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ABC News
07-07-2025
- ABC News
Erin Patterson's guilty verdict over a death cap mushroom lunch brings her trial to an end
Two years ago, Erin Patterson was a mother of two from a regional town who lived a quiet life. Among her small circle of friends she was known as an internet "super sleuth" who participated in true crime Facebook discussion groups. She'd had some time off work to focus on her children, but was planning to pick up a nursing and midwifery degree in the near future. Now, the 50-year-old has been found guilty of murder, in an extraordinary trial that has made global headlines. An unexpected invite July 29, 2023 was a mild winter day in the Victorian town of Leongatha, a small community with a population of fewer than 6,000 residents more than 130 kilometres south-east of Melbourne. The fine weather set the backdrop for a car that made its way past the bushland, rolling green hills and the dairy farms that mark the South Gippsland landscape. The Pattersons and Wilkinsons live in the Korumburra-Leongatha region. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) South Gippsland is a major part of Victoria's dairy industry. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) Erin Patterson hosted the lunch at her Leongatha home, east of Melbourne. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) After a short drive, it turned into the driveway of Erin Patterson's home. The newly built two-storey house was surrounded by eucalypts, gum trees and native flora. Erin saw it as her "final house", a place where she could grow old and her children could always return. That Saturday, it was the setting for a small family lunch. The two-storey Leongatha home was a place where Erin had planned to grow old. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) Stepping out of the car was Don Patterson, Erin's father-in-law. A retired high school teacher, he had a fondness for rocket-propelled gadgets and backyard science experiments with his grandson. Beside him was Gail, his wife of 50 years — a mother of four, school office worker, and long-time volunteer. Their son, Simon Patterson — Erin's estranged husband — had been invited but cancelled the night before via text, saying he felt "too uncomfortable". Don and Gail Patterson were Erin's parents-in-law. ( Supplied ) Simon Patterson did not attend the lunch at the centre of the trial. ( AAP: James Ross ) Don and Gail had travelled to Erin's place with Ian and Heather Wilkinson. Heather, Gail's younger sister, was also an educator and continued to tutor migrants in English. Ian, her husband, was a well-known figure in nearby Korumburra, just 15 minutes from Leongatha. For about 25 years, he'd been the pastor and leader of the local Baptist church. Heather Wilkinson and her husband Ian had been looking forward to the lunch at Erin's, the trial heard. ( Supplied ) Erin had invited the group over a few Sundays earlier after church, seemingly out of the blue. Heather, a meticulous planner, had noted "Erin's for lunch" in her diary for July 29. Not wanting to show up empty-handed, Heather prepared a fruit platter and Gail brought an orange cake. "We were very happy to be invited," Ian later told the Supreme Court of Victoria. "Erin met us and took us into the house." A week after the lunch, Don, Gail and Heather were dead. Ian lay in intensive care, fighting for his life. A recipe of 'ultimate indulgence' On the menu that day was something more elaborate than the shepherd's pie Erin had prepared for Don and Gail at another lunch just a few weeks earlier. On page 252 of celebrated Australian cookbook author Nagi Maehashi's "Dinner", mouth-watering layers of decadence were summed up in one glossy image. Golden, flaky pastry, an egg crepe, prosciutto and mushroom paste surrounding the piece de resistance: a juicy, pink beef tenderloin. Australian author Nagi Maehashi included a recipe for beef Wellington in her hit cookbook 'Dinner'. ( ABC News, file photo ) The beef Wellington is widely considered a British classic. Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay regards it as "the ultimate indulgence" and something he'd put on his last supper menu. The method outlined in the RecipeTin Eats cookbook called for at least two hours of preparation and another two to cook. Erin, an experienced home cook, told the court she decided to take on the challenge. In the days leading up to the lunch, she turned to friends on Facebook, asking for tips to master the notoriously difficult dish. "I wanted it to be special," she later explained. Erin told the court she'd used a variety of mushrooms to make the paste for the beef Wellingtons. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) On Erin's account, she was busy in the kitchen on the morning of the lunch, making final tweaks to the beef Wellington meal. She skipped the prosciutto, knowing her father-in-law Don didn't eat pork. She also swapped in filo pastry for the egg crepe the recipe called for, because the crepe looked a bit "complicated". Another significant adjustment occurred, Erin said, because she couldn't find a large piece of beef tenderloin at the supermarket that week. She bought five twin packs of eye fillet to create individually wrapped Wellington portions instead of one large log. Erin served individually parcelled beef Wellingtons to her guests. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) That meant recalculating other ingredients — including the mushrooms. The recipe called for 700 grams of flavoursome portobellos, but Erin opted for a cheaper alternative, using several packets of pre-sliced supermarket button mushrooms to make a duxelles — a paste with blended shallots and garlic. "As I was cooking it down, I tasted it a few times and it seemed a little bland to me," Erin would later tell the court. So she turned to her pantry. On her account, she found a Tupperware container with some dried mushrooms she'd stored earlier. She rehydrated and finely chopped them, then added them to the duxelles. Erin says she redhyrated the mushrooms before adding them to the dish. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) Erin would later say it was only in retrospect that she realised a combination of foraged and grocer-bought mushrooms may have been mixed up in the container. But prosecutors told the court the preparation of the duxelles was one of the final steps in a plot to murder four people with death cap mushrooms. Later that morning, Erin dropped her nine-year-old daughter, 14-year-old son and his friend off at the Leongatha McDonald's. The children grabbed a snack and headed to the local cinema. Erin returned home and waited for her guests to arrive. 'Grab a plate' Erin was mashing potatoes when Don, Gail, Heather and Ian arrived. Heather was immediately taken by the modern, open-plan layout, and headed straight for Erin's kitchen. Erin's guests were shown around her garden before they sat down to lunch. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) The Wilkinsons had recently built a pantry in their own home and Heather was keen for inspiration. "Come and look at the pantry," Ian recalled her saying to him, as she urged him and her sister Gail to follow. Ian, however, told the court that Erin seemed "very reluctant" about the guests investigating the pantry. He recalled thinking that "maybe the pantry was a mess". After a tour of the freshly landscaped garden, Erin pulled the individual beef Wellingtons from the oven and started putting them onto plates. Each person received a scoop of mashed potatoes and a portion of green beans. Each guest received a serving of beef Wellington, mashed potato and green beans. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) According to Ian, Heather and Gail wanted to assist Erin with serving, but the host rejected the offer. "Grab a plate guys, I'm just going to finish off the gravy," Erin later recalled telling them. When Erin joined them at the table, the group said grace and began their meal. Erin Patterson's guests were served beef Wellingtons with mashed potato and green beans. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) At the trial, Ian went through his memories of the lunch. He was certain the guests ate from matching grey plates but that Erin's was a "tanny" orange colour and smaller in size. Erin disagreed, saying the plates in her house were black, white, and black and red, and that there was a colourful plate made by her young daughter. Erin said she couldn't recall which plate she ate from. The beef Wellington lunch included mashed potatoes and green beans. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) Beef Wellington includes pastry, meat and mushrooms. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) All of the guests ate at least half of their meals. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) Ian said he and Heather finished their portions. Gail ate half of hers, while Don ate his serving and polished off what his wife couldn't finish. Erin gave evidence that she ate some of the main course. The orange cake and the fruit platter were also served. Erin feeds a cancer lie to her lunch guests After the lunch, the conversation at the table took a serious turn. "Erin announced that she had cancer. She said that she was very concerned because she believed it was very serious, life threatening. She was anxious about telling the kids," Ian said. Erin, who would later describe having a complicated relationship with the health system and of being an enthusiastic user of 'Doctor Google', remembered the conversation differently. At the trial, she admitted she had spoken about a "medical issue", but denied saying she had a confirmed cancer diagnosis. Erin Patterson pleaded not guilty to murdering her relatives. ( ABC News: Paul Tyquin ) "I had an issue a year or two earlier where I thought I had ovarian cancer and had various scans about and related to that," she said. "I'm not proud of this, but I led them to believe that I might be needing some treatment in regards to that in the next few weeks or months." At her trial, Erin told the jury this lie was a cover story for something she found embarrassing — upcoming plans for weight-loss treatment. Patterson told the court she'd struggled with her body image for most of her life, describing a childhood where her mother had weighed her "weekly". "I went to the extreme of barely eating then to, through my adulthood, going the other way and bingeing, I suppose, for want of a better word," she said. "I never — never had a good relationship with food, a healthy relationship." She said at the time of the lunch, she had been looking into options for liposuction and gastric-band surgery, and was keen to know her in-laws would be there to support her if she went ahead with the surgery. In either case, the court heard the discussion of Erin's health was cut short when her son and his friend returned home from the movies. The guests quickly prayed for Erin, and soon after, went home. The guests from the beef Wellington lunch fell critically ill hours later. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) In the lull after her guests had left, Erin told the jury she was cleaning up when, slice by slice, she ate the remaining two-thirds of the orange cake brought to the lunch by Gail. Afterwards, she said, she made herself vomit — a claim her defence lawyer would later list as one of several factors that might have explained why she was saved from the critical death cap poisoning sickness that seized her four guests. The guests fall ill Hours after the Saturday lunch, Heather Wilkinson raved about the "delicious" and "beautiful" beef Wellington meal to Angela Child and Jenny McPhee from the Baptist church. Both women later recalled how the Wilkinson couple seemed to be perfectly healthy. But later that night, Heather jolted out of bed, rushed to the laundry and began vomiting. "It wasn't very long after that that I also felt the need to go and vomit," Ian would later testify. "We had vomiting and diarrhoea and, yes, that continued right through the night." They weren't the only ones suffering. Around the same time, Don and Gail Patterson were struck by the same relentless illness. The next morning, they called an ambulance and were taken to Korumburra Hospital. Lunch guests fell ill overnight and presented to local hospitals the Sunday morning after the lunch. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) Simon Patterson, their son, also had concerns for his aunt and uncle. He went over to Ian and Heather's home in Korumburra, and found Heather in the lounge room sitting next to a "spew bucket". Simon offered to take his aunt and uncle to hospital. As they prepared to leave, Simon said Heather made a curious remark. "She looked a bit puzzled and she said, 'I noticed Erin served herself her food on a coloured plate, which was different to the rest'," Simon would go on to tell the Supreme Court. When the Wilkinsons arrived at Korumburra Hospital, they were turned away because the beds were full. They were instructed to go to the larger hospital in Leongatha, part of the same regional health network. On the drive to Leongatha, Simon said Heather brought up the "coloured plate" again. "She asked me, 'Is Erin short of crockery? Is that why she would have this different kind of coloured plate that she served herself with?'," he said. "I said, 'Yes, Erin doesn't have that many plates and that may be the reason.'" About 11am, Ian and Heather arrived at Leongatha Hospital, where doctors began ramping up their care as it became clear this was no routine case of food poisoning. Ian and Heather Willkinson were taken to Leongatha Hospital. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) Back at Korumburra Hospital, Don and Gail were given an anti-nausea drug and hooked up to IV drips while medical staff ran blood tests. Simon choked back tears as he described to the jury the confronting scene he witnessed during a hospital visit. "Dad was substantially worse than Mum," he recalled. "He was really struggling. He was lying on his side, he was hunched quite noticeably. "His voice was strained in a way that was … he wasn't right inside. He was feeling pain." About this time, the blood tests run on the pair had begun to return "extremely abnormal" results. Don and Gail Patterson were initially treated at Korumburra Hospital. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) Doctors detected alarming liver failure, spurring the urgent transfer of Don and Gail to Dandenong Hospital in Melbourne's south-east. The next day, Ian and Heather were also transferred to Melbourne hospitals, as doctors zeroed in on death cap mushroom poisoning as a probable cause of the illnesses. By the Tuesday after the lunch, all four were in the Austin Hospital's intensive care unit on life support and in an advanced state of multiple organ failure. A week after the lunch, three of the guests were dead. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) Gail passed away that Friday, and a day later Don, her husband of nearly five decades, died too. They were both 70 years old. Heather, 66, died on the same day as Gail, leaving her husband of more than four decades, Ian, a widower. The trial heard Ian came close to death, too, and it wasn't until September that he was discharged to a rehabilitation ward. Nearly two years after his extraordinary recovery, Ian would face the alleged architect of his wife's death as he gave evidence at her murder trial. The cook's health in question As doctors escalated treatment for her guests, Erin Patterson told the trial she was falling sick herself. Patterson said the major symptoms of her illness began close to midnight after the lunch. She said she had felt "quite nauseous", suffered abdominal cramps and went to the toilet "every 20 minutes". Erin spent part of the day after the lunch driving from Leongatha to Tyabb. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) The morning after the lunch, Simon called Erin and told her his parents were in hospital. Erin told her estranged husband she was also experiencing diarrhoea. Erin told the trial that despite being unwell that day, it was important to her that she drove her son on a 180-kilometre round trip to Tyabb on the Mornington Peninsula for a flying lesson that afternoon. "Because he was really passionate about it, and he'd had a lot of cancelled lessons so I just didn't want to disappoint him," a visibly emotional Erin recalled. During the drive, she did not use a toilet. However Patterson would later tell the trial that she pulled over on the side of the road, went into the bush and emptied her bowels. "I cleaned myself up a little bit with tissues, and put them in a dog poo bag and put it in my handbag and we hit the road again," she explained. Shortly afterwards, Erin stopped at a petrol station while her children waited in the car. Security footage showed her wearing a grey jumper, white pants, and carrying a small crossbody bag. She entered a public toilet and emerged just nine seconds later, before the court heard she purchased a chicken wrap, a sandwich and some sour lollies which Erin said were for her children. Erin made a stop at the BP station in Caldermeade. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) Erin said her nine-second toilet visit was used to bin the tissues she'd soiled during her emergency stop in the bushes. Just before reaching Tyabb, the flying lesson was called off due to bad weather. Frustrated, Erin turned the car around and drove back home to Leongatha. That evening, her children ate eye fillet steak with mashed potatoes and green beans, which Erin said were leftovers from the beef Wellington lunch. Erin said she made herself a bowl of cereal. At trial, prosecutors said Erin's account of this day was littered with lies that hid the fact that she was never ill like her guests. Her son told police he saw her drinking coffee on Sunday morning and bought her a coffee during one of their stops. He didn't recall her roadside toilet stop, despite sitting in the front passenger seat. In her evidence, Erin rebutted these arguments. She said she'd been sipping "some kind of herbal tea, like lemon and ginger tea" from her usual coffee mug on Sunday morning and her son must have been mistaken. And she said he bought her a coffee "out of habit", not because she asked for one. She told the trial she believed she had a "little bit" of it before throwing it out later. Her lawyer also cast doubt on the reliability of Erin's son's evidence, telling the jury that while he didn't recall the alleged roadside toilet stop, he also did not recall the petrol station stop captured on CCTV footage. Erin rejected any suggestion she'd lied about her illness on the Sunday — or in the days that followed. The lunch host heads to hospital In Leongatha Hospital the next morning, an alarmed Chris Webster was repeatedly calling Erin Patterson's mobile phone. Minutes earlier, Patterson had abruptly left the hospital, after discharging herself against medical advice. The doctor was flabbergasted. He later told the court he'd just informed Patterson he was concerned she may have been exposed to a potentially fatal dose of death cap mushrooms. Medical staff who assessed Erin at Leongatha Hospital gave evidence to her trial. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) "I thought that being in hospital would be a better place for her to be," he told her trial. Patterson had first arrived at the hospital just after 8am, when she told staff "I've got gastro", her trial heard. Dr Webster had realised she was the fifth member of the same gathering attended by suspected death cap poisoning patients Don, Gail, Heather and Ian. But as staff prepared to admit her, Erin had insisted on leaving. At trial, she disputed that medical staff had made the gravity of the situation clear: 'They didn't tell me it was life-threatening.' Unable to reach Patterson over the phone, Dr Webster took a drastic step. He called the police and asked for help locating her. Medical staff at Leongatha Hospital urged Erin to stay for treatment. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) "While I was attending to other patients a nurse informed me she had discharged herself against medical advice," Dr Webster told the triple-0 operator. "She was only here for five minutes." At her trial, Erin said she drove straight home from the hospital, fed her lambs, brought the dog inside, packed her daughter's ballet bag and decided to "lay down for a little bit". About 90 minutes after leaving the Leongatha Hospital, she returned. Staff asked Erin more questions about the meal, becoming concerned that her kids had also eaten leftovers of the toxic food. Erin, however, initially dismissed the risk, explaining she had scraped off the pastry and mushrooms before serving it to the children. After some more discussion, she agreed the children should be brought to hospital to be checked out for potential death cap mushroom poisoning. Simon was quickly dispatched to the children's school to bring them to hospital, and Erin was admitted to the ward. Finding the mushroom source On July 31, several health professionals asked Erin about the mushrooms in the beef Wellington and where they had come from. In court, witnesses all agreed that Erin had listed the Leongatha Woolworths as a source. However, some others testified that she had named a second source — an Asian or Chinese grocer. Erin said the grocer-bought mushrooms were packaged in a clear plastic bag. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) Prosecutors said the Asian grocer only started to feature in Erin's accounts after her 90-minute absence from Leongatha Hospital — accusing her of using the time to workshop a lie. It was another allegation Erin denied. A toxicologist who spoke to Erin by phone on July 31 told the trial Erin couldn't name the store, but had told him she believed it was somewhere in the Melbourne suburbs of Oakleigh or Glen Waverley and she'd bought them in April 2023. Later that day, Erin was transferred to the Monash Medical Centre in Clayton. There, she allegedly told doctors Rhonda Stuart and Laura Muldoon she had purchased dried mushrooms in a sealed packet from a shop in Oakleigh or Glen Waverley. Erin told the court she couldn't recall where she'd bought the dried mushrooms. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) According to Dr Muldoon, Erin denied using any wild or foraged mushrooms in the meal. "She had some chapped lips but otherwise looked very well," Dr Muldoon said of Erin's condition. "Heart rate, blood pressure … Everything was normal." Multiple investigations were underway. Doctors were scrambling to understand what was making the lunch guests so sick, health officials were trying to work out if deadly mushrooms were being commercially sold and a hunt was on to find any samples of the food Erin had served. The police officers initially sent to her house to perform a welfare check were given a new task: to retrieve leftovers of the meal in question. An officer put on two sets of gloves and lifted up the red lid of a bin outside the house. At the bottom, he found a brown paper bag. Inside were the soggy remains of beef Wellington. Prosecutors said testing on these leftovers later revealed that at least some of the beef Wellington served at Erin's lunch contained the toxin from death cap mushrooms. In the end, no death cap mushrooms were found by public authorities either in the Woolworths supply chain or any Asian grocer in the suburbs identified by Erin. Prosecutors said Erin's whole account of dried mushrooms from an Asian grocer was another lie that sent health officials on a "wild goose chase". Erin insisted it had been the truth, but not the whole truth, telling her trial she withheld one fact from investigators: she'd