‘You crazy b**ch': Doctor reveals moment he knew Erin Patterson poisoned her victims
Patterson was found guilty of three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder on Monday over a beef wellington lunch she served at her Leongatha home on July 29, 2023.
Her estranged husband's parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and his aunt and uncle, Heather and Ian Wilkinson, all fell critically ill after the lunch. Don, Gail and Heather died of multiple organ failure caused by death cap mushroom poisoning.
Dr Chris Webster, a doctor at Leongatha Hospital who initially treated Ian and Heather, told the Herald Sun that he knew Patterson was a calculated murderer when she told him the mushrooms in the meal were from Woolworths.
'If she said she picked them, it would have been a very different mindset for me because there would have been an instant assumption it was all a tragic accident,' he said.
'But once she said that answer, my thoughts were, 'holy f**king shit, you f**king did it, you crazy bitch, you poisoned them all'.
'The turning point for me was that moment.'
In the candid interview after testifying, which was published by the newspaper on Tuesday, Dr Webster said Patterson was a 'disturbed sociopathic nut bag'.
Mushroom cook found guilty
Jurors took seven days to return unanimous verdicts, finding Erin Patterson guilty of three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder in the country Victorian town of Morwell on Monday.
Patterson appeared in court dressed in a paisley top, and appeared nervous as the packed courtroom waited for the verdict to be read out.
She tried to meet the eyes of the jurors as they entered the room about 2.16pm, but not one met her gaze.
She remained expressionless as the forewoman softly said 'guilty' in response to each charge.
Members of the Patterson and Wilkinson families were absent during the hearing despite attending every day of the trial, which began in late April.
Outside the court, about 200 people were gathered.
Throughout a trial lasting more than two months, Patterson maintained the beef-and-pastry dish was accidentally poisoned with death cap mushrooms, the world's most lethal fungus.
The court will soon set a date for a sentencing hearing to determine the length of Patterson's jail term.
Her legal team has 28 days after sentencing to appeal both her criminal convictions and her sentence.
Patterson's lawyers have not yet indicated whether they will appeal.
How the triple murder unfolded
The guests' blood was swiftly coursing with deadly amatoxin, a poison produced by the death cap mushrooms known to sprout under the oak trees of Victoria.
Don, Gail and Heather died of organ failure within a week.
Detectives soon found signs that Patterson had dished up the meal with murderous intent.
Patterson told her guests she had received a cancer diagnosis and needed advice on breaking the news to her children, prosecutors alleged.
But medical records showed Patterson received no such diagnosis. The prosecution said this was a lie cooked up to lure the diners to her table. She also lied about owning a food dehydrator which police later found dumped in a rubbish tip.
Forensic tests found the appliance contained traces of the fatal fungi.
'I agree that I lied because I was afraid I would be held responsible,' Patterson told the trial.
A computer seized from her house had browsed a website pinpointing death cap mushrooms spotted a short drive from her house a year before the lunch, police said.
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"Can you imagine waking up in the morning and you don't see the outside world. You see fences all around — that's what it looks like. It's depressing," they said. The source said visitors were usually allowed on weekends. "There's a visitor centre there. They've got the babies there, the playgrounds and stuff for all the kids — it's like a primary school," they said. "When you go through the entry point you get treated like a criminal. You've got to go through the scanner, you've got to get an eye test to ID you," they said. The prison's stringent visitor policy is something Patterson will have to get used to. The 50-year-old is now facing life in prison over the murders of Heather Wilkinson, Don and Gail Patterson and the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson. The beef Wellington used to murder her in-laws has captured global attention, which is no surprise to Brandy Cochrane, a criminologist at Victoria University. 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"Whatever her life is going to be like in Dame Phyllis, at the moment she's going to be more restricted," he said.
