Mum accused of killing three people with poisonous mushrooms breaks down in court – what you need to know
An Australian woman accused of murdering her estranged husband’s parents and an aunt by serving them a beef wellington laced with poisonous mushrooms has given evidence in court for the first time.
Mother of two Erin Patterson, 50, is charged with the 2023 murders of her former parents-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson, both 70, and Gail Patterson’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66, along with the attempted murder of Reverend Ian Wilkinson, Heather’s husband.
Patterson denies all the charges, claiming the deaths were a “terrible accident”.
The prosecution alleges she served guests the meal knowing it contained deadly death cap mushrooms, also known as Amanita phalloides.
Giving evidence at her trial at the Supreme Court of Victoria, Patterson said she had been foraging mushrooms since 2020. She also became emotional when speaking about Don and Gail.
Patterson’s estranged husband as well as the sole survivor of the alleged poisoning, Reverend Wilkinson, previously took to the stand, offering new details about what allegedly happened.
Here’s what we know so far.
An unexpected invitation
Patterson invited the four alleged victims for lunch at her home in Leongatha, a small town in Melbourne, on 29 July 2023, along with her estranged husband Simon Patterson.
Ian and Heather Wilkinson. Pic: The Salvation Army Australia – Museum
Mr Patterson told the court that although he and Erin Patterson had separated amicably in 2015, their relationship had deteriorated by late 2022.
He said he had listed them as financially separated on a tax return, which triggered a series of child support payments that meant he would no longer pay their two children’s private school fees directly, he told the court.
Speaking to the court through tears, Mr Patterson said: “I was sure she was very upset about that.”
Their soured relationship meant he repeatedly declined invitations to his estranged wife’s home for lunch – including on the day in question.
He told the court he did not feel comfortable attending.
Text messages between Patterson and her husband read out in court revealed she found his decision not to come “really disappointing” as she had spent time and money preparing the “special meal”.
Reverend Wilkinson told the court that Patterson asked his wife Heather if the couple was free for the lunch.
Detectives search Erin Patterson’s property in November 2023. Pic: AP
He said they had most of their interactions with Patterson at social gatherings such as Christmas parties at Don and Gail Patterson’s house.
“There was no reason given for the lunch, and I remember talking to Heather wondering why the sudden invitation,” Mr Wilkinson told the court, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
But he said the pair were “very happy to be invited”.
Later the couple found out Don and Gail were invited, too.
Patterson’s daughter, according to ABC, told the court that her mum organised a trip to the cinema for her and her brother in advance of the lunch.
Sole survivor gives details about the lunch
Reverend Wilkinson recalled his wife being keen to see Pattersons’ pantry because she was organising a similar space at their home.
According to ABC, he told the court he noticed Patterson was “very reluctant” about them going to see it, and thought it was possibly because it was a mess, but he didn’t go to look.
He told the court Heather and Gail offered to help plate up the food, but Patterson rejected the offer and prepared the plates alone.
Each plate had a serving of mashed potatoes, green beans and an individual beef wellington.
Patterson said the mushrooms were a mixture of button mushrooms purchased at a supermarket, and dried mushrooms purchased at an Asian grocery store in Melbourne several months ago, which were in a hand-labelled packet.
Reverend Wilkinson said the four guests were given large grey dinner plates, while Patterson ate from a smaller, tan-coloured plate.
He said he remembered his wife pointing this out after they became ill.
The reverend said he and his wife ate their full servings, while Don ate his own and half of his wife’s.
Reverend Wilkinson said that after the meal, Patterson fabricated a cancer diagnosis, suggesting the lunch was put together so that she could ask them the best way to tell her children about the illness.
The prosecution said she did this to justify the children’s absence.
The defence does not dispute that Patterson lied about having cancer.
Patterson tears up in court
Appearing as a witness for her own defence at the beginning of June, Patterson said she accepted there must have been death cap mushrooms in the beef wellington she made, according to the ABC.
