The Australian Mushroom Posionings ~ Guilty Verdict
The verdict is in on the mean and mealy mushroom saga. Erin Patterson’s claims of cancer proved to be false – she used this as a ruse to get the victims to attend the lunch. She tried to guilt trip her ex into attending the fatal lunch, but he declined the invitation, and dodged the mushroom bullet.
It is almost inconceivable that a person would invite family members to a lunch laced with a deadly poison, and then spend a pleasant three hours visiting, and chatting about the future. She knew she had just ended their future.
One can’t help but wonder if she was relishing the knowledge of their fate, as she chatted about her fake cancer diagnosis, and plans for her future, which she knew was secure. At least she thought it was secure, although she might not have realized how secure it would be in a jail cell.
She was whining about her health, and imaginary conditions, while simultaneously setting them up for one of the worst kinds of death imaginable. The degree of deception gave her a supreme power, and control over her victims, which was likely part of the motive. In fact, cooking the meal was like a death ritual, conducting the termination with a recipe backed by power and precision. Her cunning calculations were known only to her, rife with arrogance, and supremacy. Her life mattered, and she was about to show them, their lives did not matter.
In her twisted mind, was it like “Ha! I sure fixed you.” Or like the words written on her kitchen wall, “RIP grandma, and Die by my sword.” She claimed her children wrote all those macabre messages on the wall, but it would seem more likely she was the one who was behind it. A house painter was so alarmed by the doodling, he pulled out his phone, and photographed the cryptic messages, along with drawings of tombstones. It is so spooky, no wonder she was referred to as a witch.
Her ex had reason to believe she had attempted to poison him in the past, leading to an extended stay in hospital and lengthy recovery. Plus, it appears she wanted to reunite, or at the very least, keep him under her control. He wanted no part of it.
Incredibly, there were at least three other occasions where she is accused of attempting to poison her ex. On at least one of those times, he was hospitalized, and placed in an induced coma for a prolonged period of time. He nearly died.
She also tried to convince the jury that she too had been sick following the meal. But she had discharged herself from the hospital against medical advice, and did not bother bringing her children in for evaluation, even though she said she had given them the leftovers. She obviously spared herself and her children, knowing full well what was in the deadly lunch.
She cooked up separate dishes, and used a different coloured plate to make sure she did not take the poisoned dish. I have never made beef wellington, but apparently it takes many hours to prepare.
All of those hours of preparation, to include the recipe, the shopping, the foraging for death cap mushrooms, dehydrating them, all the research she did, and the lies she told – are indicative of premeditation.
She had all kinds of time and opportunity to think about what she was doing, and abandon the plot. She knew what the outcome would be. Yet she did not manage to think it through, as to how she was going to explain why she came away unscathed. She seemed to think some crocodile tears, and proclamations of innocence, would chase away all the enquiries.
During the trial, she claimed to have eaten a whole cake, and then forced herself to throw up afterward. This too was likely a lie, contrived after the fact to try and explain why she was not poisoned. But if the meal was served at 12:30 and the guests left at 3:30, that left plenty of time for her system to absorb poison, if she was actually poisoned. Apparently it takes twenty minutes to four hours for the toxins to be absorbed, with symptoms of poisoning occurring hours later. There is no evidence that the poison can be extracted or eliminated once it is absorbed.
There are reports she had a career as an air traffic controller, which is hard to believe. She was in fact an air traffic controller for a short period of time before she was married. Her maiden name is Scutter, and she worked as an air traffic controller from Feb 12th, 2001 until November 28th 2002. Less than a year, is not much of a career, indicating that she was not capable of doing the job long term, for whatever reasons. She was described as being short tempered, deceptive and abrasive.
Overall, once she got married, she was a stay at home mom, with some stints of work as an accountant, and editor.
Although she wailed loudly about how much she loved her in-laws, and never meant them any harm, her FB messages told a different story. About eight months before the lunch, she is quoted as saying “I’m sick of this shit and I want nothing to do with them.” She added a few more expletives, which showed her true colours.
