'Ultra weird': Erin Patterson rarely saw mother while ex-husband visited with their two kids as texts reveal killer's dysfunctional family relationship
Patterson was this week found guilty by a jury of murdering her three relatives of spouse Simon Patterson after serving them a poisonous beef wellington in 2023.
Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson, died when they ate the death cap mushroom-laced lunch. Heather's husband Ian miraculously survived.
In the days after the incident, text messages had revealed Patterson had a dysfunctional relationship with her mum, Heather Scutter, who she described as "ultra weird".
The mass murderer has now been accused of abandoning her mother.
"Simon visited with the kids but Erin never came up," a source told Herald Sun.
"He took the kids to Magic Mountain in Merimbula, they love it."
Ms Scutter had retired to Eden, a picturesque town on the South Coast of New South Wales where she lived by the water in a two-storey brick home.
She died of cancer in 2019, years after the death of her husband from pancreatic cancer.
A neighbour said they were "glad" Patterson's parents had died as he did not know "how they would have coped" knowing their daughter was a mass murderer.
'They were lovely people, always travelling. I would take around tomatoes there when we had too many. This is just a tragedy," he said to Herald Sun.
Ms Scutter was relocated to a nursing home after her husband died. The South Coast property was sold in 2019 for $900,000 by the killer and her sister.
Eden is about a 5.5 hour drive from the small Victorian town of Leongatha, where Patterson lived with her family.
Text messages between Patterson and a close friend reported on in 2023 had revealed the triple murderer had disliked her mum since she was a child.
After Heather's death, the mushroom cook confided to a friend claiming she had a "horrible upbringing" and that her mother was "essentially a cold robot".
"My mum was ultra weird her whole life. It was like being brought up in a Russian orphanage where they don't touch the babies," she texted a friend.
Patterson has 28 days to appeal the murder convictions.
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