Latest news with #SimonPatterson
News.com.au
15-07-2025
- News.com.au
‘Openly admitted': Former inmate reveals Erin Patterson's prison threat to estranged husband
Erin Patterson has been talking during the 19 months since her arrest in November 2023. The mushroom cook killer, who poisoned three of her in-laws with a beef wellington dish laced with death cap mushrooms, is by all accounts quite chatty behind bars. One former inmate who shared a unit with Patterson at Melbourne's maximum security women's prison says the 50-year-old wants to be the 'centre of attention'. 'She's intelligent but ... she is entitled, arrogant, demanding and rude,' the former inmate told this week. Locked up with Patterson for more than a year, the ex-prisoner kept meticulous diary notes. One in particular stands out. Dated the 27th of July, 2024, the note makes mention of Patterson's estranged husband Simon and how she really feels about him. 'Erin hates her ex-husband and openly admitted — she has made comments about no matter how long she gets (in prison), she will kill him,' the former inmate said. During Patterson's marathon trial, before a jury found her guilty of three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder, text messages between the former couple were tendered into evidence. Erin Patterson's online messages were also tendered into evidence, including one where she wrote that Simon's mum should be 'horrified' that 'her son is such a deadbeat'. The pair had separated in 2015 but spent much of the following years maintaining an amicable relationship. Continuing to co-parent their two children, the couple remained friends and attended family events together. They even took family holidays. But, the jury was told, their relationship began to sour in the latter half of 2022. According to the former Dame Phyllis Frost Centre inmate who spoke to Patterson was truly resentful during her time in prison. on Monday shared details from inside the Murray Unit at the female prison on Melbourne's outskirts. Those details included an alleged poisoning incident that saw Patterson moved from the unit. A subsequent search of her cell recovered two bottles of mayonnaise and a chemistry book full of notations on natural remedies, the former inmate said. 'This is something I wrote in my notes,' the former inmate told 'I was talking with (another inmate) and asked if I could borrow her mayonnaise.'She just laughed and joked about me 'poisoning it like Erin Patterson did'. 'I was like 'What the f***?' and she told me the story about how prison officers found mayonnaise in Erin's room that was allegedly used to poison (one of the inmates). 'She went to medical and was vomiting everywhere. She was saying that the mushroom lady's cell was searched and they found chemistry books with pages tagged.' The former inmate kept a diary note dated the 29th of July, 2024. In it she writes that prison guards found 'two bottles of mayonnaise in Erin's clothes basket' when they searched her room. A justice department spokeswoman said: 'There is no evidence to support that there has been any contaminated food or suspected poisonings at Dame Phyllis Frost Centre.' But the former inmate who spoke to said the incident '100 per cent happened'. During her time with Patterson, the former inmate said the 50-year-old was 'hated'. 'She will need to be monitored by staff constantly. Nobody gives a shit about what she's done. They hate her because she's entitled, arrogant, demanding and rude. 'With Erin, she is constantly seeking special treatments, asking for things out of the ordinary that other prisoners wouldn't get. 'She is super intelligent, likes to make people feel like they're dumb. She is very manipulative. She gets fixated on things and doesn't see the mistakes that she makes. She mimics and makes fun of people, looks down at people.' The former inmate compared Patterson to Malka Leifer, the sex predator and former headmistress of the ultra-Orthodox Addas Israel school in Melbourne who is in a cell near Patterson's. exclusively revealed earlier this year that Leifer was being given perks in prison that no other inmate was getting. 'Some things I can't even explain to you. If she wants something, she gets it. She wanted an airfyer and had members of the Jewish community to write authorities about it. She gets whatever she wants.' The former inmate said Leifer has the ability to bake challah — a braided bread that the Jewish community eats for Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath, which is observed every Saturday. Patterson will be sentenced after the court reconvenes next month. In the meantime, she will take up a job behind bars. 'Likely textiles,' the former inmate said, noting that Patterson has been spending her time knitting gifts for her two children on the outside.
