She Killed Three People with Poisonous Mushrooms. Did She Mean To?

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Basically when you're, she speaks to police, she's seemingly as baffled as they are about

why these three lunch guests have died and another one's on their store, and yet she's fine. Today I'm talking with Nino Bucci, he's a justice and courts reporter at Guardian Australia. And last year, he covered a trial there that made international headlines. A case that involved poisonous mushrooms.

Back in July, 2023, a woman called Erin Patterson hosted her parents-in-law and also their relatives. So her Tharnian and uncle of her husband at her house, which was on a piece of land in country Victoria, which is sort of one of the southernmost mainland state in Australia. She invited the round for the Saturday lunch of Beaf Wellington, Erin said, "Didn't give

a reason exactly for the lunch, but basically wanted to talk to them about something."

And she was in this quiet new house, so they came around, most of them hadn't been there before. It was quite an unusual thing for her to invite them all over, and she showed them around a beautiful house, did what people normally do when they have people over for lunch and fast a little about plating up, and then eventually they all sat around her dining room

table and put it out of Beaf Wellington.

“Is that her in-laws were there, but was her husband there?”

No, so her and Simon were estranged at that time. Simon didn't leave there. He'd actually been invited to the lunch and canceled late the night before. So he wasn't there, and his absence was something that, as they sort of went on and became somewhat more interesting.

So you thought they were having Beaf Wellington, this seemed like a kind of a proper Saturday lunch for people who don't know what Beaf Wellington is. What is Beaf Wellington? Sure, so there's a few different ways around it, and effectively, what it is though, is a piece of Beaf wrapped in pastry.

So this particular version that Aaron was making was from a quite a well-known Australian chef. Her version is not sort of one big log of Beaf as his traditional wrapped up in pastry, but Aaron sort of made single bits of Beaf wrapped up in pastry, and there was quite importantly in this case, between the Beaf and the pastry, there was a mushroom mix that was placed

in the sort of down mushrooms that were put on top of the meat before the whole thing would wrapped up in little individual parcel. So each of those lunch guests had in front of them effectively, a little individually made parcel of Beaf mushrooms on top wrapped in pastry.

“So they sat down, and they had their Beaf Wellington, and what happened next?”

Well, the discussion continued at that point Aaron was sort of raising concern she had about cancer. You know, they then realized that was why she invited them all around that and talk about her cancer diagnosis, but it ended the way most of these lunches ended, everyone was sort of waxingly real about the meal, very glad to have been hopped off in their cars and went

home. So everyone leaves after lunch goes on their own way, and then what happens? So later that night, the lunch guests started to fall ill, and they fall ill with symptoms

diarrhea, stomach cramps, they all think basically, they've eaten something bad and when

they become as clear that it's all people who are at Aaron's place for lunch, they assume it's something that they've eaten that day, that potentially all had a bad pace of meat, for example. I'd as it kind of went from the early hours into, you know, dawn, they realized that we really need to get ourselves to hospital here because we're, you know, because we have

violently unwell, they were, they went there into, you know, the emergency department, they started receiving treatment, but it became pretty clear, pretty quickly that things weren't getting in a better one, eventually it were sort of rushed off to be your hospitals in Melbourne.

“How quickly did the doctors figure out that this wasn't just regular food poisoning?”

Yeah, it took a while, there was some stuff about their presentation and about, I guess they're, they're, they leave a function and the function of other major organs that's sort of suggested this was something far more significant than, you know, eating, you know, our bad pace of steak as they thought early on, and eventually they sort of, you know, a process of elimination, decided it was probably, um, emanated Floydies or deathcap

mushroom poisoning, now they weren't necessarily in a position at that hospital to type, diagnosed that really, you know, clearly from that point, so they started speaking to people in Melbourne who were experts on it, and I started sort of treating them as a presumptive case of that failure early on, even before that was sort of, you know, actually

“evacuated to two of those bigger hospitals, and it became, you know, obviously once, once”

that was the presumptive diagnosis, they were really concerned that these people might not survive. What happens to the body when when you eat deathcap mushrooms? Yeah, it's, it's quite horrific, really, and it's effectively, you know, it's quite a slow and painful process for which there's, there's very little that can be done, and something really stuck in my

mind that was basically sort of frightening about the people that kind of eat deathcap mushrooms

is that, you know, you go through this process of really intense symptoms of, you know, vomiting diarrhea exactly as you would when you've got, you know, a really bad food poisoning, but then this is kind of period where it eases off, and a lot of people are suffering kind of thinking, you know, they're kind of getting better, but what's actually happening

