{"id":26392,"date":"2025-05-01T13:11:20","date_gmt":"2025-05-01T13:11:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/?p=26392"},"modified":"2025-05-01T13:11:20","modified_gmt":"2025-05-01T13:11:20","slug":"final-texts-woman-sent-to-her-ex-husband-before-being-accused-of-killing-his-family-with-poisonous-mushrooms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/?p=26392","title":{"rendered":"Final texts woman sent to her ex-husband before being accused of killing his family with poisonous mushrooms"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Chilling text messages sent by the woman accused of serving up a deadly dinner which left three of her former husband’s relatives dead have been revealed in court.<\/p>\n

Erin Patterson is at the centre of an alleged triple murder after she served up a\u00a0meal<\/a>\u00a0which\u00a0contained death cap mushrooms<\/a>, which can prove fatal even if consumed in small amounts.<\/p>\n

The 50-year-old had invited her former in-laws, Gail and Don Patterson, both 70, as well as Mrs Patterson’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66, and her husband Reverend Ian Wilkinson, 68, for lunch on 29 July, 2023.<\/p>\n

Each guest dined on beef Wellington, mashed potato and green beans at Patterson’s home in the rural town of Leongatha,\u00a0Australia<\/a>, before all four of them became unwell.<\/p>\n

Tragically, Gail and Heather passed away in hospital a week after being admitted with\u00a0poisoning from death cap mushrooms<\/a>, before Don also died.<\/p>\n

Ian miraculously survived after undergoing a liver transplant, seeing Patterson also\u00a0face a charge of attempted murder<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Patterson’s ex-husband<\/a>\u00a0Simon Patterson, who she had ‘amicably’ split from several years earlier, was also invited to the get together, but declined the invitation.<\/p>\n

The contents of the former couple’s final conversations before the poisoning have now been laid out in the Victoria state Supreme Court, as Patterson faces\u00a0three murder charges and one of attempted murder<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The mum, who has pleaded not guilty and\u00a0maintained her innocence<\/a>\u00a0since the trio’s 2023 deaths, claimed she was organising the lunch to discuss some grave\u00a0health<\/a>\u00a0issues, alleging that she had ovarian\u00a0cancer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Prosecutor Nanette Rogers told the court that Patterson said she wanted to ‘get advice about how to break it to the kids’, telling the attendees it was ‘important that her children were not present’ for the meal.<\/p>\n

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\"Erin\"Erin<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Erin Patterson is on trial for three murder charges and one of attempted murder (9News)<\/cite><\/div>\n

Despite initially agreeing to go, Simon pulled out of the lunch shortly beforehand and sent his ex-wife a text message explaining he would ‘feel too uncomfortable’.<\/p>\n

Jurors heard how he got in touch with Patterson saying: “Sorry I feel too uncomfortable about coming to lunch with you, mum, dad, Heather and Ian tomorrow but am happy to talk about your health and implications of that at another time.<\/p>\n

“If you\u2019d like to discuss on the phone just let me know.”<\/p>\n

In response, Patterson told him she was ‘really disappointed’ and told him she had spent an extensive amount of time ‘preparing lunch for tomorrow, which has been exhausting’.<\/p>\n

She also complained that she had ‘spent a small fortune’ on ingredients, while saying she hoped Simon would change his mind.<\/p>\n

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\"Don\"Don<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Don and Gail Patterson, the accused’s former in-laws, died after eating the deadly meal (Family Handout)<\/cite><\/div>\n

“That\u2019s really disappointing,” Patterson said. “I\u2019ve spent many hours this week preparing lunch for tomorrow which has been exhausting in light of the issues I\u2019m facing and spent a small fortune on beef eye filet to make beef Wellingtons because I wanted it to be a special meal as I may not be able to host a lunch like this again for some time.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s important to me that you\u2019re all there tomorrow, and that I can have the conversations that I need to have.<\/p>\n

“I hope you\u2019ll change your mind. Your\u00a0parents<\/a>, Heather and Ian, are coming at 12.30, and I hope to see you there.”<\/p>\n

The court has also heard how Patterson’s guests offered her advice after she ‘announced that she had cancer’ at the dinner table, according to Ms Rogers.<\/p>\n

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\"Heather\"Heather<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Heather Wilkinson also passed away, although her husband Ian survived (Family Handout)<\/cite><\/div>\n

“They had a discussion about it being best to be honest with the children,” the prosecutor said. “They prayed as a group for the accused\u2019s health and wisdom in relation to telling the children.”<\/p>\n

Patterson’s defence lawyer, Colin Mandy, told the jury his client never had cancer.<\/p>\n

He said that Patterson’s lunch guests had been poisoned by mushrooms that she had served, but insisted the poisoning was accidental, saying it was ‘a tragedy, a terrible accident’.<\/p>\n

Jurors were previously informed that Patterson\u00a0had eaten from a different coloured plate<\/a>\u00a0to her guests.<\/p>\n

The trial – which is expected to last for six weeks – continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Chilling text messages sent by the woman accused of serving up a deadly dinner which left three of her former husband’s relatives dead have been revealed in court. … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26393,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26392"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26394,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26392\/revisions\/26394"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}