The Japan Times - Accused mushroom murderer sent children to movies before deadly meal

Erin Patterson, 50, is accused of murdering the parents and aunt of her estranged husband with a poisonous beef Wellington in July 2023.

She is also charged with the attempted murder of her husband's uncle, who survived the dish after a long stay in hospital.

Patterson has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

At the headline-grabbing trial was on Thursday, a recording was played of a police interview with Patterson's daughter, then nine, following the meal.

"My mum told me that she wanted to have a lunch with my grandparents," said the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

"She said she wanted to talk them about adult stuff, and we were going to go to the movies."

The girl said she and a sibling were dropped off at a McDonald's restaurant for lunch, before going to the movies.

She said her mother started to feel ill after the lunch, some of which the children would later eat as leftovers.

- Patterson 'cooperative' -

"I can't remember when she started to feel sick. But I think she started to feel sick the next day," the daughter told police.

"We had some of the leftovers. Some of the steak that they had. Some of the mashed potatoes and some of the beans."

Patterson scraped the mushrooms off the food served to her children because they were picky eaters, the court heard previously.

Patterson was estranged from her husband Simon Patterson, who turned down the invitation to lunch.

His parents, Don and Gail Patterson, died as a result of ingesting the beef-and-pastry dish.

His aunt Heather Wilkinson also died, while her husband Ian fell seriously ill but later recovered.

Police officer Adrian Martinez-Villalobis earlier told the court how he retrieved beef Wellington scraps from a bin at Erin Patterson's house, so doctors could identify whether it contained poisonous mushrooms.

Martinez-Villalobis said he found the leftovers "seeping" through a brown paper bag in a bin outside, and that Patterson was "cooperative" as he asked her for help finding the food.

- 'Terrible accident' -

The court also heard from Conor McDermott -- then a toxicology registrar at a Melbourne hospital -- who asked Patterson where she had bought the mushrooms.

Patterson said she had purchased some mushrooms from a major supermarket, McDermott said, and others from a Chinese grocer, but she could not remember where.

The prosecution alleges Patterson deliberately poisoned her lunch guests and took care that neither she, nor her children, consumed the deadly mushrooms.

Her defence says it was "a terrible accident" and that Patterson ate the same meal as the others but did not fall as sick.

The trial is expected to last another five weeks.

M.Sugiyama--JT