Mushroom

INFAMOUS mushroom murderer Erin Patterson has been sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of “horrendous” triple murder.

She will serve at least 33 years behind bars after receiving three life sentences and a 25-year sentence concurrently, with a non-parole period of 33 years.

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The 11-week trial earlier this year gripped Australia like no other – and has now been put to bed as Justice Christopher Beale handed down the sentence at Victoria’s Supreme Court.

For the first time in history, the supreme court allowed TV cameras into the courtroom to broadcast the sentencing live.

In court, Beale said he agreed Patterson should receive life imprisonment – but the “main dispute” was whether she should be afforded the possibility of parole.

He recounted the trial evidence before concluding that the murders involved “substantial premeditation”.

Describing the toll of the triple murders on the families, Justice Beale said: “Four generations of the extended Patterson and Wilkinson families have been traumatised by your crimes.”

He added: “Your failure to exhibit any remorse pours salt into all the victims’ wounds.”

Patterson, 50, was given a life sentence for each of the murders of Don and Gail Patterson, the parents of her estranged husband, Simon, and his aunt, Heather Wilkinson.

She was handed a 25-year sentence for the attempted murder of Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson, when she served up a beef wellington laced with death cap mushrooms.

Both the prosecution and the defence agreed Patterson should receive a life sentence for her crime, described by Beale as “horrendous”.

Prosecutors had called for Patterson to be denied the chance of ever walking out, while her defence argued she should retain the possibility of parole.

Colin Mandy SC, defending, previously said Beale should consider the tough conditions Patterson will naturally suffer as such a notorious criminal.

Patterson has spent most of her days since her arrest in November 2023 in isolated in her cell – which Beale previously said “doesn’t sound very humane”.

He took this – along with the added danger she faces due to her notoriety – into account when deciding on the details of the sentence.

Patterson pleaded not guilty to all the charges and claimed the deaths were a tragic accident.

She now has until October 6 to lodge an appeal against her conviction or sentence or both.

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Fascination with the case was off the charts across Australia.

Journalists from around the world descended on the tiny town of Morwell – where the trial was held in one of Australia‘s smallest courtrooms.

Patterson was tried there, rather than in Melbourne, at her own request.

Every day of the trial from April 29 to July 7, reporters jostled for the six media seats in the courtroom and hopeful spectators queued out of the door.

Described as “a ritual, habitual and pathological liar”, Patterson’s story unravelled in the dock and impossible contradictions tripped her up.

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Ian told the court that Erin sensationally claimed to have been diagnosed with cancer during the lunch – something she later denied.

She also initially told police she did not own a food dehydrator and had not gone foraging for mushrooms – later claiming in court these lies had been a “knee-jerk” reaction.

Incredibly, Ian said last month that he had forgiven Patterson for trying to kill him.

He said in a victim statement her felt “half alive” without Heather by his side – but insisted he harbours no “ill will” against Patterson.

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Ian added: “Now I am no longer Erin Patterson’s victim, and she has become the victim of my kindness.”

Simon said Erin’s crimes had robbed their 16-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter of “the kind of relationship with their mother that every child yearns for”.

The Deadly Dish

In July 2023, Patterson gathered together her ex-husband Simon’s relatives for a Saturday lunch at her home in Leongatha, Victoria.

She served up a beef wellington containing death cap mushrooms, and her guests soon fell violently ill.

Her former in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson all died within a week.

Pastor Ian Wilkinson was the only person – other than Patterson – who survived the deadly lunch.

But he was left in critical condition and spent almost two months being treated in the Austin Hospital – including time spent in a coma.

Simon had also been invited to the lunch but he declined, texting her the night before that he felt “uncomfortable” about it all.

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Regulation of psilocybin — the “magic” substance in psychedelic mushrooms — has been a hot-button issue for Californians in recent years, but repeated attempts by state lawmakers to allow medical use of the substance have floundered.

Now it seems change may come at the federal level.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is weighing a petition sent earlier this month by the Drug Enforcement Administration to review the scientific evidence and consider easing restrictions.

Psilocybin is currently classified as a Schedule I narcotic, the most restrictive category under federal law, reserved for drugs “with a high potential for abuse” and “no currently accepted medical use.” The DEA is considering moving psilocybin into the less restrictive Schedule II tier, which includes drugs that are considered addictive or dangerous — including fentanyl and cocaine — but also have medical value.

