The host of a weekend household lunch at her Australian nation dwelling was charged with murdering three visitors with toxic mushrooms and trying to homicide a fourth who was left combating for all times, police mentioned on Thursday.
Police arrested Erin Patterson, 49, earlier on Thursday at her dwelling in Leongatha in Victoria state the place her former husband’s mother and father Gail and Don Patterson, each aged 70, Gail Patterson’s sister Heather Wilkinson, 66, and her husband Ian Wilkinson, 68, had been invited for lunch on July 29.
All 4 visitors had been hospitalized the following day and solely Ian Wilkinson survived.
Erin Patterson was additionally charged with three counts of trying to homicide her former husband Simon Patterson, 48, who grew to become in poor health after consuming three meals in 2021 and 2022, a police assertion mentioned.
He didn’t attend the July lunch along with his mother and father, who each died.
Erin Patterson will stay in police custody till she seems in an area courtroom on Friday, when she will be able to doubtlessly apply to be launched on bail. Bail for homicide is normally a call referred to the next courtroom.
She has publicly denied any wrongdoing.
I am devastated. I beloved them. I am unable to consider that this has occurred and I am so sorry, she tearfully informed reporters two days after the third dying.
Police say the signs the 4 diners suffered had been in line with poisoning by wild Amanita phalloides, generally known as dying cap mushrooms.
Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported that Erin Patterson had written in a press release that she cooked a beef Wellington steak dish for the lunch utilizing mushrooms purchased from a significant grocery store chain and dried mushrooms from an Asian grocery retailer.
She wrote that she additionally ate the meal and later suffered abdomen pains and diarrhea.
Ian Wilkinson, a Baptist pastor, was launched from a hospital in late September and police say he continues to get well.
Homicide in Victoria carries a possible most sentence of 25 years in jail.