“at that point is that it's this, you know, the organs of fail to such a point that they're”

not even doing that anymore, you know, there's such a relentless sort of progressive and frightening deterioration of everything that even though symptoms stop, but that's the main you're getting any better. In fact, means you've, you know, almost progressed to the point where you'll be on saving, and I found that quite horrifying. So the, the group gets to the hospital and they realize Aaron Patterson, the woman who

would, how they'd been at, she also comes to the hospital complaining of stomach issues. Yeah, so more than a day after the others, Aaron also goes to hospital, she's not as unwell, but she's, she's also, you know, half their age, and, you know, someone healthier. So, you know, yeah, she's, she's, she's sick, but she's not as bad, she, I mean, she walks in, for example, as opposed to having to be, you know, taken there by ambulance, is it,

is it kind of fair and you can't have the difference between the two? And she also, somewhat strangely, you know, at this point there, fairly confident that it is death-cut mushroom poisoning. And so, you know, the local hospital when she comes in a far more alive to the prospect, this could be something really serious than they were when her other lunch guests came in,

you know, more than a day earlier. So, they basically say, hey, you've got to come in

straight away and she actually lays, she leaves the hospital, says she's got stuff to take care of at home, and kind of comes back later on, which again, you know, is something that people at the hospital found unusual at the time, but also is very different to how the lunch guests were, were reacting to that poisoning. What happened to everyone who got sick? So, of those four people, who became terribly unwell after eating beef, well-intended Aaron Pattinson's house,

three died. And the only survivor was in Wilkinson. He spent months in intensive care,

to this day, you know, almost three years on now sort of has, has ongoing health complications

“from that, from that meal. How quickly did the police launch an investigation after the deaths?”

By the time the family had been taken to that major hospital in Melbourne, it's called the Austin Hospital, they do a lot of, you know, toxicological deaths, poisonings, that's sort of thing. By the time the family were there, which was, you know, within days of the launch, police were looking at the case. And, you know, by sort of November, so sort of some four months after that launch, Aaron Pattinson was in fact charged with those three murders

in the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson. What did she tell police had happened? So, this is an interesting one because what Aaron Pattinson did in her first interview was effectively

kind of say, "Look, I don't know what's happened here. I have never gone faraging. I have

no reason to harm these people. I was sick as well. I bought the mushrooms from the supermarket and an Asian grocer. Beats me what's happened effectively, you know, but I've got no reason for to hurt them. I loved them and it could have been me. You know, at a basic

“level, that's what she's saying. That story would change somewhat as the sort of months”

rolled on, but basically when, you know, she speaks to police, she's seemingly as bad footballers as they are about why these three launch guests have died and another one's, you know, on Death's Door and yet she's fine. We'll be right back. Support for the show comes from Odo. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder

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You said Aaron Patterson was estranged from her husband. Did she have a good, I mean, she's having lunch with her in laws, even if her husband wasn't around, did you have a good relationship with them? As you might imagine in a case like this, the question of what Aaron's relationship was like with Simon was somewhat contested. And you know, even pieces of evidence that seemed quite open and sharp about that relationship could

be interpreted in a number of ways. I guess if you sort of think about for example, she'd be Debbie Tech's messages tended about a conversation she was having just with him. And that same maybe a little hated. And you know, there'd be discussions about money or whatever, but they were, you know, progressing. Then at the exact same time she's having these conversations with him, she's having separate conversations with her friends, where she's, you know,

that relationship was like, not only because, obviously, what followed and the context in which

“we were learning about it being, you know, a triple murder trial, but also because there was”

seemingly kind of two sides to Aaron and how she engaged with people about that relationship. Once the police initially interviewed Aaron, what happened with their investigation? What else did they learn after interviewing her? These interviews fairly early, investigation, they've caught a man explained to me before by, you know, people in, you know, homicides, guns and things like that is it's effectively a chance to get people to

kind of hang themselves at the wrong rate. So they're hoping that Aaron is going to say enough about what helped happen to that launch that they're going to be able to prove her wrong. And she kind of did that. There was enough that she gave way there to sort of indicate that what she was saying wasn't true. Part of that revolved around, you know, a material that get later on from her phone and other devices, part of that was also around, they were able to

establish that she had dumped a food, dehydrator at a local, you know, what we call it, a tip

in Australia, but basically like a dump, they were basically able to put together these bits and pieces

of the contradicted very much what she said in that interview. And he kind of, you know, look at the timeline of that, that, that interview sort of occurred, you know, that first interview

