An Australian woman murdered The parents and aunt of her husband by lacing her beef lunch with toxic mushrooms, a jury found on Monday at the height of a trial that was observed worldwide.
Sharp house chef erin Patterson In July 2023, an intimate meal organized with good-natured joke and serious prayer-but ended with three guests.
During a court procedure that lasted more than two months, Patterson was retained that the beef-and-pastry dish was accidentally poisoned with the fatal mushroom mushrooms of the world.
A 12-member jury on Monday thought the 50-year-old of the triple murder was guilty, a crime that has a maximum prison sentence of representatives of life.
She was also found guilty of murdering a fourth guest who survived.
“I think it is very important that we remember that we had three people who died,” said Detective Inspector Dean Thomas after the verdict.
“I ask you to recognize these people and not to forget them.”
The process moved podcasters, film crews and true crime fans to the rural city of Morwell, a sedated Hamlet in the state of Victoria, which is better known for award -winning roses.
New York newspapers to Neu -Delhi have followed every turn of what many now simply describe the “mushroom murders”.
‘Yummy’
Family members of the victims refused to speak after the verdict and asked for privacy in a statement published by the police.
A lonely girlfriend of Patterson seemed to be overwhelmed by emotions when she left the courthouse.
“I’m sad. But it’s what it is,” she said.
On July 29, 2023, Patterson set the table for an intimate family meal in her Bree-Haded Country property.
Her lunch guests this afternoon were Don and Gail Patterson, the parents of their long -oriented husband Simon.
Also for Simon’s maternal aunt Heather Wilkinson and her husband Ian, a well -known pastor in the local Baptist Church.
Husband Simon was pushed to come, but he declined because he felt “uncomfortable”.
In the background, Patterson’s relationship with Simon started too acidic.
The couple – still legally married – had fought for Simon’s child benefit contributions.
Patterson expired for expensive beef pieces, which she put in a duxy of chopped mushrooms and was wrapped in pastries to produce individual packages of beef wellington.
The guests said Grace before putting themselves on after eating and praying again -with Heather raving about the “delicious and beautiful” meal later.
The mushrooms of deaths are easily confused with other edible varieties and reports report a sweet taste that contradicts their strong toxicity.
“Not able to survive”
The blood of the guests was quickly out with a fatal amatoxin, a poison made by the death cap mushrooms, which is known that they sprout under the oaks of Victoria.
Don, Gail and Heather died of organ failure within a week.
Detectives soon found signs that Patterson had built the food with murderous intentions.
Patterson told her guests that she had received a cancer diagnosis and needed advice to interrupt the news to her children, the public prosecutor claimed.
However, the medical documents showed that Patterson received no such diagnosis.
The public prosecutor said this was a lie to lure the guests to their table.
She also logged to have a food hydrumana that the police later removed in a garbage tip.
Forensic tests found that the device contained traces of the fatal mushrooms.
“I agree that I lied because I feared that I would be responsible,” Patterson told the process.
A computer confiscated by her house had overthrew a website that discovered a short journey from her house a year before lunch, the police said.
“Super Sleuth”
The death edges are the most fatal mushrooms in the world, which are responsible for around 90 percent of all deaths due to the consumption of poisonous fungi.
Baptist preacher Ian Wilkinson was the only guest who survived and went through the hospital after weeks.
He told the court how the guests’ meals were served on four gray plates, while Patterson ate from a smaller orange dish.
But he couldn’t explain why Patterson wanted him dead.
Patterson was a committed mother of two years with an active interest in her close -meshed community.
She was also a well-known true crime fan and competed in a Facebook group to chew details from infamous Australian murders.
The girlfriend Christine Hunt said that the jury Patterson had the reputation of “a little a great lock”.
Patterson kept through her lawyers, it was nothing more than a “terrible accident”.
“She didn’t do it on purpose. She didn’t do it on purpose,” defender Colin Mandy told the trial.
“She denies that she has ever been looking for the death limit.”
With countless hours of complicated expert statements, it confronts that the jury took a week for Patterson to find guilty.
The court will soon set a date for a conviction, in which Patterson will be stated in prison.
Your legal team has 28 days after the conviction to appeal both against their criminal convictions and their punishment.
Patterson’s lawyers have not yet stated whether they will make an appeal.