Yahoo
13-07-2025
- Yahoo
Woman found guilty in mushroom murder mystery that left three family members dead after meal
A woman who poisoned four family members, killing three of them, is facing life in prison after a jury found her guilty of murder-by-mushrooms. Erin Patterson invited her estranged husband's mother, father, aunt and uncle to lunch at her home in the southern state of Victoria in Australia in July 2023 and served them beef Wellington made with death cap mushrooms. Patterson, aged 50, told police she must have included the deadly fungi in her recipe by accident. But the trial proved she had lied and tried to hide evidence of her culinary crime by disposing of incriminating evidence. During the 10-week trial, which dominated headlines Down Under, the jury heard how Patterson had invited the family for lunch under the pretext of revealing a cancer diagnosis. What To Know About The Fda's Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning Warning Estranged husband Simon decided at the last minute not to attend, and Patterson was originally also accused of his attempted murder, although she never faced those charges in court. Read On The Fox News App Google searches for beef Wellington recipes have soared in Australia over the last few months, as the trial captivated the country. During Patterson's trial, the jury saw pictures of the leftover beef Wellington and heard how family members had gotten sick and gone to the local hospital, where mushroom poisoning was quickly diagnosed. They also heard from the sole survivor, her estranged husband's uncle Ian Wilkinson, who testified that Erin had served them beef Wellington with green beans and mashed potatoes in individual portions, but served herself on a different plate. No traces of the deadly mushrooms were found in her system, and she told police that she was bulimic and had vomited after eating the food. A doctor who treated the poisoning victims says he had taken one look at her and known something was wrong. In an interview with Australia's ABC News, Doctor Chris Webster said he had asked Erin Patterson where she had gotten the mushrooms. Couple Charged In Alleged Cyanide Plot To Kill Ex-girlfriends; Agents Hospitalized During Search "When she didn't respond in a way that instantly would have explained it as a tragic accident, that's it, from that moment in my mind, she was guilty," he said. "She was evil and very smart to have planned it all and carried it out, but didn't quite dot every 'i' and cross every 't.'" Although prosecutors couldn't find a specific motive for the murders, Australian media outlets have reported that Erin, who had worked as an accountant and also an air traffic controller, had resented her ex-husband, Simon, for not doing his share of household chores. In messages to online friends, the triple-murderer said she had had to hire a cleaner because of Simon's refusal to help out around the house. The couple have two children together. Prosecutors untangled her web of lies about the poisonings, including her claims that she had never been foraging for mushrooms, and that she didn't own a food dehydrator. The kitchen appliance was later found at a nearby landfill site, where Erin had taken it to try and dispose of evidence. Police found death cap mushroom residue inside. Patterson's legal team has 28 days to appeal the conviction. If there is no appeal, she will likely be sentenced in August and faces life behind article source: Woman found guilty in mushroom murder mystery that left three family members dead after meal
News.com.au
11-07-2025
- News.com.au
‘Seven times more likely': Unthinkable truth about women who kill
Australia and the rest of the world has been gripped by the infamous 'mushroom massacre' –which has seen Victoria native Erin Patterson found guilty of murdering three of her husband's relatives and severely injuring a fourth. On Monday, Patterson was sensationally found guilty of the murder of her father-in-law Don Patterson and mother-in-law Gail Patterson, as well of the murder of Heather Wilkson – her estranged husband's aunt – and the attempted murder of his uncle Ian Wilkinson. She had prepared a meal of individual portions of beef wellington which included a mushroom pate that contained fatal death cap mushrooms, which are so toxic that just one can kill a person. Now, Patterson joins a long list of women who have used poison as their murder weapon of choice, with research showing that women disproportionately use poison to kill compared to men. The mother-of-two – whose husband Simon Patterson had declined an invitation to the deadly luncheon and which was instead attended by his parents, aunt and uncle – had always maintained her innocence in the case, saying that she had inadvertently purchased the deadly mushrooms from an Asian grocer. The jury did not believe her and agreed with the prosecution's theory that Patterson foraged the death cap mushrooms close to her home and baked them into the beef wellington with the intention to kill. According to data from the 2012 Federal Bureau of Investigation Supplemental Homicide Report in the United States, women are seven times more likely than men to use poison as a murder weapon. Psychologist Irna Minauli told that women choosing to use poison more frequently than men was due to a range of factors. 