
Australia's Mushroom Trial Ends in a Guilty Verdict. Why Erin Patterson Did It Remains a Mystery
It is no surprise that on Tuesday–the day after the guilty verdict was delivered by the court in Victoria–media websites, social media, and podcasts were scrambling to offer analysis on what motivated her. Newspaper headlines described Patterson, 50, as a coercive killer with narcissistic characteristics. 'Cold, mean, and vicious,' read one. Strict Australian court reporting laws prohibit anything that might sway jurors in a trial. Some news outlets had saved up thousands of words awaiting the verdicts: scrutiny of Patterson's past work history, behavior, and psyche. The coverage tried to explain why the mother of two meticulously planned the fatal lunch and lured three people she said she loved to their deaths. Any certain answer, for now, remains a mystery. She faces life in jail, with sentencing to come at a later date.
No motive. After a nine-week Supreme Court trial in the state of Victoria, it took the jury six days to convict Patterson. She was guilty of murdering her parents-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail's sister, Heather Wilkinson, by serving them a lunch of beef Wellington pastries laced with poisonous mushrooms. She was also convicted of attempting to murder Heather's husband, Ian Wilkinson, who survived the meal at Patterson's home in the rural town of Leongatha in 2023. Patterson denied the charges and gave a defense that she had no reason to murder her 'beloved' elderly in-laws. But the jury disagreed and rejected her claim that the inclusion of toxic mushrooms in the meal was a terrible accident. Prosecutors failed to offer a motive for Patterson's crimes and weren't required to. 'People do different things for different reasons. Sometimes the reason is obvious enough to others,' prosecutor Nanette Rogers told the jury. 'At other times, the internal motivations are only known by the person themselves.' But Rogers gave hints. At one point, the prosecutor had Patterson read aloud scathing messages she'd sent, which highlighted past friction with her in-laws and tension with her estranged husband, who had been invited to the lunch but didn't go. 'You had two faces,' Rogers said. Patterson denied it.
She had a dilemma. With guilty verdicts but no proven reason why, Australian news outlets published avid speculation Tuesday. 'What on earth was Erin Patterson's motive?' The Australian newspaper's editorial director, Claire Harvey, asked in a column. Harvey pointed at rifts in the killer's relationship with her estranged husband. Chris Webster was the first medical doctor to speak to Patterson after her four lunch guests had been hospitalized and testified in the trial. He told reporters Tuesday that he became convinced she deliberately poisoned her victims when she lied about buying the foraged mushrooms she had served from a major supermarket chain. 'She had a dilemma, and the solution that she chose is sociopathic,' Webster told Nine Network television.
Displayed no emotion. The outpouring of scorn for Patterson reflects a national obsession with the case and a widespread view that she wasn't a sympathetic figure. It was an opinion Australians were legally required not to express in the media or online before the trial ended to ensure a fair hearing. But newspapers now don't have to hold back. Under the headline 'Death Cap Stare,' The Age reported how the 'killer cook' didn't flinch as she learned her fate but stared at the jury as they delivered their verdict. Melbourne's Herald Sun newspaper's front page screamed: 'COOKED,' labeling Patterson 'Evil Erin' and a 'Cold-Blooded Killer.' During the trial, Patterson chose to testify in her own defense, a tactic considered risky in the Australian justice system and one which most observers said didn't serve her well. She joked awkwardly at times and became combative with the prosecutor. Journalist John Ferguson, who won a Melbourne Press Club award for breaking the story of the fatal lunch, said Patterson often cried or came close to tears during her trial. But when she was convicted, she displayed no emotion, he noted. 'What the court got on Monday was the full Erin. Cold, mean, and vicious,' Ferguson wrote in The Australian Tuesday.
Drama series, documentary, and books. The verdicts also prompted an online frenzy among Australians, many of whom turned citizen detectives during the trial. By late Monday, posts about the verdicts on local Reddit pages had drawn thousands of comments laced with black humor, including memes, in-jokes, and photographs taken at local supermarkets where pre-packaged beef Wellington meals were discounted. Fascination about the case will linger. A drama series, documentary, and books are planned, all of them likely to attempt an answer to the question of what motivated Patterson. Her lawyers now have twenty-eight days to lodge any appeal bid.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Saudi Gazette
a day ago
- Saudi Gazette
Five Australian women win right to sue Qatar Airways over invasive searches
SYDNEY — Five Australian women who were strip-searched and invasively examined at Doha airport have won the right to sue Qatar Airways after an appeal. The women were ordered off a flight and checked for whether they had given birth after a baby was found abandoned in an airport bin in 2020 — an incident that sparked global outrage. An Australian judge last year found the state-owned airline could not be prosecuted under the laws governing global travel, and said the proposition its staff could have intervened was "fanciful, trifling, implausible, improbable, [and] tenuous". The women appealed, with the full bench of the Federal Court finding the primary judge erred in throwing out the case. The five women filed a lawsuit in 2021, against Qatar Airways, Qatar's Civil Aviation Authority and the operators of Hamad International Airport, a firm called Matar. They sought damages over the alleged "unlawful physical contact" and false imprisonment, which had caused mental health impacts including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Other passengers who were invasively searched — including from the UK and New Zealand — were not part of the three respondents applied to have the case thrown out before it reached John Halley in April 2024 found that Qatar Airways could not be held responsible under a multilateral treaty called the Montreal Convention, which is used to establish airline liability in the event of death or injury to if the airline could be sued, the women's case had no real prospect of success, he said: Qatar Airways staff could not have influenced the actions of Qatari police who removed the women from the flight, nor the nurses who examined them in ambulances on the Halley also struck out the women's case against Qatar's aviation regulator, saying