, Simon Patterson, should he have changed his mind and attended the lunch.
Patterson, on the other hand, claimed she served the meat from the sixth, with the pastry and mushrooms scrapped off, to her two children for dinner on the 30th.
The jury was told a sample containing a small portion of beef located in the leftovers, was later found to contain traces of the toxins found in death cap mushrooms.
Patterson will return to court for a pre-sentence hearing at a later date.
More to come