'There is actually no difference between levels of aggression in men and women, it is just that the way aggression presents is different,' she explained. 'With men, they often act directly, whereas women may choose to act indirectly or through a third party.' She added that the weapons men and women use are also different, and that 'women often kill in ways that do not cause death immediately, such as poison.' Using poison can mean that the victim dies some time later, out of sight of the perpetrator who does not have to witness the direct result of their actions – allowing them to feel an 'emotional distance' from the killing, Minauli said. 'With poison, they don't have to see the impact of their actions directly, unlike when using other weapons where the consequences are more obvious and can involve blood and wounds.' According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation Supplemental Homicide Report, firearms are actually the most popular weapon of choice in murder cases committed by both men and women. However, if you remove guns from the equation, men most frequently use beatings, blunt objects and strangulation to kill, whereas women use stabbing, asphyxiation, poison, fire, drowning, explosives and defenestration (throwing someone out of a window). Research has also shown that poisoning victims are usually younger (including children) or older – and young adults are much less likely to be killed by poison. It is also usually used in cases where the killer knows the victim, rather than against a complete stranger. Patterson's murders certainly fit this profile, even though she tried to deceive law enforcement and the jury by claiming that the poisonings had been a tragic accident after she inadvertently added poisonous mushrooms to her guests' food. Her case however is not as unusual as it sounds. In 2016, Australian permanent resident and Indonesian national Jessica Kurmala Wongso was accused of poisoning her friend Wayan Mirna Salihin in a coffee shop in an upscale mall in Indonesia's capital Jakarta. Even though she always maintained her innocence, she was accused by prosecutors of inviting Salihin to the coffee shop, before arriving early and ordering her a Vietnamese iced coffee, to which she then added the powerful poison cyanide. After sipping the drink, Salihin immediately collapsed in the coffee shop and was pronounced dead on arrival at a local hospital, although the defence unsuccessfully argued that small traces of cyanide found in Salihin's organs following a partial autopsy could have been the result of embalming fluid used to prepare her body for burial. Wongso was sentenced to 20 years in prison, and released last year having served just eight years and is still fighting to clear her name. In 2021, also in Indonesia, a jilted lover named Nani Apriliani Nurjaman sent a package of spiked satay to her former boyfriend Yohanes Tomi Astanto. The traditional Indonesian meal of meat cubes served on wooden skewers had also been laced with cyanide, although the ex-boyfriend refused to accept the suspicious package when it was delivered to his home by an online delivery driver. In a tragic twist of fate, the delivery driver brought the food home to his family rather than waste it, where his wife and 10-year-old son ate it – killing the child and making the mother extremely ill. In Hong Kong in 2003, investment banker Robert Kissel was killed by his wife, American expatriate Nancy Kissel, who was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder which took place at the couple's luxury apartment. Kissel laced her husband's strawberry milkshake with powerful sedatives (which are included in the FBI data under 'poison'), rendering him unconscious before bludgeoning him to death. She then rolled his dead body in a carpet and dumped him in a storeroom. At trial, Kissel claimed that her husband had been abusive to her and their two young children, and that she could not remember clubbing him to death with a metal statue after she poisoned him. Rahmi Fauzi, a lecturer and psychologist who specialises in clinical and forensic psychology at Lambung Mangkurat University told that poison is considered 'a neater' way to kill. 'Other weapons, such as knives or even guns, can require more power or strength, and there is a risk that the victim may not die and may be able to fight back and even overpower the perpetrator,' she said. 'Often, women want to commit murder without having to use physical strength or inflict direct injuries, even though poisoning can mean that the victim or victims are struggling for their lives for hours afterwards.' She added that the way men and women face and react to direct conflict is different, which in turn can influence the way they murder. 'Men, when faced with conflict or when fighting, get a spike in adrenaline which drives them to face and get rid of the threat. 'For women, self defence is not physical, but about how they can stay safe or get themselves out of an unsafe situation.' Fauzi also said that traditional roles of women as homemakers may make it easier for them to administer poison if they are in charge of regularly preparing meals, food and drinks for others and that they often use 'natural' poisons that are found in their environment. 'When we look at poisoning cases, we see that women tend to use poisons that are easily available to them, such as medicines like sleeping pills or other natural poisons like plants or vegetation.'