She also said she began foraging for mushrooms around the towns of Korumburra and Leongatha during the COVID lockdowns in 2020. After picking the mushrooms, she said she would use a food dehydrator to dry and preserve them to have them available later in the year.
Prosecutors earlier claimed the defendant denied ever owning a food dehydrator, but police traced one owned by her to a nearby dump that was later found to contain death cap mushrooms.
Defence lawyer Colin Mandy also questioned Patterson about a series of expletive-laden messages sent to friends regarding the Patterson family.
“I wish I’d never said it. I feel ashamed for saying it and I wish that the family didn’t have to hear that I said that,” Patterson told the court about the messages.
Talking through tears, she added: “I was really frustrated with Simon, but it wasn’t Don and Gail’s fault.”
From 29 April: A court sketch shows Erin Patterson in court. Pic:AAP/Reuters
The court previously heard the relationship between Patterson and her estranged husband deteriorated shortly before the alleged murders due to a disagreement over child support.
It is not known how long Patterson will give evidence for or whether she will be cross-examined by the prosecution.
Patterson’s children ‘ate leftovers after guests went to hospital’
All four alleged victims had fallen ill and were experiencing severe vomiting and diarrhoea by midnight on the day of the lunch.
Patterson says she also became ill hours after eating the meal.
Her daughter, according to the ABC, told the court she remembers Patterson telling her she had diarrhoea that night.
Her four guests were taken to hospital the following day, with all of their liver tests showing “abnormal” results, the court was told.
Patterson claims she and her children ate leftovers from the beef wellington on the same day. Her daughter told the court she remembered this, and that her mum didn’t eat much because she was still feeling unwell.
The mum said she scraped the mushrooms off the plates in advance because she knew her children didn’t like them.
Patterson went to hospital two days after the lunch, where she initially discharged herself against medical advice, the court was told.
Erin Patterson speaks to the media outside her home in 2023. Pic:AAP/Nine News/Reuters
She had mild symptoms of illness, but further tests revealed no evidence of toxins consistent with death cap mushroom poisoning, the prosecution said.
A nurse at the hospital where she was treated told the court she “didn’t look unwell like Ian and Heather”, who were at the same hospital.
Hospital staff have said Patterson resisted attempts by doctors to have her two children tested after she told them they had eaten some of the leftovers, saying she did not want to frighten them.
Gail and Heather died on Friday 4 August 2023, while Don died a day later.
Reverend Wilkinson spent seven weeks in hospital but survived.
Police previously said the symptoms of all four of those who became ill were consistent with poisoning from death cap mushrooms, which are responsible for 90% of all toxic mushroom-related fatalities.
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Days after the deaths, police opened a homicide investigation and confirmed Patterson was a suspect. She was charged on 2 November 2023.
World
Gaza faces ‘man-made’ mass starvation due to Israeli aid blockade, World Health Organization says
The chief of the World Health Organization (WHO) has said Gaza is suffering “man-made mass starvation” because of an Israeli blockade on aid to the enclave.
Director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a news conference that the population of Gaza is “facing yet another killer on top of bombs and bullets – starvation”.
The WHO said a “deadly surge” in malnutrition has caused the deaths of at least 21 children in 2025, but stressed this figure is likely to be the tip of the iceberg.
Centres for treating malnutrition are full of patients but do not have sufficient supplies for emergency feeding, it added.
In July alone, 5,100 children have so far been admitted to malnutrition programmes, said Dr Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO’s representative for the occupied Palestinian territories. Some 800 of those children were severely emaciated, he said.
A child faces life-threatening malnutrition in Gaza. Pic: Anadolu/Getty Images
Crowds struggle for food at a charity kitchen in Gaza. Pic: Reuters
Mr Ghebreyesus said: “I don’t know what you would call it other than mass starvation, and it’s man-made, and that’s very clear.”
“This is because of [the] blockade,” he continued, adding that 95% of households in Gaza are also facing severe water shortages.
He said the UN and its humanitarian partners were unable to deliver any food for nearly 80 days between March and May, while an aid blockade was in place, and that the resumption of deliveries has been insufficient.
