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Daily Mail
09-07-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Staight-talking doctor whose key evidence helped bring mushroom lunch murderer Erin Patterson to justice reveals how he now faces losing his JOB
A quick-thinking doctor who gave key evidence at Erin Patterson 's trial fears that he will lose his job after he called her a 'crazy b***' and a 'disturbed sociopathic nutbag' in a newspaper interview following the verdict. Dr Chris Webster has been in the headlines since Patterson was found guilty on Monday of murdering her in-laws Don and Gail Patterson, and her sister, Heather Wilkinson, with death cap mushrooms hidden in beef Wellingtons on July 29, 2023. The straight-talking doctor has now been gagged from speaking to the media after his clinic received official complaints about the way he described Patterson. Dr Webster was a key medical witness early in the 10-week trial, telling the jury he first encountered Patterson at Leongatha hospital at about 8am on Sunday, July 31, 2023 - two days after her deadly lunch. At that stage, Don, Gail, Heather and her husband, Ian Wilkinson, were fighting for life in various hospitals. Dr Webster was already aware that her four guests may have been poisoned with death cap mushrooms when he first laid eyes on Patterson at the hospital. The experienced doctor, who now owns Leongatha Healthcare clinic, told the jury he apologised to Patterson before he recognised her as the lunch cook. 'I apologised (that) she had been kept waiting, I asked why she had presented and she said "gastro",' he said. 'I asked her where she got the mushrooms and she said, "Woolworths".' Dr Webster, who doubted Patterson's Woolworths claims, said he told her that he needed to commence treatment on her for possible death cap mushroom poisoning. The doctor later said he became aware Patterson had left the hospital. After the verdict, Dr Webster told the Herald Sun he thought Patterson was a 'crazy b***h'. 'If she said she picked them (the death caps), it would have been a very different mindset for me because there would have been an instant assumption it was all a tragic accident,' he told the newspaper. 'But once she said that answer (that she bought the mushrooms from Woolworths), my thoughts were, "holy f**king shit, you f**king did it, you crazy b***h, you poisoned them all." 'The turning point for me was that moment.' Dr Webster also described Patterson as a 'disturbed sociopathic nutbag'. The doctor, who serves the medically under-resourced Gippsland region of Victoria, now faces the possibility of losing his job. In an exclusive interview with Daily Mail, Dr Webster said his clinic has received numerous formal complaints which may need to be investigated by the medical board. The doctor said he will work to clear his name and get on with treating patients after numerous people accused him of being a 'misogynist'. 'I'm not that at all, that's not me,' Dr Webster told Daily Mail. 'I stand by what I've done, this is very important. I'm happy to do all the media but it's become all too much now and I have engaged a lawyer and now gagged from any future media (in the short term). 'It's one thing copping these accusations on social media and Instagram but now it's formal complaints. I need to get home and back to work and sort this out, and once things are sorted I will speak again.' Dr Webster said the complaints had drained his and his family's energy. 'One of the complaints accused me of talking about a "patient of mine", they referred to Patterson as a "patient of mine", not as a convicted killer,' he said. 'I go back to work next week and hopefully I'll be able to get back to the work required of a rural doctor.' Dr Webster also said he feared the medical board would need to investigate the complaints if they were 'substantiated'. An adverse finding by the board, if it got that far, could result in a suspension, or, in an extreme measure, disqualification for Dr Webster. During the trial, Dr Webster told the court that Patterson had discharged herself against medical advice. 'I was surprised, well, I had just informed (her) she had just been exposed to a deadly death cap mushroom and I thought hospital would be a better place to be,' Dr Webster told the court. 'I rang Erin's mobile three times and left three voicemails. 'I was apologetic, and I informed the voicemail that I would have to inform police for her health and safety to bring her back to hospital.' Dr Webster rang triple-0 and that call was played to the jury. The doctor later said he became aware Patterson had left hospital. 'Erin had discharged herself against advice,' he said. 'I was surprised, well, I had just informed (her) she had just been exposed to a deadly death cap mushroom and I thought hospital would be a better place to be. 'I rang Erin's mobile three times and left three voicemails. 