Patterson accepts there were death cap mushrooms in the food Patterson said Tuesday that she accepts there must have been death cap mushrooms in the meal she made, an admission she had long withheld.
The Victorian government issued a warning in early 2023 that death cap mushrooms were growing in the region.
She admitted to disposing of the device after the lunch, but said she didn’t know death cap mushrooms had been in it.
She said the possibility only occurred to her days later, as her relatives’ conditions deteriorated and toxicology tests confirmed death cap mushroom poisoning.
Heather Wilkinson and Gail Patterson died on Aug. 4, and Donald Patterson died the following day.
The Australian woman is testifying in court for several days, sharing her story and dropping bombshells. She is accused of using toxic mushrooms in a home-cooked meal to kill her estranged husband’s elderly relatives.
At a July 2023 lunch at her home in the small town of Leongatha, about 85 miles from Melbourne, Erin Patterson, 50, is charged with purposefully adding death cap mushrooms, which are among the most deadly in the world, to a beef Wellington dish.
Three of her guests, her husband’s parents, aunt, and uncle, died the following week from multiple organ failure and altered liver function brought on by Amanita mushroom poisoning, while the other two were admitted to the hospital the next day with gastrointestinal symptoms.
Despite her brief hospital stay, Patterson did not exhibit the same symptoms as her visitors. She testified that after consuming two-thirds of a cake they brought, she puked later that day.
Patterson, a mother of two, has entered a not guilty plea to three charges of murder and one count of attempted murder, and she disputes that the poisoning was intentional. She could be imprisoned for life if found guilty.
Patterson has acknowledged lying about some aspects of her story as her triple murder trial in the Victoria State Supreme Court has progressed. These include the cancer diagnosis she invited her guests to hear about, her previously unreported mushroom foraging hobby, and the fact that she once owned a food dehydrator but promptly threw it away during the investigation.
On Friday, prosecutor Nanette Rogers questioned her, saying, “Even after you were released from the hospital, you did not tell a single person that there may have been foraged mushrooms used in the meal.”. “Instead, you got up and took your kids to school on time. and took a road trip home. After that, the dehydrator was discarded. “.”.
“Correct,” Patterson said.
At first, it was anticipated that the trial, which started in April, would take about six weeks. Justice Christopher Beale stated on Thursday that before the jury is sequestered for deliberations, there are a number of additional steps in the proceedings, possibly including hearing new evidence.
“Then the other way around, since none of you can tell me how long you will be in deliberations,” Beale remarked. “How long is a string? You can take as much time as you require. “..”.
These are a few of the most important lessons learned from Patterson’s week on the stand.
1. . Patterson secretly voiced her displeasure with her in-laws.
After being married in 2007 and separating and then getting back together several times over the years, Erin and Simon Patterson became permanently separated in 2015. They continued to be friendly and in close communication, seeing each other at church, sharing custody of their two kids, and even taking trips together.
Despite being invited to the fateful lunch, Simon turned down the invitation the previous evening.
Additionally, Patterson had a cordial relationship with her 70-year-old in-laws, Gail and Donald Patterson, who she said in court “treated me like their own daughter.”. “..”.
However, both Patterson and the prosecution agreed that things began to go south between her and Simon in 2022. Patterson said she asked him to begin paying child support after seeing that he listed himself as single on his tax return, and he complied. However, they persisted in arguing about related matters, such as which school their children should attend and who should cover the costs.
Regarding the contested school fees, Rogers asked Patterson to read from Signal messages she had sent to Donald and Gail on Thursday. Patterson refuted claims that she was requesting payment from her in-laws to Simon.
Whether I expressed it clearly or not, Patterson stated, “I wanted Don and Gail to help Simon and I communicate better about it.”. “I reasoned that Simon might behave differently if he knew that Don and Gail were aware of his actions.”. “,”.
Prosecutors claim that Patterson became enraged when Don and Gail sided with Simon.
The prosecution questioned Patterson on Friday regarding Facebook messages she sent to friends in late 2022, in which she bemoaned Simon’s parents. One such message read, “Don messaged to say he and Gail don’t want to get involved in the financial things but just hope we will pray for the kids,” and included an eye-rolling emoji, which Patterson denies. She also wrote, “I swear to f****** god, this family.”. “.”.
There was another message that read, “I thought his parents would want him to do the right thing, but it seems their concern about not wanting to feel uncomfortable and not wanting to get involved in their son’s personal matters are overriding that so f*** em.”.
During interrogation, Patterson claimed she was just “venting” and denied the messages represented her actual feelings for Don and Gail. Rogers, however, charged that she had “two faces: a private face reflected in her Facebook messages and a public face of seeming to have a good relationship with Don and Gail.”.
I had a good relationship with Don and Gail,” Patterson said, before responding, “Are you asking me to agree if I had two faces?”. “.”.
2. . Patterson disputes that she disclosed her cancer to her guests.
Don and Gail Patterson, along with Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson, 66, and her husband Ian Wilkinson, 68, were invited to lunch by Patterson, according to the prosecution, to talk about some health problems she was having and how to tell her children about them. Before her guests arrived, she dropped them off for lunch and a movie with a friend.