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‘Gaza’s doctors treating influx of malnutrition’
There is no famine in Gaza, says Israel
An Israeli government spokesperson told Sky News the food shortages have “been engineered by Hamas”, before stating: “There is no famine in Gaza.”
Speaking on the News Hour with Mark Austin, David Mencer continued: “There is a famine of the truth and Israel will not stop telling it.”
He said aid is “flowing” into the enclave but Hamas “loots the trucks [and] deliberately endangers its own people”. The fighters deny stealing food.
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Sky News challenges Israel on Gaza starvation claims
Mr Mencer said Israel has allowed more than 4,400 aid trucks to enter Gaza since it lifted the blockade in May, adding that more than 700 are waiting to be picked up and distributed by the United Nations.
That is an average of around 70 trucks a day, which is the lowest rate of the war and far below the 500-600 trucks a day the UN says is needed.
“The problem is not Israel,” he said. “The problem is Hamas.”
Supplies in Gaza ‘totally depleted’
The comments came after more than 100 aid and rights groups warned of mass starvation in Gaza on Wednesday morning – saying supplies have become “totally depleted”.
Large amounts of food, clean water and medical supplies are sitting untouched just outside Gaza, but the groups blamed Israel for its “restrictions”, which they say is creating “chaos, starvation, and death”.
The situation has become so bad, aid agencies warned they were seeing even their own colleagues “waste away before their eyes”.
Israel, which controls all supplies entering Gaza, has denied it is responsible for shortages of food and other supplies.
Pic: Reuters
Pic: Reuters
In a statement signed by 111 organisations, the groups said: “As the Israeli government’s siege starves the people of Gaza, aid workers are now joining the same food lines, risking being shot just to feed their families.
“With supplies now totally depleted, humanitarian organisations are witnessing their own colleagues and partners waste away before their eyes.
“The government of Israel’s restrictions, delays, and fragmentation under its total siege have created chaos, starvation, and death.”
The groups called for governments to demand the lifting of all restrictions and for the restoration of a “principled, UN-led humanitarian response”.
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Gaza: ‘My colleagues are getting thin’
The Norwegian Refugee Council, which backed the statement and is one of the largest independent aid organisations in Gaza, said it has no more supplies to distribute and some of its staff are starving – and accused Israel of paralysing its work.
“Our last tent, our last food parcel, our last relief items have been distributed. There is nothing left,” Jan Egeland, the secretary general of the council, told the Reuters news agency.
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Gaza is a ‘horror show’, says UN’s Secretary-General
United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres said “starvation is knocking on every door” in the Palestinian territory, describing the situation as a “horror show”.
Officials in the Hamas-run strip said at least 101 people are known to have died of malnutrition during the conflict in Gaza, including 80 children, most of them in recent weeks.
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Israel wants to ‘finish off’ Gaza
Some food stocks in Gaza have run out since Israel cut off all supplies in March and then lifted the blockade in May with new measures it said were needed to prevent aid from being diverted to militant groups.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry has accused the organisations of “echoing Hamas propaganda”.
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Hundreds of thousands ‘catastrophically food insecure’
The UK and several other countries have condemned the current aid delivery model, which is backed by the Israeli and American governments.
It has reportedly resulted in Israeli troops firing on Palestinian civilians in search of food on multiple occasions.
More than 800 people have reportedly been killed in recent weeks trying to reach food, mostly in shootings by Israeli soldiers posted near distribution centres.
A former US soldier who was employed to work within the Gaza aid system approved by Israel has claimed he saw security personnel shoot at Palestinians at a distribution centre.
The unnamed American man, who served for 25 years in the US army, has alleged he witnessed force being used against unarmed innocent civilians in the Gaza Strip.
“There is no fixing this, this needs to be put an end to,” he said in a video aired by Israeli free-to-air TV station Channel 12.