She also described her husband as being a deadbeat dad, who was not providing for the family. She tried to involve the parents to help resolve their issues. They did not want to get involved, which angered her even more.
She wrote: “I thought his parents would want him to do the right thing but it seems their concern about not wanting to feel uncomfortable and not wanting to get involved in their son’s personal matters are overriding that, so ef****em.”
Does that sound like she had no issues with them, like she so adamantly claimed right after the poisonings? Yet they were unaware of her simmering rage toward them, and they had genuine good will toward her.
Apparently in addition to being an avid mushroom forager, she was also a true crime buff. What I do not understand is – how did she expect to get away with it?
She used a false claim of having cancer to lure them over. Surely she must have known it could be easily disproven during a murder investigation. When she talked to the media right after it happened, she was extremely evasive about the actual lunch. Did she really expect to poison a group of people without anyone questioning how it came about, and why she was still alive?
She said she got the mushrooms at an Asian grocery store. Yet no one else in the area was poisoned. She said she did not have a food dehydrator, when it was obvious she did. She denied getting rid of it after the deadly lunch, but police were able to retrieve video evidence of her disposing of it.
In fact, she got caught in so many lies, she lost all credibility. She had three phones, and remotely reset one of them after it was taken into police evidence. She immediately launches into the “poor me, victim role”.
She had financial security. She had two healthy children. She had family members, a church community, and hobbies. Yet, in spite of all the blessings in her life, she spent months plotting to murder five people?
As the trial progresses, there are some news titles saying it was a murder without a motive. The motive seems quite clear, and is as old as the hills. She murdered out of revenge, over money, and a loss of control. The most controlling people, are also the most likely to lose control.
She was angry. She was resentful. She had loaned her husband’s family money, yet it did not bring him back to her. She expressed anger, because she had not been invited to a birthday party. She believed there was intentional distancing from her. However, clearly she was not being shunned. The people she targeted were not the least bit cult-like, nor did they show any evidence of ill will toward her. They graciously accepted the invitation, and showed genuine concern for her.
It is the hallmark of cults to shun and punish people, especially if the person being shunned is demonstrating a willingness to forgive, let go, apologize for their role in any conflict, and seek remedies acceptable to both parties. True Christians are willing to forgive, and do not shun family members. Healing may take time. Rejection and shunning causes deep wounds only God can heal, or deal with. Certain cults are notorious for punishing people in such a manner, especially those they cannot control.
Erin Patterson was being treated in a respectful, loving Christian manner, in spite of her oddities, especially given the suspicion of prior attempts to poison her ex. Simon’s parents were demonstrating wisdom, by refusing to interfere in the relationship problems between Erin and her ex. Erin’s expectation that they were going to dictate, or give orders to their adult son, to suit her whims, was a childish and unreasonable expectation. Every Christian wedding we ever attend, we hear the preacher read the verses from Mathew 19:5-6
If a couple separates or divorces, it is between them and their lawyers. No one can force a person to stay married to someone they do not want to be with, or do not feel safe with.
Erin then tried the sympathy route, over her own fabricated health concerns. Given that she had allegedly tried to poison her husband more than once, I don’t understand why the in-laws would accept a meal she had cooked. Poisoning was her MO.
Some people have surmised she was just trying to make them really ill, not kill them. They believe the deaths might have been the outcome, because the people were elderly. Although we have no way of knowing her thought processes, her victims were 66 and 70 years old. They were healthy, functional, active people.
In fact, even after his near death ordeal, Ian Wilkinson is reported to have returned to pastoring his church. He also attended the trial each day. That in itself is indicative of a significant amount of stamina. Many people half his age could not carry on as well as he has, in addition to grieving the loss of his wife. Plus, how does such an opinion explain that Erin managed to put her ex into a coma for sixteen days, teetering near death, when he was in his 40’s? I think the jury got it right. It was not attempted murder, it was murder.