Past efforts to allow for therapeutic use of psilocybin have largely stalled in the face of official intransigence and lack of political will, including in California, where state lawmakers’ efforts to decriminalize psilocybin and other psychedelic substances have failed multiple times.

Despite strict prohibition under both state and federal law, psilocybin is widely available and growing in popularity for both recreational and therapeutic purposes.

Illegal cannabis dispensaries across Southern California openly sell actual psilocybin mushrooms, as well as dodgy chocolates and gummies that often purport to contain the substance but instead contain only synthetic versions. In recent decades, a growing body of research has found that psilocybin can be beneficial in treating mental health conditions including depression, anxiety and substance use disorder.

The issue of psychedelic access is high on the agenda of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s controversial and conspiracy-minded secretary of Health and Human Services. Kennedy has signaled support in the past for expanding access to some hallucinogens in medical settings for treatment of mental health disorders.

Kennedy’s agency directed all inquiries to the DEA, which said in an email that it is “unable to comment on or confirm scheduling actions.”

The DEA sent the psilocybin petition after a drawn-out legal battle led by Dr. Sunil Aggarwal. For about five years, Aggarwal, co-director of the Advanced Integrative Medical Science Institute in Seattle, has been seeking a means to legally obtain and administer psilocybin to ailing and aging patients for care during the final phases of their lives.

Kathryn L. Tucker, a lawyer for Aggarwal, wrote a letter to the DEA this month that said he “continues to provide care to patients with advanced and terminal cancer who could benefit greatly from psilocybin assisted therapy, enabling them to experience a more peaceful dying process.”

“The science supports movement to schedule II; such placement will enable access under Right to Try laws, which contemplate early access to promising new drugs for those with life-threatening conditions,” Tucker wrote.

Aggarwal filed a lawsuit after his 2020 petition to reschedule psilocybin was denied. A federal panel dismissed the suit, but the move toward rescheduling continues now that the DEA has officially forwarded his petition to the Department of Health and Human Services.

But some researchers and other experts caution against moving too fast to expand access.

Dr. Steven Locke, a former Harvard Medical School psychiatry professor, wrote in an email that the question of whether psilocybin has any medical applications “remains controversial.” A past president of the American Psychosomatic Society, Locke has studied rare conditions such as Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder, which cause symptoms akin to long-lasting “bad trips” in a small percentage of people who use psilocybin mushrooms and other psychedelics.

“There is little evidence from good-quality studies to support claims for the efficacy of the use of psilocybin for the treatment of any medical disorders,” said Locke. “The reclassification should be contingent on a careful review.”

Australian woman Erin Patterson is guilty of murdering three relatives with a toxic mushroom lunch, a jury has found.

The 50-year-old has also been found guilty of the attempted murder of the sole guest who survived the beef Wellington meal in 2023.

Patterson’s much-watched trial in the small Victorian town of Morwell heard evidence suggesting she had hunted down death cap mushrooms sighted in nearby towns, before trying to conceal her crimes by lying to police and disposing of evidence.

Her legal team had argued she unintentionally foraged lethal fungi, then “panicked” upon accidentally poisoning family members she loved. The jury on Monday ruled she did it intentionally.

Three people died in hospital in the days after the meal on 29 July 2023: Patterson’s former in-laws, Don Patterson, 70, and Gail Patterson, 70, as well as Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66.

Local pastor Ian Wilkinson – Heather’s husband – recovered after weeks of treatment in hospital.

Patterson’s estranged partner Simon Patterson had also been invited to the lunch but pulled out at the last minute. She was originally accused of attempting to murder him too – on several occasions – but those charges were dropped on the eve of the trial and the allegations were not put to the jury.

The case captured the world’s attention, becoming one of the most closely watched trials in Australian history.

Over nine weeks, the Victorian Supreme Court heard from more than 50 witnesses – including Patterson herself. Detectives described rifling through her garbage bins for leftovers, doctors outlined the gradual but brutal decline of the victims’ health, and Patterson’s estranged husband emotionally explained the souring nature of their relationship.

The only thing the case was missing was a motive – something key to Patterson’s defence.

Prosecutors argued Patterson had faked a cancer diagnosis to coax the guests to her house, then poisoned them and feigned illness to ward off suspicion.

She admitted to lying to police and medical staff about foraging for wild mushrooms, dumping a food dehydrator used to prepare the meal, and repeatedly wiping her mobile phone – all evidence of her guilt, prosecutors said.

