Australian Woman Found Guilty of Murdering In-Laws with Poisoned Mushroom Lunch

An Australian woman Patterson, has been found guilty of murdering three of her estranged in-laws by serving them lunch laced with lethal mushrooms.

It comes after Patterson, 50, previously denied three counts of murder and one of attempted murder, after serving up a beef Wellington meal to her parents-in-law and her estranged husband’s aunt and uncle at her home in July 2023.

Defence lawyers argued that the Australian woman should not be found guilty just because she lied.

Patterson’s defence does not contest that the meal she made contained death cap mushrooms but maintains that their presence was not deliberate and a tragic accident.

Patterson’s lawyer, Colin Mandy, began the defence’s closing arguments to the jury in June, explaining that her behaviour in the days after the deadly meal, including her claims to police that she had never foraged for wild mushrooms.

She also denied she owned a food dehydrator, used to dry mushrooms, after being caught on security video dumping the one she owned at a local refuse station.

Forensic tests found trace amounts of death cap mushrooms on the appliance.

“No one knows what they would have done in a similar situation,” Mandy told the jury. “She is not on trial for being a liar.”

Mr Mandy argued that there was nothing unusual about Patterson’s knowledge of the deadly mushrooms, and that she developed a strong interest in foraging during the 2020 pandemic lockdown.

“Erin loved mushrooms. Not only the wild ones, also eating them … she told people that. She believed that they were full of nutrition and flavour and she used them in cooking,” he said.

This interest explained why Patterson had visited a website listing locations of death cap mushrooms near where she lived, Mr Mandy argued.

The family had been invited over on the premise she wished to discuss her health issues – namely cancer, with Patterson admitting she had never actually been diagnosed with the disease.

In reality, Patterson planned to undergo weight loss surgery, admitting she was too embarrassed to tell relatives the truth, so instead planned to tell them she was undergoing cancer treatment.

“I was ashamed of the fact that I didn’t have control over my body or what I ate,” Patterson said in June.

“I didn’t want to tell anybody, but I shouldn’t have lied to them.”

Patteron previously said she added the deadly fungi in a bid to improve a ‘bland’ meal.

She has denied measuring out a ‘fatal dose’ after she was asked in court if pictures of mushrooms on weighing scales were proof that she did.

“I suggest that you were weighing these death cap mushrooms so that you could calculate the weight required for the administration of a fatal dose for one person. Agree or disagree?” barrister Nanette Rogers asked.

“Disagree,” Patterson replied.

Patterson had previously admitted to serving the dish, which contained the death cap mushrooms, at what proved to be the fatal lunch.

She has also admitted to researching recipe ideas and mushroom varieties in a bid to cook up “something special”.

She admitted to splurging on the expensive ingredients – ultimately deviating from the proposed recipe in a bid to improve what she described as a “bland” meal.

Patterson explained to the court that the “vast majority” of the fungi came from local stores.

Don Patterson, Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson were taken to hospital and died after the lunch in the rural town of Leongatha in the Australian state of Victoria.

Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson, was gravely ill but survived.

During the court appearance, Patterson admitted to consuming the mushroom meal before vomiting it up shortly after the guests left her home – something she says saved her from the worst effects of the poison.

She told the court that the self-induced vomiting came after eating nearly a whole cake, with the accused stating she had faced a decade-long battle with bulimia.

Patterson’s lawyer earlier told the Supreme Court trial that the poisoning was a tragic accident but prosecutors said it was deliberate.

Long queues formed outside the Latrobe Valley Courthouse in June after Patterson took the stand, which was the first time she had spoken publicly since the deaths.

During several hours of evidence at the trial in June, Patterson, 50, told the court she began foraging fungi during the Covid-19 lockdown of March 2020, witnessed only by her children.

“I cut a bit of one of the mushrooms, fried it up with some butter and ate it,” she said. “They tasted good and I didn’t get sick.”

Patterson said she also fed foraged mushrooms to her children, chopped up “very, very small” so they could not pick them out of curries, pasta and soups.

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She developed a taste for exotic varieties, joined a “mushroom lovers” Facebook group, and bought a dehydrator to preserve her finds, Patterson said.

Her lawyer, Colin Mandy SC, asked if she accepted that the beef Wellington pastries she had served to her lunch guests in 2023 contained death caps.

“Yes, I do,” said Patterson.

The accused told her lawyer most of the mushrooms she used that day came from local supermarkets. She agreed she might have put them in the same container as dehydrated wild mushrooms she had foraged weeks earlier and others from an Asian food store.

Mr Mandy in April told the court his client had lied when she initially told investigators that she had never foraged before. But he denied that she had deliberately sought out death cap mushrooms and said she disposed of her dehydrator in a panic about the accidental deaths.

In an earlier trial, Patterson became tearful when she was asked about expletive-filled messages she had sent about her in-laws in December 2022 in a Facebook group chat that she described as a “safe venting space” for a group of women.

“I wish I’d never said it. I feel very ashamed for saying it and I wish that the family didn’t have to hear that I said it,” said Patterson. “They didn’t deserve it.”

Patterson, who said she had tried to have her parents-in-law mediate a dispute with her estranged husband, Simon, about school fees, said she was feeling hurt, frustrated and “a little bit desperate”.

The couple formally separated in 2015 after earlier temporary splits, the court has heard. Simon Patterson was invited to the July 2023 lunch but did not attend.