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Leongatha mushroom murders

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Leongatha mushroom murders
Death cap mushrooms (Amanita phalloides), the species contained in the meal eaten by the victims
LocationLeongatha, Victoria, Australia
Date29 July 2023 (2023-07-29) (AEST)
TargetEstranged husband, in-laws
Attack type
Mushroom poisoning
Deaths3
Injured1
Victims
  • Gail Patterson
  • Don Patterson
  • Heather Wilkinson
  • Ian Wilkinson (survived)
PerpetratorErin Trudi Patterson
Convicted1
VerdictGuilty (all counts)
Convictions
  1. Murder (3 counts)
  2. Attempted murder (1 count)
JudgeChristopher Beale
Sentence
  1. 3 life sentences with a non-parole period of 33 years (September 2025)
  2. 25 years' imprisonment (September 2025)
All sentences are being served concurrently
Imprisoned atDame Phyllis Frost Centre

On 29 July 2023, Erin Trudi Patterson intentionally poisoned four of her relatives with highly toxic death cap mushrooms, resulting in the death of three, and serious injury to a fourth. The poisonings took place during a lunch at Patterson's home in Leongatha, Victoria, Australia.

The victims were served a lunch that included individual beef Wellingtons laced with the death cap mushroom Amanita phalloides. Within 24 hours, all four victims were admitted to hospital and subsequently diagnosed with severe liver failure. Three died within six days (in one case despite receiving a liver transplant), and one recovered seven weeks after the lunch.

Patterson was arrested on 2 November 2023 and charged with three counts of murder and five counts of attempted murder of her in-laws and their relatives, including four counts of attempted murder of her estranged husband Simon.[1] After the charges of attempted murder of Simon were dropped, Patterson was tried before a jury in the Supreme Court of Victoria, sitting in Morwell, commencing on 29 April 2025.[2]

On 7 July 2025, the jury convicted Patterson of three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder.[3] On 8 September 2025, Justice Christopher Beale sentenced her to life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 33 years. It was the first sentence hearing in Victoria to be broadcast live.[4][5]

The case received international coverage.[6][7]

Background

[edit]

Early life and education

[edit]

Erin Trudi Patterson (née Scutter, born 30 September 1974[8]) grew up in the south-eastern Melbourne suburb of Glen Waverley. In 1992, Scutter was accepted for a science course at the University of Melbourne and later switched to accounting. She also trained to be an air traffic controller and graduated in 2001.[9]

Early career

[edit]

Following her graduation, Scutter worked as an air traffic controller with Airservices Australia in Melbourne between February 2001 and November 2002.[10] By 2004, Scutter worked as an animal management employee for RSPCA Australia at the Monash City Council's headquarters. In the same year, she began dating Simon Patterson, who worked as an engineer at Monash City Council.[9]

Marriage and family life

[edit]

In July 2006, Scutter inherited A$2 million from her grandmother, which was paid to her over an eight-year period commencing in 2007. Scutter married Simon Patterson in 2007 and they moved to Western Australia, living in Perth, York, and Pemberton. Scutter, now Patterson, ran a second-hand bookshop in Pemberton while her husband worked for the local council. While living in Western Australia, Patterson gave birth to their son. Patterson subsequently testified that she bonded with Gail and Don Patterson, her parents-in-law, during this period.[9]

Prior to the birth of their daughter, Erin and Simon Patterson relocated to Koonwarra, Victoria, to be closer to her in-laws. According to Simon Patterson, Erin Patterson had bonded with Don over a "shared love of knowledge and learning" and that she liked his "gentle nature". Patterson attended a Baptist church where the pastor, Ian Wilkinson, was married to Gail Patterson's sister, Heather.[9]

Patterson's father died from cancer in c. 2011, and, in 2019, her mother also died from cancer. Erin Patterson and her sister inherited her parents' estate, which included a A$900,000 beachfront retirement home in Eden, New South Wales. Patterson's share of her parents' estate allowed her and Simon to provide interest-free loans to his three siblings and their spouses to buy homes.[9]