From the witness box, Erin Patterson told the court she loved her relatives and had no reason to harm them.

She repeatedly denied intentionally putting the poisonous fungi in the meal, and said she realised days after the lunch that the beef Wellingtons may have accidentally included dried, foraged varieties that were kept in a container with store-bought ones.

She also told the court she had suffered from bulimia for years, and had made herself throw up after the beef Wellington meal – something her defence team said explained why she did not become as sick as the others who ate it.

The lie about having cancer was because she was embarrassed about plans to get weight-loss surgery, Ms Patterson said. She also claimed she didn’t tell authorities the truth about her mushroom foraging hobby because she feared they might blame her for making her relatives sick.

Ultimately, after a week of deliberation, the jury decided: returning four guilty verdicts which could see Patterson spend the rest of her life in jail.

Erin Patterson, 50, found guilty of murdering her estranged husband’s parents and aunt with poisonous mushrooms.

An Australian woman has been found guilty of murdering her estranged husband’s parents and aunt by serving them a meal laced with poisonous mushrooms.

Erin Patterson was on Monday convicted of three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder following a 10-week trial.

Patterson, 50, showed no emotion as the verdicts were read out in the courtroom in Morwell, a regional town located about 152km (94 miles) east of Melbourne.

Patterson’s parents-in-law, Donald and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, died after eating a lunch of beef Wellingtons laced with death cap mushrooms on July 29, 2023.

Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson, was also poisoned but survived after spending seven weeks in hospital.

Patterson, 50, had pleaded not guilty to all charges, with her lawyers arguing that she had unintentionally served her relatives the tainted food in a “terrible accident”.

Prosecutors did not allege a motive for Patterson, but told the jury that her relationship with her estranged husband, who declined an invitation to the lunch, had become strained over his child support contributions.

Prosecutors alleged that Patterson lied about being diagnosed with cancer to lure her guests to the lunch, and that she lied to police about owning a food dehydrator that was later found in a rubbish tip.

Patterson, who spent eight days on the stand, was the only witness called for the defence.

The trial, which began on April 29, captivated Australia, spawning multiple true-crime podcasts, and attracted significant media interest overseas.

Patterson, who faces a possible life sentence, will be sentenced at a later date.

A jury in Australia on Monday found a woman guilty of murdering her estranged husband’s parents and aunt using poisonous mushroom-laced beef Wellington, its verdict capping weeks of courtroom depositions in a case that has gripped the country and made headlines worldwide.

Erin Patterson, the convict, had denied the charges, and her defence team had called the deaths a “terrible accident”.

Here is all you need to know:

What happened?

On July 29, 2023, Patterson hosted her former in-laws for lunch at her home in Leongatha, a town 135km (84 miles) southeast of Melbourne, in the southeastern Australian state of Victoria.

Her guests included her mother-in-law, Gail Patterson; father-in-law, Donald Patterson; Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson; and Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson. Her estranged husband, Simon Patterson, declined the invitation.

Patterson, now 50 years old, served her guests individual beef Wellingtons, a baked steak dish where beef tenderloin is wrapped in a mushroom paste and puff pastry, with mashed potato and green beans on the side. Patterson ate beef Wellington, too.

All four of the guests fell sick within hours of eating the meal and were hospitalised. Gail, Donald, and Heather passed away, while Ian survived after spending weeks in an induced coma. Gail and Donald were both aged 70 at the time of their deaths, while Heather was 66 years old. Patterson’s lawyers argued that she also fell sick after lunch and presented her medical test results as evidence. It was later found out that the Wellingtons were laced with poisonous death cap mushrooms.

Prosecutors said Patterson was separated from Simon, but the two had remained amicable afterwards. Patterson had two children with Simon, who were also present at the house during the lunch, but did not eat the Wellingtons.

Patterson was arrested in November 2023 and has been in custody ever since. She was charged with the murders of Gail, Donald and Heather, alongside the attempted murder of Ian. These charges carry a life sentence.

What did the jury announce, and what about sentencing?

The jury had been sequestered last week, as they discussed and deliberated on a decision. On Monday morning, it became clear that they had arrived at a verdict:

• Guilty, on the three charges of murder, pertaining to the three people killed.
• Guilty, on the charge of attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson.

The judge did not announce a sentencing date. That will be the next stage in the legal proceedings.

What are death cap mushrooms?

