CNN – Erin Patterson, the Australian woman accused of killing three relatives with a meal of death cap mushrooms baked in a Beef Wellington lunch, has been found guilty of three counts of murder and the attempted murder of the lone survivor.
[NOTE: HEADLINE HEALTH strong cautions against the consumption of all wild-harvested mushrooms; they aren’t worth the risk of misidentification.]
A 12-member jury reached the verdict after around six days of deliberation following a 10-week trial in Morwell, a tiny town about an hour’s drive from the suburban dining room in Leongatha, Victoria, where the lethal lunch was served in July 2023.
Dozens of media crews raced to the court when it was announced the jury had reached a verdict in the case that has captivated audiences worldwide and spawned four podcasts dedicated to unpacking each day’s evidence.
During weeks of testimony, Patterson was accused of deliberately tainting the lunch with death cap mushrooms, highly toxic fungi that she picked after seeing their location posted on a public website.
In the days after, her former parents-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson, died along with Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson. Heather’s husband Ian, their local pastor, survived after a weekslong stay in hospital.
Her defense lawyers had argued the deaths were a “terrible accident” that occurred when Patterson tried to improve the taste of the meal, and that she repeatedly lied to police out of panic when she realized she may have added foraged mushrooms to the mix.
Patterson sat in court, listening as prosecutors called witness after witness, whose testimony, they alleged, told a compelling story of a triple murder that the jury ultimately found satisfied the legal standard of beyond reasonable doubt …
