Australian murder suspect denies drying deadly mushrooms

The Star

a day ago

Erin Patterson's phone records three months before the lunch placed her in a part of Australia where death cap mushrooms had been sighted. - Reuters
SYDNEY: An Australian woman accused of murdering three people with death cap mushrooms denied Wednesday (June 11) that she turned the fungi into dry powder for the fatal meal.
Erin Patterson, 50, is charged with murdering her estranged husband's parents and aunt in July 2023 by spiking a beef Wellington lunch with the mushrooms.
She is also accused of attempting to murder a fourth lunch guest -- her husband's uncle -- who survived the dish after a long stay in hospital.
Patterson denies all charges in the trial, which has made headlines worldwide.
She says the beef-and-pastry dish, which she cooked in individually sized portions, was poisoned by accident.
Three months before the lunch, phone records placed Patterson in the Victoria state township of Loch, where a sighting of death cap mushrooms had been posted online, the court heard.
Prosecutor Nanette Rogers alleged that within two hours of finding death cap mushrooms in Loch, Patterson bought a dehydrator to use on the fungi.
Patterson admitted buying the dehydrator.
But she denied purchasing it to dry death cap mushrooms or that she went to Loch to find the dangerous fungi.
A month later, phone records placed Patterson in a second town in the area, Outtrim, days after a sighting of death cap mushrooms had been posted online, the jury heard.
Patterson denied she went to the area to find the fungi, but said she may have driven by the area.
Rogers suggested Patterson "blitzed" the death cap mushrooms into a powder in order to hide them in the meal.
"Disagree," Patterson said.
The court heard Patterson had told people that she served the beef Wellington leftovers to her children a day after the lunch, as her sickened guests lay in hospital.
The accused said she scraped off the mushroom and pastry from the dish because her children were fussy eaters.
The prosecutor asked Patterson why she would feed leftovers to her children, while knowing or suspecting that the same meal had put her guests in hospital.
"I didn't know or suspect that," Patterson replied.
The prosecutor accused her of telling a "lie about feeding the leftovers" because it gave her "some distance from a deliberate poisoning".
Patterson replied: "I don't see how it could, but I disagree."
The lunch host had also invited her estranged husband Simon to join the family meal at her secluded home in the Victoria state farm village of Leongatha.
But Simon turned down the invitation saying he felt uncomfortable going, the court heard earlier. The pair were long estranged but still legally married.
Simon's parents Don and Gail, and his aunt Heather Wilkinson, attended the lunch. All three were dead within days.
Heather's husband Ian fell gravely ill but recovered.
Patterson has previously said she struggled with her weight and an eating disorder, and that she booked a gastric bypass assessment for herself at a facility in September 2023.
But the accused said she was embarrassed about the operation.
Instead, Patterson says, she misled her in-laws, telling them she had cancer and would likely need treatment in the hope that they would help care for her children.
Under questioning from the prosecutor on Wednesday, Patterson accepted that the facility never offered services related to gastric bypasses, and that it in fact specialised in procedures relating to skin, hair and nails.
Her medical records did not mention anything about weight loss surgery or treatments, nor did she obtain a referral to a specialist for the gastric bypass, the court heard.
The trial in Morwell, southeast of Melbourne, is expected to last another two weeks. - AFP