Australian woman details fungi interest before deadly mushroom meal

SYDNEY – An Australian woman who allegedly murdered three of her husband’s relatives with toxic mushrooms said she developed an interest in foraging for wild fungi during the Covid-19 lockdown, a court heard on June 3.

Erin Patterson, 50, is charged with murdering the parents and aunt of her estranged husband in 2023 by serving them a beef Wellington

laced with lethal death cap mushrooms

.

She is also accused of attempting to murder her husband’s uncle, who survived the meal after a long stay in hospital.

Patterson has pleaded not guilty to all charges in a

trial that is captivating the country

.

Having watched the prosecution build its case over the past five weeks, Patterson took the stand for the first time on June 2 to mount her defence.

She was questioned on June 3 by her barrister Colin Mandy about a series of expletive-laden messages sent to friends regarding the Patterson family.

The court previously heard that the relationship between the accused and her estranged husband, Mr Simon Patterson, deteriorated shortly before the alleged murders due to a disagreement over child support.

“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 said of the messages, which the court had previously heard in the prosecution’s case.

“I was really frustrated with Simon but it wasn’t Don and Gail’s fault,” she told the court through tears.

She also said that she enjoyed eating mushrooms because they “tasted good” and were “very healthy”.

Her interest in wild mushrooms developed during the pandemic lockdown in 2020, and she recalled finding some near her home, which she eventually ate.

“I didn’t get sick”

“I cut a bit off one of the mushrooms, fried it up with butter, ate it, and saw what happened,” she said.

“They tasted good, and I didn’t get sick.”

In July 2023, Patterson had asked her husband Simon to a family lunch at her secluded rural Victorian home.

Mr Simon Patterson turned down the invitation because he felt too uncomfortable, the court heard previously.

But his parents Don and Gail attended, and died days after eating a beef-and-pastry dish prepared by Patterson.

Mr Simon Patterson’s aunt Heather Wilkinson also died following the meal, while her husband Ian fell seriously ill but later recovered.

The meal consisted of “an individual serve” of beef Wellington entirely encased in pastry and filled with “steak and mushrooms”, Mr Ian Wilkinson previously told the court.

But the dish also contained death cap mushrooms.

The prosecution alleges Patterson deliberately poisoned her lunch guests but avoided the deadly mushrooms herself.

Her defence says it was “a terrible accident” and that Patterson, who admits the meal contained death cap mushrooms,

ate the same food as the others but did not fall as sick

.

During the gathering, Patterson

claimed she had cancer

and wanted the family’s advice on whether to tell her children. But she was never diagnosed with cancer, the court has heard.

In 2020, Patterson bought a dehydrator that she used on mushrooms she bought in the store and foraged so that she could preserve them and have them “available later on in the year”, she said in court on June 3.

She experimented with dehydrating sliced and whole mushrooms, but said she found the latter were “mushy inside, they didn’t dry properly”.

The trial is expected to last another week. AFP, REUTERS