As the jury got closer to deliberating, I couldn’t help but thinking, “how can they put themselves in her shoes?” Imagine all the shopping for food, the actual food prep, dehydrating death cap mushrooms, and calculating the lethal doses. She also had to make two separate dishes, so she had a serving for herself that was not contaminated.
It took a significant amount of time to make the dish. Every single thing she did, was a premeditated and deliberate act. It is so far beyond what a reasonable person would do, who could possibly understand the pathology of her psyche? A person who poisons as a method of murder, is an especially convoluted character, who somehow manages to cultivate insane cruelty through the use of supreme deception.
To top it off, in the months before the murders, she was avidly hunting for death cap mushrooms. This was proven according to apps on her phone about where they had been sighted, combined with phone records of her going to those locations. She was busy plotting a very serious crime.
In addition, there were Internet searches about the effects of death cap mushroom poisoning. It sounds like she planned the murders months in advance, which is chilling. How can any person go about a normal day, when they have a mass murder on their mind? Each day harbours thoughts of carrying out a sneaky, and cruel crime, targeting innocent people within her own circle.
She fully intended to kill the father, and grandparents of her own children. What would she have done to her children once they got older, and perhaps rebelled against her, or made her angry? What might she have schemed up to do to her ex, to punish him for his transgressions?
The main issue seemed to be the separation from her husband, and his refusal to get back with her. How many people go through divorce, or separation? In Canada 40-50% of marriages end in divorce. In Australia it is similar, with 44% ending in divorce. It is a good thing, the majority of them do not have such sinister reactions to a split.
She inherited around two million dollars when her mother and grandmother died. She lived in a large, very nice five bedroom home, and did not have to work. Yet she spent her time plotting murder.
Killing people by poisoning has to be one of the most evil plots known to humans. It is a betrayal of trust like none other. There is no overt violence, but rather a premeditated concoction, served up on a platter of deceit.
Following the poisoning, it is a long and tortuous death. The victim does not bleed out, or die like they would, if it had been a shooting or a stabbing. People are understandably horrified by all the blood at a crime scene. But the internal carnage done by poisoning, is worse in many ways.
Poisoning puts a person through agonizing hours, and sometimes days, of excruciating abdominal pain, cramping, diarrhea, and vomiting. To make matters worse, they died with the knowledge they had been intentionally duped and poisoned. At least one of the people who died, talked about the different coloured plate Erin had used for her own serving. As the victim who mentioned this was dying, she was clearly suspicious, and had to deal with the psychological trauma of the betrayal.
The victims also had the burden of worry for their spouses, and others who were at the lunch, knowing they were going through the same ordeal. Then one by one, all of the organs shut down, and they were put into an induced coma in ICU. It is heinous beyond description.
Erin Patterson knew exactly what she was doing, and what would happen to them. She planned it for weeks, and likely months in advance. Why? Because she was not invited to a birthday party?
Yet she was active in their church, pretending to be a Christian. Anyone of them could have been her next victim. If she was so enraged toward such obviously innocent people who were part of her family, who else might she have targeted?
This is another of many examples, like Lucy Letby, and Lindsay Clancy, where these women had wonderful lives, with all kinds of support, a loving family, and beautiful homes. Yet they became obsessed with murdering the innocent.
Erin Patterson is one of the dumbest criminals I have ever followed in true crime. No one ever gets away with murder, but this was especially obvious. Regarding her defence team, I wonder who thought it was a good idea to put her on the stand to testify? How can a person who told so many lies not get tripped up in those lies?
There are multiple reports describing her as being smart, and some go so far as to claim she is a genius. What a stretch. Calculating and wicked, is not the same as being smart. It is the outcome of harbouring bitter resentments, with no concern for anyone but herself.
She spent all that time, months in advance plotting the crime, and yet she did not realize the first question would be, “Why was she still alive?” Just claiming to have been sick too, doesn’t cut it when there is no sign of it.
What about the dehydrator? Her husband knew she had one. As it turns out, she did dehydrate death cap mushrooms in her dehydrator. Did it not occur to her that her house would be searched? She got rid of the dehydrator after the victims were already deathly ill, and her husband point blank asked her if she used it to poison them. She did not think that one through either.
