Jury finds Australian woman intentionally killing lunch guests with poisoned beef Wellington
Erin Patterson, an Australian woman, was charged with killing three relatives and baking them with a death cap mushroom in a beef Wellington lunch, was convicted of three counts of murder and attempted murder by a loneliness survivor.
After a 10-week trial in Morwell, a jury of 12 members considered a sentence of about six days, a small town about an hour’s drive from the suburban restaurant in Leongatha, Victoria, where deadly lunches are served in July 2023.
When it was announced that the jury had attracted audiences around the world and spawned four cases dedicated to opening up the evidence every day, dozens of media staff announced the jury to make a verdict.
During weeks of testimony, Patterson was accused of deliberately fading lunch with death cap mushrooms and highly toxic fungi, and after seeing their location posted on a public website, she chose the violent fungus.
A few days later, her ex-parents, Don and Gail Patterson, died along with Gail's sister, Heather Wilkinson. Heather's husband, Ian, was their local pastor and survived weeks of hospitalization.
Her defense attorney once believed that death was a “terrible accident” when Patterson tried to improve the taste of the meal, and she repeatedly lied to police when she realized she might have added foraging mushrooms.
Patterson sat in court and listened to the hearing of prosecutors calling witnesses, who claimed that their testimony told a compelling story about a triple murder, and the jury eventually found legal standards beyond reasonable doubt.
Under Australian law, jurors cannot be publicly identified and even after the trial is over, they prohibit publicly reviewed by juries.
It will never be known which evidence affects every juror's decision, but all 12 evidence must be agreed on the judgment.
Lunch of destiny
The fact that agrees is that Patterson asked for lunch for five people on July 29, 2023, including her estranged husband, Simon Patterson, who quit the day before.
Within hours after the meal, four lunch guests – Simon's parents, Don and Gale, and his aunt, uncles, Heather and Ian Wilkinson – became ill from vomiting and diarrhea. When the doctors tried to save them, they went to the hospital, where they were placed in an inducing coma.
Gail and Heather died on August 4 due to polynomial failure, followed by Don't die on August 5 after failing to respond to a liver transplant. Ian Wilkinson survived and was finally discharged in late September after nearly two months of intensive treatment.
Death cap mushrooms contain amino antitoxins that prevent the production of proteins in liver cells, resulting in cell death and liver failure begins about two days after ingestion.
Deadly mushrooms were found in several Australian states, and deadly mushrooms were found at lunch, and during lunch they were short at home in Patterson, Victoria.
Death Cap mushrooms are highly toxic and can lead to liver failure and death. – William West/AFP/Getty Images/File
During the trial, prosecutors argued that Patterson had a chance to choose the deadly mushroom after seeing his location posted on the Citizen Science Inaturalist website.
The guilty verdict shows that the jury accepted the prosecutor's argument that she might have traveled to two locations in April and May 2023 and deliberately selected the mushrooms used in the meal.
Prosecution alleges “calculation fraud”
Prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC claimed that “four calculated deceptions” were at the heart of the case. “The first deception was the fabricated pretense that cancer claims she used as a lunch invitation,” she said.
“The second deception was the deadly poison that the defendant secreted in the beef Wellington supplied. The third deception was her attempt to expose her to death cap mushroom poisoning and the fourth deception, which was a constant cover-up that she began to hide the truth.”
Patterson admitted that on April 28 — the same day that the cell phone signal placed her near the Death Cap mushroom — she purchased a dehydrator, which she later dumped at the garbage recycling center on August 2 while the guests were lying in the hospital.
It has her fingerprints on it and contains residue from the Death Cap mushroom.
Prosecutors claimed Patterson had forged the disease a few days after lunch and tried to cover up her track by disposing of dehydrators and factory resetting equipment to remove evidence.
Patterson’s defense attorney Colin Mandy SC alleges prosecution selective and pushes for “four ridiculous, complex propositions.”
Mandy said first, Patterson “has no motivation” to do so.
He said there were several reasons Patterson didn’t want to kill his guests. He said she had no money, lived in a large house, and was custodial to her two children almost full-time, who were very close to her grandparents.
The prosecution does not have to prove the motive.
Rogers accused Patterson of having two faces: she showed the world a world that showed she had a good relationship with Pattersons, while she only showed her Facebook friends a hidden face that she wanted to “have nothing to do with them.”
In a Facebook message sent in December 2022, Patterson expressed anger and frustration at Don and Gail's reluctance to participate in the breakdown of his son's marriage.
“I'm tired of this shit, and I don't want to have nothing to do with them,” she wrote. “I thought his parents wanted him to do the right thing, but it seemed that they were worried that they didn't want to feel uncomfortable and didn't want to be involved in their son's personal affairs, which made them so.”
Another message reads: “I vow to raise this family of God.”
Simon Patterson's parents, Don and Gail, and aunt Heather Wilkinson, died within a week after eating the poisoned meal. -Martin Keep/AFP/Getty Images
In her eight days of testimony, including cross-examination, Patterson always begged for her innocence, claiming that she accidentally added the foraging mushrooms to the meal.
Judge Christopher Beale said in his direction to the jury that Patterson admitted that she told lies and disposal evidence not to impose them on her.
“It's a court, not a moral court,” he said.
“The question is not whether she is responsible for the tragic consequences of lunch in some sense, but whether the prosecutors have proved that she is responsible for the crimes of those consequences,” he said.
The jury found Patterson intended to kill all four lunch guests and repeatedly lied, claiming he hadn't.
Patterson will be sentenced later.
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