A mum who hosted a weekend family lunch has gone on trial after guests who consumed her beef Wellington died from poisonous mushrooms.
Erin Patterson, 50, faces three charges of murder and one charge of attempted murder and has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Prosecutor Nanette Rogers opened her case on Wednesday in the Victoria State Supreme Court.
On July 29, 2023, Patterson served a meal of beef Wellington, mashed potatoes, and green beans at her home in the rural town of Leongatha, South Gippsland. Her guests included her parents-in-law, Gail and Don Patterson, both 70, Gail Patterson’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66, and Mrs Wilkinson’s husband, Ian Wilkinson, 68.
All four guests were admitted to hospital the following day with poisoning from death cap mushrooms, also known as amanita phalloides, that were included in the beef and pastry dish.
Mr Wilkinson is the only guest who survived the poisoning after receiving an emergency liver transplant. Erin Patterson’s estranged husband, Simon Patterson, 50, was also invited to the lunch but declined.
The pair separated in 2015, but remained on talking terms with his family. Prosecutor Nanette Rogers told the jury how Patterson had posted in Facebook groups about using a food dehydrator to reduce the size of mushrooms to use in cooking.
She said online she had been “hiding powdered mushrooms in everything”, the prosecutor says, including chocolate brownies fed to her children. The jury was also shown a CCTV photo showing Erin Patterson at her local tip on August 2 – days after the fatal meal.
Bank transactions show she paid $13.50 (£6.40) to dump some items, the prosecutor explained. Among the things she was seen disposing of was a large black box. When inspected a couple of days later, a staff member found a black Sunbeam dehydrator, Nanette Rogers says.
Fingerprints were found on the dehydrator and compared to Ms Patterson’s, Dr Rogers says – and they matched. It also tested positive for death cap mushrooms, the jury was told.
Her lawyer Colin Mandy SC told the court that Patterson panicked and lied to police about having never foraged for mushrooms or owning a food hydrator because she was ‘overwhelmed’ that her lunch guests died after eating food she had cooked.
“Three people died because of the food Erin Patterson served that day,” Mandy said. “How did she feel [about that] … and how might that have impacted on the way she behaved?
“Is it possible that people might do and say things that are not well thought out, and might in the end make them look bad … is it possible a person might lie when they find out people are gravely ill because of food they served up.”
Patterson had asked the family members to come to the lunch to discuss a medical condition – and claimed she had cancer later on. Nanette Rogers says it is the prosecution’s case that Erin Patterson did not ingest toxic mushrooms, and that she was never diagnosed with cancer.
“She said the purpose of the lunch was to discuss some medical issues that she had and to get advice about how to break it to the kids,” Ms Rogers said. “The accused said that it was important that the children were not present for the lunch,” Ms Rogers added.
The Wilkinsons were surprised by the invitation because they had never been to Patterson’s large five-bedroom house. When Heather Wilkinson was taken to hospital the next morning, she told Simon Patterson she had been puzzled by Erin Patterson eating from a different plate than those served to the guests.
“I noticed that Erin put her food on a different plate to us. Her plate had colours on it. I wondered why that was. I’ve puzzled about it since lunch,” said Heather Wilkinson, according to the prosecution.
Simon Patterson told his aunt that his wife might have run out of plates. Two days after the lunch, Erin Patterson went to hospital complaining of diarrhoea and nausea.
By then, the medical staff had diagnosed her guests as suffering from death cap poisoning. Erin Patterson told authorities that she had cooked with a mixture of fresh mushrooms bought from a supermarket and dried mushrooms bought from an Asian food store, but she could not identify the business.
Doctors insisted that Erin Patterson’s two children, then aged nine and 14, be tested because their mother said they had eaten beef Wellington leftovers. Erin Patterson said the children were safe because she had scraped the pastry and mushrooms from the steak.
She explained the children did not like mushrooms. “The accused became teary and said she didn’t want to involve the kids,” Ms Rogers said.
“She did not appear to be concerned so much about the children’s health, but rather about stressing them out,” Ms Rogers added. Ms Rogers said Erin Patterson had not eaten poisonous mushrooms and had not fed her children the lunch leftovers.
Health authorities treated the poisonings as an isolated incident and no mushrooms were recalled, the prosecutor said. The trial is expected to continue for six weeks.
Erin Patterson is charged with three counts of murder and one of attempted murder. Murder carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment and attempted murder carries a maximum 25 years in prison.
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