logo
Erin Patterson found guilty of murdering 3 with death cap mushrooms

Erin Patterson found guilty of murdering 3 with death cap mushrooms

Daily Mail​12 hours ago
Erin Patterson has been found guilty of murdering her three in-laws with death cap mushrooms in a beef Wellington that she served them for lunch at her home.
The mother-of-two sat defiantly throughout her 10-week trial, glaring at the media, members of the public, and the family of the people she murdered.
Patterson, from Australia, had pleaded not guilty to the murders of Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail's sister, Heather Wilkinson.
They died after consuming death caps in the beef Wellingtons during lunch at Patterson's Leongatha home in southeast Victoria on July 29, 2023.
Only Pastor Ian Wilkinson survived her plot - a blunder Patterson would live to regret. She will now serve time after also being found guilty of attempting to murder him.
Seated at the back of courtroom four of the Supreme Court of Victoria, sitting at the Latrobe Valley Magistrates' Court, Patterson, dressed in a paisley shirt, appeared stunned as her fate was sealed on Monday afternoon.
Asked to deliver a verdict, the jury foreperson - one of only five women to sit on the original 15-person panel - simply stated, 'guilty'.
The verdict produced an audible gasp from those within the packed courtroom, which included members of the Patterson clan.
Patterson will now be taken back down to the Morwell Police Station cells where she had been kept throughout the trial.
They are the cells she had grown to loathe throughout her trial, complaining about being denied a pillow, doona [duvet], and her computer.
She can expect to spend the next decades of her life caged within the walls of Dame Phyllis Frost Centre in Melbourne's west alongside a rogue's gallery of female killers.
On her weekly trips back there, Patterson had come to loathe the Chicken Cacciatore meals provided to her en route because the dish 'had mushrooms in it'.
Once caged, she can expect to be kept in an isolation cell for her own protection for the foreseeable future due to her high profile and the frailty of her elderly victims.
It can now be revealed Patterson's two children had continued to see their mother behind bars while she awaited trial, unwilling to accept she could murder their grandparents and aunt.
Patterson could be heard asking about them during breaks in the trial, asking a woman to ensure her now 16-year-old son was given 'extra hugs'.
The arrogant killer had been so cocky she would walk free that she had workers erect black plastic around her Leongatha home to shield her from the media on her expected return.
Her estranged husband Simon Patterson is expected to address the media. The civil engineer had been warned mid-trial by Justice Christopher Beale to hold off engaging with reporters until the verdict had been delivered.
The prosecution had dumped three attempted murder charges against his wife related to him.
He too had been invited to the deadly lunch, but pulled out the night before.
While no motive was ever provided to the jury, it was presented with a clear picture of animosity between the estranged couple leading up to the lunch.
Simon claimed that while they remained friendly during separation, things changed when he made the decision to change his relationship status on his tax return.
He had been dropping the kids at Patterson's Leongatha home when she allegedly came out and asked to have a chat.
The jury heard Patterson jumped in the passenger side of Simon's car.
Confidence: Patterson was so confident she would be going home she had workers prepare black plastic around her home to shield her from waiting media
'She discovered that my tax return for the previous year for the first time noted we were separated,' Simon told the court.
Patterson told him the move would impact the family tax benefit the couple had previously enjoyed and she was obliged to now claim child support.
'She was upset about it,' Simon said.
Patterson also wanted child support and the school fees paid.
The court heard Patterson changed the children's school without consulting Simon.
His own son would later tell the jury his dad went out of his way to hurt his mother.
Patterson had banked on the jury believing it was possible she had picked the death cap mushrooms used to kill her in-laws by mistake.
Estranged ex: Simon Patterson would not concede he immediately suggested to Erin Patterson that she had used a dehydrator to poison his parents
Throughout the trial her barrister Colin Mandy, SC, had tried to sow the seeds of doubt in the jury's minds.
He did so with tactical questions aimed at trying to obtain admissions to his suggestions from key witnesses.
It was a tactic that failed time and time again, leaving the jury with no doubt Patterson had deliberately picked the death cap mushrooms she used to murder her lunch guests.
Lone survivor Mr Wilkinson was the second witness to front the jury after Simon Patterson.
Seated in the witness box, Mr Wilkinson provided powerful and compelling evidence about not only how Patterson lured his family to lunch, but also how she went about killing them.
Mr Wilkinson claimed Patterson told lunch guests she had undertaken a diagnostic test that showed a spot on the scan that was a tumor.
Patterson told the court she had never mentioned anything to her in-laws about a medical issue to entice them to accept her lunch invite.
