The husband of an Australian woman convicted of a triple murder by mushroom poisoning suspected she had been trying to kill him for over a year before the fatal meal.
The revelation emerged after a judge lifted a gag order on pre-trial evidence that Erin Patterson, 50, had sought to keep secret as she attempts to overturn her convictions.
Her estranged husband, Simon Patterson, testified at a pre-trial hearing that he had previously declined the deadly lunch invitation due to his fears, having suspected her of attempting to poison him.
“I thought there’d be a risk that she’d poison me if I attended,” the husband told the court months before the trial in testimony that was not presented to jurors.
Simon said while he had stopped eating food prepared by his wife, from whom he had been estranged since 2015, he never thought others would be at risk.
Erin Patterson was convicted by a Victoria state Supreme Court last month of murdering her parents-in-law Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson at her home in Leongatha with a lunch of beef Wellington pastries contained toxic 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.
Erin Patterson was initially charged with attempting to murder her husband by inviting him to the lunch in July 2023. He had accepted the invitation then cancelled.
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.
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.