Daily Mail
10-07-2025
- Daily Mail
Details emerge of the PARTY Erin Patterson threw the night before her arrest - and the mysterious break-ins at her Leongatha home after she was handcuffed
The night before Erin Patterson was arrested, the so-called 'mushroom chef' threw a party at her home - in what may be her final taste of freedom for the rest of her life. On the evening of Wednesday, November 1, 2023, Patterson held a knees-up at her Leongatha, rural Victoria, property for a group of friends, believed to be her four closest female mates. Among them was her closest ally, social worker Alison Rose Prior, to whom Patterson had signed over power of attorney to, plus other members of her then-dwindling inner circle. The weeknight gathering is believed to have been small and included Patterson's two children, a girl and a boy. But it was still noisy enough that it was noticed by neighbours, who speculated Patterson threw the party in the knowledge that charges were imminent. The party followed months of pressure and speculation about Patterson's role in the death cap mushroom deaths of her estranged husband Simon's parents and aunt after a beef Wellington lunch at her house. Gail and Don Patterson, both 70, and his aunt, Heather Wilkinson, 66, died after eating Erin's dish - and the local pastor Ian Wilkinson survived being poisoned only after a brutal battle. It took a full three months for Patterson to be placed in handcuffs. The morning after the party, she was taken to Wonthaggi police station, some 40km away, and charged with three counts of murder and one of attempted murder. Patterson was finally convicted on Monday of the murders and attempted murder on Monday. A jury unanimously found her guilty of carrying out all counts at the July 29,2023 lunch and she will be sentenced over the next few months, perhaps to spend the rest of her life in jail. But back in second half of 2023, Patterson was 'the woman at the centre of the alleged toxic mushroom case' who, intentionally or not, had made the dish Beef Wellington into death on a plate. It would only later emerge that on August 2, before anyone had died, Erin had dumped the food dehydrator, which had traces of Amanita Phalloides mushrooms on it, at the local tip, the Koonwarra Transfer and Landfill Station. On August 4, the same day that Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson both died, police discovered the dehydrator at the tip and photographed it, while seizing CCTV records. On August 5, police formally interviewed Patterson for the first time, and the media began gathering at her home, which she fled on August 7, telling reporters, 'I didn't do anything wrong. 'I loved them and I'm devastated they are gone. They were some of the best people I've ever met.' In her ensuing panic, on August 8, Patterson returned to the house and left with a giant white suitcase. Before departing the scene, she told reporters: 'I'm going shithouse, thanks for asking. What happened is devastating, I'm grieving too.' (Shithouse is an Australian colloquialism for having a terrible time.) It is believed she headed to a meeting with Ms Prior and three other Victorian women at which they discussed the lunch, and Erin signed over her power of attorney. On August 11, she released a written statement to Victoria Police, which the ABC obtained two days later. In it, she said: 'I am now wanting to clear up the record because I have become extremely stressed and overwhelmed by the deaths of my loved ones. 'I am hoping this statement might help in some way. I believe if people understood the background more, they would not be so quick to rush to judgement. 'I am now devastated to think that these mushrooms may have contributed to the illness suffered by my loved ones. I really want to repeat that I had absolutely no reason to hurt these people whom I loved.' Patterson said it had not been previously reported that she was also hospitalised after the lunch with bad stomach pains and diarrhoea. She claimed she was put on a saline drip and given a 'liver protective drug'. In the statement, Patterson admitted she lied to detectives about disposing of the dehydrator at the tip 'a long time ago', and that she had been so worried she might lose custody of her children, she had panicked and dumped it. Erin Patterson's dance with the truth was well underway, Gippsland was crawling with homicide detectives and speculation on crime talk forums like Mumsnet and Websleuths swung between theories that she was completely innocent to being as evil as one of the witches from Shakespeare's Macbeth. On Paterson's last morning of freedom she was placed under arrest at home and driven to Wonthaggi, while detectives painstakingly picked apart her house. But that wasn't the last of the strange happenings at her five-bedroom home. The following month, in late December, Alison Prior posted images on Facebook of a masked man captured on CCTV at Patterson's house. Thieves had allegedly stolen televisions and vacuum cleaners, and Erin's red MG, which she was caught on CCTV driving to the local tip to dump the food dehydrator and other items. Ms Prior's social media post after the final alleged burglary said: 'This time they stole a car, TVs, vacuums. I have finally been able to retrieve CCTV footage from the second time they broke into the property and removed all the outside cameras. 'Police caught a couple of offenders from the first burglary where they stole a heap of things and we are now thinking they took all spare keys, car keys etc and were not retrieved by the police at the time. 'They have obviously passed the keys on to mates to come and go from the house as they please.' Ms Prior posted the CCTV on local community groups trying to identify the burglars but someone recognised the house as Erin's. The Nine Network attended the house and filmed Ms Prior rapidly closing the gates as their cameras approached. Ms Prior alleged the home had been broken into three times since Ms Patterson's arrest and that an intruder had tried to tear down security cameras, before attempting the break-in. Victoria Police subsequently arrested and charged two people for the alleged break-in. A woman, 23, and a man, 18, from the Melbourne suburb of Cheltenham were arrested in Patterson's allegedly stolen car at 1am on December 28. 