A former security guard has spoken about what he witnessed. Pic: Channel 12
It comes as the United Nations criticised an aid distribution scheme run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) that has been supplying aid in the Strip since late May, claiming it is a “sadistic death trap” where “snipers open fire randomly on crowds”.
More than 1,000 people have been reported killed while trying to receive food aid since the end of May, according to the UN, with the territory facing a starvation crisis.
The unnamed American claimed that as Palestinians were finishing getting their aid, security personnel “began shooting in their direction, shooting at them, shooting at their feet… to get them to leave”.
In another incident, he said a man was on his hands and knees picking up individual needles when security personnel wanted Palestinians to leave the site.
He alleged a contractor “sprayed an entire can of pepper spray into his face – that’s lethal”.
He also recounted a third incident, describing how he was standing next to two women when a contractor threw a stun grenade and it landed between him and the women.
“This thing hit her and she just drops, just lifeless, collapsed to the ground. It looked like she had been killed”.
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‘Over 100 die of starvation in Gaza’
He said it was at that point that he decided he could no longer be part of the distribution system.
Earlier this month, the Associated Press (AP) reported that it spoke anonymously to two US contractors guarding aid distribution sites who said their colleagues regularly threw stun grenades and pepper spray in the direction of the Palestinians.
They said the security staff hired were often unqualified, unvetted, heavily armed and seemed to have an open licence to do whatever they wished, the AP reported.
Videos provided by one of the contractors and taken at the sites showed hundreds of Palestinians crowded between metal gates, jostling for aid amid the sound of bullets and stun grenades and the sting of pepper spray, the agency added.
The unnamed American man speaking to Channel 12 said the centres are in remote areas.
“The sites were not set up in locations, nor were they set up in a way that was conducive to distributing or delivering humanitarian aid to a needy population,” he said.
Residents are not allowed there by car and so people are on foot, he added.
“Most of them don’t have shoes, no water, going through active warzone areas.”
Read more:
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‘More than 100 people die of hunger in Gaza’
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Gaza is a ‘horror show’, says UN’s secretary-general
He also said that if the United Nations method of aid distribution had the support, security and coordination that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) is getting, then the UN process would be very successful.
UNRWA, the UN relief agency for Gaza, has criticised the US-backed aid distribution scheme run by GHF that has been supplying aid since late May, when Israel, which controls supplies into the territory, lifted an 11-week blockade.
UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini said: “The so-called ‘GHF’ distribution scheme is a sadistic death trap. Snipers open fire randomly on crowds as if they are given a licence to kill.”
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Israel: ‘There is no famine in Gaza’
The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies and largely bypasses a UN-led system that Israel alleges has let Hamas-led militants loot aid shipments intended for civilians. Hamas denies the allegation.
Journalists are not able to access GHF sites, which are located in Israeli military-controlled zones. When the AP ran its allegations earlier this month, it said it could not independently verify the contractors’ stories. Sky News has not been able to independently verify the latest allegations.
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The GHF said in a statement: “This is a disgruntled former contractor who was terminated for misconduct a month ago. GHF launched an immediate investigation as soon as these allegations were brought to our attention. Based on time-stamped video footage and witness statements, we have concluded that the claims made are categorically false.
“At no point were civilians under fire at a GHF distribution site. The gunfire heard in the video was confirmed to have originated from the IDF, which was outside the immediate vicinity of the GHF site.
“The gunfire was not directed at individuals, and no one was shot or injured. We take the safety and security of our operational sites extremely seriously. When behaviour falls short of our standards, we take action. The contractor seen shouting in the video is no longer part of our operations.
“We remain focused on our core mission – delivering food to the people of Gaza in a safe, direct, and uninterrupted manner, as we have done since launching operations on 27 May. Since then, we have distributed nearly 85 million meals to residents of the Gaza Strip.”
Arturo Suarez cries as he hugs his family for the first time in months.
His sister’s modest home in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital city, is decorated with red, blue and black balloons and banners to welcome him back.
Friends and neighbours fill the living room and the street outside.
