MORWELL, VIC — An Australian jury found Erin Patterson guilty on Monday, July 7, 2025, of three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. The verdict followed a 10-week trial regarding a July 2023 lunch containing death cap mushrooms that killed three people and seriously injured another.

Dozens of media crews arrived at the court when the jury announced its verdict. The high profile case has drawn global attention.

According to CNN, Patterson invited five people to lunch on July 29, 2023. Her estranged husband, Simon Patterson, canceled the day before. Within hours, the four guests — Simon’s parents Don and Gail, and his aunt and uncle, Heather and Ian Wilkinson — became ill. They went to the hospital with vomiting and diarrhea. Doctors placed them in induced comas.

Gail and Heather died on August 4 from multi-organ failure. Don died on August 5 after a failed liver transplant. Ian Wilkinson survived. He left the hospital in late September after almost two months in intensive care, as reported by NPR.

Death cap mushrooms contain lethal substances called amatoxins. Amatoxins stop protein production in liver cells, causing cell death and liver failure. Symptoms often begin six to twelve hours after eating the mushrooms. These lethal fungi, originally from Europe, grow in several Australian states.

Prosecutors argued that Patterson intentionally tainted the lunch with death cap mushrooms. The prosecution argued that Patterson saw their location posted on the citizen science iNaturalist website. Cell phone data confirmed she traveled to two sites with toxic mushrooms in April and May 2023 and likely picked mushrooms for the meal.

Patterson’s defense lawyers stated the deaths were an “accident.” They claimed Patterson tried to improve the meal’s taste by adding dried mushrooms. They argued she lied to police out of panic.

Patterson sat in court as prosecutors called many witnesses. Their testimony, they alleged, told a story of a triple murder.

According to NPR, Prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC told the court that four “calculated deceptions” were central to the case against Erin Patterson. These deceptions, Rogers argued, showed a deliberate intent behind the events of the lethal lunch.

The first deception involved Patterson’s fabricated claim of having cancer. Rogers alleged Patterson used this false claim as an excuse to invite her former in-laws and their relatives to her home for the fateful lunch. This set the stage for the tragic events that followed.

The second deception centered on the meal. Rogers stated Patterson secretly placed lethal doses of death cap mushrooms into the homemade beef Wellingtons served to her guests. This directly caused the severe illness and subsequent deaths.

The third alleged deception involved Patterson’s efforts to appear as if she also suffered from death cap mushroom poisoning. Prosecutors argued she faked symptoms to divert suspicion. This made her seem like another victim, not the perpetrator.

The fourth deception was the ongoing cover-up Patterson carried out. She made sustained attempts to hide what happened. This included disposing of a dehydrator containing traces of the deadly mushrooms and factory resetting her electronic devices to delete suspicious information.

As reported by CNN, Rogers accused Patterson of having two faces. One face, shown to the world, suggested a good relationship with the Pattersons. A hidden face, shown only to her Facebook friends, suggested she wanted “nothing to do with them.”

In Facebook messages from December 2022, Patterson expressed anger over Don and Gail’s reluctance to get involved in their son’s marriage breakdown.

“I’m sick of this shi*t I want nothing to do with them,” she wrote. “I thought his parents would want him to do the right thing but it seems their concern about not wanting to feel uncomfortable and not wanting to get involved in their son’s personal matters are overriding that so f*** em,” according to the messages.

Patterson’s defense lawyer, Colin Mandy SC, said the prosecution picked evidence selectively. He argued, as stated by CNN, that they pushed “four ridiculous, convoluted propositions.” Mandy stated that Patterson would not have done this “without any motive.”

Mandy listed reasons why Patterson wouldn’t want to kill her guests: she had no money problems, lived in a large house, and had nearly full-time custody of her two young children. He insisted that her children were very close to their grandparents.

Patterson admitted buying a dehydrator on April 28, the same day cell phone signals placed her near death cap mushrooms. She later dumped the dehydrator at a waste recycling center on August 2, while her guests were in the hospital.

The dehydrator had her fingerprints and remnants of death cap mushrooms. The prosecution alleged that Patterson tried to cover her tracks by disposing of the dehydrator and factory resetting her cell phones to delete evidence.

During eight days of testimony, including cross-examination, Patterson consistently said she was innocent. She claimed she accidentally added foraged mushrooms to the meal.

Justice Christopher Beale told the jury that Patterson’s admission of telling lies and disposing of evidence should not make them prejudiced against her, reported CNN

“This is a court of law, not a court of morals,” Justice Beale said. “The issue is not whether she is in some sense responsible for the tragic consequences of the lunch, but whether the prosecution has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that she is criminally responsible for those consequences,” he added.

Under Australian law, jurors cannot be publicly identified. They cannot reveal jury room discussions. It will never be known what specific evidence influenced each juror. However, all 12 jurors had to agree on the verdict.

The jury found that Patterson intended to kill all four lunch guests and lied repeatedly during her testimony. Patterson will receive her sentence at a later date.