CNN
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Australian woman Erin Patterson is sentenced Monday morning after being convicted of three murders and attempted murder of a lonely survivor, accused of killing three relatives in a meal of death cap mushrooms burned at Wellington’s beef lunch.
Extraordinary cases have attracted international attention, and in very rare cases, the judgment is live streamed from the Victoria Supreme Court.
Judge Christopher Beal, who is prosecuting Patterson, said he has decided to grant access to cameras due to intense public interest in the case.
Following a 10-week trial in Morwell, a small town about an hour’s drive from the dining room on the outskirts of Leongasa, Victoria, where fatal lunch was served in July, 12 ju judges reached the verdict in July after about six days of deliberation.
Dozens of media crews competed in court when dozens of media crews announced that ju-searchers had reached a verdict in a lawsuit that produced four podcasts dedicated to captivating audiences around the world and unpacking daily evidence.
During weeks of testimony, Patterson was accused of intentionally contaminating lunch with Deathcap Mushrooms, a highly toxic fungus he chose after seeing the location posted on a public website.
A few days later, her former stepparents, Don and Gale Patterson, died along with Gale’s sister Heather Wilkinson. Their local pastor, Heather’s husband Ian, survived after a few weeks in the hospital.
Her defense attorneys alleged that it was a “terrifying accident” that occurred when Patterson tried to improve the taste of her meal, and repeatedly lied to police out of panic when she realized she might have added forged mushrooms to the mix.
Patterson sat in court and listened when the prosecutor called out a witness, whose testimony told the persuasive story of a triple murder.
Australian law does not allow any ju judges to be publicly identified and does not disclose the Ju judge’s office’s deliberations even after the trial is over.
We never know which evidence influenced each ju umpire’s decision, but all 12 people had to agree to the verdict.
The agreed fact was that Patterson asked five people to have lunch on July 29, 2023.
Within hours of the meal, four lunch guests – Simon’s parents Don and Gale, as well as his aunts and uncles Heather and Ian Wilkinson, became ill with vomiting and diarrhea. They went to the hospital where the doctors tried to save them, so they were placed in a guided coma s.
Gail and Heather died of a Multiorgan failure on August 4th, and Don passed away on August 5th after failing to respond to a liver transplant. Ian Wilkinson survived and was eventually discharged from the hospital in late September.
Deathcap mushrooms contain amanita toxin that prevents protein production in liver cells, which can lead to cell death and the possibility of liver failure from about 2 days after ingestion.
The deadly mushroom, native to Europe, is grown in several Australian states, and by lunchtime, I was quickly seen by car from Patterson’s house in the countryside of Victoria.
During the trial, prosecutors argued that after seeing where Patterson was featured on the Civic Science Unstable Website, he had the opportunity to choose a deadly mushroom.
The conviction suggests that the ju apprentice accepted the prosecution’s argument that they likely travelled to two sites in April and May 2023, and deliberately chose the mushrooms used in the meal.
Prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC argued that “four calculated deceptions” were at the heart of the case. “The first conception was the claim of a manufactured cancer that she used as a pretense of lunch invitation,” she said.
“The second deception was a fatal lethal dose for the accused secreted in his hometown of Wellington beef. The third deception was her attempt to make her appear to be suffering from death cap poisoning and the fourth deception as well.
Patterson admitted that on April 28th (the same day as the phone signal) she placed her near the death cap mushroom.
It had fingerprints and contained death cap mushroom remnants.
Prosecutors alleged that in the days after Patterson served lunch, he tried to cover the truck by disposing of the dehydrator and factory, resetting her device and removing evidence.
Patterson’s defense attorney Colin Mandy SC accused the prosecutor of being selective with evidence, and accused him of pushing forward “four ridiculous, complicated propositions.”
The first was for Patterson to do this “without motivation,” Mandy said.
He said there are several reasons why Patterson doesn’t want to kill guests. He said she had no money issues, lived in a large house and had almost full-time custody of two young children very close to her grandparents.
The prosecution did not need to prove his motive.
Rogers accused Patterson of having two faces. One showed the world that suggested she had a good relationship with Patterson, and the hidden faces that only showed her Facebook friends that suggested she had “no relation to them.”
In a Facebook message sent in December 2022, Patterson expressed his anger and frustration reluctant to be involved in the fall of Don and Gale’s son’s marriage.
“I’m tired of this shit. I have nothing to do with them,” she wrote. “His parents wanted him to do the right thing, but their concerns that they didn’t want to feel uncomfortable or involved in their son’s personal issues have negated it.”
And another message read, “This family that I swear to f*** God.”
During the eight days of testimony, including cross-examination, Patterson consistently complained of her innocence, claiming that she had added misfortunes to her diet.
In his instructions to the ju judge, Judge Christopher Beale said they should not give bias against her after receiving approval that Patterson had lied and disposed of the evidence.
“This is a court, not a moral court,” he said.
“The question is not whether she is in some sense responsible for the tragic consequences of the lunch, but whether the prosecution has proven beyond reasonable doubt that she is criminally liable for those consequences,” he said.
The ju umpire discovers that Patterson was going to kill all four lunch guests and that she repeatedly stood and lied to claim that she had not.