been foraging. The 'notorious' death cap mushroom The death cap, or Amanita phalloides by its scientific name, is an introduced species in Victoria, and is commonly encountered during the autumn and winter months. The toxin contained in three tablespoons of death cap mushrooms — roughly 50 grams— can be enough to kill a person. Death cap mushrooms contain a toxin that can be lethal if ingested. ( ABC News: Gregory Nelson ) But as Victoria's chief toxicologist Dimitri Gerostamoulos told the Supreme Court, there's no simple poison-to-person formula. The mushroom species, the concentration of toxins, and each individual's physical makeup can alter the equation. "These estimates are derived from studies that have been conducted in mice, rats and dogs. They're not studies that have been directly derived from humans, for obvious reasons, but they are very toxic compounds," Dr Gerostamoulos said. "They essentially stop cell replication, they lead to tissue necrosis and they really do affect the function of the liver and the kidney which is essential for normal physiological function." The toxin of a death cap mushroom cannot be removed by cooking. ( ABC News: Iskhandar Razak ) The death cap belongs to the broader Amanita family, which includes several highly toxic species. Some of the most lethal contain a trio of compounds: alpha-, beta-, and gamma-amanitins. Under questioning, Dr Gerostamoulos was asked about the "thermo stability" of these compounds. In essence, what happens when you expose them to extreme temperatures, such as in an oven? "Their structure remains intact even in high temperature environments," he said. The trial heard Erin was aware of death cap mushrooms at least a year before her guests arrived for lunch. The court heard she'd developed a burgeoning interest in foraging wild mushrooms after Victoria's COVID lockdowns. During walks with her children, Patterson said she'd noticed mushrooms growing in the area. Erin took her children for walks on a rail trail in the Korumburra-Leongatha area. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) Erin told the court she developed an interest in the wild mushrooms she saw growing during walks during COVID-19 lockdowns. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) Erin said she noticed mushrooms growing in the area during her walks. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) After a time, she told the court she became confident enough to eat the mushrooms she identified as safe. A couple of years later, her lawyer said Erin had wanted to check if the "notorious" death cap grew in the South Gippsland area and so she jumped on the computer in her home to visit a website called iNaturalist. The citizen science website has millions of users worldwide, who post observations of flora and fauna. The iNaturalist site has millions of users worldwide. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) In May, 2022, the court heard Patterson used the site to check if death caps grew in her region. She denied this was done for the purpose of deliberately foraging the deadly mushroom species. Erin told the court she'd occasionally forage for mushrooms in the area and was doing so in the months before the beef Wellington lunch took place. A mushroom fascination As her defence lawyer Colin Mandy SC told the trial, his client's foraging was fuelled by her "love" for mushrooms. "It's not made up. She told people that," he said. Patterson herself explained her dedication to the fungi simply: "They taste good and they're very healthy." Erin told the court she foraged in the region around her home in the period before the lunch. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) After the lunch, her son told police he held a fond memory of a walk with his mum during COVID lockdowns, where she had described to him the symbiotic relationship between trees and fungi. "We were talking about how mushrooms … grow with the trees and support each other," he said. Erin also shared her love of mushrooms with her Facebook friends, along with news of a purchase in April 2023 that would take her foraging to a new level: a Sunbeam food dehydrator. She joked with her friends about whether supermarkets would let her dehydrate fresh produce before she paid for it. Erin said she and her children went for walks at the Korumburra Botanic Park. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) The prosecution said Patterson had bought the dehydrator a few weeks before the lunch as part of her preparations for the deadly meal. But Erin said she'd simply wanted to be able to eat foraged, wild mushrooms all-year round. "It wasn't just for mushrooms," she told her trial. "I thought perhaps I could use it to preserve a whole range of things." Erin purchased a Sunbeam food dehydrator a couple of months before her lunch, the court heard. ( Sunbeam, file photo ) It was the dehydrator she used to dry mushrooms, sometimes blitzing them into a powder before secretly adding them to her children's meals. It was well known within the family that the children were not particularly fond of mushrooms, especially the couple's daughter. "I put dried mushrooms in quite a lot of the food that they ate," she testified. "Spaghetti, lasagne, stew, brownies. I was trying to get extra vegetables into my kids' bodies." Pins on a map On April 18, 2023, retired pharmacist Christine McKenzie was walking about the small Gippsland town of Loch when she spotted some mushrooms growing around the roots of an oak tree. Christine McKenzie sighted death caps at the Loch Recreation Reserve. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) The poisons specialist recognised the instant danger posed by the mushrooms, which she identified as death caps. She removed all the death caps she could find, but not before she snapped some photos, which she later uploaded to iNaturalist. According to Ms McKenzie, the site used the photo's metadata to accurately pinpoint the spot from where she'd removed the mushrooms. Two years later, she would recount the mushroom discovery in court, sitting in the witness box. "This is a — if I may say so myself — quite a nice image of a death cap mushroom," she said, as a photo was displayed on a large screen. "It shows, first of all, the cap, which is white, with a bit of a yellowy, olive green tinge." Also visible were the telltale markers: white gills tucked under the cap, a straight white stem, and at the base, a distinctive bulb. Ms McKenzie wasn't the only one to spot death caps in the Gippsland region that season. About a month later, renowned fungi expert Tom May also spotted death caps at nearby Outtrim, which he also flagged on iNaturalist. Tom May uploaded a photo of death cap mushrooms at Outtrim to the iNaturalist site. ( iNaturalist ) The two locations flagged for death caps on iNaturalist were less than half an hour's drive from Erin's Leongatha home. Telstra phone records would later show her mobile pinging off local cell towers in Loch on April 28 — 10 days after Ms McKenzie's photos appeared on iNaturalist. On May 22, just one day after Dr May's post, her phone connected with towers in both Loch and Outtrim. Prosecutors alleged the phone tower evidence backed up their claim that Erin had deliberately headed out to the sites flagged on iNaturalist for a death cap mushroom hunt. Outtrim Recreation Reserve was one of two locations where the prosecution alleged Erin deliberately foraged death cap mushrooms. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) In court, Erin denied it, with her defence lawyer suggesting to telecommunications expert Matthew Sorrel that it would be "entirely a matter of speculation" to look at the phone data and draw conclusions about the accused's actions. "Within reasonable geographical limits, yes," Dr Sorell replied. A 'frantic' spiral takes hold Three days after the lunch, Erin was at the Monash Medical Centre in Melbourne's south-east. It was Tuesday, and doctors were preparing to discharge her having run a series of tests. Erin herself told staff that she was no longer experiencing vomiting and diarrhoea. Erin was taken to Monash Medical Centre for medical testing after the lunch. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) A doctor told the trial her liver function tests were "all within normal limits and that usually goes against a poisoning with Amanita phalloides". At the adjoining children's hospital, Erin's son and daughter were under observation amid concerns they had eaten leftovers from the meal served to the lunch guests. But neither child showed any symptoms and both were cleared of illness. Simon and the kids visited Erin in the ward. It was there where the topic of mushrooms was brought up. According to Erin, the children left the room to buy something from the vending machine. Now alone with Simon, Erin said, the atmosphere shifted. He looked at her and asked a question that stopped her cold. "Is that how you poisoned my parents, using that dehydrator?" In shock, Erin said she replied, "of course not". Simon later denied ever making the remark. But Erin said the alleged question sent her into a spiral of panic. She felt "scared" and "responsible", worried she had made a terrible mistake while preparing the beef Wellington. "I had dried foraged mushrooms in it weeks earlier, and I was starting to think, 'what if they'd gone in the container with the Chinese mushrooms?'" she said. "I had made the meal and served it, and people had got sick." Simon Patterson denied he ever confronted his wife about the dehydrator in a hospital conversation. ( AAP: Diego Fedele ) By this stage, child protection authorities had become aware of the mass poisoning case. Erin said she feared she would be blamed, and what that would mean for her son and daughter's futures. "I was scared they'd remove the children," she said. Her defence lawyer said Erin's panic drove her to dump the dehydrator at the local tip, repeatedly factory reset a mobile phone and then lie to police about ever foraging for mushrooms. Erin dumped her dehydrator at the Koonwarra Transfer Station in the days after the lunch. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) "I was frantic," Erin told the trial. The prosecution told the jury these weren't the panicked actions of an innocent woman, but a cover-up by a calculating killer. 'I loved them': Erin protests her innocence A week after the lunch, police visited Erin's home, seized electronic devices and interviewed her, as they honed in on her as a key suspect in the deaths. By then, the story of a mother of two in a regional Australian town suspected of killing her in-laws with death cap mushrooms had spread across the world. A media pack gathered outside her Leongatha home, trying to get a comment from the only person from the lunch in a position to speak about it. Erin told reporters she was "devastated" by her guests' illnesses. ( News Corp ) Wiping her eyes and with her voice cracking, Patterson told reporters she could not "fathom" the tragedy that had occurred. "I'm devastated, I loved them," she said. The extraordinary public interest in the case persisted in the coming months, as Erin maintained her innocence and police charged her with murder in November, 2023. About 18 months later, the grieving Patterson and Wilkinson families prepared to attend and give evidence to the Supreme Court trial. It was held in the law courts at Morwell, close to the South Gippsland communities at the heart of the case. So it was upon a small regional Victorian town that dozens of journalists descended to convey details of the extraordinary case to readers around the globe. The trial was held in Courtroom 4 of the Latrobe Valley Law Courts. ( ABC News ) The trial quickly became one of the most-covered cases in recent Australian history. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) Morwell hosted an influx of visitors as the trial took place. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) Inside court, prosecutors told the jury the accused was a duplicitous liar, who had laid down a series of major deceptions as she prepared a death-cap-laced meal with murderous intent. The most significant, prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC alleged, was the deliberate concealment of death cap mushrooms in a weekend lunch served up to her trusting relatives gathered under her roof. "The sinister deception was to use a nourishing meal as the vehicle to deliver the deadly poison," Dr Rogers said. Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers led the cross-examination of Erin Patterson. ( AAP: James Ross ) Under the prosecution's version of events, Patterson had travelled out to deliberately forage death caps from the Loch and Outtrim sites flagged on iNaturalist. She'd brought them home, dehydrated them, blitzed them into a powder and then added them to her guests' Wellingtons. The individual parcels, which Patterson had told the court was due to availability of eye fillet, was instead a "deliberate choice" to facilitate murder, Dr Rogers alleged. "It enabled the accused to control what ingredients went in to each individual parcel and it was the only way to be sure that she, herself, would not accidentally consume any death cap mushroom," Dr Rogers said. The lie told to her guests about potentially requiring cancer treatment was another part of the alleged crime, according to Dr Rogers, who said it was told to create a pretence for bringing the relatives together at her house for lunch. Defence rebutted that the suggestion was nonsensical as, by the time the accused shared the lie with her guests, the deadly meal had already been eaten. "If this was a ruse, there was no need to have the conversation because the deed — on the Crown case, the consumption of the food — had already happened," Mr Mandy said. Colin Mandy SC led Erin Patterson's defence team. ( AAP: James Ross ) After the lunch, the prosecution said Patterson's deceptive conduct deepened, as they alleged she had faked her own illness. Among the events highlighted to the jury was the mother of two's evidence that she had fed leftover meat from the lunch to her children. Dr Rogers noted Erin's son had told police his mother had told him on the Sunday that she suspected the Saturday lunch had caused his grandparents to fall ill. "Why then would the accused feed the leftovers of a meal to her children knowing it had, or even believing it might have, led to the hospitalisation of four people and on her own account, her own illness?" Dr Rogers asked the jury. "In particular, why would she feed them the meat portion of that meal which, if she didn't know the mushrooms were the issue, would be the more obvious suspect for any food poisoning." Erin told the trial she believed her son was "confused" and disputed that she had told him that on the Sunday. Patterson's later decision to dump her food dehydrator (subsequently found to contain death cap mushroom residue), lie to police and run three factory resets on a mobile phone handed to police were all cited as incriminating conduct by the prosecution. An absent motive as jury deliberates What the prosecution did not outline to the jury was a specific motive for the alleged murders. Under Victorian law, only intent needs to be proved beyond reasonable doubt. However, the prosecution did highlight to the jury that after several years of amicable separation, tensions between Erin and Simon had flared in late 2022, some months before the lunch. Messages shared to the court showed Patterson labelling her estranged husband a "deadbeat" and her in-laws a "lost cause" as she vented to Facebook friends over a during a dispute sparked by child support payments. "This family I swear to f***ing god," she wrote in one of the messages. The prosecution said the messages revealed Patterson had "two faces" when it came to her relationship with her in-laws. Erin Patterson told the trial she was devastated by the