The estranged husband of an Australian woman accused of triple murder with a toxic mushroom-laced beef Wellington told a court on Thursday he declined an invitation to the lunch because he felt uncomfortable about it. The jury also heard that the woman invited her guests over to tell them she had cancer — but prosecutors said she did not actually have the disease.
Erin Patterson, 50, is charged with three murders — of the parents and aunt of her estranged husband. She is also charged with one attempted murder.
Patterson has pleaded not guilty to all counts, with her defense saying the fatal beef-and-pastry meal, laced with death cap mushrooms, was the result of “a terrible accident.”
On the second day of a trial that has drawn global attention, the accused woman’s husband, Simon Patterson, described seeing his parents in the hospital after they had been poisoned.
“Dad was substantially worse than mum. He was really struggling,” he told the court.
“He was lying on his side, he was hunched,” Simon Patterson said, adding that his father’s face was “really discolored.”
“He wasn’t right inside, he was feeling pain,” he said.
James Ross/AP 
Simon Patterson had been invited to the lunch in late July 2023 at his wife’s home in the sedate Victoria state farm village of Leongatha. But he told the court he declined, texting her that he was “uncomfortable” with the invitation.
She urged him to reconsider, saying she had cooked a “special meal” and spent a “small fortune” on beef eye fillet.
“I hope you will change your mind,” said her text, read to the court. “I hope to see you there.”
Woman claimed she had cancer, prosecutors say
Erin Patterson had invited the guests under the guise of telling them about a health issue, the court heard.
Simon Patterson did not turn up to the lunch but his parents, Don and Gail Patterson, did, along with his aunt Heather Wilkinson and her husband, local pastor Ian Wilkinson.
Within days, Don and Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson were dead. Ian Wilkinson, the pastor, survived after nearly two months in the hospital.
During the lunch gathering, Erin Patterson said she had cancer and asked for advice about how to tell her two children, crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers has told the court. Medical tests later found no evidence she had the disease, according to the prosecutor.
The four guests developed diarrhea and vomiting within 12 hours of the meal and were raced to the hospital. They were diagnosed by treating doctors with poisoning by death cap mushrooms.
At the hospital, Simon Patterson said his father informed him of his wife’s claimed cancer diagnosis, of which he had not previously heard.
His parents were “really strong” in encouraging the couple to resolve their marital issues, he said.
Simon Patterson told the court his wife “got along well” with her father-in-law as they “shared a love of knowledge and learning and an interest in the world.”
“I think she loved his gentle nature,” he said.
Simon Patterson and his wife separated in 2015 but maintained a good friendship, even going on holiday with their children together.
By 2022, things had become tense and conversations were mostly limited to logistics involving the children, he said.
Erin Patterson was a “devoted mother” to their children and supported their involvement in a variety of activities, her husband said.
The prosecutor says she deliberately poisoned her guests and avoided consuming the death caps herself.
Instead, it is alleged, she pretended to be suffering from similar symptoms to cover up that she had not eaten the mushrooms.
James Ross/AAP Image via AP 
While the jury might wonder about the reason, “motive is not something that has to be proven by the prosecution,” Rogers said at the outset of the trial.
Erin Patterson’s lawyer, Colin Mandy, told the court the poisoning was a “tragedy and a terrible accident.” She ate the same meal with death cap mushrooms but did not fall as sick as her guests, Mandy said.
Patterson is being tried in the Latrobe Valley Law Courts in Morwell, south of Melbourne. Justice Christopher Beale urged the jury to “dispassionately” weigh the evidence in the case, using their heads and not their hearts, the BBC reported.
The trial is expected to last about six weeks.
Poisonous mushrooms
Police say the symptoms of the four sickened family members were consistent with poisoning from wild amanita phalloides, known as death cap mushrooms.
Death cap mushrooms sprout freely throughout wet, warm parts of Australia and are easily mistaken for edible varieties. They reportedly taste sweeter than other types of mushrooms but possess potent toxins that slowly poison the liver and kidneys.
Death caps are responsible for 90% of lethal mushroom poisoning globally, the BBC reported. In 2020, a spate of poisonings in Victoria killed one person and hospitalized seven others.
The Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported that Erin Patterson had written in a statement that she had cooked a Beef Wellington steak dish for the lunch using mushrooms bought from a major supermarket chain and dried mushrooms from an Asian grocery store. She wrote that she had also eaten the meal and later suffered stomach pains and diarrhea.
Her children, who were not present at the lunch, ate some of the leftover beef Wellington the next day, the BBC reported. The mushrooms had been scraped off the dish as they do not like them, she said.