As a supposed true crime buff, why didn’t she realize the phone evidence would be critical? Or the Internet searches looking for death cap mushrooms, and how to calculate lethal doses? Do people really think she is brilliant because she knew how to reset a phone. A ten year old can figure out how to do that.
Why would anyone think she was brilliant? The doctor said he knew immediately that she was guilty. When I saw her first media interview, I thought the same thing. She did not fool anyone. You could call her cunning, but definitely not smart.
Throughout all of the premeditation, she was standing in the kitchen of her beautiful five bedroom home, set on a lovely property in rural Australia. She had no financial worries. Her primary health concern was her weight, which is something she could have done something about.
She was active in the lives of her children. Did it cross her mind that she was putting life as she knew it in jeopardy? If she would have thought it through to an in-depth investigation, as any intelligent person would expect there to be, she would have concluded she could lose it all.
She lost all facets of her rich and cushy life, with freedom to travel, to entertain, and to pursue any goals she wanted to. In reality – she self-destructed, albeit in a different manner than what she did to the victims. She poisoned her own psyche, her own place in society, the lives of her children, her beautiful home, and the community who had trusted her, and given her the benefit of the doubt.
It appears she was fixated on one thing. Revenge. The two most repeated comments about her that do not make sense are 1. She is is smart 2. There was no motive. She might have been educated, but there are many educated people who are not that smart.
No she is not smart, and yes there was a motive. Just because no normal person would do such a thing, does not mean there is a lack of motive. Revenge is a common motive. Although what she did was crazy, she was not insane.
She was so focused on revenge, self preservation was not in the equation, other than the fact she would live and they would die. It sounds very primitive, as opposed to being a plot carried out by someone with a higher intellect.
She could have admitted to foraging right at the onset, if she wanted to set up an excuse. Along with the cancer diagnosis, she could have pretended to be too unwell to eat during the lunch. Then later, she could have claimed she must have made the mistake of picking death cap mushrooms while out foraging for edible mushrooms. More sophisticated scheming might have left some room for reasonable doubt.
It was dumb to panic, and immediately run out to get rid of the dehydrator. It was dumb to say she bought the mushrooms at Woolworths, and an Asian grocery store. It was dumb to repeatedly lie. It was dumb to make the nasty FB posts about her supposed beloved in-laws. How could she have thought none of that evidence would come to light? After all, those digital bread crumbs are solid evidence, to include dates, time, and context.
Why would she wail in front of media cameras right after it happened, claiming she loved them, and they did her no harm? Boo hoo hoo. Why would she have felt the need to defend herself from accusations of poisoning them on purpose, right off the bat? It made her look guilty, not innocent.
The media was not asking her whether she murdered them. They were asking about the lunch, a question Patterson skirted around like a hen on a hot griddle.
It still does not explain all the Internet searches, resetting phones, going to locations where they were sighted etc. If there had been a plausible explanation as to how and why she survived, when all the guests got lethal doses of death cap mushrooms, it would have given her a slim chance of getting away with it. However, the way she went about the entire sequence of events, was stupid and irrational, even though it was a devious plot.
Some say that if all the guests would have died, her cancer ruse would not have been known. Yes it would have, because there were texts to one of the women victims about the cancer. Her ex knew about those false claims as well. So, the evidence would have shown she used it as a ruse whether or not there was a survivor. But the different coloured plates may not have been know without a surviving witness.
One of today’s reports on the case, said she did not look like a murderer. What does a murderer look like? Some murderers look like innocent little darlings. Lucy Letby and Erin Caffey both portrayed youthful, wide eyed, sweet purity in the image they portrayed – yet they too were mass killers.
Erin Patterson does not exactly look sweet and innocent, not that it means anything. But her looks and demeanour would not likely gain sympathy from anyone, let alone jurors. It was especially so, given the many lies she told, as well as her initial theatrics in front of the news media.
