Within a week, three of the four guests were dead, and one was in a hospital in critical condition, yet the host of the gathering and her two children did not become ill. Police said they suspected that the guests had eaten one of the deadliest known mushrooms to humans: death cap, or Amanita phalloides.
The case has captured national and international attention, with numerous theories about what could have happened and why. Local officials have complained about the intense media scrutiny the case is putting on the bucolic area and have asked journalists to respect residents’ privacy.
“This is not ‘Midsomer Murders‚’” Nathan Hersey, the mayor of South Gippsland, said in an interview with 9 News Australia, referring to a British detective drama. “This is real people’s lives.”
New details in the case this week have ignited fresh interest, however, with a local mushroom growers group releasing a statement that disputed the host’s claim that she had bought the mushrooms she served at the dinner at a store.
“This fungus (death caps) only grow in the wild,” the Australian Mushroom Growers Association said in a statement to the Australian Associated Press. “The only mushrooms you can be sure are safe are fresh, Australian-grown mushrooms bought from a trusted retailer.”
Local media has reported that there no unusual mushroom-related recalls or warnings have been issued in Victoria.
At the lunch, Erin Patterson, 48, had been hosting her ex-husband’s parents, Gail and Don Patterson, both 70, as well as a pastor and his wife, Ian Wilkinson, 68, and Heather Wilkinson, 66. She said that she invited her ex-husband, Simon Patterson, but that he did not attend. Ian Wilkinson was the only one of the four guests to survive; he is hospitalized in Melbourne.
Erin Patterson is not facing charges. However, she provided a written statement to Victoria police on Friday that was designed to “clear up the record,” according to Australia’s ABC News, which first reported on the statement’s contents.
In the statement, Patterson said that she had used two types of mushrooms in the beef Wellington: button mushrooms from a supermarket chain and dried ones from an Asian grocery store.
“I am now devastated to think that these mushrooms may have contributed to the illness suffered by my loved ones. I really want to repeat that I had absolutely no reason to hurt these people whom I loved,” she explained.
Patterson wrote that after the meal, she, too was, hospitalized with stomach pains and diarrhea and was put on a saline drip.
She wrote that her two children had not been at the lunch but that she had served them the leftover beef Wellington the following day — after scraping off the mushrooms because the children did not like them.
She also confirmed media speculation that she took a food dehydrator to a dump, admitting she had lied to investigators when she initially told them she had thrown it out a long time before.
Patterson wrote she had panicked and decided to remove the kitchen item after her ex-husband, the son of her dead in-laws, had asked her: “Is that what you used to poison them?”