Family conflict

[edit]

Erin's relationship with Simon began to deteriorate following the birth of their first child. The couple underwent several short-term separations before reaching a financial settlement and long-term split in 2015. Following their separation, Erin and Simon shared custody of their two children and remained on friendly terms, including going on holidays together.[9]

In 2022, Erin and Simon's relationship deteriorated after he filed a tax return which listed himself as single. Due to this change in his relationship status, Erin became ineligible for government child support payments, with Simon being told by a federal government agency to stop paying his children's school fees and medical bills. While Simon claimed that this change in status was the result of a mistake by his accountant, the incident damaged the couple's relationship.[9]

Between November 2021 and September 2022, Simon was hospitalised three times with gastrointestinal symptoms, with the second incident resulting in a coma and requiring life-saving surgery. A medical expert's report commissioned for the trial stated that Simon's symptoms were consistent with the ingestion of barium carbonate, an ingredient in rat poison. These details were suppressed for the duration of Erin's murder trial.[11][12]

In the two years leading up to the family lunch on 29 July 2023, Erin's relationship with her in-laws had become estranged. According to her brother-in-law Matthew Patterson's court testimony, Erin missed several family events and attended some others only briefly. During her testimony, Erin alleged that she had been snubbed when she received a late invitation to her mother-in-law Gail's 70th birthday celebration around May 2023. Erin had also posted several social media messages to her online friends criticising her estranged husband and her in-laws.[9]

Lunch and deaths

[edit]
A beef Wellington

On 29 July 2023, Erin Patterson cooked individual beef Wellingtons for a lunch for her in-laws Don and Gail Patterson, Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson and Heather's husband Ian, at her home in Leongatha.[13] Her estranged husband, Simon Patterson (separated around 2020[14]), was invited but did not attend.[15] Patterson claims her two children went to the cinema at the time of the lunch.[16] The meal contained Amanita phalloides death cap mushrooms.[17]

The following day, all four guests were admitted to hospital with suspected gastroenteritis. Erin Patterson went to Leongatha Hospital with reported stomach pains and diarrhoea, but repeatedly refused to be admitted. Doctors were so concerned for her welfare that they called the police.[18] There were further health concerns for Erin and Simon's children, who purportedly ate leftovers of the beef Wellingtons (with the mushrooms and pastry removed), and doctors were adamant that the children should also be checked for any adverse reactions. It was suggested that Erin Patterson was initially reluctant to seek medical attention for the children.[19][20]

On 4 August, five days after the lunch, Gail Patterson (aged 70) and Heather Wilkinson (aged 66) died in hospital and an investigation was launched by Victoria Police. On 5 August, Don Patterson (aged 70) died in hospital, despite receiving a liver transplant.[21][16]

Ian Wilkinson (aged 69) remained hospitalised for over seven weeks and survived.[22] He was discharged on 23 September. A funeral for his wife was held on 4 October.[23][24]

Police investigation

[edit]

Police confirmed on 14 August that Patterson provided them with a detailed statement, in which she said she had bought dried mushrooms from an Asian supermarket in the Melbourne suburb of Mount Waverley (around 118 kilometres (73 mi) away from Leongatha) three months before the lunch.[25]

Patterson also said in the statement that she intentionally disposed of the food dehydrator that police found in a skip bin at a transfer station in Koonwarra after, she said, people "began accusing her of intentionally poisoning the meal".[26]

[edit]

Patterson appeared in Latrobe Valley Magistrates' Court in Morwell on 3 November 2023.[27] On 7 May 2024, she pleaded not guilty to the three murder charges and five attempted murder charges.[28] Four of the attempted murder charges alleged she had repeatedly targeted her ex-husband Simon, but those charges were subsequently dropped.[2][11][12] Patterson was tried in the Supreme Court of Victoria before a jury, presided over by Justice Christopher Beale. At Patterson's request the trial was held in Morwell, rather than Melbourne.[29] The trial began on 29 April 2025 and covered three charges of murder and one charge of attempted murder.[11]