“occurred, you know, I think roughly about three months before she was actually charged. So, you know,”

the police kind of went away and did a little bit more work and kind of were able to find an in their mind enough to sort of point to the fact that this wasn't some accidental death, but that Aaron Patterson had intended to kill those people. When was she arrested? She was arrested in charge of November of 2023. So, there's a kind of four months period almost between that lunch and when she's when she's charged with the murders and it became fairly

clearly on in that trial that this actual issue was whether she'd met to put death cap mushrooms in the Bay of Wellington. So, somewhat differently to the story that they presented, you know, up until that point, it no longer was in dispute that she'd fed death cap mushrooms to her lunch

“guests in those Bay of Wellington's. What had become in, you know, the centrally”

issue of the trial is whether she'd met to do it. And effectively, you know, Aaron was pleading on guilty saying that, look, I far as these mushrooms, I didn't realize our death caps. I accidentally put them in the Bay of Wellington's. That's killed the lunch guests. I got sick too, but for various

reasons, I didn't get a sick as them. That's basically what the trial came down to. Was that

that question in tent? There were charges that were eventually dropped, attempted murder charges against her husband Simon, who hadn't been there? That's right. So, one of the things that was really fascinating about her arrest and charging back in November, as we had no idea about this background or alleged background or history of attempting to poison Simon. And so that really was a bolt from the blue when that came out. So, police, as part of their investigation, what happened

at the lunch they spoke to Simon and he spelled out to them. These four occasions where he said she'd tried to kill him before. Now, their all occasions were, you know, police alleged. It was just those two together. He was eating food that Aaron had prepared for him, that children were there. And it all occurred when they were away from harm as well. So, you know, Aaron paddles him when she was charged in November with, with the lunch charges, but you didn't know itself wasn't

a huge surprise given everyone knew she was kind of the only suspect. Which she was also charged with these, these matters involving Simon that nobody had any idea about. But between her being charged in November and the trial starting the following April, there had been a lot of legal argument back and forth about these two sets of charges. What were called, you know, the lunch charges in the Simon charges effectively? And right before the trial started, there was a ruling that came

down and the judge effectively said, these have to be, these trials have to be held separately. You can't have one trial in the Simon charges and the lunch charges, you know, you have to do them

they'd dropped the Simon charges and they proceeded with the lunch charges.

What was the trial like? Incredible in the sense that we all knew it would be

this completely uncontrollable kind of raging storm. And yet, it's still sort of took us by surprise,

“I think, all the, the many reporters who covered it. There was, you know, evidence that was obviously”

really sort of heartwrenching from, from Maine, Wilkinson, who was at the lunch, but also from Simon Patterson about losing his parents and and also sort of us both reflecting on, you know, he's realized she'd been there and the future is kids and that sort of thing. And then, you know, later on on the trial, they're sort of, sort of, final witness was there in Patterson herself. And, you know, that was quite remarkable as well because you sort of go from, from saying this, this person,

in a dark everyday, but sort of having seen her on television for, you know, months before that. And it only used paper photographs and all the rest of it. And then, you know, she sort of comes to life before you very eyes. And it's, that that was quite an experience too.

“Where did the prosecution say they thought she'd gotten the poison mushrooms?”

So the prosecution said that it was open to the jury to find that she'd got them from one of

two locations. And this was a fairly laborious part of the trial because basically what they were

doing was measuring up location data to sort of say, Aaron Patterson was in this location at this time. And then kind of cross-referencing that with public posts on a website called I Naturalist, which is basically a citizen science website. You can log posts on there about things you've found in the wild, you know, whether it be types of plant, like mushroom or animals. And what the prosecution was saying was look, it's open to you as the jury to find the Aaron Patterson was in a place called

lock at another place called Atrium. After they were public posts put on I Naturalist identifying

those locations as having death cut mushrooms. So they didn't know exactly, but they were saying

our cases that she got them from either Atrium or lock on either of these occasions

“in the weeks leading up to lunch effectively. What did Aaron say when she testified?”

