MELBOURNE – An Australian court has revealed that more than a year before a deadly meal was served, the husband of a woman found guilty of killing three individuals with meals tainted with toxic mushrooms harbored suspicions that his wife had been trying to poison him.
On Friday, a judge decided to lift a restriction on pretrial evidence that Erin Patterson, convicted of triple murder at the age of 50, wished to keep undisclosed while she seeks to overturn her convictions.
The evidence included the suspicions of Patterson’s estranged husband Simon Patterson that she had previously attempted to kill him.
Husband says he feared estranged wife would poison him
Simon Patterson testified at a pre-trial hearing that he had declined the lunch invitation out of fear.
“I thought there’d be a risk that she’d poison me if I attended,” the husband explained to the court in a statement given months prior to the trial, which was not presented to the jury.
Simon confessed that even though he had stopped eating meals made by his wife, from whom he had been separated since 2015, he did not believe others would be endangered.
Erin Patterson was found guilty by the Victoria state Supreme Court last month for the murder of her parents-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson, as well as Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, at her residence in Leongatha, through a beef Wellington meal featuring deadly death cap mushrooms.
She was also found guilty of attempting to murder Ian Wilkinson, Heather’s husband, who survived the meal but spent weeks in hospital.
Originally, Erin Patterson faced charges for attempting to murder her husband by inviting him to the lunch in July 2023. Although he initially accepted the invitation, he later decided not to attend.
She was also initially charged three counts of attempting to murder him on three occasions around Victoria between November 2021 and September 2022.
Prosecutors dropped all charges relating to the husband before her trial began in April.
Simon Patterson testified before the trial that he suspected his wife had deliberately made him seriously ill with dishes including penne bolognese pasta, chicken korma curry and a vegetable curry wrap. No poisons were ever found.
The three alleged poisonings occurred during family camping trips. Simon shared his poisoning suspicions with his doctor, who encouraged him to create a spreadsheet listing what he had eaten around the time he became sick.
Disclosures come as Patterson plans to appeal
Justice Christopher Beale ruled for lawyers representing media who sought to overturn the gag order, ordering that the evidence that jurors had not seen would be made public.
Erin Patterson’s lawyers wanted all the evidence that was not deemed admissible at her trial kept secret until an appeals court decided whether to overturn her convictions.
Their reasons included that media interest in the case was unprecedented. Defense lawyer Colin Mandy argued that reporting of the suppressed evidence as well as references to it in books, podcasts and a planned television mini-series would “leave an indelible impression on the minds of potential jurors in the event that there is a retrial.”
A hearing will begin on Aug. 25 to determine what sentence she will get. She faces a potential life sentence for each of the murders and 25 years for attempted murder.
Prosecutor Jane Warren told Beale on Friday “a lot” of victim impact statements would be presented at that two-day sentencing hearing.
Once Erin Patterson is sentenced, she will have 28 days to lodge an appeal against the sentence, the convictions, or both.
Her lawyers say they will appeal against her convictions.
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