Opening arguments

[edit]

During the trial, the Crown focused on Patterson's dehydrator and told the court that Patterson lied when she told police she never owned one. The court was shown Patterson's Facebook posts sharing photos of a dehydrator along with dehydrated mushrooms. The Crown detailed Patterson's purchase of the dehydrator and subsequent trips in April 2023 to Loch and Outtrim, known[30] death cap mushroom habitats. The Crown presented CCTV footage of Patterson dumping the dehydrator at the Koonwarra Transfer Station after the lunch. The Crown noted that police had forensically examined the retrieved dehydrator and found Patterson's fingerprints and traces of Amanita phalloides mushroom toxins, which were also detected in urine samples of Patterson's male guests. The Crown suggested that Patterson had not eaten the same meal as her alleged victims; had lied about her cancer diagnosis (the pretext on which she had invited the guests); and had lied about experiencing stomach pains and diarrhoea following the lunch. The Crown also suggested that Patterson had lied about having serious medical issues–to ensure that her children were not present at the lunch. The Crown stated that trying to prove that Patterson had a motive would not be part of their case.[31][32]

Patterson's counsel acknowledged Patterson's lie to police about not owning a food dehydrator or foraging for mushrooms. Counsel argued that Patterson panicked after learning that her lunch guests died after eating food she had cooked. Patterson's counsel accepted the Crown's argument that Patterson had never been diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Counsel for the defendant stated that Patterson was close to her children and Don and Gail Patterson, her parents-in-law, who died after eating the lunch. Patterson's counsel said the defence did not dispute that death cap mushrooms had caused the deaths of the lunch guests. Counsel argued that Patterson did not intend to cause harm to anyone that day and that the defence would be arguing that the victims' deaths were a "tragedy and terrible accident."[32][31]

Patterson's testimony

[edit]

During the trial, Patterson testified about her relationship with Simon Patterson and his parents. She attributed her separations from Simon Patterson between 2009 and 2015 to communication difficulties and said that the relationship improved in 2023. Patterson also told the court that she struggled with low self-esteem and weight gain and planned to undergo gastric bypass surgery in c. July 2023.[33] Patterson told the court that she had foraged for mushrooms in Leongatha and Korumburra for several years prior to July 2023 and that she accepted that there were death cap mushrooms inside the beef Wellingtons she had cooked on 29 July. Patterson told the court that she had bought most of the ingredients for the lunch from a Leongatha supermarket and some forest mushrooms mix from a Melbourne-based grocer. She explained that she had used a food dehydrator to preserve the mushrooms for use later in the year. Patterson also testified that she had intended to use several mushrooms she had bought from an Asian grocer and had stored them separately as they were pungent.[34] On her third day of questioning by her counsel, Patterson told the court that she believed that the foraged mushrooms ended up in the lunch due to a mistake about the contents of her containers in the pantry. Patterson also admitted lying about her cancer diagnosis and claimed that she had been too embarrassed to tell her relatives that she was about to get gastric bypass surgery to deal with her weight. Before court, Patterson stated that she had organised the lunch in order to bolster relations with the wider Patterson family, who she feared were becoming distant due to her separation from her husband, and that she had vomited following the lunch after eating a cake that her husband's mother had brought. She also said that she experienced diarrhoea for several days after the lunch and had taken drugs to treat the symptoms. Patterson told the court that she had become anxious after her husband confronted her in hospital about whether she had used her food dehydrator to poison his parents.[35]

