An Australian woman will spend over three decades in prison for the triple murder of her husband’s relatives after lacing their food with deadly mushrooms.
Melbourne’s Supreme Court Justice Christopher Beale handed Erin Patterson three life terms in prison for the poisoning death of her mother-in-law and father-in-law, Gail and Donald Patterson, both 70 years old, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66. After a 10-week trial, Patterson was found guilty and convicted by a jury of three counts of murder and one of attempted murder.
On July 29, 2023, the defendant lured her estranged in-laws to lunch under a false pretense that she had been diagnosed with cancer and needed advice on how to break it to her children. Present at the lunch was Gail’s husband, Reverend Ian Wilkinson, who had eaten the Beef Wellington laced with death cap mushrooms, a.k.a.amanita phalloides, that Patterson prepared for them.
“The devastating impact of your crimes is not limited to your direct victims. Your crimes have harmed a great many people. Not only did you cut short three lives and cause lasting damage to Ian Wilkinson’s health, thereby devastating the extended Patterson and Wilkinson families, you inflicted untold suffering on your own children, whom you robbed of their beloved grandparents,” said Beale, according to Al Jazeera.
According to prosecutors, the defendant had also invited her estranged husband, Simon Patterson, who refused to attend the event at Patterson’s home in Leongatha, southeast of Melbourne. After being rushed to the hospital, Heather Wilkinson, Gail, and Donald Patterson succumbed to their injuries from severe gastrointestinal illness that led to multiple organ failure. Meanwhile, Reverend Ian Wilkinson survived the ordeal after a liver transplant.
Initially, Patterson told investigators she purchased the mushroom from an Asian owned supermarket and had even fed her children the remnant of the meal without them falling sick. Later, authorities discovered the defendant had found the mushrooms on a citizen science website near her home. To cover her tracks, Patterson had also purchased a dehydrator to dry the mushrooms and dump it at a waste recycling center.
Patterson’s Facebook posts highlighted her disgust with her relatives for not trying to help repair her marriage to Simon.
“I am satisfied by July 16, 2023, when you unusually invited Simon, his parents, and aunt and uncle to a lunch without the children to discuss your non-existent medical issue, you did so with the intention of killing them all,” said Beale during the sentencing hearing, reported CNN.
The 50-year-old Patterson was sentenced to a concurrent 25 years for the attempted murder charge. She will be eligible for parole after serving 33 years in prison.
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