An Australian woman felt ostracised from her husband’s family in the months before she allegedly murdered three of his relatives with toxic mushrooms, a court heard on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Erin Patterson, 50, is charged with murdering the parents and aunt of her estranged husband in 2023 by serving them a beef Wellington laced with lethal death cap mushrooms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She is also accused of attempting to murder her husband’s uncle, who survived the meal after a long stay in hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Patterson has pleaded not guilty to all charges in a trial that continues to captivate the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Having watched the prosecution build its case over the past five weeks, Patterson took the stand for the first time on Monday to mount her defence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She described how husband Simon — the pair were estranged but still legally married — seemed to be pushing her out of the family in the lead up to the fatal meal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We saw each other less,” she told the jury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I’d become concerned that Simon was not wanting me to be involved too much in the family anymore. I wasn’t being invited to so many things.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the same time she was struggling with lifelong issues of low self-esteem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I’d been fighting a never-ending battle of low self-esteem most of my adult life,” she told the court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The further I got into middle age, the less I felt good about myself.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Patterson said their marriage had for years been plagued by poor communication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Primarily what we struggled with over the entire course of our relationship was we couldn’t communicate well when we disagreed about something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We could never communicate in a way that made each of us feel understood and heard.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Patterson asked husband Simon to a family lunch at her secluded house in rural Victoria in July 2023, also extending an invitation to his parents Don and Gail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Simon turned down the invitation because he felt too uncomfortable, the court has heard previously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But his parents Don and Gail were happy to attend, and died days after eating a beef-and-pastry dish prepared by Patterson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Simon’s aunt Heather Wilkinson also died, while her husband Ian fell seriously ill but later recovered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The meal consisted of “an individual serve” of beef Wellington entirely encased in pastry and filled with “steak and mushrooms”, Ian Wilkinson previously told the court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The guests’ meals were served on four grey plates, while Patterson’s was on a smaller orange plate, he said in earlier testimony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Patterson and Simon were at odds over finances and child support at the time, the court has heard, and she had sought help from his parents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The prosecution alleges Patterson deliberately poisoned her lunch guests and took care that she did not consume the deadly mushrooms herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her defence says it was “a terrible accident” and that Patterson ate the same meal as the others but did not fall as sick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The trial is expected to last another week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An Australian woman felt ostracised from her husband’s family in the months before she allegedly murdered three of his relatives with toxic mushrooms, a court heard on Monday. Erin Patterson, 50, is charged with murdering the parents and aunt of her estranged husband in 2023 by serving them a beef Wellington laced with lethal death […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":255,"featured_media":81987,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[106,112],"tags":[8074,127,12870,12181,13014,14016,13773,13914,13682,13774,14015,12963,13685],"class_list":["post-82789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia","category-unusual","tag-australia-3","tag-australie","tag-beef-2","tag-court-2","tag-crime-2","tag-diner-3","tag-erin-2","tag-murder-2","tag-mushroom","tag-patterson-2","tag-simon-2","tag-trial-2","tag-wellington-2"],"yoast_head":"\n