Mr Wilkinson was challenged repeatedly on his evidence by Mr Mandy but never wavered from his original version of events.
Mr Mandy suggested Mr Wilkinson's claim that the four plates used to serve beef Wellington to Patterson's lunch guests were all gray, and all the same, was not correct.
He further suggested there was 'no smaller plate', but Mr Wilkinson disagreed.
'It (the beef Wellington) was very much like a pastie, it was a pastry case and inside was steak and mushrooms, there was gravy available on the table,' Mr Wilkinson said.
'I could see them (the plates) between Heather and Gail, there were four large grey plates, one smaller plate - a different colour, an orangy-tan colour.
'Gail picked up two of the grey plates and took them to the table, Heather picked up two of the grey plates and took them to the table, Erin picked up the odd plate and put it at her place at the table.'
Mr Mandy's attempts to trip Patterson's husband up during his evidence also fell flat.
Patterson had blamed Simon for the atrocious lies she told her loved ones, police, health authorities and the media after her lunch guests became seriously ill.
In the last days of the trial, the jury watched Patterson tell some of those lies to Homicide Squad Senior Constable Stephen Eppingstall during her record of interview.
It had been Senior Constable Eppinstall who spearheaded the investigation into Patterson, leaving no stone unturned in his quest to provide justice to the families of those who lost their loved ones.
During that interview, Patterson repeatedly denied owning the dehydrator she used to milk the maximum potential out of the death cap mushrooms she would later serve for lunch.
'I've got manuals of lots of stuff I've collected over the years,' Patterson told the detective on August 5, 2023, following a search of her home which located the dehydrator manual.
'I just keep them all.' Patterson also denied ever foraging for mushrooms. 'Never,' she insisted.
Patterson had claimed she had bought the dried mushrooms used in her beef Wellington from an Asian grocer in Melbourne's south-east.
In a heavily edited recording, Patterson was seen highlighting the level of assistance she had provided to health authorities to find that non-existent grocer.
'I'm sure you understand too that I've never been in a situation like this before, and I've been very, very helpful with the health department through the week, because I wanted to help that side of things as much as possible, because I do want to know what happened,' she said.
'I've given them as much information as they've asked for, and offered up all the food and all the information about where the food came from the house.'
In a statement conveniently leaked to select media organisations after the lunch, Patterson admitted she lied to investigators when she told them she had dumped the dehydrator used to dry the death caps at the tip 'a long time ago'.
Patterson claimed then she had been at the hospital with her children 'discussing the food dehydrator' when her husband asked: 'Is that what you used to poison them?'
Worried that she might lose custody of the couple's children, Patterson said she then panicked and dumped the dehydrator at the tip.
Six days after the meal, the dehydrator was found by police at a local tip.
Patterson had decided not to dispose of the dehydrator in the bush, but at the tip using EFTPOS in her own name to pay for it.
Simon's supposed quip about the dehydrator was put to him by Mr Mandy at trial.
It had been an integral element of Patterson's defence when he opened the trial more than a month ago.
But Simon denied making the comment that Patterson claimed sparked her web of lies.
'I did not say that to Erin,' Simon said.
The jury then heard from a swag of medical experts, who Patterson hoped would help convince the jury that she too had become sick from eating the lunch.
Mr Mandy told the jury Patterson had not pretended to be sick after the lunch.
'The defence case is that she was not feigning illness, she wasn't pretending to be sick. The defence case is that she was sick too, just not as sick,' Mr Mandy said.
'And the defence case is that she was unwell because she'd eaten some of the meal.'
While intensive care specialist Professor Andrew Bersten said he was convinced Patterson had indeed suffered a 'diarrhoea illness', the jury felt her overall claims didn't stack up.
The jury heard Prof Bersten had come to his conclusions based on medical records alone and had never actually treated Patterson after the lunch.
Nurse Cindy Munro, who was working at Leongatha hospital when Patterson turned up the Monday after the lunch, said Patterson 'didn't look unwell' compared with two of her seriously ill lunch guests.
'She didn't look unwell like Heather and Ian,' Ms Munro said.
'Ian looked so unwell he could barely lift his head. She didn't look unwell to me.'
Doctor Laura Muldoon, part of the toxicology department at Monash Medical Centre, also told the jury Patterson's claims didn't stack up.
'I noted she looked clinically well, she had some chapped lips but otherwise very well. She had normal vital signs,' Dr Muldoon said.
She told the jury there was no evidence Patterson had encountered death cap mushroom poisoning or consumed any other toxins.
Another doctor, Varuna Ruggoo, said Patterson's liver function tests returned normal results.
Even Patterson's own children could not persuade the jury she had been sick following the lunch.
Patterson's then nine-year-old daughter told police her mother had a sore tummy and diarrhoea the day after the lunch.
