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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.

Dozens of media crews raced to the court when it was announced the jury had reached a verdict in the case that has captivated audiences worldwide and spawned four podcasts dedicated to unpacking each day’s evidence.

During weeks of testimony, Patterson was accused of deliberately tainting the lunch with death cap mushrooms, highly toxic fungi that she picked after seeing their location posted on a public website.

In the days after, her 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.

Her defense lawyers had argued the deaths were a “terrible accident” that occurred when Patterson tried to improve the taste of the meal, and that she repeatedly lied to police out of panic when she realized she may have added foraged mushrooms to the mix.

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 ultimately found satisfied the legal standard of beyond reasonable doubt.

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 juror’s decision, but all 12 were required to agree on the verdict.

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.

During the trial, the prosecution argued that Patterson had the opportunity to pick lethal mushrooms after seeing their location posted on the citizen science iNaturalist website.

The guilty verdict suggests the jury accepted the prosecution’s argument that she likely traveled to two sites in April and May 2023, and deliberately picked the mushrooms used in the meal.

Death cap mushrooms are highly toxic and can cause liver failure and death. William West/AFP/Getty Images/File

Prosecution alleged ‘calculated deceptions’

Prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC alleged that “four calculated deceptions” were at the heart of the case. “The first deception was the fabricated cancer claim she used as a pretence for the lunch invitation,” she said.

“The second deception was the lethal doses of poison the accused secreted in the homecooked beef Wellingtons. The third deception was her attempts to make it seem that she also suffered death cap mushroom poisoning and the fourth deception, the sustained cover-up she embarked upon to conceal the truth.”

Patterson admitted that on April 28 – the same day as cellphone signals put her in the vicinity of death cap mushrooms – she bought a dehydrator that she later dumped at a waste recycling center on August 2, as her guests lay in hospital.

It had her fingerprints on it and contained remnants of death cap mushrooms.

The prosecution alleged that Patterson faked illness in the days after serving the lunch and tried to cover her tracks by disposing of the dehydrator and factory resetting her devices to delete evidence.

Patterson’s defense lawyer Colin Mandy SC accused the prosecution of being selective with the evidence and pushing “four ridiculous, convoluted propositions.”

The first was that Patterson would do this “without any motive,” Mandy said.

He said there were several reasons why Patterson would not want to kill her guests. She had no money issues, lived in a big house, and had almost full-time custody of her two young children, who were very close to their grandparents, he said.

The prosecution did not have to prove motive.

Rogers accused Patterson of having two faces: One she showed the world that suggested she had a good relationship with the Pattersons, and a hidden face she showed only her Facebook friends that suggested she wanted “nothing to do with them.”

In Facebook messages sent in December 2022, Patterson had expressed anger and frustration over Don and Gail’s reluctance to get involved in their son’s marriage breakdown.

“I’m sick of this shit I want nothing to do with them,” she wrote. “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 son’s personal matters are overriding that so f*** em.”

And another message read: “This family I swear to f***ing god.”

Simon Patterson’s parents, Don and Gail, and aunt, Heather Wilkinson, died within a week of eating the poisoned meal. Martin Keep/AFP/Getty Images

During eight days of testimony including cross-examination, Patterson consistently pleaded her innocence, claiming she inadvertently added foraged mushrooms to the meal.

In his directions to the jury, Justice Christopher Beale said that Patterson’s admission that she told lies and disposed of evidence must not cause them to be prejudiced against her.

“This is a court of law, not a court of morals,” he said.

“The issue is not whether she is in some sense responsible for the tragic consequences of the lunch, but whether the prosecution has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that she is criminally responsible for those consequences,” he said.

The jury found that Patterson had intended to kill all four lunch guests and lied repeatedly on the stand to claim she didn’t.

Patterson will be sentenced at a later date.

An Australian woman is found guilty of murdering her in-laws by toxic mushrooms

toggle caption Jason Edwards/Newspix via Getty Images

After nearly two years and a nine-week trial, a jury has found Erin Patterson guilty in the murder and attempted murder of her estranged husband’s elderly relatives, three of whom died after eating her home-cooked meal containing poisonous mushrooms.