outcome of the lunch. ( ABC News: Anita Lester ) "You might think what the accused outwardly portrayed did not always align with her true feelings," Dr Rogers told the jury. The defence countered that the prosecution had taken a handful of messages during a brief spat out of context and misrepresented the largely respectful relationship between Erin and the Pattersons. "Erin Patterson had a motive to keep these people in her world so that they could keep supporting her and her children," Mr Mandy said. Mr Mandy told the jury this lack of motive weakened the prosecution case, making it harder to put beyond reasonable doubt Patterson's intentions when she prepared the meal. Erin gives 'pedantic' evidence to her trial As the trial entered its sixth week, Erin stepped into the witness box herself. The small Morwell courtroom was packed with reporters, the public and the grieving Patterson-Wilkinson family members — including surviving lunch guest Ian Wilkinson. Flanked by relatives, the Korumburra pastor watched hour upon hour of Erin's evidence, as she denied a litany of allegations painting her as a calculated, cold-blooded killer. Ian Wilkinson attended hearings throughout the trial, which ran for more than nine weeks. ( AAP: Joel Carrett ) By her own lawyer's description, Patterson was a "pedantic" witness at times, and her demeanour during cross-examination would not have left the impression she was trying to "charm" the jury. Head tilted, the accused blinked rapidly during much of her questioning by the seasoned barrister Dr Rogers. A combative air permeated some of their exchanges, as Patterson sometimes questioned the premise of the questions, at times correcting the prosecutor on syntax, days of the week and granular details. There were also displays of emotion, including when Patterson told the court the lunch had been a way to thank the Wilkinsons for their kindness over the years. She recounted how Heather Wilkinson had helped her when her daughter was little and she took her to a play group at Korumburra Baptist Church. Erin attended Korumburra Baptist Church services, delivered by pastor Ian Wilkinson. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) "I was shy and didn't really know many people, and Heather would sit with me through those play group times and was really kind to me," she said. "I wanted to say thank you to her," a sobbing Patterson finished, before reaching for a tissue to dab at her eyes. At other stages of her evidence, Patterson's defence lawyer led the questions, guiding her through an account of the meal that suggested the presence of death cap mushrooms was the result of a terrible accident. She told the jury about her foraging habit, and explained how complete panic descended as she realised she may have accidentally contaminated the meal with foraged mushrooms. For more than a week, Ms Patterson gave evidence to her triple-murder trial from the witness box. ( ABC News ) The defence didn't spell out in granular detail exactly how they alleged death cap mushrooms had made their way into the meal. They didn't have to: it was the job of the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the alleged offences occurred. But one of their clearest explanations came from Mr Mandy during his closing address to the jury. Patterson's legal team's advocacy was voiced by Colin Mandy SC (back left) and Sophie Stafford (right). ( ABC News: Kyle Harley ) First, he recapped his client's evidence on the existence of a Tupperware container filled with a combination of foraged dried mushrooms and ones from an Asian grocer. Then, he went to one of the crucial differences in the cases presented by the prosecution and defence. "When she invited Don and Gail over for lunch, whatever the position according to the crown, she had enough death cap mushrooms to use to poison them," he said. "The prosecution says she had them deliberately, the defence says she had them accidentally. "You consider which of those is more likely in this context." In moments after lunch, victims had prayed for their killer Patterson has been the subject of countless social media videos, memes and even a mural in Melbourne's CBD. A mural of Erin Patterson appeared in Melbourne towards the end of her triple-murder trial. ( ABC News: Danielle Bonica ) But in the end, it was the view of 12 jurors that mattered. After months of hearings, the jury reached its verdict on the seventh day of deliberations. On a cold, sunny Monday afternoon, lunchtime news that a verdict was imminent sent journalists and lawyers scrambling back into the Morwell courtroom. One by one, the jury's guilty verdicts for three counts of murder and one of attempted murder were read to the court. While some in the public gallery shed tears, Patterson remained impassive as her fate was determined. Two years ago, Ian Wilkinson led his fellow lunch guests in prayer for Erin, in light of a fabricated cancer challenge. "I prayed a prayer asking God's blessing on Erin, that she would get the treatment that she needed, that the kids would be ok, that she'd have wisdom in how she told the kids," he recalled at the trial. On a jury's verdict, those prayers were for a murderer, who'd minutes earlier inflicted fatal harm to the very people wishing her good health. Credits Reporting: Kristian Silva and Joseph Dunstan Photography: Danielle Bonica
BBC News
07-07-2025
- BBC News
Erin Patterson trial: Nine weeks of testimony that gripped a courtroom
For two years, the mystery of exactly what happened at Erin Patterson's dining table has gripped the people sat down to eat lunch at her home in rural Australia on 29 July 2023. Within a week, three would be dead, a fourth would be fighting for his life, and the fifth would be under investigation for intentionally poisoning her guests with wild a much-watched trial in the tiny town of Morwell, Erin has now been found guilty of murdering three relatives and attempting to kill eyes on the jury throughout, she remained silent and composed as they delivered verdicts which could see her spend the rest of her life in self-described mushroom lover and amateur forager had told the court it was all a tragic over nine weeks, the jury heard evidence suggesting she had hunted down death cap mushrooms sighted in nearby towns and lured her victims to the fatal meal under the false pretence she had cancer - before trying to conceal her crimes by lying to police and disposing of evidence. The orange plate Gail and Don Patterson had turned up on Erin's doorstep just after midday on that fateful Saturday, an orange cake in hand. With them were the Wilkinsons: Heather, Gail's sister, and her husband Ian, who weeks after the meal would emerge from a coma to find he was the only guest to have absent was Erin's estranged husband Simon Patterson. He'd pulled out the day before, saying he felt "uncomfortable" attending amid tension between the former couple. Erin had spent the morning slaving over a recipe from one of the nation's favourite cooks, tweaking it to make individual serves of beef Wellington: expensive cuts of steak slathered with a mushroom paste, then encased in the jury, Ian recounted watching the parcels go onto four grey plates – and an orange one for Erin – with mashed potatoes, green beans and gravy heaped on the side.A sixth serve, allegedly prepared for Simon in case he changed his mind and came over, went into the fridge. Erin was originally accused of attempting to murder him too – on several occasions – but those charges were dropped on the eve of the trial and the allegations were not put to the group said grace and then dug in, exchanging "banter" about how much they were eating."There was talk about husbands helping their wives out," Ian they nibbled on dessert before Erin stunned her guests with a declaration she had cancer, the trial the defence concedes that was not true. But on that day, the two elderly couples gave Erin advice on how to tell her kids, before ending the meal the