May 1, 2025
What Happened When Erin Patterson’s Husband Skipped Beef Wellington Lunch?
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Simon Patterson delivers his pivotal testimony in the Mushroom Murder Trial, revealing complex family dynamics and new details about the deadly Beef Wellington lunch allegedly served by his estranged wife Erin Patterson.
His account includes text messages from the night before the fatal meal, observations about different coloured plates used for serving, the beef Wellington and his wife Erin Patterson’s $2million inheritance.
The 50-year-old Leongatha woman stands accused of serving death cap mushrooms to her former in-laws and their relatives in a beef wellington dish. She denies all allegations.
• Simon declined to attend the beef Wellington lunch via text message the night before,
• Erin Patterson responded expressing disappointment about the costly Beef Wellington she had prepared
• Simon's parents, aunt and uncle all became severely ill after the lunch with similar symptoms
• Heather Wilkinson, a lunch attendee, noticed Erin Patterson ate the beef Wellington from different coloured crockery than the other guests
• Erin Patterson told the beef Wellington lunch guests she had ovarian cancer requiring chemotherapy and “possibly surgery.”
• Simon first learned about Erin Patterson using a food dehydrator while at Monash Hospital
• Erin Patterdom claimed she had conducted "taste tests" of muffins with dehydrated mushrooms with their child
• Text messages revealed the deteriorating relationship between Erin and Simon and Erin Patterson.
Please make sure you subscribe to our newsletter at mushroommurdertrial.com for updates and information about the trial. You can also find me on Instagram at Erin_pod and on Facebook by searching for the Mushroom Murder Trial Podcast.
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Erin Patterson Mushrooms
Here it is in summary.
00:00 - Welcome and Newsletter Promotion
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Hello and welcome to the Mushroom Murder Trial podcast, your source for coverage of what is actually one of Australia's most fascinating criminal trials.
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My name is Lisa, I'm a podcaster and a journalist, and I've followed this story since 2023.
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Now, before we start, as I always ask with my begging, could you please make sure you subscribe to our newsletter, mushroommurdertrialcom.
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It's full of updates and information about the trial.
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You'll receive the first episode of the newsletter when you sign up, and I'm also going to be putting one out this weekend.
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Now the purpose of today's episode is to give you an update on the proceedings, and they were so fascinating.
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We're in Victoria, australia, and Miss Erin Patterson, age 50, from Leongatha, is pleading not guilty to three charges of murder and one of attempted murder.
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Today in the Supreme Court of Victoria, we heard from her estranged husband, civil engineer Simon Patterson.
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Now I'm going to give you a summary of what he said, but after that I'm also going to expand upon what else we heard today in the courtroom.
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So, in a sitting at La Trobe Magistrates Court in Morwell, victoria, the court heard Ms Patterson had a close relationship with Simon's parents, particularly his father, don, whom she shared a love of lifelong learning and science.
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But over the years Erin and Simon had a tumultuous relationship, experiencing many separations and reconciliations.
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Mr Patterson told the court it was always her leaving me.
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Mr Patterson believes disagreements over child support and property eventually led to a big rift between himself and Ms Patterson.
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However, his wife was later asking Simon's parents over text messages to intervene in the dispute over their money issues.
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The older couple, however, encouraged them to try and work it out between the two of them.
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In addition, the court heard Ms Patterson inherited $2 million from her grandmother in 2006, money which was then used to purchase properties for the couple to live in and facilitate loans to Simon's siblings.
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Mr Patterson confirmed that his aunt, heather Wilkinson, who died following the Beef Wellington lunch, was puzzled about why Ms Patterson had eaten her meal from a different coloured crockery to the rest of the group.
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This comment was made as Mr Patterson was taking his aunt and uncle to the hospital after they became gravely ill with gastrointestinal problems.
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He told the court, however, that Erin didn't own many plates and that may have been the reason why.
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Mr Patterson also spoke of a conversation at Monash Hospital, which was the first time he had heard of Erin using a food dehydrator.
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So that, in summary is what we've learnt today, and now I'm going to take you through what happened on that terrible day when Simon's parents, his aunt and uncle started feeling extremely unwell.
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The court had a glimpse into the deteriorating relationship between the couple via some text messages.
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They were from the evening of July 28,.
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The night before the deadly lunch, simon had texted Erin at 6.54pm saying, quote sorry, I feel too uncomfortable about coming to the lunch with you, mum, dad, heather and Ian tomorrow, but I'm happy to talk about your health and implications of that at another time.
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If you'd like to discuss on the phone, just let me know.
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Ms Patterson then replied at 6.59pm.
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That's really disappointing.
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I've spent many hours this week preparing lunch for tomorrow, which has been exhausting in light of the issues I'm facing, and I spent a small fortune on beef eye fillet to make beef wellingtons because I wanted it to be a special meal.
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As I may not be able to host a lunch like this again for some time, it's important to me that you're all there tomorrow and that I have the conversations that I need to have.
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I hope you'll change your mind.
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Your parents and Heather and Ian are coming at 12.30.
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I hope to see you there and, as fate would have it, simon did not appear at Erin's Gibson Street lunch and the remainder of the invitees heard Erin talk about having ovarian cancer while they ate Beef Wellington.