it was immune from foreign prosecution, but said they could proceed with parts of their case against Justice Angus Stewart, Justice Debra Mortimer and Justice James Stellios found the primary judge had made rulings on issues that could only be decided at upheld Justice Halley's decision to throw out the case against Qatar's aviation regulator, but said the complainants had the right to sue both Qatar Airways and case is now expected to continue to trial in the Federal Court, the women's lawyer Damian Sturzaker said."Our clients endured a traumatic experience on that night in Doha and they deserve to have their day in court and compensation for their suffering," Sturzaker said, according to The women have previously told the BBC they did not consent to the examinations and were not given explanations for what was happening to them."I felt like I had been raped," said British grandmother Mandy, who asked to withhold her said she thought she was being kidnapped and held Gulf state launched a criminal prosecution which led to a suspended jail term for an airport Sturzaker in 2021 told the BBC the women were suing because of a perceived lack of action from wanted a formal apology from Qatar and for the airport to change its procedures to make sure the incident does not happen again. — BBC


Al Arabiya
a day ago
- Al Arabiya
Australian women win right to sue Qatar Airways after forced strip-searches
Five Australian women who say they were pulled from a Qatar Airways flight by armed guards and strip-searched have won the right to sue the airline, after a court on Thursday overturned an earlier decision to throw out the case. Women on 10 Qatar Airways flights, including 13 Australians, were subjected to invasive examinations to see if they had recently given birth after a newborn baby was found abandoned at Doha's Hamad Airport in October 2020. The incident made headlines around the world, sparked outrage in Australia and strained diplomatic ties with Qatar. A group of five women on a Sydney-bound flight launched legal proceedings in 2022 against Qatar Airways, the operator of Doha Airport MATAR, and Qatar's Civil Aviation Authority. They brought claims under the Montreal Convention, which covers airline liability, as well as negligence, assault and false imprisonment. The women sought damages for the impact on their mental health, including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, stemming from the 'unlawful physical contact.' After being escorted off their flight by armed Qatari authorities, some women claimed they were made to take off their underwear and subjected to non-consensual gynecological inspections by a nurse in ambulances on the tarmac. Federal Court Justice John Halley dismissed the claims against Qatar Airways last year, finding they had no reasonable prospect of success, and that Qatar's Civil Aviation Authority amounted to a foreign state immune from Australian law. On Thursday, the full Federal Court overturned the ruling on Qatar Airways saying the issue was too complex to be dismissed summarily. 'Whether or not the claims come within the scope of (the Montreal Convention) is a matter of some complexity,' the summary judgment said. 'It is therefore not an issue apt to be decided at the stage of summary dismissal.' The judgement allows the women to continue their lawsuit against Qatar Airways and MATAR. Both companies were ordered to pay the costs of the appeal. 'Our clients endured a traumatic experience on that night in Doha, and they deserve to have their day in court and compensation for their suffering,' said Damian Sturzaker, the lawyer from Marque Lawyers representing the women. 'We will continue to support them as the case continues in the Federal Court.'


Al Arabiya
2 days ago
- Al Arabiya
Families Of The Idaho Students Bryan Kohberger Stabbed To Death Are Set To See Him Sentenced
A judge is expected to order Bryan Kohberger to serve four life sentences without parole this week for the brutal stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students nearly three years ago. Wednesday's sentencing hearing will give the families of Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen, Ethan Chapin, and Kaylee Goncalves the opportunity to describe the anguish they've felt since their loved ones were killed in the early morning hours of Nov. 13, 2022. Kohberger was a graduate student at Washington State University when he broke into a nearby rental home through a kitchen sliding door and killed the four friends, who appeared to have no connection with him. Police initially had no suspects, and the killings terrified the normally quiet community in the small western Idaho city of Moscow. Some students at both universities left mid-semester, taking the rest of their classes online because they felt unsafe. But investigators had a few critical clues. A knife sheath left near Mogen's body had a single source of male DNA on the button snap, and surveillance videos showed a white Hyundai Elantra near the rental home around the time of the murders. Police used genetic genealogy to identify Kohberger as a possible suspect and accessed cellphone data to pinpoint his movements the night of the killings. Online shopping records showed Kohberger had purchased a military-style knife months earlier along with a sheath like the one at the home. Kohberger was arrested in Pennsylvania about six weeks after the killings. He initially stood silent when asked to enter a plea, so a judge entered a not guilty plea on his behalf. Both the investigation and the court case drew widespread attention. Discussion groups proliferated online, members eagerly sharing their theories and questions about the case. Some self-styled armchair web-sleuths pointed fingers at innocent people simply because they knew the victims or lived in the same town. Misinformation spread, piling additional distress on the already-traumatized community. As the criminal case unfolded, Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson announced that he would seek the death penalty if Kohberger was convicted. The court-defense team, led by attorney Anne Taylor, challenged the validity of the DNA evidence, unsuccessfully pushed to get theories about possible alternate perpetrators admitted in court, and repeatedly asked the judge to take the death penalty off of the table. But those efforts largely failed, and the evidence against Kohberger was strong. With an August trial looming, Kohberger reached a plea deal. Prosecutors agreed to drop their efforts to get a death sentence in exchange for Kohberger's guilty plea to four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary. Both sides agreed to a proposed sentence of four consecutive life sentences without parole plus an additional 10 years for the burglary charge. Kohberger also waived his right to appeal any issues in the case.