An Australian woman accused of murdering three people with a meal containing poisonous mushrooms has pleaded not guilty in court.
Erin Patterson, 50, is charged with murdering her 70-year-old former parents-in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson, 66. She is also charged with the attempted murder of Heather’s husband, Reverend Ian Wilkinson.
She is accused of lacing a beef wellington she served to the four alleged victims with death cap mushrooms, or Amanita phalloides.
These mushrooms damage cells by blocking protein synthesis, and they’re responsible for more than 90% of European mushroom-related deaths.
Patterson has denied all charges and claimed the deaths were a ‘terrible accident’.
She had invited the four alleged victims to her Leongatha home in Melbourne on July 29th 2023. Her ex-husband, Simon Patterson, was also invited to the lunch but he didn’t attend.
Text messages read in court showed that Erin Patterson had said it was ‘really disappointing’ that he wouldn’t attend as she was preparing a ‘special meal’.
Simon Patterson said he had submitted a tax return with he and his ex-wife listed as financially separated. The tax return resulted in child support payments that meant he would cease direct contributions to their two children’s private school fees, he said.
"I was sure she [Erin] was very upset about that," he told the court.
The invitation was a surprise, according to Reverend Wilkinson, who told ABC: "There was no reason given for the lunch, and I remember talking to Heather wondering why the sudden invitation."
Nevertheless, he said he and his wife were ‘happy to be invited’.
Erin Patterson’s two children were not present at the meal, with her daughter telling ABC that her mother had arranged for them both to go to the cinema instead.
In court, Reverend Wilkinson said both Heather and Gail had offered to help with preparing the meal, with Erin rejecting their offer of helping to serve the dishes.
The meal consisted of individual beef wellingtons, mashed potatoes and green beans, with Patterson claiming the mushrooms in the wellingtons were a combination of supermarket button mushrooms and dried mushrooms in a hand-labelled packet that she had bought several months previously at an Asian grocery shop.
Reverend Wilkinson said that Patterson’s plate was smaller and tan-coloured, while the four guests were given large grey plates.
He added that his wife had noted this and pointed it out when she fell ill, and said that they had both eaten the whole meal. Don Patterson had eaten his serving as well as half of Gail’s, he said.
After the meal, Reverend Wilkinson said that Patterson had claimed to have had a cancer diagnosis and that the meal was a means for her to reveal the news and ask for advice on how to tell her children.
Erin Patterson’s defence does not dispute the claim that Patterson lied about having being diagnosed with cancer.
She was asked why she had lied, to which she told the court that it had been an attempt at drawing sympathy from her estranged husband’s family and potentially undo the sense that they were growing distant.
"I didn't want their care of me to stop, so I kept it going. I shouldn't have done it," she said. “I did lie to them."
Taking the stand in early June 2025, Erin Patterson suggested that she may have inadvertently collected the deadly mushrooms whilst foraging around Korumburra and Leongatha during the 2020 Covid lockdowns.
She said she had used a dehydrator to dry and store the foraged mushrooms.
The prosecution had claimed earlier that Patterson had denied owning a dehydrator. However, police had traced one she had owned to a nearby dump, and it was found to contain death cap mushrooms.
It was also revealed that two mobile phones owned by Patterson had undergone a factory reset on three occasions.
In court, Patterson said she had thrown the dehydrator away in advance of a visit from child protection services who were investigating her living situation. She also claimed that she had wiped the phones in a panic when the police began investigating her.
"I was scared of the conversation that might flow about the meal and the dehydrator," she said.
"I was scared they would blame me for it, for making everyone sick. I was scared that they would remove the children."
Patterson was also questioned by her defence lawyer, Colin Mandy, about expletive-ridden messages she had sent to friends about the family, to which she said:
"I wish I'd never said it. I feel ashamed for saying it and I wish that the family didn't have to hear that I said that.”
She continued: "I was really frustrated with Simon, but it wasn't Don and Gail's fault."
The four alleged victims all became ill after eating the meal, experiencing vomiting and diarrhoea by the following midnight.
Patterson claims she also became ill in the hours following the lunch. Her daughter corroborated this in court by saying her mother had told her she had diarrhoea that night.
Erin Patterson also claimed that her children had eaten leftovers, with her daughter saying she remembered it. She also said that she had scraped the mushrooms from her children’s plates as they don’t like them.
Two days following the meal, the court was told that Patterson went to hospital and self-discharged against her doctors’ advice.
A nurse from the hospital where she was seen told the court that Patterson ‘didn’t look unwell, unlike Ian and Heather’ who were also being treated there.
Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson both died on August 4th 2023, with Don dying on August 5th.
Gail and Heather died on Friday 4 August 2023, while Don died a day later.
Police began investigating the potential homicides in the following days, with Patterson being charged on November 2nd 2023.
On June 4th 2025, Patterson told the court that Simon, her estranged husband had accused her of trying to poison his parents, saying he asked, “Is that how you poisoned my parents … using that dehydrator?”
She said she may have used the foraged mushrooms to enhance the flavour of the meal, describing it as 'bland'.
Patterson also claimed she had lied about the cancer diagnosis as she was 'embarrassed' about plans to have weight loss surgery.
“I was ashamed of the fact that I didn’t have control over my body or what I ate,” she said.
She also claims that, having eaten some cake brought to the lunch by Gail, she felt 'over-full' and 'brought it back up again'.
The trial continues.
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Rachael Davis