The husband distant from an Australian woman accused of triple murder With a toxic beef with mushroom laces, Wellington declared a court on Thursday, he refused an invitation to lunch because he felt uncomfortable about it. The jury also learned that the woman had invited her guests to tell them that she had cancer – but the prosecutors said that she did not really have the disease.
Erin Patterson50 years, is accused of three murders – parents and the aunt of her distant husband. She is also accused of an attempted murder.
Patterson has Pleaded not guilty To all the counts, with his defense saying that the fatal meal of beef and pocket, prevented from mass mushrooms, was the result of a “terrible accident”.
On the second day of a trial that drew global attention, the accused’s husband Simon Patterson described having seen his parents in the hospital after being poisoned.
“Dad was much worse than mom. He really had trouble,” he said in court.
“He was lying on his side, he was bent,” said Simon Patterson, adding that his father’s face was “really discolored”.
“He was not just inside, he felt pain,” he said.
James Ross / AP
Simon Patterson was invited to lunch at the end of July 2023 to his wife’s home in the Victoria State Farm village in Leongatha. But he told court that he had refused, sending him a text that he was “uncomfortable” with the invitation.
She urged her to reconsider, saying that she had prepared a “special meal” and had a “little fortune” on the beef’s eye.
“I hope you will change your mind,” said his text, read in court. “I hope to see you there.”
A woman said she had cancer, say the prosecutors
Erin Patterson had invited guests under the guise of talking to them about a health problem, the court learned.
Simon Patterson did not show up at lunch, but his parents, Don and Gail Patterson, made, with his aunt Heather Wilkinson and her husband, local pastor Ian Wilkinson.
In a few days, Don and Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson died. Ian Wilkinson, the pastor, survived after almost two months in the hospital.
During the lunch rally, Erin Patterson said she had cancer and asked for advice on how to say to her two children, the crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers said in court. The medical tests found no evidence that she had the disease, according to the prosecutor.
The four guests developed diarrhea and vomiting within 12 hours of the meal and were run at the hospital. They were diagnosed by treating doctors with poisoning by death cap fungi.
In the hospital, Simon Patterson said that his father had informed him of the diagnosis of cancer claimed by his wife, whom he had not heard before.
His parents were “really strong” by encouraging the couple to solve their marital problems, he said.
Simon Patterson told court that his wife “heard well” with his stepfather when they “shared a love of knowledge and learning and an interest in the world”.
“I think she loved her sweet nature,” he said.
Simon Patterson and his wife separated in 2015, but maintained good friendship, on vacation with their children together.
By 2022, things had become tense and conversations were mainly limited to logistics involving children, he said.
Erin Patterson was a “devoted mother” to their children and supported their involvement in a variety of activities, said her husband.
The prosecutor says that she deliberately poisoned her guests and avoided consuming the ceilings of death herself.
Instead, he is alleged, she pretended to suffer from similar symptoms to cover that she had not eaten the mushrooms.
James Ross / AAP image via AP 
Although the jury can question reason, “the reason is not something that must be proven by the accusation,” said Rogers at the start of the trial.
Erin Patterson’s lawyer Colin Mandy told court that poisoning was a “tragedy and a terrible accident”. She ate the same meal with mushrooms from the cap but did not fall as sick as her guests, said Mandy.
Patterson is tried in the law courts of the Latrobe valley in Morwell, south of Melbourne. Judge Christopher Beale urged the jury to “constantly” “prove” in the case, using their heads and not their hearts, The BBC reported.
The trial is expected to last about six weeks.
Toxic mushrooms
The police said that the symptoms of the four members of the sickly family were compatible with the poisoning of Wild Amanita Phalloides, called Mushroom.
Death hood mushrooms germinate freely in wet and warm parts of Australia and are easily confused with edible varieties. They would have tasted softer than other types of mushrooms but have powerful toxins that slowly poison the liver and kidneys.
Death ceilings are responsible for 90% of the poisoning of fatal mushrooms worldwide, the BBC reported. In 2020, a series of poisonings in Victoria killed a person and hospitalized seven others.
Australian Broadcasting Corp. Reported that Ecrin Patterson had written in a statement that she had cooked a Wellington beef steak dish for lunch using mushrooms bought from a large chain of supermarkets and dried mushrooms in a Asian grocery store. She wrote that she had also eaten the meal and then suffered from stomach and diarrhea pain.
His children, who were not present at lunch, ate some of the remains of Wellington beef the next day, The BBC reported. Mushrooms had been scraped with the dish because they don’t like them, she said.