It was obvious she was faking her grief and innocence. She quickly became flustered and angry when they pressed her for answers about the actual lunch. If she was innocent, she would have been more than willing to go over the details of the lunch.
Although there are some legitimate privacy concerns in this digital age, over the use of cell phones, and surveillance cameras – they do provide solid evidence when it comes to convicting criminals. The digital footprint was crucial in helping to get guilty verdicts on Alex Murdaugh, and Brian Kohberger.
When you factor in the DNA evidence, to include the shedding of skin cells when something is touched, along with the digital footprint, murder is not the least bit fool proof. Even with cold cases, they are often solved many years later using DNA, and genetic DNA.
In the case of the Idaho college student murders, the police went to Kohberger’s parents home, and confiscated a Q-tip from the trash. They used that Q-tip to link it to the DNA on the knife sheath found at the crime scene. The DNA on the Q-tip showed it was Brian Kohberger’s father’s DNA. One can only imagine how Kohberger’s parents feel, and how they can possibly deal with the magnitude of his crime.
But even more than justice based on the diligent work of police, and prosecutors, God knows when murder is committed, no matter how the person goes about it, or whether or not they are caught.
The very first murder was when Cain killed his brother Abel. God immediately knew, which is a reminder to all people that justice will eventually be served.
It is hard to imagine how the children of Erin Patterson are processing this horrific crime. I believe they were nine and fourteen years old at the time of the crime. She was described as a doting mother, so they must have conflicting feelings. They were also subject to her many lies and manipulations, especially toward their father.
She planned to go through nursing and become a midwife. I find that hard to even imagine. She is fifty years old, so by the time she graduated she would have been just a few years away from retirement. Plus the job of nursing is physically taxing and exhausting with all the shift work, and fast paced busy environment to cope with. It sounds like it was just a pipe dream to try and boost her fragile self esteem.
The psychology behind such a crime may never be understood. Some people cannot withstand rejection, without cultivating a deep rage. They cannot accept God’s grace, or instructions to persevere and do good. They cannot repent and turn away from sinful plotting and scheming. They are self destructing, and become bound and determined to take others with them.
Since she will likely spend the rest of her life in jail, she will never be part of life as she once knew it. She will not cook, or be with her family for any holidays. She will not forage for mushrooms. She will not live in a five bedroom beautiful home.
She will always be known as the notorious mushroom killer, a mass murderer, and pathological liar. More than likely, there will be numerous books and movies about the case. When the media pursued her, she was enraged because they made her look like a wicked witch. They did not make her look that way – she did. They were simply chasing her down for answers.
It will be interesting to see if she ever admits guilt in the coming years. No doubt there will be one appeal after another.
Meanwhile all of the victims in this case, will hopefully begin the long journey toward healing, and forgiveness. Thank God one of the victims Ian Wilkinson survived to give his testimony.
His leadership as both a victim, and a pastor, will be invaluable to the small community as they try to move past this horrible crime. Even though he has become physically stronger, he still must deal with the grief, the loss of his spouse, and the depth of the betrayal.
No doubt he will develop a profound discernment, when it comes to all those in his church and community. Surely his worldview has changed dramatically, but with God’s help he will be a blessing to many. He sat through the entire trial and testimony.
All those who followed this trial will pray for Ian, and his church. Every crime has many victims. Every church has a percentage of chameleons.
It is a sad fact to know how many avid churchgoers will readily commit crimes. Often they believe they will be forgiven immediately. There are some who believe they can never lose their salvation no matter what they do, and once saved, all sins, including future sins are forgiven.
Some of them believe they can hide their crimes, and their motives. Others go to church, but are not Christians at all. The bible tells us we will know them by their fruits.
I don’t really know how God will judge people, and what limits are placed upon His grace. But I do know that He knows what is in our hearts. No one can fool God. Thankfully, this woman did not fool a jury either.
Copyright Valerie J. Hayes and Quiet West (2025). Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author/owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Valerie J. Hayes and Quiet West with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.