After a week of deliberations, the jury on the Supreme Court trial of Erin Patterson has returned a guilty verdict for three counts of murder and one attempted murder charge.
Patterson was accused of killing her ex-husband’s parents Don and Gail Patterson, both 70, as well as Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson with a death cap mushroom-laced beef Wellington on July 29, 2023.
Read: 6 key discoveries you need to know about the mushroom murders
She was also accused of attempting to kill Heather’s husband Ian, 71, who survived the deadly lunch at her home in Leongatha.
Patterson pleaded not guilty and always maintained her innocence.
A court sketch of the accused.
In the Supreme Court trial that began in April, Patterson’s defence team argued the poisonings were a “tragedy and a terrible accident”.
“She was freaking out, people were blaming her… understandably, because anyway you look at it, it was her fault,” her lawyer Colin Mandy told the court in closing statements.
“That’s where the wheels start turning. She starts lying, from that point.”
Across the courtroom, prosecutor Nanette Rogers worked to highlight inconsistencies in Patterson’s testimony, question her credibility as a witness and point out the actions that are indicative of guilt.
She said the “most critical deception” was that Patterson “secreted” death caps into individual beef Wellington deliberately.
“The sinister deception was to use a nourishing meal as the vehicle to deliver the deadly poison,” Rogers remarked in her closing statements.
“It allowed her to give the appearance of sharing in the same meal while ensuring she did not consume [a beef Wellington] laced with death cap mushrooms.”