The 50-year-old mother of two is facing life in prison over the events of July 2023 and will be sentenced later.

That summer, Patterson hosted four guests — her husband’s parents, aunt and uncle — for lunch at her home in the small town of Leongatha, about 85 miles from Melbourne.

It is undisputed that she served them individual portions of home-made beef Wellington, a steak dish wrapped in pastry, usually with a paste of finely chopped mushrooms. And, as Patterson herself testified during the trial, that paste contained death cap mushrooms, which are among the most poisonous in the world.

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All four guests were hospitalized with gastrointestinal symptoms the following day, and three of them died the following week from altered liver function and multiple organ failure due to Amanita mushroom poisoning. The sole survivor recovered after weeks in intensive care and went on to testify at Patterson’s trial in Victoria state Supreme Court.

The trial — which lasted far longer than its expected six weeks — featured over 50 witnesses, eight days of Patterson’s testimony and a series of twists and turns.

The main question facing the jury: Did Patterson knowingly put death cap mushrooms in the dish with the intention of killing her guests?

Prosecutors argued that she did so on purpose, citing financial tensions between her and her estranged husband but stopping short of offering a motive. Patterson, who pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder, denied that the poisonings were deliberate.

Throughout the trial, Patterson’s lawyers argued that some foraged mushrooms made it into the dish by accident, and said she later covered up her actions — including lying to investigators about things like foraging for mushrooms, owning a food dehydrator and becoming ill herself after the meal — out of fear after her guests’ deaths.

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In the days before the jury members entered sequestered deliberations, Justice Christopher Beale warned that Patterson’s lies did not inherently prove her guilt.

“Even if you think that the alleged incriminating conduct she admits engaging in makes her look guilty, that does not necessarily mean that she is guilty,” he said.

The jury agreed.

A recap of the case

Patterson has been married to her husband, Simon, since 2007, but the two separated permanently in 2015 after multiple splits and reconciliations. In testimony, the couple — who share custody of their two kids — spoke about having an amicable relationship that deteriorated in the winter of 2022 over issues related to child support payments.

Then, in July 2023, Patterson invited Simon and several of his relatives over for lunch: his parents, Gail and Donald Patterson, both 70, as well as Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66, and Heather’s husband Ian Wilkinson, 68 — the sole survivor.

Patterson told the group that she wanted to discuss a medical issue she was having and whether to tell her kids, who were not present during the meal. After Simon pulled out the night before, she expressed her disappointment in a text, writing: “I wanted it to be a special meal, as I may not be able to host a lunch like this again for some time.”

Wilkinson later testified that Patterson told the guests at lunch that she had been diagnosed with cancer.

The prosecution said medical records showed no such diagnosis, and accused Patterson of lying as a pretense for the adults-only meal. Patterson admitted from the stand that “I didn’t have a legitimate medical reason,” and said she was too embarrassed to tell her guests she was actually considering weight-loss surgery.

By that point, the family had finished their meal. Patterson had made each of the guests their own individual beef Wellington pastry, and served herself on a plate that was a different size and color than the other four. That quirk was observed not only by Wilkinson but his late wife, Heather, who mentioned it to Simon Patterson when he took her to the hospital the following day.

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The two couples started to feel sick that night, experiencing dozens of episodes of vomiting and diarrhea even after being hospitalized the next morning. They were initially able to share their experiences and medical histories with doctors, who grew increasingly concerned that they weren’t experiencing just gastroenteritis.

Toxicologists determined that their symptoms were indicative of “serious toxin syndrome caused by ingestion of amanita phalloides mushrooms,” also known as death cap mushrooms.

The patients weren’t immediately given the antidote because there wasn’t enough evidence to confirm they had ingested such mushrooms. Despite receiving other forms of treatment — including an emergency liver transplant, in one case — their conditions continued to deteriorate.