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The next day, don Patterson called Simon at 8.45am and said he and his wife Gail were sick and it had been continuing through the night.
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They called an ambulance to take them to hospital.
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Don added that the other guests, ian and Heather, were experiencing similar symptoms.
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Simon tried to call them but there was no answer, so he drove to their house.
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Anne answered the door.
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Mr Patterson said his uncle looked sick.
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He was grey and stooped.
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Quote he was struggling.
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Mr Patterson told him to go to the hospital and he offered to call an ambulance.
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Heather was in the lounge room and she looked, quote, pretty crook, which for those of you who aren't from Australia, means really sick.
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There was a container for throwing up sitting next to her.
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She was also on the couch.
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Simon Patterson gave his aunt and uncle two options One, he'd call them an ambulance, or two, he'd take them to the hospital.
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They were told, however, there was a one-hour wait for an ambulance.
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So he suggested to them to go to Corrumburra Hospital and he would drive them Later.
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Mr Patterson informed his cousin, ruth that her parents were in Leongatha Hospital, plus he called her siblings.
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Her husband, brad, arrived with Ruth and after they were there, simon went back to Coramborough Hospital later that morning to see his parents.
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They were in the same room but in separate beds.
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While fighting back tears, mr Patterson said quote Dad was substantially worse than Mum.
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He was lying on his side hunched, noticeably discoloured in the face, struggling to speak.
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His voice was strained.
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They had a conversation.
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Don said Erin told them about her medical condition.
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They weren't sure whether it was appropriate to tell him and they asked him do you want to be told?
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He said yes, she'd had tests and a positive cancer diagnosis.
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It was not a problem with her elbow, it was ovarian cancer and she would need chemotherapy and potentially surgery.
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Mum said I should talk about that with the kids, together with Erin.
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They were very strong on us working on our marriage together.
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On the morning of July 31, erin called Simon and she asked to speak to him about something.
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He said to her he'd only had a couple of hours sleep because his parents had been in hospital and he requests to speak later.
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Mr Patterson claims Erin was indignant at that response.
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Quote, she said somewhat sarcastically.
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I'll sort out my own problems, he says.
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Ms Patterson says she'd been having frequent diarrhoea about every 20 minutes and she thought she should also go to the hospital.
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Later she told him she was getting sick throughout the afternoon.
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At about 4pm following the lunch and that continued through the night.
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She was planning to drop one of the children's friends home but she didn't want to get out of the car.
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Drop one of the children's friends home but she didn't want to get out of the car, worried she might have an accident.
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She was worried that she would quote poo her pants.
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Later the Wilkinsons were transferred from Leangatha to Danding Nong Hospital.
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Simon eventually got home at 2.30am from Coram Borough.
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During that conversation Erin told Simon she'd been to Leangatha Hospital and had told the medical staff she'd fed the children leftovers from their lunch meal.
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He recalls Erin saying she wanted to pick the children up from school so they could be tested.
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Simon tells Erin he's happy to pick up the children.
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Jurors were told Quote, she was really keen for the children to be taken to the same hospital she was at.
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Simon says.
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Mr Patterson says he thinks his wife may have quote had a bit of a barney.
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Barney is a word for fight in Australia with hospital staff about which facility the children would be admitted to for observation, as she wanted them in the same hospital as her, he says she later told him she checked herself out of hospital and drove home where she laid down and slept for 45 minutes.
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The children and Erin were admitted to Monash Medical Centre for observation.
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The children were found not to be ill but they were kept overnight as precaution.
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Erin was in a separate part of the Monash Medical Centre while the kids were in the children's hospital, erin came in on a trolley from patient transfer from Landgather.
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She was also kept overnight for observation.
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According to Mr Patterson, there were no signs to him of Erin vomiting.
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She went to the toilet once while he was at her room but there was not the frequent toileting she'd expressed she'd been experiencing.
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On Tuesday, the 1st of August, their daughter mentioned mushrooms and said she didn't like eating mushrooms.
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Ms Patterson said that she'd actually done a taste test of muffins with dehydrated mushrooms with different amounts of the dehydrated mushrooms as a taste test in muffins.
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She'd done a taste test for the daughter and she preferred the muffins with the greatest amount of mushrooms, mr Patterson said.
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It felt like news to me that she dehydrated food.
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So until next time, I'm Lisa and this is the Mushroom Murder Trial podcast from the Supreme Court of Victoria.
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I have so much material to share with you, so you will be getting upcoming episodes, and over the weekend as well.
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It's impossible to put everything in one podcast.
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I think the best way to go is that we get good little digestible nuggets that we can hope to understand what's going on in the Supreme Court.
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Now for more information, make sure you visit my website, which is mushroommurdertrialcom, and I'm on Instagram at Erin underscore pod.
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You can find me on Facebook.
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Just search the name of the podcast, the Mushroom Murder Trial Podcast.
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I will put links in the show notes to those social media accounts.
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And if you feel like rewarding me for the thousands of hours I'm not kidding and I'm travelling interstate to cover this I have a Buy Me A Coffee membership which allows you to pay $5 as a thank you and I get a coffee.
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How good's that?
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Because I'm going to need it to go through all this material.
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This goes towards the editing studio, hire, liability insurance, equipment, sound and voiceovers.
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So thank you so much for listening and I will talk to you very soon.
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Bye.
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