Australia: Mushroom murderer accused of poisoning husband

Time of India

2 days ago

The Latrobe Valley Magistrates Court in Morwell, Australia where Erin Patterson is on trial (AP image)
An Australian woman, named Erin Patterson, who was convicted of killing three of her in-laws by poisoning their food with lethal mushrooms, also tried to kill her husband by poisoning him with a chicken korma curry, according to the evidence revealed in the court.
"After the first time I got sick, I had the idea I got sick from Erin's food," Erin's husband, Simon Patterson, told a pre-trial hearing in Melbourne in October 2024.
Simon began maintaining a spreadsheet of his illnesses, which he said all happened after eating his estranged wife's food, including a penne bolognese, a chicken curry and a sandwich wrap.
He told the court that his food was poisoned on two camping trips and a walk, which almost killed him, and he was temporarily paralyzed and had part of his bowel removed.
Why are the accusations of poisoning her husband coming out now?
The jury court last month found Erin guilty of killing her mother-in-law, father-in-law and her husband's aunt Heather Wilkinson by adding death cap mushrooms to their beef Wellington lunch at her home in the town of in Leongatha.
She was also charged with the attempted murder of Heather's husband, who had survived the toxic meals in 2023.
The 50-year-old was initially also charged with four additional counts relating to her estranged husband, Simon.
However, the judge had split the cases into two separate trials to give her a fair trial.
The prosecution later dropped the charges against her for Simon's attempted murder, which meant details of her husband's attempted murder in 2021 and 2022 were never heard by the jury.
During the two-month-long trial, Erin has maintained that the beef-and-pastry dish was accidentally poisoned with death cap mushrooms, the world's most lethal fungus.