Heather Wilkinson and Gail Patterson died on Aug. 4, and Donald Patterson died the following day. Ian Wilkinson was extubated on Aug. 14 and discharged to rehabilitation on Sept. 11.

During the trial, much time and scrutiny was given to Erin Patterson’s behavior after her guests fell sick and died.

For instance, there was much back and forth over whether Patterson ever got sick herself. Patterson said she experienced diarrhea for several days starting within hours of the lunch, though her exact accounts varied.

Prosecutors, citing medical records and doctors’ testimonies, argued she wasn’t experiencing any symptoms of mushroom poisoning and consistently resisted hospital care. Patterson’s lawyers alleged that she simply didn’t eat enough of the dish to get as sick as the others. By way of explanation, Patterson testified that she threw up later that day after eating the rest of the cake that one of her guests had brought.

Patterson also acknowledged she did not tell authorities about the possibility of death cap mushrooms being in the dish even as her guests lay in the hospital, instead telling them that she had used a mix of mushrooms: fresh from a local chain and dried from an unspecified Asian grocery store.

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When police asked her whether she had ever foraged for mushrooms, she said no — which she and her defense lawyers also acknowledged was a lie. She also lied about having a food dehydrator, which she had purchased months before the lunch and quickly disposed of after the deaths.

On the stand, Patterson said she had dumped the dehydrator out of panic as the tragic implications of her meal became clear, calling it “this stupid, knee-jerk reaction to just dig deeper and keep lying.” Her team maintained that she had a good relationship with her in-laws, and no reason to hurt them.

Simon Patterson was the prosecution’s first witness in the trial, and was questioned extensively about their relationship. Erin Patterson later testified — and Simon denied — that during a conversation with her husband in the hospital following the lunch, the topic of her dehydrator came up and he asked: “Is that how you poisoned my parents?

Prosecutors also accused Patterson of trying to cover her tracks in other ways, such as doing a factory reset of her phone during the police investigation. They later found photos in her camera of wild mushrooms being weighed on the dehydrator tray in her kitchen.

Patterson testified that she cleared the phone because “I knew that there were photos in there of mushrooms and the dehydrator and I just panicked and didn’t want [detectives] to see them.”

What prosecutors alleged

toggle caption Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images

Prosecutor Nanette Rogers devoted her closing arguments to what she called Patterson’s four “calculated deceptions” at the heart of the case.

Those were, according to Rogers: the fabricated cancer claim Patterson used as a pretense for the lunch invitation, the lethal doses of poison she put in the beef Wellingtons, her attempts to make it seem that she also suffered death cap mushroom poisoning and the “sustained cover-up she embarked upon to conceal the truth.”

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She said Patterson deliberately planted the seed by mentioning a lump on her elbow to one of the guests weeks in advance, and didn’t think about how to account for the cancer lie because “she did not think her lunch guests would live to reveal it.”

Citing phone photos and location records, Rogers alleged that Patterson deliberately located — using a naturalist website — and picked death cap mushrooms growing in a nearby town, dehydrated them into a powder and hid them in her guests’ dishes.

“She had complete control over the ingredients that went into the lunch and she took steps to make sure she did not accidentally, herself, consume death cap mushroom whilst ensuring that her guests did,” Rogers said.

She said that after the lunch, Patterson pretended she was also sick from the lunch because “her good health … would give her away about what she’d done.”

She accused Patterson of not being able to keep her story straight, giving varying accounts of the timing and severity of her symptoms to different people and leaving the hospital against medical advice. While Patterson’s lawyers said she did so to get her kids’ things in order, the prosecution suggested she was panicking and trying to cover up her tracks.

And, Rogers said, Patterson’s health records show she didn’t have the same symptoms as the other guests. For example, by the time Patterson said she had recovered a few days out from the lunch, “all four of the lunch guests were in induced comas.”

After their deaths, Rogers alleged Patterson lied and deceived people in several ways, including by misleading investigators about the source of the mushrooms, which sparked a frantic, ultimately unsuccessful Department of Public Health search for death cap mushrooms on local grocery shelves (there were no other reports of illness in the area). She said Patterson changed her story after the dehydrator was discovered at a local waste facility.

