Overview

• On July 7, 2025, a Morwell jury convicted Erin Patterson of three murders and one attempted murder after a two-month trial.
• The victims—Patterson's ex-in-laws Don and Gail Patterson and their relative Heather Wilkinson—succumbed to Amanita phalloides poisoning from a July 29, 2023 beef Wellington; a fourth guest, pastor Ian Wilkinson, survived.
• Prosecutors presented evidence that Patterson feigned a cancer diagnosis to lure her victims and denied possession of a food dehydrator later recovered with death cap mushroom traces.
• Throughout the trial, Patterson maintained the contamination was accidental and claimed legal purchase of the mushrooms, but jurors rejected her account.
• Medical and forensic experts testified on the extreme lethality of death cap mushrooms and the methods used to trace their spores to Patterson's dehydrator.