A psychologist has provided a window into the mind of Erin Patterson, who murdered three members of her estranged husband’s family with death cap mushrooms.
On Monday afternoon, a jury found the mother-of-two killed Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, by serving them poisoned beef Wellingtons during a lunch served at her Leongatha home on July 29, 2023.
Only Heather’s husband, Pastor Ian Wilkinson, survived Patterson’s plot and she will also serve a prison sentence for his attempted murder.
The burning questions that remain surrounding the globally-watched case, is why Patterson would carry out such an act, and why did she think that she could get away with it.
Melbourne psychologist Mary Hahn-Thomsen has provided her expert opinion, suggesting that Patterson could see the world very differently to most people.
‘Though I have not personally assessed Patterson, insight may be gained by considering her world view from the perspective of the narcissist,’ she wrote for The Age.
‘Most of us start life believing we are the centre of the universe, then through a series of reality checks, we learn we are merely a bit player.
‘It’s reasonable to consider that Patterson learnt a different lesson – one in which her survival depended on her remaining at the centre of her world with everything and everyone else revolving around her.’
She explained that a narcissist craves attention and acceptance but that their view of themselves is so fragile that any potential rejection can brutally shake their sense of self to the core.
Patterson’s attempts to ingratiate herself to her friends and extended family would have been on the surface pleasant, Ms Hahn-Thomsen said, but perhaps also tinged with awkwardness and an air of falseness that would have been ‘palpable’.
She said Patterson’s use of ‘confabulation’ – where facts are distorted to suit a person’s beliefs and objectives, along with all out lying – are typical hallmarks of a narcissistic personality.
Patterson was so confident she would be found not guilty of murder that she had her home covered in black plastic tarps for privacy once the trial ended.
The tarps covering her home were installed on June 30 – just one week before the verdict was delivered.
Seated at the back of courtroom four of the Supreme Court of Victoria, sitting at the Latrobe Valley Magistrates’ Court, Patterson, dressed in a paisley shirt, appeared stunned as her fate was sealed on Monday afternoon.
Asked to deliver a verdict, the jury foreperson – one of only five women to sit on the original 15-person panel – simply stated, ‘guilty’.
The verdict produced an audible gasp from those within the packed courtroom, which included members of the Patterson clan..
She can expect to spend the next decades of her life caged within the walls of Dame Phyllis Frost Centre in Melbourne’s west alongside a rogue’s gallery of female killers.
On her weekly trips back there, Patterson had come to loathe the Chicken Cacciatore meals provided to her en route because the dish ‘had mushrooms in it’.
Once caged, she can expect to be kept in an isolation cell for her own protection for the foreseeable future due to her high profile and the frailty of her elderly victims.
It can now be revealed Patterson’s two children had continued to see their mother behind bars while she awaited trial, unwilling to accept she could murder their grandparents and aunt.
Patterson could be heard asking about them during breaks in the trial, asking a woman to ensure her now 16-year-old son was given ‘extra hugs’.
Patterson, who took the stand for eight days during her trial, claimed she had not intentionally poisoned her lunch guests.
She claimed the deaths of three members of her estranged husband Simon’s family were a terrible accident, and she may have accidentally included foraged mushrooms in the meal.
Prosecutors laid out an extensive circumstantial case during the trial in Morwell, regional Victoria, to prove the poisoning event was deliberate.
This included evidence from sole lunch survivor Ian Wilkinson, who said Patterson had served individual beef Wellingtons to her guests on different plates to her own.
The prosecution accused Patterson of telling a series of lies to police, including that she did not forage for mushrooms in the meal and did not own a dehydrator.
She lied about it to public health investigators, who were searching to find the source of poisonous mushrooms after Patterson claimed they may be from an Asian store.
Patterson lied to doctors, nurses and toxicologists while they were trying to identify why her lunch guests were sick and save their lives at hospital.
She revealed for the first time that she enjoyed foraging for wild mushrooms when she was in the witness box, admitting she started mushrooming in 2020 during the pandemic.
‘They tasted good and I didn’t get sick,’ she told the jury about preparing and eating wild fungi for the first time.
After hearing more than two months of evidence, a jury of 14 was whittled down to 12 jurors who retired to deliberate on their verdicts one week ago, on June 30.
They returned after deliberating for seven days with a four guilty verdicts, convicting the 50-year-old woman of three murders and one attempted murder.
Patterson now faces a sentence of up to life in prison.
She will return to the court for a pre-sentence hearing later this year.