Convicted triple-murderer Erin Patterson allegedly tried to repeatedly poison her husband, including with cookies she claimed their daughter had baked him, a court has heard.
The Australian woman was last month found guilty of murdering three relatives – and attempting to kill another – with a toxic mushroom-laced beef Wellington.
The 50-year-old was originally charged with three counts of attempted murder against her estranged husband Simon Patterson, but these charges were dropped on the eve of her trial.
The details of the allegations – which Patterson denied – were suppressed to protect the proceedings, but can now be made public for the first time.
Three people died in hospital in the days after the lunch on 29 July 2023: Patterson’s former in-laws, Don Patterson, 70, and Gail Patterson, 70, as well as Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66.
Local pastor Ian Wilkinson – Heather’s husband – recovered after weeks of treatment in hospital. Mr Patterson had also been invited to the lunch but pulled out at the last minute.
Pre-trial hearings, which are standard before many trials, allow parties and judges to determine what evidence is admissible – or allowed to be presented to a jury. In this case, as the charges relating to Mr Patterson were dropped, his evidence on the matter was excluded.
In lengthy hearings last year, he had detailed what he suspected was a years-long campaign to kill him with tainted food, which had repeatedly put him in hospital.
The court heard that one poisoning attempt left Mr Patterson so ill he spent weeks in a coma and his family was told to say their goodbyes twice.
He told the court that Patterson had tried to kill him with a curry, a wrap, Bolognese pasta, and even with chocolate cookies she claimed their daughter had made him.
He became suspicious so started making notes, realising he often became sick when she fed him, the court heard.
Mr Patterson shared his suspicions with a couple of relatives – including, critically, his father Don Patterson – and a GP, but didn’t take things further.
He said he thought he was the only one in danger, and this is why he refused to come to the lunch.
When his parents became desperately ill, though, Mr Paterson pulled his relatives into the hospital chapel and told them he suspected his estranged wife had been trying to poison him for years.
“[Simon] wanted to tell us that he suspected his own illnesses had been a deliberate act – that he’d stopped eating food Erin had prepared because he suspected that she might have been messing with it,” Ruth Dubois, the Wilkinsons’ daughter, told a pre-trial hearing, according to local media.
Ms Dubois said Mr Patterson “was really sorry that he hadn’t told our family or our parents before this, but he thought that he was the only person that she was targeting and that we would be safe.”
Police believed rat poison may have been used on at least one occasion, and had found a file on Patterson’s computer with information about the toxin, the pre-trial hearings were told.
It was also revealed that Patterson had visited a local tip the afternoon of the lunch at her house, though it is unknown what, if anything, she disposed of there.
The jury heard that she had travelled to the same dump days after the lunch to get rid of a food dehydrator used to prepare the meal, but the judge ruled they couldn’t be told about the first visit.
Other bizarre evidence which was ultimately left out of the trial included a 2020 post to a poisons help Facebook page, in which Patterson claimed her cat had eaten some mushrooms under a tree and had vomited, alongside pictures of fungi.
Patterson had never owned a cat, prosecutors said, arguing the post was evidence of a long-standing interest in the poisonous properties of mushrooms.
By BBC News
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