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Rogers didn’t accuse Patterson of having a specific motive, but also said that wasn’t required for a guilty verdict.

“You don’t have to know why a person does something in order to know they did it,” she said.

What Patterson’s lawyers maintained

toggle caption Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images

Patterson’s lawyer, Colin Mandy, accused prosecutors of ignoring some pieces of evidence and cherry-picking others to support their assertion of her guilt.

Mandy said not only did Patterson not have a motive to harm her husband’s family, she had years’ worth of “anti-motive:” She had a good relationship with Simon’s parents — her own kids’ grandparents — and was in a good place financially and emotionally at the time of their deaths.

And he argued that even if Patterson truly had intended to poison them, she would never have done some of the things she did along the way, like buy the dehydrator in her own name, take photographs of mushrooms in a dehydrator, and then “wait for so long after the meal” to dump the dehydrator, which she did using her own car, according to surveillance footage.

“[She] doesn’t attempt to disguise those actions in any way,” he said. “It could only have been panic. Not because she was guilty, but because that’s what people might think.”

Mandy said the cancer lie couldn’t have been a ruse to get the group to lunch, because she didn’t tell them about it until after they’d eaten the meal. He also disputed the accounts of the different-colored plate, saying she would have hypothetically needed to mark the untainted pastry itself in order to differentiate it from the others on the tray in the oven.

And he stressed that human memory is imperfect. While Patterson may have answered different peoples’ questions in different ways, Mandy said, there was “very little meaningful variation in the accounts that she gave.” Mandy acknowledged that some of those accounts were lies, but said Patterson was “not on trial for lying.”

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“This is not a court of … moral judgment,” he said. “You shouldn’t take the leap from this lie about a lump on her elbow to finding her guilty of triple murder. Those two things are a very, very long way apart.”

An Australian woman who was accused of deliberately serving poisonous mushrooms at a lunch that led to the deaths of three people has been found guilty of murdering them and attempting to murder a fourth person, ending a trial that had gripped the nation.

Erin Patterson, 50, faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment after the verdict was announced on Monday. The 12 jurors deciding her fate had been sequestered to keep them sheltered from the overwhelming media attention focused on the case.

The charges against Ms. Patterson stemmed from a lunch party nearly two years ago in the rural town of Leongatha, at which she cooked and served beef Wellington.

She had invited her estranged husband, Simon Patterson, who declined to attend. But his parents, Gail and Don Patterson, were there, along with Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, and her husband, Ian Wilkinson.

A jury was deliberating for a second day Tuesday in the triple murder trial of an Australian woman accused of killing her estranged husband’s relatives by deliberately serving them poisonous mushrooms for lunch.

The jurors who began deliberating Monday are sequestered, a rarity in Australia that reflects public and media fervor about the case against Erin Patterson, with several news outlets publishing live blogs that covered every moment of the two-month trial. The jurors will remain secluded until they reach a unanimous decision on the charges of murder and attempted murder.

Three of Patterson’s four lunch guests — her parents-in-law Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson — died in the hospital after the 2023 meal, at which she served individual beef Wellington pastries containing death cap mushrooms. The fourth, Heather’s husband Ian Wilkinson, became gravely ill but survived.

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3 Erin Patterson is photographed in Melbourne, Australia, on April 15, 2025. AP

3 Her parents-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson died after eating the beef Wellington. Provided

Patterson, 50, told the trial she didn’t deliberately poison her guests and must have accidentally mixed up store-bought and wild mushrooms, which she had foraged herself without knowing they were death caps. She also said she ate the mushrooms but didn’t get as sick because she threw up soon after the lunch due to an eating disorder.

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Prosecutors in the case, which has gripped Australia for two years, said the accused woman researched, foraged and served the mushrooms deliberately and lied to investigators to cover her tracks. Patterson accepted she had disposed of a food dehydrator after the fatal meal and reset her phone multiple times.

