Erin Patterson, the Australian woman accused of killing three relatives with a meal of death cap mushrooms baked in a Beef Wellington lunch, has been found guilty of three counts of murder and the attempted murder of the lone survivor.
A 12-member jury reached the verdict after around six days of deliberation following a 10-week trial in Morwell, a tiny town about an hour’s drive from the suburban dining room in Leongatha, Victoria, where the lethal lunch was served in July 2023.
Patterson’s former parents-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson, died along with Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson. Heather’s husband Ian, their local pastor, survived after a weekslong stay in hospital.
Prosecutors alleged that Patterson deliberately laced the lunch with death cap mushrooms, highly toxic fungi that she picked after seeing their location posted on a public website.
Her defense lawyers argued the deaths were a “terrible accident” and that Patterson repeatedly lied to police out of panic when she realized she may have added foraged mushrooms to the meal.
Under Australian law, none of the jurors can be publicly identified, and they’re prohibited from disclosing jury room deliberations even after the trial ends.
It will never be known which pieces of evidence influenced each juror’s decision, but all 12 were required to agree on the verdict.
The trial has captivated audiences worldwide via news reports and four podcasts dedicated to unpacking each day’s evidence.
Patterson sat in court, listening as prosecutors called witness after witness, whose testimony, they alleged, told a compelling story of a triple murder that the jury found satisfied the legal standard of beyond reasonable doubt.
The fateful lunch
The agreed facts were that Patterson asked five people to lunch on July 29, 2023, including her estranged husband Simon Patterson, who pulled out the day before.
Within hours of the meal, the four lunch guests – Simon’s parents Don and Gail, and his aunt and uncle, Heather and Ian Wilkinson – became ill with vomiting and diarrhea. They went to hospital where they were placed in induced comas as doctors tried to save them.
Gail and Heather died on August 4 from multiorgan failure, followed by Don on August 5, after he failed to respond to a liver transplant. Ian Wilkinson survived and was finally discharged from hospital in late September, after almost two months of intensive treatment.
Death cap mushrooms contain amanita toxins that prevent the production of proteins in liver cells, leading to cell death and possible liver failure from about two days after ingestion.
Native to Europe, the lethal mushrooms have been found growing in several Australian states, and around the time of the lunch, they had been seen within a short drive of Patterson’s home in rural Victoria.
In finding Patterson guilty, jury members indicated they were convinced beyond reasonable doubt that she planned to kill all four guests by hiding death cap mushrooms in the lunch.
During the trial, the prosecution argued that Patterson had the opportunity to pick lethal mushrooms after seeing their location posted on the citizen science iNaturalist website.
The guilty verdict suggests the jury accepted the prosecution’s argument that she likely traveled to two sites in April and May 2023, and deliberately picked the mushrooms used in the meal.
Patterson admitted that on April 28 – the same day as cellphone signals put her in the vicinity of death cap mushrooms – she bought a dehydrator that she later dumped at a waste recycling center on August 2.
It had her fingerprints on it and contained remnants of death cap mushrooms.
The prosecution alleged that Patterson faked illness in the days after serving the lunch and tried to cover her tracks by disposing of the dehydrator and factory resetting her devices to delete evidence.
The prosecution did not have to prove motive.
Prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC accused Patterson of having two faces: One she showed the world that suggested she had a good relationship with the Pattersons, the parents of her estranged husband, and a hidden face she showed only her Facebook friends that suggested she wanted to cut ties with them.
In Facebook messages sent in December 2022, Patterson had expressed anger and frustration over Don and Gail’s reluctance to get involved in their son’s marriage breakdown.
“I’m sick of this shit I want nothing to do with them,” she wrote. “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.”
And another message read: “This family I swear to f***ing god.”
During eight days of testimony including cross-examination, Patterson consistently pleaded her innocence, claiming she inadvertently added foraged mushrooms to the meal.
In his directions to the jury, Justice Christopher Beale said that Patterson’s admission that she told lies and disposed of evidence must not cause them to be prejudiced against her.
“This is a court of law, not a court of morals,” he said.
“The issue is not whether she is in some sense responsible for the tragic consequences of the lunch, but whether the prosecution has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that she is criminally responsible for those consequences,” he said.
The jury found that Patterson had intended to kill all four lunch guests and lied repeatedly on the stand to claim she didn’t.
Patterson will be sentenced at a later date.
This is a developing story. More to come