'I was apologetic, and I informed the voicemail that I would have to inform police for her health and safety to bring her back to hospital.' Dr Webster rang triple-0 and that call was played to the jury. 'This is Dr Chris Webster calling from Leongatha Hospital and I have a concern regarding a patient that presented here earlier and has left the building and is potentially exposed a toxin from mushroom poisoning and I've tried several times to get hold of her on her mobile phone,' he commenced the call. The operator informed Dr Webster that police would drive to Patterson's home in Leongatha to perform a welfare check. Dr Webster said he encountered Patterson again just before 10am that same day after she returned to the hospital. At 10.04am, police called the hospital and said they had arrived at Patterson's house. 'I told them she was here (at hospital) but I asked them to grab some of the leftover Wellington,' Dr Webster said. 'I had no idea, but figured there was a chance, strike while the iron is hot.' Dr Webster said he became concerned about Patterson after warning her that her children could be in dire trouble. 'I stressed the importance of getting them to hospital,' he said. 'Erin was reluctant to inform the children and I said it was important, she was concerned they were going to be frightened. 'I said, "they can be scared and alive, or dead."' Erin's estranged husband, Simon Patterson, drove Ian and Heather Wilkinson to Leongatha Hospital on July 30 before the couple were transferred to the Austin ICU. Patterson's guilty verdict ended one of Australia's most intriguing homicide cases. The mother-of-two, who pleaded not guilty to the murders, sat defiantly throughout her 10-week trial, glaring at the media, members of the public and the family of the people she murdered with callous disregard. Only Pastor Ian Wilkinson survived her plot - a blunder Patterson would live to regret, and will now serve time for after also being found guilty of attempting to murder him. Patterson, who is on remand at Dame Phyllis Frost Centre, will be sentenced at a later date.
ABC News
09-07-2025
- Health
- ABC News
Intensive care doctor Stephen Warrillow details agonising efforts to save Erin Patterson's mushroom murder victims
Doctors who treated Erin Patterson's murder victims have detailed their agonising efforts to save the victims and how one came to form the opinion they were dealing with a killer. Heather Wilkinson and Don and Gail Patterson were killed after they ate beef Wellingtons that were laced with poisonous mushrooms, and served to them by Erin Patterson at her home in Leogantha in July 2023. Ian Patterson survived. All four presented to the hospital with severe symptoms and were treated by a team led by Dr Stephen Warrillow, who is Director of Intensive Care at Austin Health. "They were devastatingly unwell," Dr Warrillow told 7.30. That organ failure began in their livers, which the toxin from death cap mushrooms targets. Dr Warrillow said it was just the beginning of a horrible ordeal for all four of the victims. "Once the liver fails, it tends to drag down all of the other body organs with it," he said. "So whilst the liver is the first organ to be affected, what soon follows is the kidney failure, circulatory failure, and more general metabolic failure. Dr Warrillow said all four patients were then put on mechanical ventilators and dialysis-style machines to try and purify their blood. This was done due to the serious elevation in toxins they all presented with. "We also administered some specific therapies to try and protect the liver from further injury from Amanita toxin poisoning," Dr Warrillow said. "Amanita toxin, once it's been swallowed and has been absorbed from the bowel into circulation, tends to hone in on the liver. "We give multi-dose activated charcoal, so that's ground-up charcoal basically ... we also use other medications such as Silibinin to try and interrupt the toxin poisoning the liver cells directly." While the ICU teams worked overtime, ultimately in three out of four cases their attempts, though immense, proved futile. Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson were deemed too unwell to even attempt liver transplants to save their lives. Don Patterson was given one but ultimately he too succumbed to his poisoning at the hands of triple-murderer Erin Patterson. Dr Warrillow said that surgery takes a huge toll on both the team performing it and the patient. "Liver transplantation is one of the most complex and lengthy surgical procedures that we would ever do," he said. "The patient has to be sick enough to need one, but well enough to get through the surgery. "It takes essentially an entire day and for the theatre team, this is really a marathon. The one person who was able to be saved was Ian Wilkinson and it is something that Dr Warrillow puts down to extraordinary work by the bedside clinical team in the ICU. "He was in multiple organ failure," Dr Warrillow said. "He had very high levels of acid in his blood, higher levels of ammonia toxin in his blood, and looked very much like