way it had begun – with a told the court he didn't know the host well, but "things were friendly"."She just seemed like a normal person to me," he that night, all of the guests were very ill, and the next day the four went to hospital with severe symptoms. Donald - who had eaten his portion of lunch and about half his wife's - told a doctor he had vomited 30 times in the space of a few hours. Suspicion soon began to trickle trial heard several of those asked to the lunch had been surprised by the invitation. Simon said it was rare for his estranged wife to host such an event, and Ian said he and his late wife had never even been to Erin's house hindsight, one of the guests apparently wondered aloud why Erin had served herself on a different type of plate to the rest of the family."I've puzzled about it since lunch," Heather said, according to a witness. "Is Erin short of crockery?"Later, at hospital in Leongatha, Erin's ailing guests asked if their host was sick too. They'd all eaten the same meal, hadn't they?Detectives would pose similar questions days later, in a police station interview room with Erin."We're trying to understand what has made them so ill," the detectives were heard saying, in a tape played to the court. "Conversely, we're trying to understand why you're not that ill." An orange cake Detailing the lunch publicly for the first time, from the witness stand, Erin Patterson offered an told the court that after waving off her relatives she had cleaned up the kitchen, before rewarding herself with a slice of the orange cake Gail had brought."[I ate] another piece of cake, and then another piece," she said. Before she knew it, the rest of the cake was gone and she felt overfull."So I went to the toilet and brought it back up again," Erin told the trial. "After I'd done that, I felt better."She outlined for the jury a secret struggle with bulimia, saying she had been regularly binge-eating and purging since her teens - something her defence team suggested accounted for her lack of symptoms. Erin had taken herself to hospital two days after the lunch, reporting feeling ill. But she initially rebuffed the urgent pleas of staff who wanted her and her children – who she claimed had eaten leftovers – to be immediately admitted for treatment. One "surprised" doctor, who had seen the other sick lunch guests, was so concerned for their welfare that he called police to ask for when medics finally got Erin in for checks, neither she nor her children demonstrated similar symptoms to the others who'd eaten at the house, and tests showed no traces of death cap mushroom a precautionary 24 hours, Erin was sent on her way. Red flags Her victims, though, continued to suffer in hospital. And as their relentless diarrhoea and vomiting was escalating to organ failure, Erin was covering her tracks, prosecutors day after she was discharged from hospital, CCTV captured Erin travelling to a local dump and disposing of a food dehydrator later found to contain traces of poisonous was also using three phones around the time of the lunch, two of which disappeared shortly afterwards. The one she did hand over to police had been repeatedly wiped – including while detectives were searching her investigators, the red flags began mounting about the source of the mushrooms elicited odd answers. Patterson claimed some of them had been bought dried from an Asian grocery in Melbourne, but she couldn't remember which suburb. When asked about the brand, or for transaction records, she said they were in plain packaging and she must've paid cash. Meanwhile detectives found out death cap mushrooms had been spotted in two nearby towns in the weeks before the meal, with concerned locals posting pictures and locations to online plant database iNaturalist. Erin's internet history showed she'd used the website to view death cap mushroom sightings at least once before. Her mobile phone location data appeared to show her travelling to both areas – and purchasing the infamous food dehydrator on her way home from one of those Erin told police she'd never owned such an appliance, despite an instruction manual in her kitchen drawer and posts in a true crime Facebook group where she boasted about using it."I've been hiding powdered mushrooms in everything. Mixed into chocolate brownies yesterday, the kids had no idea," she wrote in digital forensics experts managed to recover some of the material on her devices, they found photos showing what looked like death cap mushrooms being weighed on a set of kitchen the trial, Erin said she realised in the days after the lunch that the beef Wellington may have accidentally included dried mushrooms that she had foraged and mistakenly put in a container with store-bought ones. But she was too "scared" to tell a soul."It was this stupid knee-jerk reaction to dig deeper and keep lying," Erin told the court. No clear motive What baffled police, though, was the question of told the trial he and Erin had initially remained chatty and amicable after their split in 2015. That changed in 2022, he said, when the couple started having disagreements over finances, child support, schools and said there was no inkling of ill will towards his family, though. "She especially got on with dad. They shared a love of knowledge and learning."With his voice faltering, Simon added: "I think she loved his gentle nature."But Erin herself told the court she was feeling increasingly isolated from the Patterson family – and there was evidence presented which indicated she had grown frustrated with them."You had two faces," the prosecutor Nanette Rogers said, after making Erin read aloud expletive-laden Facebook messages in which she had called Simon a "deadbeat" and his parents "a lost cause".The prosecution opted not to present a specific motive, however, saying the jury may still be wondering what drove Erin to kill long after the trial wrapped. The lack of a clear motive was key to Erin's defence: why would she want to kill her family, people she said she loved like her own parents?"My parents are both gone. My grandparents are all gone. They're the only family that I've got… I love them a lot," she told police in her else could be explained away, Erin's barrister messages critical of her in-laws were just harmless venting, they said; the cancer claim a cover for weight-loss surgery she was planning to have but was too embarrassed to phone tracking data isn't very precise, so there's no real evidence she actually visited the towns where death cap mushrooms were sighted, they also suggested that Erin was sick after the meal, just not as sick as the others because she'd thrown it all up. She strongly disliked hospitals, which was why she had discharged herself against medical her lies and attempts to dispose of evidence were the actions of a woman worried she'd be blamed for the accidental deaths of her guests."She's not on trial for lying," Colin Mandy said. "This is not a court of moral judgment."He accused the prosecution of trying to force a jigsaw puzzle of evidence together, "stretching interpretations, ignoring alternative explanations because they don't align perfectly with the narrative".But the prosecution argued Erin had told so many lies it was hard to keep track of them."Perhaps the starkest," Dr Rogers said, were her attempts to explain the cancer fib. To prove that she actually had plans to undergo gastric-band surgery, Erin claimed to have booked an appointment at a Melbourne clinic – one that did not offer the treatment."She has told lies upon lies because she knew the truth would implicate her," Dr Rogers said. "When she knew her lies had been uncovered, she came up with a carefully constructed narrative to fit with the evidence – almost."Dr Rogers said the jury should have "no difficulty" in rejecting the argument "this was all a horrible foraging accident".Ultimately, after a week of deliberations, the jury did just will return to court for a sentencing hearing at a later date.