She also claimed that she had seen her go to the toilet about 10 times.
Her older brother, then aged 14, also told police his mother claimed to be sick.
He told police Patterson had complained of feeling 'a bit sick and had diarrhoea'.
'She was playing it down,' he said.
Despite feeling unwell, the teenager said Patterson insisted on driving him about 90km to attend a flying school lesson in Tyabb.
When the lesson was cancelled due to poor weather, she was forced to turn straight back around and drive all the way home.
As the trial entered its final stages, Patterson's legal team worked hard to convince the jury Patterson could have accidentally picked the death cap mushrooms.
Dr Tom May, a fungi specialist, gave jurors an extensive lesson on death cap mushrooms.
Patterson's hopes lifted when Dr May gave evidence that although death caps were 'typically greenish or yellowish', they 'may be whitish or brownish with or without white patches'.
The expert was taken by Patterson's defence through a series of photos of dodgy- looking mushrooms and asked to identify them.
He hit the bullseye every time: they were all death caps, with none of the images looking remotely palatable to humans.
Dr May had posted images on a citizen science website called iNaturalist of death caps he had found in Outtrim - a short drive from Patterson's home - in April that year.
It was a location that just happened to be visited by Patterson leading up to the deadly lunch.
Phone data later obtained by police alleged Patterson's phone was 'pinged' in areas identified on that website as having death cap mushrooms there.
The jury further heard Patterson took steps to hide evidence, swapping out the SIM card on her usual phone while detectives were carrying out a search of her home.
That phone has never been recovered.
While left alone, she also managed to factory reset her new phone, handing the wiped device over to a detective and factory resetting it again remotely while it was in police possession.
But Patterson was unable to erase the contents of her home computer, which contained what the jury concluded was damning evidence that what she did was premeditated.
During the trial, Victoria Police forensic data analyst Shamen Fox-Henry revealed Patterson made a visit to the iNaturalist website on May 28, 2022.
The title of one of the visited pages included the words, 'Deathcap from Melbourne VIC, Australia on May 18, 2022'.
Mr Fox-Henry had also found a series of messages sent by Patterson that suggested she had very personal issues with Simon's parents.
In the messages, Patterson described her in-laws as a 'lost cause' and exclaimed 'f*** them'.
'I mean clearly the fact that Simon refuses to talk about personal issues in part stems from the behavior of his parents and how they operate,' she wrote around December 6, 2022.
'According to them, they've never asked him what's going on with us, why I keep kicking him out, why his son hates him, etc. It's too awkward or uncomfortable or something. So that's his learned behavior. Just don't talk about this s***.'
Patterson claimed her father-in-law's solution to her relationship problems with his son was to 'pray'.
'Don rang me last night to say that he thought there was a solution to all this. If Simon and I get together and try to talk and pray together,' she wrote.
'And then he also said, Simon had indicated there was a solution to the financial issues if I withdraw this child support claim?!'
Patterson claimed she told her in-laws she wanted them to be accountable for the decisions their son made concerning their grandchildren.
'I would hope they care about their grandchildren enough to care about what Simon is doing,' she wrote.
'Don said they tried to talk to him, but he refused to talk about it, so they're staying out of it, but want us to pray together.
'I'm sick of this s***. I want nothing to do with them. 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*** them.'
When reporters finally caught up with Patterson in the days after the lunch, she broke down in tears and proclaimed she had done nothing wrong.
'I didn't do anything,' she said, wiping away tears. 'I loved them and I'm devastated that they're gone.'
Patterson said all four guests were wonderful people and had always treated her with kindness.
'Gail was like the mom I didn't have because my mom passed away four years ago and Gail had never been anything but good and kind to me,' she continued.
'Ian and Heather were some of the best people I'd ever met. They never did anything wrong to me.
'I'm so devastated about what's happened and the loss to the community and to the families and to my own children. They've lost their grandmother,' she told reporters on August 8 that year.
'What happened is devastating and I'm grieving too and you guys don't have any respect for that.'
As the trial came to its conclusion, Mr Mandy was faced with the decision to risk putting his client in the witness box in a last-ditch attempt to save her skin.
His decision to put her up would come back to haunt him.
Finally out of the prison dock, Patterson faced off with the jury to try and explain away her lies.
She sobbed and cried in scenes similar to those seen outside her house years earlier.
She will be sentenced at a date to be fixed.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Killer spits on prosecutors as he is handed three life sentences for murder
Killer spits on prosecutors as he is handed three life sentences for murder