3 Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, died in the hospital. Provided

The prosecution said she lied about having a dire medical diagnosis to ensure her guests attended the lunch, cooked individual pastries to avoid poisoning herself, and faked symptoms to make it look as though she fell ill, too.

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Prosecutors didn’t offer a motive but suggested a deteriorating relationship between the accused and her estranged husband, Simon Patterson, as well as her exasperation with her former in-laws. Simon Patterson was invited to the fatal lunch but didn’t go.

Patterson would face life in prison if she is convicted.

A sequestered jury in Australia began deliberations Monday in the triple murder trial of Erin Patterson, accused of killing her estranged husband’s relatives by deliberately serving them poisonous mushrooms for lunch.

Three of Patterson’s four lunch guests — her parents-in-law Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson — died in the hospital after the 2023 meal at her home in Leongatha, at which she served individual beef Wellington pastries containing death cap mushrooms.

She is accused of attempting to murder the fourth, Heather’s husband Ian Wilkinson, who was gravely ill but survived.

Ian Wilkinson arrives at Latrobe Valley Magistrates’ Court in Morwell, Australia, on Sunday. Martin Keep / AFP via Getty Images

During the nine-week Supreme Court trial in the state of Victoria, Patterson gave evidence in her own defense. The 50-year-old mother of two faces life in prison if convicted.

Jury must decide if mushroom cook meant to kill

It isn’t disputed that Patterson served her guests the toxic mushrooms or that the meal killed them. But the jury must decide whether she meant for them to die.

Prosecutors in the case, which has gripped Australia for two years, said the accused woman researched, foraged and served the mushrooms deliberately and lied to investigators to cover her tracks. Their case against Patterson included that she disposed of a food dehydrator after the fatal meal and reset her phone multiple times.

The prosecution said she lied about having a dire medical diagnosis to ensure her guests attended the lunch, cooked individual pastries to avoid poisoning herself, and faked symptoms to make it look as though she fell ill, too.

But Patterson’s lawyers said the poisoning was a terrible accident caused by a pantry mix-up of store-bought and wild mushrooms, which she didn’t know were death caps. The defense case was that Patterson wasn’t as ill as the other diners because she induced vomiting after the meal due to an eating disorder.

The accused lied to the police that she had never foraged mushrooms or owned a dehydrator out of panic, her lawyers said. Patterson denied telling her lunch guests she had a confirmed diagnosis of cancer.

Prosecutors offered no motive

Justice Christopher Beale spent four days summarizing the case to jurors before their deliberations began, urging them not to be swayed by bias or prejudice, or by sympathy for the families of those who died. Patterson’s lies, some of which she admitted during her evidence, could be used to assess her credibility but didn’t mean she was guilty of murder, Justice Beale said.

Prosecutors didn’t offer a motive for the alleged killings and weren’t required to. But they suggested a deteriorating relationship between the accused and her estranged husband, Simon Patterson, as well as her exasperation with her former in-laws, which she expressed to friends on social media months before the deaths.

The defense said Erin Patterson had a positive and loving relationship with her lunch guests, who included her children’s only living grandparents, and that she had no reason to kill them. Justice Beale highlighted in his summary of the case the fleeting and minor nature of the past disputes.

Simon Patterson was invited to the fatal lunch but didn’t go.

Jurors will remain sequestered

A 14-member jury heard the case, but 12 were selected by ballot Monday to decide the verdict. The jury will remain sequestered, meaning they will stay together in court-appointed accommodation until they reach a unanimous decision.

Late Monday afternoon, court staff told reporters that jurors had finished deliberations for the day and would return to consider the case Tuesday. The jury is not permitted to return a verdict outside of the court’s sitting hours and members are barred from discussing the case outside the jury room — even with each other.

Sequestration is rare in Australia and reflects public and media fervor about the case, with several news outlets publishing live blogs that covered every moment of the trial for its more than two-month run. The lengthy fixture in the town of Morwell, Victoria, drew lines of people eager to watch proceedings each day.