Mr Suarez reunited with his family
He video calls other family members elsewhere in the world. This is the first time they have heard his voice since March.
“I hadn’t felt so safe for a while,” Arturo tells Sky News, “when I hugged my brothers, my uncle, my aunt, that’s where I felt that the nightmare was over, that I had made it home.”
Then the story of what he had endured begins to pour out of him.
The 34-year-old was one of more than 250 Venezuelan men sent by the Trump administration to a maximum security prison in El Salvador, despite having no criminal record in any of the four countries he has lived in.
Mr Suarez speaks to Martha Kelner
Last week, he was released as part of a prisoner swap with 10 American citizens and permanent residents detained in Venezuela.
But he is scarred by the four months he spent at the CECOT prison, a terrorism confinement centre, in El Salvador, alongside some of the world’s most dangerous men.
Arturo Suarez back with his family in Caracas
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“We were constantly beaten,” he says, “we suffered physical, verbal, and psychological abuse.
“There wasn’t a day the wardens didn’t tell us that the only way we’d leave that place was if we were dead. In fact, the first words the head of the prison said to us after the first beating was ‘welcome to hell’.”
Arturo is an aspiring singer. He had moved to the US to escape Venezuela’s authoritarian regime and set up home in North Carolina.
Mr Suarez is an aspiring singer
He had a feeling when Donald Trump became president for a second time that there would be a crackdown on immigration, as promised in his campaign.
But, because Arturo had followed all the legal channels to enter the country, he didn’t think he would be caught up in the deportation policy. He was wrong.
While he was filming a music video in a house in North Carolina in March, he was arrested by immigration agents and accused by the White House of being a gang member, although they have provided little evidence publicly to support that claim.
His family had not heard from him since March
He was then flown to El Salvador – a country he had never even visited – and put in a maximum security prison. His ordeal was under way.
“We were sleeping 19 people to a cell,” he says, “if we spoke loudly, they would take away our mattresses, if they found us bathing more than once a day, they’d take away the mattresses from us.
“The punishment was severe. It was beatings and humiliations and they took away our food.
“I remember we were exercising and a cellmate, very politely, asked the prison head if we could bathe a second time that day, since we were doing exercise.
“His words were ‘that’s your problem, it’s not my problem if you exercise’. We were also made to eat with our hands.
“They tried to take our humanity away from us. They tried to make us lose everything.”
The Trump administration paid El Salvador millions of dollars to detain the 252 Venezuelan men, claiming they were part of the notorious Tren De Aragua gang.
Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem, visited the prison for a tour and photoshoot in March and Arturo saw her.
“Obviously they did a show of this,” he says, “they had cameras. When she came in, my cellmates and I began to make the help sign, which she disliked a lot. We began to shout freedom.”
Arturo was denied due process to appeal his extradition to El Salvador and was not allowed to speak to a lawyer or any family or friends during his time in prison.
I spoke to Arturo’s brother Nelson in April as he appealed for his release.
He said Arturo’s only crime was having tattoos, which the White House cited as evidence of involvement with gangs.
On a video call, Arturo shows me the tattoos.
Most of them, he says, are in tribute to his late mother. I ask if he thinks that the Trump administration believed he was a gang member.
“I think it was just an excuse to get us out,” he says, “we weren’t taken for having tattoos or belonging to a criminal gang.
“We were taken for being Venezuelans. And today I want to tell the world that being Venezuelan is not a crime.”
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When he applied for asylum in the United States, Arturo had hoped to be reunited eventually with his wife, Nathali, and their 10-month-old daughter Nahiara, who are currently in Chile.
“When I was given the opportunity to go to the United States, I was going to go with my wife,” he says, “we found out that she was pregnant but I went anyway because it was for the future, for my daughter’s future.
“Unfortunately, this decision led me to one of the most brutal prisons. What I most long for, is to be with my daughter and my wife.”
He’s now being supported by other family members in Venezuela, but he will never return to the US.
He went for a better life but instead was labelled a criminal. Now, he says, he just wants to clear his name.
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