A woman who died after eating a Beef Wellington dish laced with death cap mushrooms told a doctor it tasted “delicious,” a court heard Wednesday, as her Australian host faces triple murder charges.
Erin Patterson, 50, is accused of murdering the parents and aunt of her estranged husband by cooking and serving up the poisonous beef-and-pastry meal.
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.
A hospital doctor testified about two of the four poisoned lunch guests — Heather Wilkinson and her husband Ian, a pastor.
He treated the pair, who are the aunt and uncle of Erin Patterson’s husband, when they were rushed to hospital suffering from vomiting and diarrhea.
When the couple first arrived, they were “conscious” and “alert,” Dr. Christopher Webster told the court in Morwell, southeast of Melbourne.
“They were clearly unwell but were not distressed. They were both able to freely communicate,” he said.
A day earlier, they lunched on individually prepared beef Wellingtons at Erin Patterson’s home in the sedate Victoria state farm village of Leongatha, the court has heard.
The doctor said he initially suspected the couple had food poisoning from the meat in the beef Wellington.
“I did ask Heather what the beef Wellington tasted like and she said it was delicious,” he told the court.
The next morning, a doctor from another hospital called him to say the two other lunch guests — Erin’s parents-in-law Don and Gail Patterson — had suspected poisoning from death cap mushrooms.
Ian and Heather Wilkinson were then transferred for acute care at another hospital.
Within days, three of the four lunch guests were dead. Ian Wilkinson, the pastor, lived after weeks of hospital treatment.
On Tuesday, Ian Wilkinson told the courtroom that he and his wife had been “very happy to be invited” to the lunch, the BBC reported.
Wilkinson told the court that Patterson had plated “all of the food,” according to the BBC.
“Each person had an individual serve, it was very much like a pasty,” he said. “It was a pastry case and when we cut into it, there was steak and mushrooms.”
He said Patterson was “definitely” eating but couldn’t say “with certainty” how much she ate.
“They can be scared and alive or dead”
The court also heard that lunch host Erin Patterson’s estranged husband, Simon, had been invited to the meal but declined, saying he was uncomfortable with the prospect.
Erin Patterson went to hospital two days after the lunch, but left five minutes later against medical advice, the doctor said.
“I was surprised,” he told the court.
Patterson later returned and told Webster her children had also consumed the beef Wellington — but not the mushrooms or pastry.
She was hesitant to tell them about the poisoning in case they became “frightened,” the doctor said. “I said: ‘They can be scared and alive or dead.'”
The court also heard from another of Don and Gail Patterson’s sons, Matthew, who said he had called the lunch host to ask where the mushrooms came from.
Erin Patterson told him she bought some of the mushrooms at a “Chinese shop,” but could not recall which one, he said.
Matthew said he thought the accused was a devoted mother who had a positive relationship with his parents.
The prosecution alleges Erin Patterson deliberately poisoned her lunch guests and took care that neither she, nor her children, consumed the deadly mushrooms.
Her defense 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 six weeks.
Death cap mushrooms
Police have said the symptoms of the sickened family members were consistent with poisoning from wild amanita phalloides, known as death cap mushrooms.
Death cap mushrooms sprout freely throughout wet, warm parts of Australia and are easily mistaken for edible varieties. They reportedly taste sweeter than other types of mushrooms but possess potent toxins that slowly poison the liver and kidneys.
Death caps are responsible for 90% of lethal mushroom poisoning globally, the BBC reported.
In 2022, doctors in Massachusetts were able to save a mother and son who nearly died from death cap mushroom poisoning. In 2020, a spate of poisonings in Victoria, Australia, killed one person and hospitalized seven others.
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