he was likely to die. "It's quite a remarkable outcome for him that he was ultimately able to survive and could recover so well in the end." Dr Warrillow told 7.30 that he and the treatment team had advised Ian Patterson's family it was likely he would die and credited his fortitude and the work of his nurses for his survival. "Ultimately he stabilised and that took a lot of work from, particularly the bedside nurses, to provide extraordinary measures of support for his circulation, and to try and clear toxins from his blood," he said. "They did a tremendous job with that." He also paid credit to the families for the job they had done in handling a difficult situation. "They are experiencing their tragedy and their catastrophic encounter [in] intensive care," he said. "And they were remarkably gracious and dignified throughout, their attention and love that they expressed towards their critically ill relatives was really very inspiring. "They always expressed considerable gratitude and thanks, particularly to the bedside nursing and medical team who worked so hard to try and save the lives of their loved ones." Despite saving Ian Patterson and the best efforts of the medical teams involved three people are dead. Dr Chris Webster says he has no doubt as to why after his interaction with Erin Patterson at Leongatha Hospital and in the Morwell courtroom but he had also previously treated Heather Wilkinson. He described her death as "particularly distressing" and something that would haunt him. Dr Webster said he had met Heather once before to treat her for a musculoskeletal injury and that both her and her husband Ian were "humble, softly spoken, unassuming and respectful of each other". "The combination of that innate kindness and nice aspects of their behaviour and personality made it particularly distressing for me to see Heather pushed into the ambulance, and just before the door was closed, which then blocked our view of each other, she made sure to make the effort to thank me for the care that the hospital had provided. "That's a very difficult moment because when those words came at me, my mind was [saying], 'But you're going to die.' Dr Webster has previously told the ABC that he felt Erin Patterson was "evil" and that when she presented to him at Leogantha Hospital and told him she had got the mushrooms from "Woolworths" he felt she was "guilty". "There was no doubt in my mind from the moment she said "Woolworths" that she was guilty of deliberately putting these poisonous mushrooms in the meal," Dr Webster told 7.30. The other suspicious part was Erin Patterson leaving the hospital after he had just told her she could have been exposed to poisoning. It caused Dr Webster to turn to a nurse and demand to know where the triple-murderer was. "I said, 'Where the f**k is she'?" he told 7.30. "And Kylie (the nurse) said she left. "I had just told her she's been exposed to a potentially fatal death cap mushroom poisoning ... why would you be anywhere else than hospital?" Shortly after that Dr Webster made a triple-0 call to police. That call would be used as a key piece of evidence in Patterson's trial. He said the moment he dialled the emergency number, he knew it would become a pivotal moment. "When I dialled that last zero and it started to ring, I knew that what I was about to say was going to be evidence in a court trial one day," he told 7.30. "I've heard that call played in court and I've heard it quite a bit in the past 24 hours. "My family is sick of hearing it but I can still hear that stress and tension in my own voice. Asked why he always thought he was dealing with a killer, Dr Webster said it came down to Erin Patterson's action and demeanour. Her unconcerned approach to her own potential situation, her answer to where she got the mushrooms and her indifference to her victims when she saw them in the hospital has seen Dr Webster form a view of her as a sociopathic killer. "She sat quietly in a chair that was only a couple of metres away from Ian and Heather," he recalled. "That absence of concern for the wellbeing of Ian and Heather, I found that quite stark in terms of its oddness. And that contributed to the ongoing tapestry in my mind of her culpability." Dr Webster believes Erin Patterson simply wanted her in-laws and her estranged husband's family out of her life. "She didn't want the in-laws in her life, in particular the ex-husband. "I think because she wanted her children to be her children and not children of a man and a family that she either didn't understand or didn't make efforts to connect with. "For whatever reason, she wanted people out of her life and rather than doing it the way normal person does, she made the very true connection in her mind that, well, if they're dead, they'll be out of my life." The case has captured the attention of media across the globe and seen curious case-watchers descend on the country town of Morwell in Victoria. For Dr Webster that curiosity stems from a disbelief about how Patterson committed the crimes. "I think it's difficult ... to wonder how someone could do what she's done," he told 7.30. "I think the answer is that her brain is not the same as others. "There's an element of sociopathic evil with no regard for how her actions are going to cause pain and suffering." Watch 7.30, Mondays to Thursdays 7:30pm on ABC iview and ABC TV Do you know more about this story? Get in touch with 7.30 here.
