Erin Patterson, who is accused of killing her ex-husband’s family last summer with a meal prepared with a killer sausage, appeared for her hearing via video from the Melbourne prison, reports Sky News.
Erin Patterson has appeared in court for the second time since her arrest in November. He has yet to testify or ask to be released on bail. The court may decide on May 7 whether the prosecution’s evidence is sufficient to put it before a jury.
Last July, Erin Patterson invited her ex-husband (the father of her two children), his ex-husband’s parents, her aunt and her aunt’s husband to lunch at her home in Leongatha, Victoria. Patterson’s ex declined the invitation, but the others accepted and ate Patterson’s mushroom-stuffed Sirloin Wellington.
Ex-husband Simon Patterson’s 70-year-old parents, Don and Gail, and Gail’s 66-year-old sister, Heather, died in hospital a few days later. Heather’s husband, Reverend Ian Wilkinson, 68, spent seven weeks in hospital, he survived the poisoning.
According to the police, the symptoms of all four of them were consistent with poisoning caused by the wild Amanita phalloides, also known as the killer fly agaric. Suspicion quickly shifted to 49-year-old Erin Patterson.
The woman was arrested last November and charged with three counts of murder and five counts of attempted murder. The five come out in such a way that, in addition to the murders, Ian Wilkinson and Simon Patterson, who refused the lunch, were also charged with attempted murder, and according to the prosecution, his ex-wife may have tried to kill him three more times between 2021 and 2023.
In Victoria, murder is punishable by life imprisonment and attempted murder is punishable by 25 years.
Tags: Australian woman killed exhusbands family killer Wellington tenderloin case heard
