Triple murderer Erin Patterson is accused of tampering with prison food after she was given a job in the jailhouse kitchen while waiting to stand trial.
News of the explosive allegation – levelled by an inmate housed in the same unit as Patterson at Melbourne’s Dame Phyllis Frost Centre – was only revealed on Monday after she was found guilty of three counts of murder and one of attempted murder by a Victorian Supreme Court jury.
Patterson, 50, was found guilty of the attempted murder of pastor Ian Wilkinson and the murders of Gail and Don Patterson, 77, and Heather Wilkinson, 66, after serving them a beef Wellington lunch made with death cap mushrooms.
She faces a likely sentence of life in jail – a place she has become accustomed to, having been refused bail since her arrest in late 2023.
The Herald Sun newspaper reported that, following a dispute with the notorious mushroom chef, a fellow prisoner became sick – and pointed the finger at Patterson.
A Corrections Victoria source confirmed to Daily Mail Australia that Patterson had been given a job in the prison kitchen despite the nature of the allegations against her.
Patterson’s supporters insisted that the prison poisoning allegation was baseless.
The mother-of-two blinked but appeared emotionless as four guilty verdicts were read out by the jury’s foreperson to a court-room full of onlookers on Monday afternoon.
Erin Patterson has been found guilty of triple murder
Patterson will remain in the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre
A typical cell inside the women’s prison where Patterson will be housed
The mother of two blinked but appeared emotionless as four guilty verdicts were read out by the jury’s foreperson to a court-room full of onlookers on Monday afternoon.
Patterson had 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.
Patterson, who took to the witness box for eight days during her trial, claimed she had not intentionally poisoned her lunch guests with beef Wellington parcels.
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.
Heather Wilkinson (left) was first to die and her husband Ian (right) the only survivor. Ian wasn’t in court to hear the verdict
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.