Al Arabiya
08-07-2025
- Al Arabiya
Australia's Mushroom Trial Ends in a Guilty Verdict. Why Erin Patterson Did It Remains a Mystery
The high-profile case of the so-called Death Cap Mushroom Cook is likely to remain a topic of conversation across Australia for years to come. For more than two months, the triple-murder trial has gripped the public's attention with details of how Erin Patterson murdered three of her estranged husband's relatives by deliberately serving them a lunch of poisonous mushrooms. 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.
The Guardian
08-07-2025
- The Guardian
Erin Patterson mushroom murder verdict – what happens next?
After almost 11 weeks, a jury has found Erin Patterson guilty of murdering three relatives and attempting to murder a fourth by lacing a beef wellington lunch with poisonous mushrooms. The guilty verdict read out in the Morwell court on Monday was swift. Yes, they said, guilty of murdering Don and Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson. Yes, they said – to the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson, the pastor who had lost his wife. This will not be the last of it, however – Patterson's sentencing is still to come, as well as a possible appeal. The sentencing comes first, with the court likely to reconvene sometime in the next month, says Emeritus Professor in Law at the University of South Australia Rick Sarre. 'The court will reconvene,' he said. '[Patterson will] sit there, and the judge will ask for sentencing submissions.' Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email At this point, the defence would typically ask for a pre-sentence report, Sarre said. The pre-sentence report is often an independent psychological evaluation, but it could also include an analysis on the defendant's rehabilitation prospects, her background, criminal history, health or other mitigating factors that could help determine an appropriate sentence. The matter will then be set down for a future date, and when the reports come in they will be delivered to the judge and court will reconvene. The submissions on the sentence from the prosecution and defence will then be heard by the judge. 'Then the judge will consider [Patterson's] sentence and probably come back another week later and deliver the sentence,' Sarre said. The last triple-murderer to be sentenced in Victoria was Robert Farquharson, who was convicted of murdering his children in 2007 and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 33 years. Maximum penalty sentences are scaled, with murder and trafficking large quantities of drugs sitting at level 1 – which attracts the highest penalty. 'The maximum sentence is life imprisonment, and I'm anticipating that she'll get a life sentence, and then it just comes down to what the non-parole period will be,' Sarre said. In Victoria, the minimum non-parole period for murder, if the offender has other convictions, is 30 years. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion 'I'm guessing the non-parole period will be between 30 and 37 years. You have countenanced the fact that there is not just one murder,' Sarre said. Patterson is 50 years old, which means her prison sentence could see her incarcerated into her 80s. In general, Australian courts try to avoid 'crushing sentences' that destroy 'any reasonable expectation of useful life after release' Sarre said. The criminal court has found sentencing should be 'neither too harsh nor too lenient. Just as totality is applied to avoid a crushing sentence'. 'In comparison, the Americans have this funny system that if you get three life sentences, you have them sequentially,' Sarre said. 'That's kind of quaint, because if they're 50, they're not going to live till they're 140.' 'We don't just stack them up. We don't say 30 plus 30 plus 30.' From the date of her sentence, Patterson's legal team have 28 days to decide if they are going to appeal. The legal team can appeal against the sentence or the verdict. If they choose to appeal against the conviction, her team has two options – the first is in arguing there was an error in the way in which Justice Christopher Beale summed up the case to the jury. 'You just don't get appeal as a right,' Sarre said. 'You actually have to establish through the filtering process whether you will waste the court's time in putting an appeal up.' The second ground would be to appeal against a judgment if 'no jury properly instructed could have reached that particular verdict', which was the grounds for appeal used successfully in the George Pell case.
