INFAMOUS: The Mushroom Cap Murders

0:00Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And today I want to dive into a recent case that was so big it crossed oceans and gripped crime junkies worldwide. Because we rarely see a loving mother who is giving with good family connections and friendships transform into a mass murderer in the blink of an eye, taking the lives of the very family members she says she loves. So was it premeditated murder with a loose motive? Was it a complete accident? Or was it something in between? A jury has decided. The headlines sure made up their mind. But now it is your turn to take the facts and decide what you think of Aaron Patterson.

1:19In early July 2023, 48-year-old Erin Patterson pulled her in-laws aside one Sunday after church. Her and her husband, Simon, had been separated for some time, but they still maintained a halfway decent relationship for their two kids. And Erin made it a point to keep close with Simon's parents, and she was friendly, kind of on like an acquaintance level with his aunt and uncle too. I mean, they're literally going to the same church still, so they're going to bump into each other, but she seems to genuinely care about them. So anyways, on this Sunday, she pulls everyone aside after church and is like, hey, I would like to have you guys over in a couple of weeks for lunch to discuss something important.

1:58And she seemed to imply that it was maybe something related to like some health issues. So being supportive, they all agree, either like then or over the next few weeks, and they agree on a date, July 29th, 2023. It would be Erin, her estranged husband, Simon, Simon's parents, Gail and Dawn, and then Simon's aunt and uncle, Heather and Ian. And the aunt and uncle are on mom's side or dad's side? His mom. So actually Gail and Heather are sisters. Okay. So this group is all set for lunch. But the night before this lunch is set to happen, Simon actually texts Aaron and bails. He says it's just too uncomfortable for him to come because tensions had kind of been high recently over things like child support, finances.

2:44And he's like, basically, he just didn't have it in him to pretend like a nice family lunch wouldn't be awkward for him. Even though like everyone else coming is from his side of the family. Yeah, he just didn't want to do it. But he said, you know what, I'll be happy to talk about your health issues or whatever the implications of that another time if you want to do it over the phone. Now that blow off over text was clearly frustrating to Erin because she replied in the text thread. And I actually have her exact reply. I'll have you read it. She said, that's really disappointing. I've spent many hours this week preparing for lunch tomorrow, which has been exhausting in light of the issues I'm facing, and spent a small fortune on beef eye filet to make beef wellingtons, because I wanted it to be a special meal, as I may not be able to host a lunch like this again for some time.

3:31It's important to me that you're all there tomorrow, and that I can have the conversations that I need to have. I hope you'll change your mind. Your parents and Heather and Ian are coming at 1230. I hope to see you there. Status red. Okay. But Simon does not come to the lunch. She really had spent a long time making individual beef wellington dishes. Which I've done. Have you really? Yeah, and it is incredibly time and work sensitive. It's a lot of work. She put in a lot of work. And so she's got these individual ones dished out with sides on mismatched plates. All of which is prayed over before they dig in.

4:09And after they finish eating, Erin got to the reason why they're all there. She said that she had cancer and really she wanted their advice on how to tell their kids who were just like elementary and middle school ages at this time. She's got two of them. And I don't know how everyone reacted in that moment, but I imagine they were surprised because this would have been a first time diagnosis for Aaron. And as she's like telling them about this cancer diagnosis, her son was arriving home. And so like not wanting him to hear what they were all discussing, everyone kind of gathers together and they encourage her.

4:45Listen, you should just be upfront with the kids, tell them the truth. And then Ian, having been and who still was a pastor at the church, he suggests that they all pray together. Pray for Aaron, pray for the kids. But their prayers to protect and save her were misdirected. Because little did everyone at the table know, they should have been praying to God to save them. It didn't happen all at once. Gail, Dawn, Heather, and Ian go to their respective homes. But sometime over the next 12 hours or so, it hits them all the same. In the middle of the night, they are each struck with what feels like the effects of food poisoning.

5:29I mean, we're talking diarrhea, vomiting, and it is bad. I think people start calling one another. Like, obviously, you see your partner is having the same symptoms you are. You want to call the other people there. Like, are you sick too? And Simon eventually gets called because his parents are going to the hospital by ambulance. And so he ends up driving his aunt and uncle to a nearby hospital himself. By the 24-hour mark, all four guests who've attended the lunch were admitted to the hospital and not doing well. Doctors were scrambling to figure out what was going on. But clearly there was a connection, right?

6:03And it didn't take Dick Van Dyke to triangulate that the lunch they were all at together is kind of the nexus of their illness. Which, did you like how I put a diagnosis murder reference in there? Like, where are my geriatric crime show fans? Well, and I'm sure they realize, like, one person is suspiciously absent from the hospital now. The chef herself, yes. But no one is jumping to sinister conclusions, at least not yet. I think they're more concerned that she hasn't come in. Now, Simon's there at the hospital with his family, and he's spoken to Erin on the phone and over text. And she's saying that she's sick too, but she doesn't want to come to the hospital because she says she's having regular bouts of diarrhea.

