The woman, Erin Patterson, had served three family members a lunch of poisonous mushrooms in the Australian town of Leongatha in July last year. For the meal she had invited her ex-husband’s parents, Gail and Don Patterson. Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, and Heather’s husband Ian were also present.
After lunch – beef wellington with mushrooms – the four guests became ill. Her former parents-in-law Gail (70) and Don (70) died in the following days, as did Heather (66). Ian (68) became seriously ill but later recovered. The dish turned out to contain one of the world’s most poisonous mushrooms – the green tuberous ammonite.
Erin Patterson herself maintains that she accidentally poisoned her ex-in-laws, but the judiciary says they have convincing evidence against her. She has now officially stated in court that she is innocent.
She previously stated that the food contained white mushrooms from the supermarket and dried mushrooms from an Asian store, but she did not know that these were extremely poisonous mushrooms. She says she is ‘devastated with grief’ over the deaths of the three family members.
The woman was interviewed by ABC News last year:
Ex-husband targeted
The woman is charged with three counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder. But during the investigation into the case, the judiciary came across more suspicions: Patterson is also suspected of three attempted murders of her ex-husband, at different times.
Police arrested Patterson a few months after the poisonings, partly because she and her children did not appear to have been poisoned. It later turned out that she herself had also been admitted to a hospital. The children ate the leftovers the next day, but had scooped off the mushrooms because they didn’t like them.
The case will continue in two weeks.
Tags: Australian woman denies triple mushroom murder RTL News