Global News
08-05-2025
- Global News
Suspected poison mushroom killer's daughter ate leftovers of fatal meal
The latest development in the high-profile Australian court case of Erin Patterson, who has been charged with the murders of her former in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson and her ex-husband's aunt Heather Wilkinson, and the attempted murder of her ex-husband Ian Wilkinson, features a video of her daughter giving evidence to police. On the eighth day of the murder trial, the video, recorded on Aug. 16, 2023, shows her daughter talking to police about the meal her mother made on July 29 of that same year. Patterson, 50, has pleaded not guilty and her legal team says she 'panicked' after unintentionally serving poison to her family members in a 'terrible accident.' Her daughter, who has not been named, told police she ate leftovers of the deadly mushroom meal of beef Wellington, mashed potatoes and green beans with her mother and brother the day after her mother served it to her former in-laws and the Wilkinsons. Story continues below advertisement Patterson's daughter said her mother said she was sick on the morning of July 30, the day after the lunch. Later that night, Patterson served her children and herself 'leftovers' from the meal, including mashed potatoes, green beans and steak — but no mushrooms. When the officer asked Patterson's daughter to tell him everything she could remember about the lunch her mother hosted, she said, 'I wasn't there so I don't know.' She told the officer that her mother said 'she wanted to have a lunch with my grandparents and Heather and Ian,' and that they were going to talk about 'adult stuff,' according to The Guardian. On the sixth day of trial, Ian Wilkinson told the courtroom on May 6 that Patterson told her guests she had cancer. 'She said she was very concerned because she believed it was very serious, life-threatening,' he said. 'She was anxious about telling the kids. She was asking our advice about that. 'Should I tell the kids or not tell the kids about this threat to my life?'' The court also heard from Cindy Munro, a nurse on duty at Leongatha hospital on July 31, 2023, who treated the Pattersons and Wilkinsons after they became very sick, experiencing vomiting and diarrhea the same evening as the lunch. Story continues below advertisement Munro said that Patterson 'didn't look unwell' in comparison to two of her lunch guests. She told the court that Patterson was angry and emotional and kept repeating, 'I don't want any of this' in regards to hospital treatment. 1:16 Australia police investigating after 3 die from suspected mushroom poisoning The nurse said it was only her observation that Patterson did not appear as sick as the Wilkinsons did, who were transferred to a larger hospital in Melbourne. 'She didn't look unwell like Heather and Ian,' Munro said. 'Ian looked so unwell he could barely lift his head. She [Patterson] didn't look unwell to me.' Munro also told the court she learned that Patterson's children had eaten the leftovers of the deadly meal, but the mushrooms had been scraped off their portions. Get breaking National news For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen. Sign up for breaking National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy She said she told Patterson there was still a risk that the death cap mushroom toxin could have 'seeped through the meat' and advised that her children seek medical care immediately. Story continues below advertisement 'She didn't want to cause any hassle, she didn't want to take them out of school,' Munro said of Patterson's response. 'And that's when she became quite teary and quite worried, and … said 'I don't want the children to be involved in this.'' Throughout the trial, the jury has heard details about the lunch and there is no dispute that the meal of beef Wellington, mashed potatoes and green beans contained death cap mushrooms, which are highly lethal when ingested, and caused the guests serious illnesses. The judge told the jury the main issue in the case is whether Patterson planned to kill or cause very serious injury with the meal she prepared. Wilkinson previously told the courtroom that Patterson had plated 'all of the food' and appeared 'reluctant' for her lunch guests to go into her pantry, according to the BBC. View image in full screen Heather Wilkinson (left) and Ian Wilkinson (right) attended a lunch with a relative that led to Heather's death and left Ian fighting for his life. Police believe they were poisoned with death cap mushrooms. The Salvation Army Australia - Museum/Facebook 'Each person had an individual serve, it was very much like a pastry,' Wilkinson said. 'It was a pastry case and when we cut into it, there was steak and mushrooms.' Story continues below advertisement He said they all ate from four grey plates and Patterson ate from an 'orangey tan' plate. 'Erin picked up the odd plate and carried it to the table. She took it to her place at the table,' he told the court. Wilkinson also said his wife told him the next day that she 'noticed the difference in colours' of the plates. He said he and his wife 'ate the entire meal,' while Don ate his meal and half of the beef Wellington that Gail did not finish. 'There was talk about husbands helping their wives out,' he said. Patterson's ex-husband, Simon Patterson, declined the lunch invite. Last week, Justice Christopher Beale told jurors that prosecutors had dropped separate charges against Patterson alleging she had also attempted to murder her estranged husband with the poisonous mushrooms, also known as death cap mushrooms. Story continues below advertisement Death cap mushrooms are present in many of B.C.'s forests but may also be found in city environments associated with many species of imported trees. According to the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, the mushrooms have been spotted on Vancouver Island and in the Lower Mainland. Death cap mushrooms look similar to common puffball mushrooms but should never be eaten. If you suspect you may have consumed a death cap mushroom, you should seek emergency medical care immediately. Symptoms of being poisoned by a death cap mushroom include low blood pressure, nausea and vomiting. Patterson's trial is expected to last six weeks. If she's found guilty, she faces a maximum penalty of life imprisonment for the murder charges and a maximum of 25 years behind bars for attempted murder. 2:40 Deadly mushroom warning and air quality readings — With files from Global News' Michelle Butterfield
