Australia’s recently convicted mushroom murderer also tried to poison her husband with bolognese pasta and chicken korma curry, according to testimony aired yesterday after a suppression order lapsed.
Home cook Erin Patterson was found guilty last month of murdering her husband’s parents and elderly aunt in 2023, lacing their beef Wellington lunch with lethal death cap mushrooms.
A series of potentially damning allegations about Patterson’s behavior in the lead-up to the meal were withheld from the jury to give the mother-of-two a fair trial.
Photo: AP
Supreme Court Justice Christopher Beale yesterday rejected an application to keep these allegations secret. Patterson tried to kill her estranged husband Simon on three occasions between 2021 and 2022, police said in one of the major claims not heard during the trial.
She was accused of serving him poisoned dishes of pasta bolognese, chicken curry and a vegetable wrap, according to freshly released evidence.
Simon told a pre-trial hearing in October last year how Patterson had asked him to taste test a batch of curries she had made.
Photo: AP
“I remember Erin saying that the purpose of the taste test was so she could, I guess, customize future curry production for our respective tastes,” he said in testimony suppressed until now.
He later fell ill after eating a mild chicken korma served by Patterson on a camping trip in 2022.
“At first I felt hot, especially in my head, and that led to feeling nauseous and then that led to me quite suddenly needing to vomit,” he said.
Simon eventually fell into a coma before receiving life-saving surgery to remove a section of his bowel.
He later told doctor Christopher Ford that he had come to suspect Patterson might be deliberately poisoning him. He became worried when Patterson offered him a batch of homemade cookies, Ford said.
“Simon was apprehensive about eating the cookies, as he felt they may be poisoned,” the doctor told a pre-trial hearing last year. “He reported to me that while they were away, Erin called several times and enquired about whether he had eaten any of the cookies.”
When his parents fell gravely ill after eating at Patterson’s house, Simon would regretfully confide these fears in his family.
“He wanted to tell us that he had suspected his own illnesses had been a deliberate act,” cousin Ruth Dubois told a pre-trial hearing. “He had stopped eating food that Erin had prepared, because he suspected that she might have been messing with it. And [said] that he was really sorry that he hadn’t told our family.”
Prosecutors dropped those charges before the start of Patterson’s trial, with tight restrictions preventing media from revealing any details.
Patterson hosted an intimate meal in July 2023 that started with good-natured banter and earnest prayer — but ended with three guests dead.
A 12-person jury found the 50-year-old guilty of murdering Simon’s parents, Don and Gail Patterson, as well as his aunt Heather Wilkinson. She was also found guilty of attempting to murder Heather’s husband, Ian, a well-known pastor at the local Baptist church.
Simon had been invited to that lunch as well, but pulled out because he felt “uncomfortable.”
Throughout a trial lasting more than two months, Patterson maintained the beef-and-pastry dish was accidentally poisoned with death cap mushrooms, the world’s most-lethal fungus.
Death cap mushrooms are easily mistaken for other edible varieties, and reportedly possess a sweet taste that belies their potent toxicity.
Patterson is to return to court on Aug. 25 for hearings that will determine how long she spends behind bars. Her legal team has 28 days after sentencing to appeal both her criminal convictions and her sentence.
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
YELLOW SHIRTS: Many protesters were associated with pro-royalist groups that had previously supported the ouster of Paetongtarn’s father, Thaksin, in 2006 Protesters rallied on Saturday in the Thai capital to demand the resignation of court-suspended Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and in support of the armed forces following a violent border dispute with Cambodia that killed more than three dozen people and displaced more than 260,000. Gathered at Bangkok’s Victory Monument despite soaring temperatures, many sang patriotic songs and listened to speeches denouncing Paetongtarn and her father, former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and voiced their backing of the country’s army, which has always retained substantial power in the Southeast Asian country. Police said there were about 2,000 protesters by mid-afternoon, although
MOGAMI-CLASS FRIGATES: The deal is a ‘big step toward elevating national security cooperation with Australia, which is our special strategic partner,’ a Japanese official said Australia is to upgrade its navy with 11 Mogami-class frigates built by Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles said yesterday. Billed as Japan’s biggest defense export deal since World War II, Australia is to pay US$6 billion over the next 10 years to acquire the fleet of stealth frigates. Australia is in the midst of a major military restructure, bolstering its navy with long-range firepower in an effort to deter China. It is striving to expand its fleet of major warships from 11 to 26 over the next decade. “This is clearly the biggest defense-industry agreement that has ever
RSS