Daily Mail​

time36 minutes ago

  • Daily Mail​

Killer spits on prosecutors as he is handed three life sentences for murder

A Georgia man convicted of murdering his 18-month-old daughter's mother spat at the prosecution team moments after being sentenced to three consecutive life terms for the 2022 shooting. Taco Nash, 25, was forcibly removed from the courtroom following the vile outburst after a DeKalb County jury found him guilty of killing 22-year-old Mi'ckeya Montgomery. 'Today was the day that they got to see the real him. The rest was a facade…he's a sociopath,' said Jasmine Walters, Mi'ckeya's aunt. Nash was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, along with two additional life sentences and 60 years for the fatal shooting of Mi'ckeya outside their daughter's daycare in Decatur on June 15, 2022. Mi'ckeya's family expressed relief after the sentencing claiming: 'He's right where he needs to be.' Prosecutors revealed that Nash, who had a violent and problem-riddled relationship with Mi'ckeya, had previously been ordered by a judge to have no contact with her. Despite this, the young dad repeatedly called her the morning of the shooting, asking to meet and retrieve his belongings, according to DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston. Mi'ckeya ignored Nash's calls and went to pick up their 18-month-old daughter from daycare where staff, aware of the court order, was told to call 911 if he ever appeared at the business. Nash confronted Mi'ckeya outside the daycare before eventually forcing his way into the building and threatening to shoot her if she didn't leave with him and their daughter. During the aggressive back-and-forth, an employee at the Education Elevation daycare facility called the police, The New York Post reported. Nash, Mi'ckeya, and their daughter, Khloe, then exited the daycare through a rear door and headed into a wooded area behind the facility. Employees still inside the childcare center reported hearing screams and a single gunshot as police arrived and began searching the area. Nash emerged moments later holding the blood-covered child and claimed that Mi'ckeya had shot herself. However, investigators determined that Mi'ckeya's gunshot wound to the head was inconsistent with self-infliction, ruling her death a homicide. Shot: Employees still inside the childcare center (pictured) reported hearing screams and a single gunshot as police arrived and began searching the area The gun was found under her hand, and police believe she was holding her daughter when she was killed. The child, who was not injured, was rushed to the hospital. Before Nash emerged from the woods, he called one of Mi'ckeya's relatives, apologizing for the shooting, according to the District Attorney. Following a trial on July 2, 2025, Nash was convicted of Malice Murder, four counts of Felony Murder, Aggravated Assault – Family Violence, two counts of Kidnapping, Aggravated Stalking, Cruelty to Children in the First Degree, and several firearms-related offenses, WSB-TV reported. DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Brian Lake imposed a sentence of life without parole, two additional life sentences, and 60 years, marking the end of a lengthy legal battle for Mi'ckeya's family.

