Mushroom Poisoning Trial: Accused Erin Patterson Takes the Stand

All eyes were on Erin Patterson as she testified for the first time in her murder trial in front of a courtroom in Newcastle, Australia, a case that obsessed the whole country.

The 50-year-old woman has been charged with the intention of serving a meal to her ex-husband’s family, a part of which she knew was contaminated with death cap mushrooms, the result being the death of three people and another fourth person’s hospitalization.
The victims were Don and Gail Patterson, both 70, the former parents-in-law of the suspected person, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66, who, by the way, was the spouse of Ian Wilkinson, 68, the one who had a liver transplant and survived. Erin Patterson is accused of several killings and attempted killings, a conviction that can lead to a life sentence if proven guilty.

Erin Patterson went on the witness stand on Monday, where she claimed that she was not the one who intentionally poisoned the victims. Her lawyer, Colin Mandy, on his part, pleaded with the court to consider the tragedy an accident of tragic proportion.

In her first public statement after last year’s not guilty plea, Patterson gave the court insights into her private life. The accused told some of her troubles like the lack of self-worth, spiritual confusion, and family dynamics, which were not all plain sailing in the evening before the deaths. She even explicitly pointed out how low was her emotional connection to her ex-husband’s family when she said, “We saw each other less,” talked about a gradual lack of affinity between herself and Don and Gail during the last couple of months.

For six weeks now, the case was still on while the prosecutors had finished with the same on Monday. The witness statement from Patterson is of extreme importance to the defense stage of the process and she would most probably be called to be questioned on Tuesday yet, as a jury of 14 hears the case.

With the upcoming end of the trial, the courtroom, yet quite a wide public, are keen to see what will follow in one of the recent cases that shocked Australia the most.