'The pair are expected to be charged on summons to appear at a magistrates' court at a later date,' Victoria Police said at the time. Daily Mail Australia has asked Victoria Police if the accused thieves were convicted. Early on, crime forums were abuzz with talk of Erin Patterson, with some saying her performance in front of TV cameras - of tears and emotion - was unconvincing Alison Prior was the one supporter who attended court for the entirety of Erin Patterson's trial, telling reporters following the verdict that she was 'saddened' by what had happened. 'I don't have any expectations, it's the justice system and it has to be what it is,' she said. She declined to answer whether Patterson, whose home had been shrouded with black plastic tarpaulins in the days before the verdict, had anticipated she'd be found not guilty. Ms Prior has regularly visited Patterson at the Dame Phyllis Frost Women's Correctional Centre since her incarceration following her November 2023 arrest. After hearing her fate, an emotionless Patterson told Prior before being taken back to prison, 'See you soon'
News.com.au
08-07-2025
- News.com.au
Search for Erin Patterson's motive continues after guilty verdicts
Killer mushroom cook Erin Patterson is 'certainly intelligent' but 'vastly overrated' her ability to fool police and her peers into getting away with murder. Patterson, 50, was found guilty on Monday of plotting to kill members of her estranged husband's family by serving them beef wellington laced with death cap mushrooms in 2023. Criminologist Dr Xanthe Mallett said the guilty verdicts handed down – three for murder and one for attempted murder – were 'momentous' after a trial that could have gone either way. Dr Mallett, based at CQ University, said that despite the closure of the trial, there remained a question over what motivated Patterson to target her extended family. 'We'll never know what her motive was unless she chooses to share it. She's the only person who knows,' she said. 'But certainly the Crown did speak about – and some of the text messages (tendered as evidence) do demonstrate – some tensions within the family. 'And that could have been a driver.' Speaking on The Trial podcast, the professor said she and renowned criminal psychologist Dr Watson Munro had 'picked apart' Patterson's personality as they observed the case. 'It appears, or what I believe happened is, she has this simmering rage for (ex-husband) Simon and perhaps felt that his family hadn't supported her. 'And therefore some of that rage is transferred to them, and she felt justified in harming them because of this … and therefore she is protecting herself.' Don and Gail Patterson and Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson died after attending a lunch at Patterson's Leongatha home on July 29, 2023. Heather's husband, local pastor Ian Wilkinson, fell critically ill but survived. At trial, prosecutors argued Patterson had intentionally lured her in-laws to lunch by lying about a cancer scare and baked the deadly mushrooms into their meals. She denied this and claimed the inclusion of toxic fungi was a tragic accident. The court heard Patterson, a true crime buff, foraged for mushrooms in areas where death caps were known to grow in regional Victoria. Dr Mallett told that Patterson – now a convicted mass murderer – demonstrated her intelligence while giving her evidence on the stand and under cross-examination from the Crown. 'She was emotional at the right times, but not histrionic. So nothing extreme,' she said. 'And when she didn't understand the question, she asked for an explanation. And she was very measured and controlled and considered in her responses. 'And I think she's clearly an intelligent woman. But intelligent women and people still commit crimes.' She told The Trial, however, that Patterson was 'very dumb in other ways'. 'This was obviously premeditated, planned. It was not well-planned, it was not well carried out,' she said. 'Her sense of own ability I think is vastly overrated. 'She thought she could out-think the police, all the experts and the witnesses and everybody else because she is so smart.' The jury was asked to weigh Patterson's lone version of events, which exculpated her of the allegations, against the 50-odd witnesses who testified during the 46-day trial. Prosecutors highlighted Patterson's 'lies upon lies', including suggestions she made to Don and Gail about potentially having cancer and telling police she did not own a dehydrator. 'I can't speak for the jury … but I imagine it would have been difficult to believe her, given the litany of lies she told,' Dr Mallett told 'And you know, she said basically everybody else was either lying or wrong. 'And clearly the jury didn't believe that and found the Crown's case more compelling.' Dr Mallett said one of the aspects of the case that had made it such a worldwide phenomenon was its setting in a 'beautiful wine cheese region of Australia'. 'And yet it was harbouring a mass murderer,' she said. 'And I think that with Erin Patterson, everything about this case is so normal. 'The location is so idyllic, Erin Patterson presents as so normal – a middle aged mother, cooking a lunch, a very normal activity for her family. 'And then you've got that kind of juxtaposed against the tragedy that's unfolded. 'And I think that is what really shocked people … they couldn't imagine why somebody would do something so awful and abhorrent to their own family members. 'And I think we still haven't got to the crux of that, because obviously no motive was presented in court.' The professor said it was important to remember the family at the centre of the case, which was still 'suffering'. Patterson was remanded in custody ahead of her sentencing after the verdicts were read out on Monday.
