Woman on trial for poison mushroom killings says she was trying to fix “bland” meal

A Australian woman Accused of serving toxic mushrooms for death In a dish that killed three of his four guests who ate, he spoke of the incident on Wednesday and detailed how she had planned the meal.

Prosecutors of the Supreme Court affair in the state of Victoria say Erin Patterson50 years old, attracted his guests to have lunch in July 2023 with a lie on cancer, before deliberately feeding them with toxic mushrooms. But his lawyers say that the Wellington contaminated beef that Patterson served was a tragic accident caused by a mushroom storage accident.

Patterson denies the murder of her distant husband’s parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and their parent, Heather Wilkinson. The mother of two also denies having tried to assassinate Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson, who survived the meal. If he is found guilty, Patterson risks for life for murder and 25 years for attempted murder.

In a rare stage for an accused accused of murder, Patterson chose to speak for his own defense during his trial this week.

On Wednesday, she spoke publicly for the first time about the fateful lunch and offered her explanations on the way she planned the meal and did not fall ill.

Add more mushrooms to a “bland” meal

No one disputes that Patterson served mushrooms from the death cap to his guests for lunch in the rural city of Leongatha, but she says she did it without knowing it.

Patterson said on Wednesday that she had made folies on expensive ingredients and was looking for ideas to find “something special” to serve. She dismissed her recipe chosen to improve the “bland” flavor, she said.

She believed that she added dried mushrooms bought in an Asian supermarket in a container in her pantry, she said in court.

“Now I think there was a possibility that there is also a combinations there,” she told her lawyer, Colin Mandy. Patterson had fueled wild mushrooms for years, she said in court on Tuesday and had put it in his pantry for weeks before death.

The accused says that she “should not have lie” on cancer

Patterson, who officially separated from her husband Simon Patterson in 2015, said that she felt “injured” when Simon told her at night before lunch that he “was not comfortable”.

She had previously told her relatives that she had organized the meal to discuss her health. Patterson admitted this week that she had never had cancer – but after a fear of health, she said to her parents -in -law.

In reality, Patterson said she intended to undergo weight loss surgery. But she was too embarrassed to tell anyone who was pretending to claim her parents-in-law that she suffered a treatment against cancer instead, she said.

“I was ashamed of the fact that I had no control over my body or what I ate,” Patterson said in tears on Wednesday. “I didn’t mean to anyone, but I shouldn’t have lying to them.”

Patterson says she launched her mushroom meal

The accused said that she believed that she had been spared the worst effects of the poisoned meal because she vomited self-induced shortly after the departure of her guests. She had collapsed on most of a cake, then was vomited – a problem with which she said that she had had trouble for decades.

Patterson also said that she thought she had eaten enough meal to cause her later diarrhea. She then asked for treatment in the hospital, but unlike her guests, she quickly recovered.

In the hospital where the health of her guests was deteriorating, her ex-husband asked her questions about the dehydrator she used to dry her food mushrooms, she said.

“This is how you poisoned my parents?” She said Simon Patterson had asked her.

Increasingly, she would be blamed for poisoning and that her children would be removed from her, Patterson said that she had then eliminated her dehydrator. She told investigators that she had never owned it and had never been fueled for mushrooms before.

While she was still in the hospital, she insisted that she had bought all the mushrooms in the shops, even if she said that she knew it was possible that fodder accidentally found their way in the meal.

She was too afraid to tell anyone, said Patterson.

Later, Patterson said that she had wiped her mobile phone from a distance while sitting in an evidence locker to remove photos of mushrooms she had fed.

The prosecutors argued by opening their case in April that she had poisoned the family of her express husband, although they did not suggest a reason. She carefully avoided poisoning and simulated the disease, they said.

The trial continues Thursday with the Patterson’s counter-examination by prosecutors.