Last month, Erin Patterson was found guilty of using a dinner containing poisonous mushrooms to kill her in-laws. However, recently released evidence provides fresh information about the Australian woman’s case, including her estranged husband’s claims that she often tainted his food before to that fatal lunch.
In relation to a home-cooked supper she gave her husband’s parents, aunt, and uncle in July 2023, Patterson, a 50-year-old mother of two, was found guilty last month of three charges of murder and one count of attempted murder.
After experiencing gastrointestinal problems, all four of her guests were admitted to the hospital; three of them ultimately passed away from multiple organ failure and altered liver function as a result of poisoning from Amanita (death cap) mushrooms. Patterson lived in Leongatha, a small hamlet about 85 miles from Melbourne, where death cap mushrooms, which are among the most deadly in the world, had been observed growing nearby.
Although Patterson acknowledged lying about things like mushroom collecting and having a food dehydrator, she denied purposefully adding death cap mushrooms to the beef Wellington she served and insisted she had no motive to harm her husband’s family.
After a nine-week trial filled with shocking disclosures and testimony from almost fifty witnesses, including Patterson and her estranged husband Simon, who had been invited to the lunch but had canceled the night before, a jury found her guilty.
However, the jury was not informed that Simon Patterson and the prosecution think his wife poisoned him multiple times in 2021 and 2022.
That’s based on evidence that wasn’t presented at trial. After a gag order was lifted by Justice Christopher Beale on Friday, it was unsealed.
According to court records that NPR was able to get, Simon talked of becoming so ill that he had to be admitted to the hospital after consuming pasta bolognese, chicken korma curry, and a vegetable wrap that Erin had made for him. In addition, his personal physician testified about what he referred to as the “three near-death experiences,” one of which left Simon in a coma and necessitated the surgical removal of a portion of his colon.
Simon testified in October 2024 that he had grown suspicious of Erin long before she invited him and his family to lunch, although doctors were unable to pinpoint the precise cause of those incidents. He really stated that he specifically declined “because I thought there’d be a risk that she’d poison me if I attended.”
Erin Patterson initially entered a not guilty plea to three more counts of attempted murder related to those occurrences, but she now denies intentionally poisoning Simon. After a court decided that they should be divided, she was scheduled to face them in a second trial. However, shortly before her trial started in April, the prosecution dismissed those allegations without providing a reason.
In the early days of her trial, when the jury was not present, Simon made reference to those since-dropped allegations. “Half-thinking about the things I’m not allowed to talk about,” he claimed from the witness box, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
“The legal process has been very difficult,” he stated. “Especially the way it’s progressed in terms of the charges relating to me and my evidence about that or non-evidence now, I guess I have a lot to grieve and am grieving a lot about all this stuff here, as I’m sure you can imagine.”
What is the new evidence?
After eight years of marriage and several breakups and reconciliations, Simon and Erin split up in 2015. According to their testimonies, they continued to be on generally good terms, co-parenting their two kids and even taking trips together.
Simon responded, “Um,” when Erin’s attorney asked him in October if he agreed that there was “nothing untoward” about their connection at the time of the alleged poisonings. That’s right if you mean anything that would suggest she would attempt to kill me.
Before Erin and Simon were scheduled to go trekking without the kids in November 2021, the first claimed event occurred. While he was packing, she handed him a Tupperware of penne bolognese, which he ate later that evening. He stated in his testimony that as their journey got underway the following morning, he began to have increased diarrhea and vomiting and ultimately decided to visit the hospital.
“I think I felt worse inside myself, not a specific body part,” Simon said. “I don’t know whether that’s the fear of the extended symptoms, or whether that was a physical thing, or both, but I felt like I was going downhill.”
He claimed that after receiving fluids and antiemetic medicine, he was discharged the following morning. A few weeks later, Erin invited him over for what he called a family taste test since she was preparing chicken curry and wanted to try out different levels of spice. Their relationship proceeded as usual.
That lunch did not make Simon ill. However, he claimed that a few weeks later, in May 2022, while camping, Erin prepared the same curry. He claimed that he didn’t observe her cooking because he was attending to the fire, but he thought she was adjusting the spice to each person’s preferred level. A few hours later, he began to have gastrointestinal issues and immediately rushed to the hospital.
After being released, Simon returned home, but a few days later, he contacted Erin for assistance using the restroom, and the next thing he recalled was waking up in the hospital. According to him, he had undergone “a number of surgeries” that included having a portion of his colon removed while he was in a coma.
According to Simon, he found out that doctors had informed Erin, his wife, who was in charge of making his medical decisions, that he would not need surgery and that even if he did, death was “likely.” Doctors told him they had performed numerous tests but were unable to identify the source of his ailment when he was released from the hospital following a 24-day stay.
To catch up, the Pattersons took a stroll in September 2022. Erin handed him a premade veggie wrap, according to Simon, and she had the same foods “minus the pita bread wrap itself.” On their walk, he claimed, he started feeling ill rather soon. They drove to his parents’ house, where they phoned for an ambulance as he kept throwing up.
“Pretty soon in the ambulance journey I realized that I was starting to slur my words and then gradually as the journey went on, I lost more and more muscle function and by the end of the journey, all I could move was my neck, my tongue and lips, and I could see, so presumably my eyelids as well, I guess,” Simon said in court.
Doctors were once again baffled as to what might have happened after a regular stool sample he had given that morning before consuming the wrap showed no visible bacteria or intestinal irritation.
Court filings state that an intensive care doctor who examined Simon’s medical records in 2024 concluded that the first two events were probably caused by a “toxic or an infective cause” and that the cause of symptoms was most likely acute rather than chronic.
He claimed Simon’s liver damage during the second illness was not consistent with normal mushroom poisoning, but he was unable to identify what those substances might have been.
Who did Simon tell?
As he told the judge, “It didn’t fit into any of my medical models that would account for all three of those things.” Simon’s personal physician recommended that he document everything that occurred prior to each of his illnesses.
The one similarity, according to Simon, was that Erin had always made the food. Simon claimed that he then discreetly discussed his fears with his father, his doctor, and a few other family members, changing his advance directive to eliminate Erin’s decision-making power.
According to his sister Anna-Marie Terrington’s testimony, she had been aware of Simon’s anxieties since 2022 and had warned their father over the phone prior to the meal. He waved her away, she recalled, saying something along the lines of “No, we’ll be OK.” Among the lunch attendees who passed away were their parents, Donald and Gail Patterson.
As their parents’ illnesses worsened, Simon gathered some of his family members in a hospital chapel in August 2023, according to testimony from another relative, Ruth Dubois, whose father, Ian Wilkinson, was the only survivor and whose mother, Heather Wilkinson, passed away during the lunch.
“He wanted to tell us that he had suspected that his own illnesses had been a deliberate act, that he had stopped eating food that Erin had prepared, because he suspected that she might have been messing with it,” she continued, “and that he was really sorry that he hadn’t told our parents before this, but he thought that he was the only person that she was targeting and that they’d be safe.”
What happens next?
Erin Patterson has already been found guilty of three murder counts, each carrying a maximum sentence of life in prison. In addition, she faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in jail on the attempted murder count.
According to ABC, Judge Beale has scheduled her two-day sentence hearing to start on August 25. On Friday, prosecutor Jane Warren told Beale to expect “a lot” of victim impact statements from everyone involved in the case.
The Associated Press reports that Patterson’s attorneys have declared their intention to appeal her convictions. According to Australian law, they must formally do so within 28 days after her sentencing.
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