She, you know, effectively sort of said that she hadn't made that recipe before, but she wanted to do something different because it was a special lunch. She couldn't find the exact ingredients to fire the recipe that she'd found, so she sort of had lived. And instead of, you know, buying one big sirloin, she'd have decided to just buy individual sirloin stakes. She said she was, you know, cooking down the mushrooms as the recipe sort of called for,

but then I didn't, you know, taste particularly good. They taste a bit bland, so she threw in some dried mushrooms that she had in the pantry. Very much, you know, I guess the sort of through line of her evidence was one of having a great deal of love and respect for the, for the people. She was a ledger of killed, having no reason to want them gone, having had some issues in her relationship with Simon, but that, you know, had no reason at all to have done what she was alleged to have

done. What was the end of the trial like what, what, what happened? Draw went on and on and on, a dragged file longer than anyone thought it went for 11 weeks in the end and, you know, Aaron Patterson's evidence was was, you know, the most dramatic period of those 11 weeks. And there was, there was a point, you know, in her evidence where I could say a path to her being found not guilty. Again, you know, just to sort of emphasize, this is not,

you know, criminal trials and not about a lot of the time and not about someone's innocence, you know, they're, but they're about whether there's enough evidence for them to be found guilty, you know, beyond raising them with doubt. And there was just enough, I thought, at times early on an evidence to suggest that a jury or, you know, it could be enough for a single juror to have some doubt about whether she'd intended to kill people with those, you know,

guilty of all charges. And well, was there sentence? Basically, in Australia,

once there's a guilty vote of 10 down, you know, the jury would get sent out of the, the thanks for their work and then is, is what's effectively called a plea hearing for,

“you know, where the prosecution gives their sort of, of the sentence, I think Aaron Patterson should”

get. And Aaron Patterson's, you know, lawyers basically said, well, he's the media guiding, sort of circumstances. You know, and Aaron's case, there was a lot of them, you know, she'd taken it to trial sort of indicates a lack of remorse, but, you know,

that she had never been, you know, found guilty of any, any other serious sort of criminal

offending, you know, this was a first magic crime. So, you know, it was all wired up and in the end, she was given a, I mean, of a sense of 33 years with the maximum of, of laugh. As important to sort of say that Aaron Patterson's appealing that conviction, she's not appealing the sentence, but she's appealing that conviction, and, you know, she maintains her innocence. And there's

“going to be an appeal hearing, you know, in her case, lighter this year. Her husband has a book deal.”

Yeah, Simon Patterson has been represented by a, you know, a media spokesperson since fairly, early on in this, one of the things that we don't know a great deal about that, that Simon certainly can talk to are those, you know, I alleged attempted murders that Aaron committed on him where, you know, police had alleged and, you know, he certainly suspects and continues to suspect that she attempted to kill him on a number of occasions before the launch.

Look, if that's the first, the book, I'm sure that'll be the focus of, of even more headlines as

well in the coming months. But you know, with the motive, if he was, if she was trying to kill him, he wasn't at that lunch. So why would she still serve if, if she is guilty? Why would she go ahead was serving the beef Wellington to his family? Of really tossed this around a lot. I suspect that possibly Aaron's thinking was that Simon may come and, if for example, like he'd taken their kids out that day, if for example, it'd come back early and happened to his whole family sitting

around eating maybe he was more likely to protect as well. She did have extras. She had extra beef Wellington's that she could have served other people who came. Perhaps she wanted to see, obviously, the previous attempts at Simon, alleged attempts, you know, involving Simon, the main unsuccessful, maybe it was a dozing test and it was, let's say, how far can push this. I mean, ultimately, we're kind of in with this is that you're on a hardening to nothing when you're

trying and get inside the mind of someone who'll murder three people and it's a very difficult thing for for most of us to do to try and consider their motives, especially when the main question about this particular thing for for days on hand and you know, I've sat in the same room while she's doing that and I'm still no close to understanding why. Well, they know, thank you. Thanks, baby. You can read more of Nino Bucci's reporting for Guardian Australia

at the link in our show notes. Aaron Patterson's appeal will be held this August. If you like to watch the video of this interview and all our other video interviews, follow us at youtube.com/criminalpodcast or just click the link in our show notes. I'm Phoebe Judge. Thanks for listening. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with it doesn't

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“platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch.”

So why not you? Try Odo for free at odo.com. That's odo.com.