The Australian woman Erin Patterson (49) allegedly killed the three elderly family members when she served a lunch with the highly poisonous green fly agaric in July last year.
On Tuesday, there was a local hearing in the Latrobe Valley Magistrates Court, before the case is sent directly to the High Court.
During the local hearing, Erin Patterson stated that she denies any criminal responsibility.
Died: – Cruel
Died after family lunch
It was at the end of July last year that Patterson, who is currently in a women’s prison, invited her former parents-in-law and some family friends to a lunch in the small town of Leongatha, which lies south-east of Melbourne.
Around the table sat the married couple Don Patterson (70), his wife Gail (70), the latter’s sister Heather Wilson (66) and her husband, pastor Ian Wilson (66).
Beef Wellington was on the menu, and a week later three of the lunch guests were dead.
The only survivor after the fateful lunch was the pastor Ian Wilson (66), who survived after a liver transplant and over two months in hospital.
DEATH: Don and Gail Patterson died a week after eating Beef Wellington. Photo: Handout
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Pleads innocent
The same evening that the four guests had eaten the dish, they were sent to hospital with severe stomach pains and symptoms of food poisoning.
The doctors quickly discovered that they had all ingested the highly toxic green fly agaric.
Erin Patterson was singled out as a suspect when she herself walked away from the family lunch unharmed.
The case has received a lot of attention both in Australia and internationally.
Patterson has always maintained that she is innocent, but prosecutors believe that she has tried to kill her ex-husband three times on previous occasions.
The three remaining attempted murder charges will relate to three separate incidents that occurred between 2021 and 2022.
Shocking accusations
– Horrible
In August, she made a statement to the police that was reproduced by the Australian news channel ABC News. There she explained that she had bought the mushroom from an Asian supermarket and that she did not know it was green fly agaric.
– It is horrible to think that the fungi may have contributed to my loved ones becoming ill, she said in the statement.
– I want to repeat that I had no reason to hurt these people, whom I loved.
There has long been speculation as to why Patterson and her two children, who were also present during the fatal lunch, did not become ill after the lunch because they allegedly ate something else.
She herself claims that she ate the food, and that she too became ill – and that her children were at the cinema when the fatal lunch was served.
