Woman at centre of mushroom mystery admits lying to police
An amateur cook at the centre of a deadly mushroom mystery gripping Australia has admitted to lying to the police.
In a written statement sent to Victoria Police, Erin Patterson confessed to earlier misleading officers by telling them she had dumped a food dehydrator involved in the preparation of the meal a “long time ago”.
She told police that she had in fact disposed of the dehydrator at a nearby tip in a panic after her guests fell ill.
Officers are examining CCTV from the landfill to determine when exactly it was dumped.
The developments have come amid continuing speculation over the incident, which took place on July 29 in a close-knit community in rural Australia.
The family lunch ended with three people dead and a local preacher fighting for his life. The main dish served was beef wellington.
Police believe that the dish was poisoned with death cap mushrooms, which grow wild in the foothills around Leongatha - a small town about two hours’ drive south-east of Melbourne.
Ms Patterson, a community newsletter editor, has been named as a suspect because she appeared to remain in good health despite her four guests falling ill.
She invited Gail and Don Patterson, her former parents-in-law, along with Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, and her husband Ian, a baptist pastor, to the meal at her Leongatha home, in Victoria’s Gippsland region.
She also invited her estranged husband, Simon Patterson, who pulled out of the lunch shortly beforehand.
Within days, three of her four guests had died. The surviving guest, Mr Wilkinson, remains in a critical but stable condition in need of a liver transplant.
‘Terrifying and anxiety-provoking’
Initially, Ms Patterson declined to comment on the apparently lethal meal, blaming her silence on the “terrifying and anxiety-provoking” ordeal.
However, in her written statement to Victoria police, she confessed to lying to them in a panic after her guests fell ill.
She also said Mr Patterson, who she no longer lives with, had accused her of poisoning his parents.
The pair were “discussing the food dehydrator” she used to dry out mushrooms when he asked: “Is that what you used to poison them?”
Ms Patterson stressed on Monday that she had bought the fungi at an Asian grocery store, and was herself hospitalised after eating the lunch.
“I am now devastated to think that these mushrooms may have contributed to the illness suffered by my loved ones,” she said in a statement.
“I really want to repeat that I had absolutely no reason to hurt these people whom I loved.”
She insisted that she had served the meal before inviting guests to choose their own plates. She then took the last plate and ate a serving of the beef Wellington.
The next day, her two children also ate the meal but the mushrooms were scraped off first as they do not like them.
Ms Patterson said she was then hospitalised with bad stomach pains and diarrhoea, and was put on a saline drip and given a “liver protective drug”.
Death cap mushrooms sprout freely throughout wet, warm parts of Australia and are easily mistaken for edible varieties.
They reportedly taste sweeter than other types of mushrooms but contain potent toxins that slowly poison the liver and kidneys.
