(CNN) Erin Patterson, an Australian lady, was convicted of three charges of murder and attempted murder of the lone survivor after she killed three family with a plate of death cap mushrooms baked in a Beef Wellington lunch.
After a 10-week trial in Morwell, a small town about an hour’s drive from the suburban dining room in Leongatha, Victoria, where the deadly meal was served in July 2023, a 12-member jury returned the verdict after around six days of deliberation.
When it was revealed that the jury had returned a verdict in the case that has captured the attention of audiences all over the world and given rise to four podcasts devoted to dissecting the evidence presented every day, dozens of media crews rushed to the court.
Patterson was charged during weeks of testimony with purposefully contaminating the lunch with death cap mushrooms, which are extremely deadly fungi that she selected after viewing a public webpage listing their location.
In the days that followed, Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson and her former parents-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson, passed away. Ian, Heather’s husband and their local pastor, made it through a hospital stay of several weeks.
The killings, according to her defense attorneys, were the result of a horrible accident that happened when Patterson attempted to enhance the meal’s flavor and that she repeatedly told police lies in a panic when she learned she could have mixed in some foraged mushrooms.
As prosecutors called witness after witness, Patterson sat in court and listened. The prosecutors said that the witnesses’ testimony formed a convincing tale of a triple murder that the jury ultimately determined satisfied the legal threshold of beyond a reasonable doubt.
None of the jurors may be publicly identified under Australian law, and even after the trial is over, they are not allowed to discuss the jury chamber discussions.
Although the specific pieces of evidence that affected each juror’s choice will never be revealed, all 12 jurors had to concur on the verdict.
The meal that proved fatal
On July 29, 2023, Patterson invited five guests to lunch, including her estranged husband Simon Patterson, who canceled the day before, according to the agreed facts.
Simon’s parents, Don and Gail, as well as his aunt and uncle, Ian Wilkinson and Heather, all fell ill with diarrhea and vomiting within hours after the lunch. When they arrived at the hospital, they were put into induced comas as medical professionals attempted to save their lives.
Don passed away on August 5 after failing to respond to a liver transplant, and Gail and Heather passed away on August 4 from multiorgan failure. After receiving critical care for over two months, Ian Wilkinson managed to live and was eventually released from the hospital in late September.
Amanita toxins found in death cap mushrooms stop liver cells from producing proteins, which causes cell death and potential liver failure two days after consumption.
The deadly mushrooms, which are native to Europe, have been observed growing in a number of Australian states. At the time of the meal, Patterson’s house in rural Victoria was only a short drive away from them.
The prosecution contended during the trial that Patterson had the chance to harvest deadly mushrooms after seeing their location listed on the iNaturalist website, a citizen science website.
The guilty verdict indicates that the jury agreed with the prosecution’s contention that she most likely visited two locations in April and May of 2023 and picked the mushrooms for the lunch on purpose.
Alleged deliberate deceptions by the prosecution
Four deliberate lies, according to prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC, were at the core of the case. She claimed that the first lie was the false cancer claim she made in order to get the lunch invitation.
The deadly amounts of poison that the defendants concealed in the homemade beef Wellingtons constituted the second deception. Her attempts to make it appear as though she also contracted death cap mushroom poisoning constituted the third lie, and her persistent cover-up to hide the reality constituted the fourth.
Patterson acknowledged that she purchased a dehydrator on April 28, the day that cellphone signals placed her near death cap mushrooms. On August 2, while her visitors were in the hospital, she disposed of the dehydrator at a trash recycling facility.
It contained traces of death cap mushrooms and her fingerprints.
According to the prosecution, Patterson attempted to hide her activities by throwing away the dehydrator and factory resetting her gadgets to erase evidence, and she pretended to be ill in the days following lunch service.
Colin Mandy SC, Patterson’s defense attorney, charged that the prosecution was selectively presenting the material and making four absurd, twisted claims.
According to Mandy, the first was that Patterson would act in this way without any reason.
According to him, Patterson would not want to murder her guests for a number of reasons. He said that she had no financial problems, lived in a large home, and had care of her two small children nearly full-time. He also claimed that the children were close to their grandparents.
Motive did not need to be proven by the prosecution.
According to Rogers, Patterson had two distinct personalities: one that she displayed to the public, indicating a positive relationship with the Pattersons, and another that she kept hidden and only displayed to her Facebook friends, indicating a lack of interest in interacting with them.
Patterson had been upset and frustrated by Don and Gail’s unwillingness to intervene in their son’s marital dissolution in Facebook communications written in December 2022.
I’m tired of this garbage. She wrote, “I don’t want anything to do with them.” I assumed that his parents would want him to act morally, but it appears that their desire to avoid embarrassment and to avoid being involved in their son’s private affairs is taking precedence over that.
Another post said, “I swear to f***ing god, this family.”
Patterson repeatedly maintained her innocence throughout the eight days of testimony, which included cross-examination, by saying she unintentionally included foraged mushrooms in the lunch.
Justice Christopher Beale instructed the jury that they must not be prejudiced against Patterson because of her admission that she lied and disposed of evidence.
He asserted that this is a court of law and not a court of morality.
According to him, the question is not whether she bears some responsibility for the sad outcomes of the meal, but rather whether the prosecution has established her criminal responsibility for those outcomes beyond a reasonable doubt.
Although Patterson frequently lied on the stand to say she didn’t, the jury concluded that she had planned to murder all four lunch attendees.
At a later time, Patterson will receive his sentence.