During cross-examination, Patterson denied that she had deliberately cultivated the death cap mushrooms, purposely placing them in the beef Wellingtons and weighing them to calculate the fatal dose for a person. She also disputed the prosecution's account that she had told her relatives at the lunch that she had cancer. Patterson said she lied to the police and health authorities about dehydrating mushrooms and food because she was afraid of being blamed for the mushroom poisonings. Patterson admitted lying about medical appointments including a needle biopsy.[36] She also denied accessing posts in May 2022 about death cap mushrooms on the platform iNaturalist, despite the Crown presenting a report from data extracted from Patterson's computer showing that the Bing search engine was used to search for iNaturalist over the same timeframe.[37]

Patterson denied she attempted to "cover her tracks" after discharging herself from Leongatha hospital against medical advice on 1 August 2023. She also disputed Ian Wilkinson's testimony that she had used a different-coloured plate from her guests and denied making a sixth beef Wellington for her estranged husband Simon in case he attended the lunch. She did, however, make six individual beef Wellingtons rather than a single piece from which portions could be cut. She explained that she was unable to source a piece of beef large enough for a single beef Wellington.[38][39] Patterson also disputed the evidence given by several medical staff, including Leongatha hospital nurse Cindy Munro, who had testified that Patterson was reluctant to allow her children to be tested for poisoning. Patterson also recalled that she became anxious after medical staff informed her about the possibility of death cap mushroom poisoning during the lunch.[40]

Patterson denied misleading Department of Health authorities when she initially claimed that she had bought the death cap mushrooms from an Asian grocer. She also acknowledged that the Enrich Clinic, where she claimed to have booked a pre-surgery appointment for a gastric bypass, never offered this procedure. Patterson also denied foraging for death cap mushrooms two hours before purchasing a food dehydrator on 28 April 2023. She defended her decision to prepare a beef Wellington lunch with mushrooms which she said that she had bought from an Asian grocer several months earlier. She also denied that she had fabricated a history of foraging for edible mushrooms since 2020.[41] Whilst still under cross-examination by the Crown, Patterson told the court that she had lied about her cancer treatment because she was embarrassed about her upcoming weight loss surgery. She denied lying that Simon Patterson had accused her of poisoning his parents with a dehydrator a few days after the lunch. Patterson rejected the Crown's argument that she had factory-reset her mobile phone four times in August 2023 to conceal evidence. She also denied deliberately harvesting death cap mushrooms in 2022, including those mushrooms which ended up in the beef Wellingtons. The defence rested its case, and Justice Beale told the jury that evidence in the trial had concluded.[42][43]

Closing arguments

[edit]

The Crown's closing arguments to the jury were that Patterson, over the course of several months prior to the 29 July lunch, fabricated her cancer claim as a means of inviting her guests over for lunch, deliberately incorporated death cap mushrooms into the meal served to her guests while ensuring that neither she nor her children consumed the poisoned food, pretended to have diarrhoea following the lunch to make it appear that she had suffered from death cap poisoning, and engaged in a "sustained cover up" to conceal her role in poisoning her guests including lying about the origins of the mushrooms served in the meal and attempting to dispose of her food dehydrator at a landfill; lied about her level of cooperation with health authorities; invited her lunch guests as a gesture of friendship; had never told her guests that she had been diagnosed with cancer; planned gastric bypass surgery; and questioned testimony that Patterson had experienced diarrhoea after eating cake following that lunch.[44]

