The "mystery" of "what happened at Erin Patterson's dining table" in rural Australia on 29 July 2023 has "gripped the world" for two years, said the BBC. Of four relatives served beef Wellington at her home on that "fateful Saturday", three died in the following days and one was left "fighting for his life".
Today, Patterson (pictured above) was found guilty by a jury at Victoria state's Supreme Court of murdering her in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, and her husband's aunt, Heather Wilkinson, and attempting to murder her husband's uncle, Ian Wilkinson, by lacing their meal with powdered death cap mushrooms.
'Lies caught up with her' The lunch at Patterson's home in Leongatha, a few hours outside Melbourne, was reportedly planned to "reconcile an increasingly fractured relationship" with her estranged husband, Simon, said The Times, but he pulled out the day before.
Patterson denied deliberately putting the deadly mushrooms in the food but "exposed herself to cross-examination" by choosing to take the witness stand, where the prosecution accused her of a succession of deceptions, including pretending to suffer the effects of poisoning. After denying she owned the food dehydrator needed to prepare the mushrooms, she was caught on CCTV dumping one at a local rubbish tip. "In the end," said The Times, "the lies caught up with her."
The 50-year-old has been remanded in custody while awaiting a date for sentencing. She will "likely spend most – if not all – of the rest of her life behind bars", said The Australian, although she still has 28 days to appeal.
'Final word' The "mushroom murder trial" had "the feel of a Shakespearean drama: multiple deaths within one family, death by poison, and a female protagonist", said criminologist Xanthe Mallett on The Conversation. That may explain why the case has "prompted worldwide headlines, multiple daily podcasts, and even YouTube videos of self-proclaimed 'body language experts'" assessing the defendant's "every move".
But now that the verdict is in, the "final word" should be saved for the families who lost their loved ones and must come to terms with what Patterson did. "Amid the spectacle," said Mallett, "it's easy to lose sight of the humanity at the centre." |