Amanita phalloides, commonly known as death caps, are the deadliest mushroom species for humans. The mushrooms are small, plain and yellow or brown, appearing like several other nonpoisonous or edible mushroom species. While the species is native to Europe, these mushrooms are also found in North America and Australia, typically growing under oak trees.

They contain toxins which inhibit DNA production, leading to kidney and liver failure. If an individual consumes these mushrooms, initial symptoms such as abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea start appearing within six to 12 hours.

All parts of the mushrooms are poisonous, and cutting or cooking them does not rid them of the toxins. One mushroom is enough to kill an adult.

What happened during the trial?

The jury trial opened on April 29 this year at Latrobe Valley Magistrates’ Court, located in the former coal-mining town of Morwell in Victoria. Justice Christopher Beale is presiding over the case. Relatives and friends of Patterson testified during the trial.

Prosecution

The prosecution is led by Nanette Rogers, an advocate who has accused Patterson of foraging the poisonous mushrooms, using a kitchen scale to weigh out the fatal dose and adding them to her guests’ beef Wellingtons and not her own. Rogers has also pointed to how Patterson lied to the police when she was asked whether she foraged mushrooms or owned a food dehydrator.

The police found a food dehydrator in a landfill near Patterson’s house, in which traces of death cap mushrooms were found.

The prosecution also found that Patterson had looked at a website listing locations of death cap mushrooms.

Ian’s testimony

The sole survivor of the incident, Ian, testified on the sixth day of the trial.

Ian, a 71-year-old church pastor, told the trial that on the day of the lunch, Patterson seemed “reluctant” to let her guests go inside her pantry. “Both Heather and Gail were offering to help plate up the food. The offer was rejected and Erin plated,” Ian said.

Ian said he and his wife experienced vomiting and diarrhoea that night, but they dismissed the symptoms as gastroenteritis.

Defence

Patterson’s defence is led by barrister Colin Mandy, who told the trial that Patterson had no intention to kill her guests. However, the defence has not denied that there were death caps in the meals.

Mandy said Patterson panicked and lied about foraging mushrooms to the police. “She panicked when confronted with the terrible possibility, the terrible realisation, that her actions had caused the illness of people she liked,” he said.

He also added that Patterson fell sick from the same meal and did not fake her symptoms, something the prosecution alleges. Mandy told the trial, “She was not as sick as the other lunch guests, nor did she represent she was.” He added that blood test results show indicators of sickness “that can’t be faked”, such as low potassium levels and elevated haemoglobin.

Patterson also revealed that she ate a smaller portion of the meal at lunch and binged on an orange cake that Gail Patterson had brought to share, after the guests left. Patterson testified that after eating about two-thirds of the cake, she threw up, which, if true, might explain why her body had lower levels of toxins from the beef Wellington than the others.

Since her arrest in November 2023, Patterson has maintained her innocence and has pleaded not guilty to all counts. She holds that the poisoning was a “terrible accident”.

Mandy told the trial that Patterson had developed an interest in foraging during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, and it was not unusual for her to gather knowledge about death cap mushrooms.

Motive

“You do not have to be satisfied what the motive was or even that there was one,” Rogers told the jury on April 30.

“The prosecution will not be suggesting that there was a particular motive to do what she did.”

Rogers also presented messages Patterson had sent to friends on Facebook, expressing frustration over her in-laws not getting involved in a child support dispute between her and Simon.

In December 2022, she wrote: “I’m sick of this s*** I want nothing to do with them. I thought his parents would want him to do the right thing but it seems their concern about not wanting to feel uncomfortable and not wanting to get involved in their sons personal matters are overriding that so f*** em.”

In another message, she wrote: “This family I swear to f****** god.”

When Mandy asked Patterson how she felt about these messages, she said: “I wish I’d never said it … I feel ashamed for saying it, and I wish the family didn’t have to hear that I said that. They didn’t deserve it.”

What do we know about the jury?

There were initially 15 jurors, but one of them was dismissed in May for discussing the case with friends and family. Justice Beale told the jurors to refrain from researching the case or discussing it outside the courtroom.

The 14-member jury was later reduced to 12 by ballot, which eventually returned the verdict.

On July 1, Justice Beale urged the jurors to put emotions and sympathy aside while returning the verdict.

“The issue is not whether she is in some sense responsible for the tragic consequences of the lunch, but whether the prosecution proved beyond reasonable doubt that she is criminally responsible,” Beale said. “Emotions, such as prejudice and sympathy, must have no part to play in your decision.”