Korumburra: The community where Erin Patterson's mushroom murders took place
Korumburra: The community where Erin Patterson's mushroom murders took place

BBC News

time43 minutes ago

  • BBC News

Korumburra: The community where Erin Patterson's mushroom murders took place

The winters in Victoria's Gippsland region are known for being chilly. Frost is a frequent visitor overnight, and the days are often in the small town of Korumburra - a part of Australia surrounded by low, rolling hills - it's not just the weather that's gloomy; the mood here is plainly is where all of Erin Patterson's victims made their home. Don and Gail Patterson, her in-laws, had lived there since 1984. They brought up their four children in the town of 5,000. Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson lived nearby - her husband Ian was the pastor at the local Baptist four were invited to Erin's house on 29 July 2023 for a family lunch that only Ian would survive, after a liver transplant and weeks in an induced on Monday a jury rejected Erin's claim she accidentally served her guests toxic mushrooms, finding her guilty of three counts of murder and one of attempted 10-week trial caused a massive stir globally, but here in Korumburra they don't want to talk about it. They just want to return to their lives after what has been a difficult two years."It's not an easy thing to go through a grieving process... and it's particularly not easy when there's been so much attention," cattle farmer and councillor for the shire Nathan Hersey told the BBC."There's an opportunity now for a lot of people to be able to have some closure." The locals are fiercely loyal - he's one of the few people who is willing to explain what this ordeal has meant for the many in the region."It's the sort of place that you can be embraced in very quickly and made to feel you are part of it," he those who died clearly helped build that much everyone of a certain generation in town was taught by former school teacher Don Patterson: "You'll hear a lot of people talk very fondly of Don, about the impact he had on them."He was a great teacher and a really engaging person as well." And Mr Hersey says he has heard many, many tales of Heather and Gail's generosity and to the Korumburra Baptist Church noticeboard is a short statement paying tribute to the trio, who were "very special people who loved God and loved to bless others"."We all greatly miss Heather, Don and Gail whether we were friends for a short time or over 20 years," it not just Korumburra that's been changed by the tragedy though. This part of rural Victoria is dotted with small towns and hamlets, which may at first appear quite reality is they are held together by close ties - ties which this case has nearby Outtrim, the residents of Neilson Street – an unassuming gravel road host to a handful of houses – have been left reeling by the prosecution claim their gardens may have produced the murder was one of two locations where death cap mushrooms were sighted and posted on iNaturalist, a citizen science website. Pointing to cell phone tracking data, the prosecution alleged that Erin Patterson went to both to forage for the lethal fungi."Everyone knows somebody who has been affected by this case," Ian Thoms tells the BBC from his small farm on Nielson Street. He rattles off his list. His son is a police detective. His wife works with the daughter of the only survivor Ian. His neighbour is good friends with "Funky Tom", the renowned mushroom expert called upon by the prosecution – who coincidentally was also the person who had posted the sighting of the fungi the road another 15 minutes is Leongatha, where Erin Patterson's home sits among other sprawling properties on an unpaved bought a plot of land here with a generous inheritance from her mother and built the house assuming she would live here has been sitting empty for about 18 months, a sign on the gate telling trespassers to keep out. A neighbour's sheep intermittently drop by to mow the grass. This week, the livestock was gone, and a black tarpaulin had been erected around the carport and the entrance to her a sense of intrigue among some of the neighbours, but there's also a lot of weariness. Every day there are gawkers driving down the lane to see the place where the tragic meal happened. One neighbour even reckons she saw a tour bus trundle past the house."When you live in a local town you know names - it's been interesting to