Continues in her Melbourne Australian The long -running trial of Erin Patterson, who is accused of killing her three relatives, after a meal she cooked herself and appears to contain poisonous mushrooms.
The so -called “Host of Death”, Australia’s 50 -year -old Erin Patterson, said before the court that she had been adding dried mushrooms to the “Beef Wellington” dish that she served because Her food looked stupid.
At third day of depositsPatterson was invited to describe in detail what happened in July 2023, when she allegedly added poisonous mushrooms to Beef Wellington, who cooked for four guests at her home in the town of Leongha, Rural Victoria. Among the guests were her mother -in -law.
Patterson denies the three charges of murder concerning the death of Don and Gail Paterson – her ex -husband’s parents – as well as Heather Wilkinson, Gail’s sister. He also denies that he attempted to assassinate the fourth guest, Pastor Ian Wilkinson, Heather’s wife.
The fatal sauce
Defense lawyer Colin Madi asked Patterson where he had purchased the meal materials. She replied that everything was bought by the well -known Woolworths supermarket chain. He had followed a recipe from a cookbook, with some small “variants”: Instead of a roll of veal fillet, he bought a pack of individual steaks. He did not use a mustard as the recipe suggested, nor prosciutto, because – as he said – “Don doesn’t eat pork.”
On Saturday morning, Patterson cooked the sauce, which, as he told the court, tried and seemed “a little stupid”. So he added dried mushrooms from a plastic container in the closet.
“I thought it was the mushrooms I had bought from Melbourne,” he said. When the lawyer asked her what she now thinks about the contents of the container, her voice broke: “Now I think there may have been mushrooms that I had collected.”
The fatal meal and the first symptoms
According to her testimony, Ian and Heather Wilkinson ate their entire portion. Don finished Gail’s dish. Patterson herself said she ate only 1/4 quarter or 1/3 of her portion because she was talking and ate slowly.
After lunch, they cleaned the table and ate an orange cake brought by Gail. “I ate a piece, then another, and then another,” said Patterson. When asked how many pieces eventually ate, he replied, “All”. He estimated that he ate about 2/3 of the cake.
“I felt too inflated, I went to the toilet and vomited,” he told the court. She had already testified that she had been fighting for years with bulimia and had issues with her body image.
Later, the same night, he felt nausea and took a medicine for diarrhea. The next day he did not go to Sunday’s function because the symptoms continued.
In the evening, she removed the dough and mushrooms from the rest of Beef Wellington and put the meat in the microwave to eat her children.
‘Shocked and confused’
On Monday, he said, he visited the hospital because he felt dehydrated. There, a doctor told her that she may have been exposed to toxic mushrooms. ‘I felt shocked and confused’he testified. “I couldn’t understand how these mushrooms could be found in food.”
She admitted that she had searched the internet if such mushrooms were growing in her area, but she found no evidence. But he confessed that in May 2023 he had gathered mushrooms from the Botanical Garden of Koroumboura, probably from areas with oaks near which dangerous mushrooms often grow.
As he explained, He used to dry as many mushrooms he did not use immediately and store them in plastic containers in the closet. He also bought dried mushrooms from Asian grocery stores in Melbourne and because they had a strong smell, they also put them in a container.
When the defense lawyer asked her if she remembered to put wild dried mushrooms in the same container as the purchased, she replied: “Yes, I did.”
The moment he began to be afraid
Later, she remembered a conversation with her husband Simon, as his parents cheer in the hospital. “I told him I had dried mushrooms. And he said to me: “Is this the way you poisoned my parents?” “I started to panic,” he testified.
On August 2, he left the children at school and threw food dried in the trash.
On that day, social workers would visit her. “I was afraid of this discussion, I was afraid that they would accuse me of everything … for that everyone was sick,” he said. “I was afraid that the kids would get me.”
When asked if he had realized then that he might have put deadly mushrooms in the food, he replied: “No”. However, he believed that there could be traces of wild mushrooms in the food drizzle he used to process them.
She also said that there were mushroom photos and the dried on her cellphone and deleted them. “I was panicked and I didn’t want to see them,” he said. When asked who, he replied, “The detectives.”
Yesterday Tuesday (03.06.2025) was asked by her lawyer for A series of derogatory messages he had sent to friends and related to the Patterson family. The court had previously heard that the defendant’s relationship with her dimensional husband had worsened shortly before the alleged murders due to a diet.
“I wish I had never said it. I feel ashamed that I said it and I wish the family didn’t need to hear it, “he said with tears, referring to the messages in question that the indictment had previously presented. “I was very disappointed with Simon, but Don and Gail wasn’t to blame,” added.
She denies the accusations, arguing that deaths were a “A horrible accident”. If convicted, he faces a life sentence.
The trial began on April 29, has sparked great interest in both Australia and internationally.
Information from CNN