News.com.au
08-07-2025
- News.com.au
Erin Patterson: Lunch survivor Ian Wilkinson's message after verdict
The survivor of a poisoned beef wellington meal hosted by killer cook Erin Patterson has shared a message as his family continues to grieve the deaths of three loved ones. Posted on the noticeboard outside the Korumburra Baptist Church on Tuesday, Ian Wilkinson is quoted as saying 'life can be hard, but God is faithful'. The notice comes a day after Patterson, 50, was found guilty of killing three members of her husband Simon Patterson's family and the attempted murder of Mr Wilkinson. The quartet fell critically ill after they were served a beef wellington containing death cap mushrooms at Patterson's home on July 29, 2023. Don and Gail Patterson and Mr Wilkinson's wife Heather died in the week following the lunch. At trial, prosecutors argued Patterson, who pleaded not guilty, intentionally sought out and included the deadly fungi in the lunch, while claimed she did not deliberately poison her guests. Attributed to the church's leadership team, where Mr Wilkinson has served as pastor for more than two decades, the message asks for privacy during the 'difficult time'. 'We all greatly miss Heather, Don and Gail, whether we were friends for a short time or over 20 years. They were very special people who loved God and lived to bless others,' the messages reads. 'It's been a long journey, and we continue to lovingly support Ian, Simon and all the Wilkinson and Patterson family members through this difficult time. 'We appreciate all the care from our local communities, special support from individuals and from the Baptist Union of Victoria, and the churches and people from all over the world who have been praying for us. 'As our Pastor Ian has said; 'Life can be hard, but God is faithful, and He is always with us'. 'The Wilkinson and Patterson families have asked that people respect their privacy at this time. Please also respect the privacy of our church family.' The morning after jurors returned a unanimous guilty verdict in Morwell following a 46-day trial, the towns of Korumburra and Leongatha, where the Pattersons and Wilkinsons live, were quiet, cold and overcast. Small contingents of media were posted outside the homes of Simon and Mr Wilkinson from the early hours of the day. At the front of the two properties, notices requesting privacy were fixed to fences. 'Warning: entry to this property by any persons employed by or working on behalf of the media is not permitted,' a sign outside Mr Wilkinson's home reads. 'Trespassers will be reported to the police.' Just minutes away at the Korumburra Cemetery, where Don, Gail and Ms Wilkinson are buried, several mourners paid their respects to others interred there. The sound of wind permeated the hilltop cemetery, punctuated only by the bellows of cattle on three sides of the burial grounds. A small bouquet of artificial flowers adorned Don and Gail's grave. Speaking to media two hours after the verdict came down on Monday, Detective Inspector Dean Thomas requested privacy for the Patterson and Wilkinson families. 'It's very important that we remember we've had three people; three people died and we've had a person that nearly died and was seriously injured as a result; that has led to these charges,' he said. 'I ask that we acknowledge those people and not forget them. I ask also that the Patterson family and Wilkinson family have asked for privacy during this time.'