follow," says Emma Buckland, who stops to talk to us in the main street."It's bizarre," says her mother Gabrielle Stefani. "Nothing like that has [ever] happened so it's almost hard to believe."The conversation turns to mushroom foraging."We grew up on the farm. Even on the front lawn there's always mushrooms and you know which ones you can and can't eat," says Ms Buckland. "That's something you've grown up knowing."The town that's felt the impact of the case the most in recent months, though, is Morwell; the administrative capital of the City of Latrobe and where the trial has been heard. "We've seen Morwell, which is usually a pretty sleepy town, come to life," says local journalist Liam Durkin, sitting on a wall in front of Latrobe Valley edits the weekly Latrobe Valley Express newspaper, whose offices are just around the corner."I never thought I'd be listening to fungi experts and the like for weeks on end but here we are," he says."I don't think there's ever been anything like this, and they may well never be in Morwell ever again."While not remote by Australian standards, Morwell is still a two-hour drive from the country's second largest city, Melbourne. It feels far removed from the Victorian capital – and often a few months before that fateful lunch served up by Erin Patterson in July 2023, Morwell's paper mill - Australia's last manufacturer of white paper and the provider of many local jobs - shut down. Before that, many more people lost their jobs when a nearby power station closed people here have struggled to find work; others have left to find more lucrative options in states like locals say being thrust in the spotlight now is a bit bizarre. In Jay Dees coffee shop, opposite the police station and the court, Laura Heller explains that she normally makes about 150 coffees a day. Recently it's almost double that."There's been a lot of mixed feelings about [the trial]," she been a massive uptick for many businesses, but this case has also revived long-held division in the community when it comes to the police and justice systems, she explains."This town is affected by crime a lot, but it's a very different type of crime," Ms Heller says, mentioning drugs and youth offending as examples."Half the community don't really have much faith in the police force and our magistrates."Back in Korumburra, what has been shaken is their faith in humanity. It feels like many people around the globe have lost sight of the fact that this headline-making, meme-generating crime left three people dead."Lives in our local community have changed forever," Mr Hersey says."But I would say for a lot of people, it's just become almost like pop culture."Though the past two years has at times brought out the worst in the community, it's also shone a light on the best, he says."We want to be known as a community that has been strong and has supported one another... rather than a place that is known for what we now know was murder."Additional reporting by Tiffanie Turnbull

Australia's Qantas says cyber criminal contacts one week after data breach
Australia's Qantas says cyber criminal contacts one week after data breach

Reuters

timean hour ago

  • Reuters

Australia's Qantas says cyber criminal contacts one week after data breach

July 8 (Reuters) - A cyber criminal has made contact with Australia's Qantas ( opens new tab following a data breach last week that exposed personal information of six million customers, a company spokesperson told Reuters on Tuesday. The hacker had targeted a call centre and gained access to a third-party customer service platform containing the customers' names, email addresses, phone numbers, birth dates and frequent flyer numbers. "As this is a criminal matter, we have engaged the Australian Federal Police and won't be commenting any further on the detail of the contact," the spokesperson said, adding there was no evidence stolen data had been released but the company continued monitoring with cyber security experts. The breach represents Australia's most high-profile cyber attack since telecommunications giant Optus and health insurer Medibank ( opens new tab were hit in 2022, incidents that prompted mandatory cyber resilience laws. The latest incident brings unwelcome scrutiny to the country's flag carrier as it seeks to rebuild public trust after its COVID-19 pandemic actions saw it plummet on airline and brand reputation rankings.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store