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WELLINGTON, New Zealand — An Australian girl accused of murdering three of her estranged husband’s family members with toxic mushrooms instructed a courtroom on Tuesday she accepted that the deadly lunch she served contained loss of life caps.
But Erin Patterson mentioned the “vast majority” of the fungi got here from native shops. She denies three counts of homicide and one in all tried homicide over the meat Wellington meal she served to her parents-in-law and her estranged husband’s aunt and uncle at her house in July 2023.
Don Patterson, Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson have been hospitalized and died after the lunch within the rural city of Leongatha within the Australian state of Victoria. Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson, was gravely sick however survived.
Patterson’s lawyer earlier instructed the Supreme Court trial that the poisoning was a tragic accident however prosecutors mentioned it was deliberate. If convicted, she faces a sentence of life imprisonment on the homicide expenses and 25 years in jail for tried homicide.
Long queues fashioned exterior the Latrobe Valley Courthouse on Tuesday after Patterson took the stand late Monday, which was the primary time she had spoken publicly because the deaths.
During a number of hours of proof on Tuesday, Patterson, 50, instructed the courtroom she started foraging fungi throughout the COVID-19 lockdown of March 2020, witnessed solely by her youngsters.
“I cut a bit of one of the mushrooms, fried it up with some butter and ate it,” she mentioned. “They tasted good and I didn’t get sick.”
Patterson mentioned she additionally fed foraged mushrooms to her youngsters, chopped up “very, very small” so they couldn’t pick them out of curries, pasta and soups.
She developed a taste for exotic varieties, joined a “mushroom lovers” Facebook group, and bought a dehydrator to preserve her finds, Patterson said. Her lawyer, Colin Mandy SC, asked if she accepted that the beef Wellington pastries she had served to her lunch guests in 2023 contained death caps.
“Yes, I do,” said Patterson.
The accused told her lawyer most of the mushrooms she used that day came from local supermarkets. She agreed she might have put them in the same container as dehydrated wild mushrooms she had foraged weeks earlier and others from an Asian food store.
Mandy in April told the court his client had lied when she initially told investigators that she had never foraged before. But he denied that she had deliberately sought out death cap mushrooms and said she disposed of her dehydrator in a panic about the accidental deaths.
Earlier Tuesday, Patterson became tearful when she was asked about expletive-filled messages she had sent about her in-laws in December 2022 in a Facebook group chat that she described as a “safe venting space” for a group of women.
“I wish I’d never said it. I feel very ashamed for saying it and I wish that the family didn’t have to hear that I said it,” said Patterson. “They didn’t deserve it.”
Patterson, who said she had tried to have her parents-in-law mediate a dispute with her estranged husband, Simon, about school fees, said she was feeling hurt, frustrated and “a little bit desperate.”
The couple formally separated in 2015 after earlier temporary splits, the court has heard. Simon Patterson was invited to the July 2023 lunch but did not attend.
Tuesday’s evidence also traversed Patterson’s health after prosecutors’ suggestions that her lunch invitation was unusual and that she’d organized it on a false pretense of receiving a cancer diagnosis. The mother of two admitted she never had cancer, but had been worried enough by symptoms to seek tests.
Despite her separation from Simon, Patterson said she had hoped to reunite with her estranged husband and said she had remained close to her in-laws.
“It never changed. I was just their daughter in law,” said Patterson, through tears. “They just continued to love me.”
The 14-member jury has heard five weeks of prosecution evidence, including what the lunch guests told relatives before they died. Heather Wilkinson said shortly before she died that Patterson ate her individual beef wellington pastry from a different colored plate to the other diners, said prosecutor Nanette Rogers.
Opening her case in April, Rogers said the poisoning was deliberate but that her case would not suggest a motive for the alleged killings. The prosecution says Patterson lied when she told investigators she had eaten the same meal as her guests and fed her children the leftovers.
Patterson is because of proceed giving proof on Wednesday. Her proof Tuesday didn’t embrace her account of the day of the lunch, or cross-examination from prosecutors.
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