By Hilary Whiteman, CNN
(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.
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.
Patterson’s 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.
Prosecutors alleged that Patterson deliberately laced the lunch with death cap mushrooms, highly toxic fungi that she picked after seeing their location posted on a public website.
Her defense lawyers argued the deaths were a “terrible accident” and that Patterson repeatedly lied to police out of panic when she realized she may have added foraged mushrooms to the meal.
Under Australian law, none of the jurors can be publicly identified, and they’re prohibited from disclosing jury room deliberations even after the trial ends.
It will never be known which pieces of evidence influenced each jurors’ decision, but all 12 were required to agree on the verdict.
The trial has captivated audiences worldwide via news reports and four podcasts dedicated to unpacking each day’s evidence.
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 found satisfied the legal standard of beyond reasonable doubt.
The fateful lunch
The agreed facts were that Patterson asked five people to lunch on July 29, 2023, including her estranged husband Simon Patterson, who pulled out the day before.
Within hours of the meal, the four lunch guests – Simon’s parents Don and Gail, and his aunt and uncle, Heather and Ian Wilkinson – became ill with vomiting and diarrhea. They went to hospital where they were placed in induced comas as doctors tried to save them.
Gail and Heather died on August 4 from multiorgan failure, followed by Don on August 5, after he failed to respond to a liver transplant. Ian Wilkinson survived and was finally discharged from hospital in late September, after almost two months of intensive treatment.
Death cap mushrooms contain amanita toxins that prevent the production of proteins in liver cells, leading to cell death and possible liver failure from about two days after ingestion.
Native to Europe, the lethal mushrooms have been found growing in several Australian states, and around the time of the lunch, they had been seen within a short drive of Patterson’s home in rural Victoria.
This is a developing story. More to come
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