| 2023 Leongatha mushroom poisoning | |
| Location: | Leongatha, Victoria, Australia |
| Date: | 29 July 2023 |
| Timezone: | AEST |
| Type: | Poisoning |
| Fatalities: | 3 |
| Accused: | Erin Trudi Patterson |
| Weapons: | Death cap mushrooms (suspected) |
The 2023 Leongatha mushroom poisoning is an ongoing legal case involving three deaths from suspected mushroom poisoning in Leongatha, Victoria, Australia. One woman has been charged with three counts of murder and five counts of attempted murder. The case will return to court in May 2024.[1] [2]
The case has sparked significant media interest in Australia and overseas.[3] [4]
Leongatha is a town in the foothills of the Strzelecki Ranges, South Gippsland Shire, located 135km (84miles) south-east of Melbourne. At the, Leongatha had a population of 5,869.
On 29 July 2023, Erin Trudi Patterson (49) cooked Beef Wellington for a lunch for her former in-laws Don (70) and Gail Patterson (70), Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson (66) and Heather’s husband, Ian (68), at her home in Leongatha.[5] Patterson claims her two children went to the movies at the time of the lunch.[1] It is suspected the meal contained Amanita phalloides death cap mushrooms.[6]
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.[7]
On 4 August, five days after the lunch, Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson died in hospital and an investigation was launched by Victoria Police. On 5 August, Don Patterson also died in hospital.[1]
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 Mount Waverley (around 118km (73miles) away from Leongatha) three months before the lunch.[8]
Patterson also says in the statement that she intentionally disposed of the food dehydrator that police found in a skip bin at the Koonwarra Transfer Station after she says people "began accusing her of intentionally poisoning the meal".[9]
Ian Wilkinson was discharged from hospital on 23 September, having received a liver transplant. A funeral for his wife, Heather, was held on 4 October.[10] [11]
On 2 November 2023, Erin Patterson was charged with three counts of murder and five counts of attempted murder. The charges allege Patterson tried to murder her ex-husband, Simon Patterson, on four occasions between 16 November 2021 and 29 July 2023 (the day of the lunch), with claimed incidents also in May and September 2022.[12] [13] In the May 2022 incident, Simon was hospitalized with "serious gut problems", including 16 days in an induced coma and three operations.[14]
Patterson appeared in Latrobe Valley Magistrates' Court in Morwell on 3 November. She was remanded in custody to next face court scheduled for 3 May 2024.[15]
On 7 May 2024, Patterson pleaded not guilty to the three murder charges and five attempted murder charges.[16] She elected to "fast track" her case, meaning that her case would skip the Magistrate's Court's committal hearing and proceed directly to a Section 198 hearing in the Supreme Court of Victoria, where the evidence against her would be tested for the first time. The prosecution also amended three of the attempted murder charges against Simon Patterson to include the locations they occurred: between 16 and 17 November 2021 in Korumburra, between 25 and 27 May 2022 in Howqua and on 6 September 2022 in Wilsons Promontory.[17]