According to Ian Wilkinson, the only survivor, Patterson informed the group during lunch that she had been diagnosed with cancer after noticing a bump on her elbow. She then sought advice on whether or not to tell her children.
Patterson admitted in court Thursday that she had lied to Gail about the lump on her elbow in the weeks leading up to the lunch and that she had no health concerns to share with her guests or children.
“I didn’t have a legitimate medical reason, no, that’s true,” Patterson stated.
Patterson repeatedly denied telling her lunch guests that she had cancer when questioned directly, which runs counter to Wilkinson’s account. Following a prior ovarian cancer scare, she acknowledged at the conclusion of the lunch that “I’m not proud of this, but I led them to believe that I might be needing some treatment.”.
“I can’t recall the exact words, but I know what I was trying to say was that I was being investigated for ovarian cancer and might subsequently require treatment in that area,” she said. “I can’t say that I used those exact words, but that’s what I recall wishing to say. “,”.
According to Patterson, she had scheduled a consultation to consider gastric bypass surgery for that September because she had long battled low self-esteem due to her weight.
The woman explained, “I was really embarrassed about it, so I thought maybe letting them think I had some serious issue that needed treatment might mean they’d be able to help me with the logistics around the kids and I wouldn’t have to tell them the real reason.”.
When Rogers implied that Patterson had no intention of explaining her cancer lie “because you thought that the lunch guests would die,” Patterson retorted, “That’s not true.”. “..”.
3. . Patterson acknowledges that the food contained death cap mushrooms.
Patterson acknowledged on Tuesday that she had long denied the existence of death cap mushrooms in the food she prepared.
Immediately following the incident, Patterson told investigators and physicians that she used two types of mushrooms for her dish: dried from a local Chinese grocer and fresh from the grocery store, but she was unable to recall which type she used. She denied having a dehydrator and mushroom foraging in police interviews.
Colin Mandy, her attorney, acknowledged those had been falsehoods on the first day of the trial, but he also stated that Patterson “denies that she ever deliberately sought out death cap mushrooms.”. “..”.
In early 2020, Patterson said on the stand, she began gathering mushrooms at local botanical gardens and trails, and she joined Facebook groups to learn about and identify the various types.
Early in 2023, the Victorian government warned of the growth of death cap mushrooms in the area. Patterson insisted that she couldn’t recall using the naturalist website that indicated the location of the toxic mushrooms.
Although Patterson admitted purchasing a food dehydrator in April 2023, she refuted the accusation made by prosecutors that she visited a nearby town in the same month to gather death cap mushrooms. Although she acknowledged that she threw away the gadget after lunch, she claimed to be unaware that it contained death cap mushrooms.
“It seemed a little bland to me, so I decided to put in the dried mushrooms that I’d bought from the grocer that I still had in the pantry,” she claimed as she was making the beef Wellington, which is usually covered in pastry and covered in mushroom paste. “.
Although she admitted that she now believes there was a possibility that some of her foraged mushrooms were also in that Tupperware, Patterson stated, “I didn’t deliberately put death cap mushrooms in the meal.”.
As her relatives’ health worsened and toxicology tests verified death cap mushroom poisoning, she claimed the possibility only dawned on her a few days later. She claimed that when she brought up her dehydrator with Simon in the hospital, he asked, “Is that how you poisoned my parents?”.
She claimed that after hearing his remark, she remembered how she had spent weeks earlier drying foraged mushrooms in it.
Patterson said, “I was beginning to think, ‘What if they’d gone in the container with the Chinese mushrooms? Maybe that had happened,'” adding that it made her feel “extremely worried because Child Protection was involved and Simon seemed to be of the mind that maybe this was intentional.”. I suddenly became quite afraid. “.
4. Patterson claims she was afraid and told lies to the police.
According to prosecutors, despite medical professionals’ confirmation that the patients had “serious toxin syndrome caused by ingestion of amanita phalloides mushrooms,” they were not given the antidote right away because there was insufficient proof that they had consumed the mushrooms.
Patterson affirmed on Friday that she kept the possibility of the tainted mushrooms a secret from everyone. When it occurred to her in August, Rogers questioned why she hadn’t notified medical authorities. 1. .
Patterson responded, “I was informed that individuals were receiving treatment for potential death cap mushroom poisoning.”. It was already taking place. “..”.
Rather, she acknowledged that she took her children to school the following day, returned home, and disposed of the dehydrator by taking it to a tip, which is a second-hand store at a waste facility.
August saw the deaths of Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson. 4, and the next day Donald Patterson passed away. In August, Ian Wilkison underwent extubation. 14 and was sent to rehab in September. 11.
The dehydrator was disposed of “in the context of thinking that maybe mushrooms that I’d foraged, or the meal I prepared was responsible for making people sick,” she said, adding that when she found out about the deaths, “it was this stupid, knee-jerk reaction to just dig deeper and keep lying.”. “,”.
“I shouldn’t have done it, but I was just scared,” she continued.
“I knew that there were photos in there of mushrooms and the dehydrator and I just panicked and didn’t want [detectives] to see them,” Patterson added, describing why she reset her phone to factory settings during the police investigation. “.”.
Prosecutors nevertheless used images of wild mushrooms being weighed on a scale that were taken on her phone in April 2023. Patterson refuted their suggestion that she had done so in order to determine a lethal dose.
