It was a story right out of a particularly dark fairy tale: a woman serves her in-laws an enticing lunch, only for them to die not long after — felled by poisonous mushrooms. On Monday, 50-year-old Erin Patterson was found guilty in Australian court of three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder, after six days of jury deliberation and a 10-week trial, two years after serving her family lethal servings of Beef Wellington in Leongatha, Victoria, in July 2023.
Although the prosecution did not directly offer up a motive at trial — and it seems as though Patterson got along with her in-laws — lawyer Nanette Rogers said that she had “two faces,” and that’s why she committed her crime. Patterson, meanwhile, maintained that she would never want to hurt them. “My parents are both gone,” Patterson told police after the incident. “My grandparents are all gone. They’re the only family that I’ve got… I love them a lot.”
Who is Erin Patterson convicted of killing?
Patterson’s “only family” — and alleged victims — are her estranged husband’s parents, Don and Gail Patterson, both 70, as well as Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson, 66. Only Wilkinson’s husband, Ian Wilkinson, 71, survived the fatal feast. Patterson’s husband, Simon Patterson, who split from his wife in 2015, did not attend the lunch because he was “too uncomfortable,” as he texted her the day before. She replied that him bowing out was “really disappointing” and that she had “spent a small fortune on beef eye filet.”
According to testimony, the lunch invite was a surprise to Patterson’s extended family; Ian said he had never been to Patterson’s house before, and Simon said it was uncommon for his wife to host such an event. Still, they made the trek — even taking along an orange cake as a gift — and tucked into individual servings of the Wellington, an elaborate British dish made of beef covered in mushroom compote and ham, and wrapped in pastry. Ian noticed that Patterson’s portion was served on an orange plate, while everyone else had a grey dish. “I’ve puzzled about it since lunch,” Heather later said, according to a witness at trial. “Is Erin short of crockery?” Still, it was a pleasant meal, complete with banter and prayers — and Patterson ended it by telling the assemblage she had cancer, which they assumed was the reason for the gathering.
Within hours, though, all four guests became ill, vomiting and suffering from diarrhea. All went to the hospital and were placed in induced comas. Gail and Heather died on Aug. 4 of multi-organ failure, while Don died on Aug. 5 after a failed liver transplant. Ian survived and was discharged in September.
What are death cap mushrooms?
According to the prosecution, Patterson prepared the meals with death cap mushrooms, which can lead to liver failure and death. They grow in several Australian locations — including in rural Victoria, not far from Patterson’s house. Lawyers argued that Patterson found their location on a citizen science website, and picked them in April and May of 2023. She also admitted at trial that she bought a dehydrator on April 28 — one of the days her cellphone signals placed her near the fatal mushrooms — which she disposed of at a dump on Aug. 2 after her guests fell ill. The device had her fingerprints on it and had traces of death cap mushrooms, prosecutors say, suggesting she used it to prepare the poisonous fungi.
On the stand, Patterson admitted to being an avid forager, but denied deliberately poisoning her guests, claiming that she accidentally mixed the death cap mushrooms with store-bought mushrooms. She did not say whether she was aware they were poisonous. Her children also claimed that they ate leftovers with no incident.
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Why didn’t Erin Patterson get sick?
Despite the suspiciously mismatched plates Ian noted during lunch, Patterson claims that she ate the same thing as her in-laws but didn’t fall ill because she binged on the cake her family brought and vomited after. During trial, Patterson outlined her battle with bulimia and her weight. Still, Patterson did go to the hospital two days after the lunch, reporting that she felt ill — but declined to be admitted for treatment on behalf of herself and her children, who she informed doctors had also eaten the Wellington. A doctor who had seen her guests brought into the hospital before her called the police, concerned for Patterson’s health. However, after testing, it was determined that neither Patterson nor her children had ingested anything poisonous and that they did not have the same symptoms as her family. As such, it appears unlikely that she and her children consumed poisoned food.
Patterson fervently denied the poisoning back in 2023, telling press, “They’re some of the best people I ever met; they never did anything wrong to me” and describing Gail Patterson as “the mother I never had. … I can’t believe that this has happened and I’m so sorry.”
Still, prosecutors allege that Patterson behaved strangely in the days following the lunch. After getting out of the hospital, CCTV shows her traveling to the dump and tossing the dehydrator, and she was allegedly using three phones at the time of the meal. According to the prosecution, two mysteriously disappeared, and the other had been wiped when police collected it. Plus, her internet search history included at least one query for death cap mushrooms. Meanwhile, Patterson lied to police about owning a dehydrator — which can be helpful when making Wellington — despite having the instruction manual and her prints being on the device. When she realized her in-laws were ill, though, she claims she suspected she had accidentally poisoned them and only lied to the cops because she was scared. “It was this stupid knee-jerk reaction to dig deeper and keep lying,” she told the court.
Did Erin Patterson have a motive to kill her family?
It’s unclear what motive Patterson would have had for poisoning her in-laws; according to Simon, they were on good terms — at least until 2022, when they started arguing about finances. Yet that doesn’t explain why she’d target her extended family. “She especially got on with dad. They shared a love of knowledge and learning,” Simon told the court. “I think she loved his gentle nature.”
Still, Patterson allegedly complained on Facebook messenger about her family’s reluctance to get involved in their declining marriage. “I’m sick of this shit I want nothing to do with them,” she wrote to one friend. “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 fuck em.”
Despite that, her lawyer claimed that she had no motive for murder; he did not respond immediately to a request for comment on the verdict.
Does Erin Patterson really have cancer?
According to prosecutor Nanette Rogers, Patterson made “four calculated deceptions” during that fateful lunch. “The first deception was the fabricated cancer claim she used as a pretense for the lunch invitation. The second deception was the lethal doses of poison the accused secreted in the homecooked beef Wellingtons. The third deception was her attempts to make it seem that she also suffered death cap mushroom poisoning and the fourth deception, the sustained cover-up she embarked upon to conceal the truth.”
It’s unclear why Patterson chose to lie about having cancer, but her lawyer told the court that it was a cover for a weight-loss surgery she was too embarrassed to disclose. Patterson will be sentenced at a later date and faces life in prison. Meanwhile, the public has been following her saga with rabid ferocity, with at least three podcasts on the case now streaming, and coverage across international news outlets.
From Rolling Stone US
