An Australian woman accused of cooking a deadly mushroom lunch for relatives retires to decide her fate.
Erin Patterson, 50, pleaded not guilty to four charges — three murders and one attempted murder — at a Wellington Beef Lunch in July 2023 in her Victoria-area lunch.
Prosecutors claimed Ms. Patterson intentionally placed the toxic death cap mushrooms into a cooked family meal and then lied to police and disposal the evidence.
But the defense believes Ms. Patterson accidentally included the toxic fungus in the dish, just shocked by the fact that she hurt her loved ones.
Ms. Patterson’s mother-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson, both 70 years old, and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson, 66 years old, both fell ill and died a few days after Leongatha’s lunch.
Heather’s husband, local pastor Ian Wilkinson, recovered a few weeks after an inducing coma. The defendant’s estranged husband, Simon Patterson, was also invited to lunch but evacuated the day before.
On Monday, Judge Christopher Beale gave the jury a final direction, summarizing the evidence of the indictment and the sole defense witness, Ms. Patterson.
After nearly two months and more than 50 witnesses, the last 12 jurors were decided by a vote, before the organization retired for deliberation.
Prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC said in her closing debate that Ms. Patterson “tells a lot of lies that it’s hard to track them.”
Prosecutors accused Ms. Patterson of lying to her relatives to convince them to attend the deadly lunch, poison them, and then fake the disease to cover up her tracks.
They believe Ms. Patterson further lied to police and medical staff about foraging wild mushrooms and her decision to abandon the food used to prepare the meal to dehydrate, which is evidence of her inner gui.
“She told the lies because she knew the truth would suggest her,” said Nanette Rogers.
“When she knew her lie had been discovered, she came up with an elaborate narrative to fit the evidence–almost.”
Dr. Rogers told the court there was no “special motivation” for the alleged crime, but the jury still had “no difficulties” when rejecting the argument “this is all a horrible foraging accident.”
However, the defense believes that lack of motivation is key. They said Ms. Patterson had no reason to kill her guests.
During Ms. Patterson’s evidence, she told the jury that she was very close to her parents-in-law and never intended to hurt them.
As she prepares lunch, Ms. Patterson claims she added mushrooms from containers in the pantry, which she now realizes may include store-buyed and foraging mushrooms.
She also told the court that she had been suffering from bulimia for years and threw herself after a beef Wellington meal—her defense team explained why she wasn’t sick like everyone else.
Ms Patterson said the lies about cancer were because she was embarrassed about her plan to plan a bariatric surgery and she did not tell authorities the truth about her mushroom foraging hobby because she was worried they might blame her for making her sick relatives.
Defense attorney Colin Mandy SC said: “She was not tried for lying, it is not a court of moral judgment.
He accused the prosecution of trying to piece together the evidence of the “puzzle”, “expanding the explanations, ignoring the others because they do not exactly match the narrative.”
Judge Bill told the jury members in his final direction that they were alone “the judge of the facts in this case.”
He said they should not be convicted just for lying, because “there are all kinds of reasons that make a person’s actions seem guilty.”
He added that while “any reasonable person would feel very sympathetic to the Patterson and Wilkinson families,” jurors should not allow themselves to be emotionally affected, either.
The jury is now in quarantine, which means that despite their intentional conduct, they will remain in the supervised residence where they will have little contact with the outside world until they make a decision.