The closing arguments to the jury, as presented by Patterson's counsel over three days, were that Patterson had accidentally added death cap mushrooms to the meal; there was a reasonable possibility that Patterson had not intended to kill or cause serious injury to her guests; human memory could be faulty, questioning the account of prosecution witness Kylie Ashton; the Crown's evidence about Patterson's conflicts with her estranged husband and in-laws were erroneous, including reliance on a social media conversation in December 2022 that criticised her in-laws; defended the credibility of Patterson's testimony; the testimony from lunch survivor Ian Wilkinson that Patterson served the guests on four large grey plates while eating from a different coloured plate was of no consequence; Patterson's online searches for death cap mushrooms reflected "idle curiosity" rather than malevolent intentions; the Crown's arguments that Patterson committed murder without a motive, lied about her cancer to lure her guests, and thought she could pass off the poisoning as a gastrointestinal infection, should be rejected; Patterson panicked and lied after her estranged husband accused her of poisoning his parents; the Crown's argument that Patterson had either disposed or factory reset her original mobile phone to conceal her tracks should be rejected; and that Patterson's medical tests from two days after the lunch showed that she had become unwell after consuming the beef Wellington meal, stating that the test recorded low potassium and elevated haemoglobin and fibrinogen levels.[45][46][47]

Verdict

[edit]

After reserve jurors were excused, the twelve remaining jurors were sequestered for the duration of their deliberations.[48] On 7 July 2025, they returned their verdict, finding Patterson guilty of three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder.[3][49][50]

On 30 July 2025, the Supreme Court of Victoria barred Patterson from selling her home in Leongatha, to potentially satisfy any future claims for compensation or restitution.[51]

Sentencing

[edit]

Justice Beale heard victim impact statements from relatives on 25 August,[52][53] and on 8 September sentenced Patterson to three life sentences plus 25 years of imprisonment, all to be served concurrently. She will become eligible for parole in 2056.[54]

Patterson is currently imprisoned at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre in western Melbourne.[55]

Media coverage

[edit]

The Leongatha mushroom poisoning case and Patterson's arrest and arraignment in early November 2023 attracted significant domestic and international media attention.[6][7] Six media film crews attended Patterson's arraignment at the Morwell courthouse on 3 November.[6] Victoria Police inspector Dean Thomas said that the police investigation had been "subject to incredibly intense levels of public scrutiny and curiosity" by local, national and international media over the past three months. Notable international media covering the case included The Washington Post, BBC News, the Los Angeles Times, CNN, People magazine, The New York Times and NBC.[7] The Latrobe Valley Magistrates' Court reserved six seats for the media on a daily ballot. To accommodate the large media contingent, an overflow room was established in the court building. The Victoria Supreme Court imposed strict guidelines on media coverage to ensure fairness. While the court was open to the public and media, the case was not televised.[56]

According to ABC News, Morwell's hotels and motels were inundated by the large media contingent.[57] ABC News and the Globe and Mail reported that the court case attracted significant local interest as well as substantial coverage from Australian and international media.[58] A local newspaper, the South Gippsland Sentinel Times, published a list of local landmarks and locations featured in the trial.[59] Notable media productions featuring the case included a Stan documentary series,[56] the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Mushroom Case Daily, the Herald Sun's The Mushroom Cook: The Trial and Nine Entertainment's The Mushroom Trial: Say Grace podcast series.[60]

British current affairs magazine The Spectator described the trial as Australia's "trial of the century", observing that media coverage drew media and public attention away from the aftermath of the 2025 Australian federal election.[61] On 4 July 2025, the ABC confirmed that it was working on a true crime drama series about Patterson called Toxic. The series would be produced by Tony Ayres and written by Elise McCredie, with ABC journalist Rachael Brown serving as a consultant.[62][63]

Patterson's guilty verdict on 7 July 2025 attracted substantial media coverage from both Australian and international media including The Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Australian, The West Australian, The Courier Mail, Herald Sun, Daily Mail, The Economist, BBC News, Al Jazeera English, The New York Times, and CNN.[64] Following the trial, Seven Network confirmed that it would be releasing a Spotlight Special current affairs episode featuring experts' perspectives on the Patterson mushroom murder trial. Nine Network also confirmed that it was producing a documentary for its streaming service Stan focusing on the trial. Publishers Allen & Unwin and Hachette Australia confirmed that they would be publishing books focusing on the case by crime writers Greg Haddrick and Duncan McNabb, and another by Helen Garner.[63]

References

[edit]
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