6:42And she didn't think she'd be able to, like, do the full ride without, like, having an accident, basically. But she does eventually go to the hospital to get checked out. Now, she walks in on her own on day two. She is clearly doing way better than the others. but they still want to admit her, run some tests, because they're pretty sure they've narrowed it down to the mushrooms from the beef wellington being the problem. Everyone's symptoms or whatever tests they've done have them pretty convinced that they've all eaten a specific type of mushroom called a death cap mushroom, which, as the name suggests, is not something to take lightly.

7:19Yeah. And so they start grilling her about where she got the mushrooms. Because, my God, if these were sold at a store, Like, a lot of people are about to be in trouble really quick. And they have to get ahead of this. According to The Guardian, she told the hospital staff, quote, Oh,

7:44that's like the worst case scenario. Exactly. And for some reason, this woman doesn't seem nearly as concerned as the hospital staff do. because when the doctor goes away for a bit to check on other patients, Aaron bails.

8:04When the doctor realizes Aaron left the hospital after not being there long, it is so concerning to him that he calls the 000 emergency line for police. Hello, what address do you need to police? So this is Dr. Chris Webster calling from Lee and Gasser Hospital. and I have a concern regarding a patient that presented here earlier but has left the building and is potentially exposed to a fatal toxin from mushroom poisoning and I've tried several times to get hold of her on her mobile phone. What's her name? So the last name is Patterson, T-A-T-T-E-R-S-O-N. First name? Aaron. E-R-I-N. When did she present at hospital?

8:56At 8.05. Today? Yeah. Mushroom poisoning, you said. Yeah, so there were five people that ate a meal on Saturday and two of them are in intensive care at Dandenong Hospital. Two have just been transferred from Leangatha Hospital to Dandenong Hospital. And Erin presented this morning with symptoms of poisoning. And what happened when she presented? She just got up and left? No, there was time for the nurse to begin observations and I was managing the other critically unwell patients so I had a brief chat to her about where the mushrooms were obtained and after that, while I was attending the other patients, the nurse informed me that she had discharged herself against medical advice.

9:49So she left at 10 past. She was only here for five minutes. And just to clarify, you said there were four other people who ate the same meal. Is that correct? Yeah, so the meal was consumed by five people. And four of those people are now hospitalized. Is he just worried about her health or is he calling the police like on her? Like he thinks she's to blame and she's like on the run. So he's really careful with his wording at the time. Like, it was very much just like, these are the facts. You need to find this woman. But dude was super clear in the aftermath of things. I mean, he was very suspicious of Erin because along with her reluctance to stay at the hospital and get checked out, he's like, she didn't even look sick.

10:36I mean, he is watching these other four people who are literally on death's doorstep. And this woman waltzes in looking perfectly fine. Now, luckily, police didn't have to go to her house and, like, drag her back to the hospital. She returned voluntarily. But when she came back, she told the doctor something really concerning. It wasn't just five people who had eaten the beef wellington. She had fed the leftovers to her kids, too. Now, this only sends the medical professionals into more of a panic. They're like, well, you need to go home and get those kids here, like, now. But she doesn't want to.

11:11She's like, oh, no, no, no, they're fine. They're not sick at all. I like scraped out the mushrooms before I gave them the food. Like, and she's like, I feel like if I, because they weren't at home, they were at school. I feel like if I go scoop them up out of school and bring them to the hospital, they're going to be really scared. Okay, so scare them? Like, how are we even having this conversation? It is literally what the doctor says. Actually, I think the doctor is more brash. He is like, they can be scared and alive or dead. Like, what are we doing here? Yeah. Long story short, the kids do come to the hospital.

11:44They get checked out. She gets checked out. And they're all completely fine. Like, fine like there's nothing in their system? Blood tests show no metabolic acidosis. And that is what they were looking for in the others who are sick, like Gail, Dawn, Heather, and Ian. Who all, by the way, are in progressively worse shape. So, what's Erin's story at this point? Like, is she trying to say it wasn't the Wellingtons or what? No, it was fully the Wellingtons, all right. Like, they actually go and get the leftovers from her trash, test the mushrooms, and they are now 100 % sure those were death cat mushrooms.

12:23But your question is a pointed one. What is her story? Yeah. Because over the coming week, Gail and Don and Heather each pass away from altered liver function and multiple organ failure. Only Ian survives after weeks in the ICU and some very close calls. But the thing is, try as they might, for the life of them, they can't seem to find that Asian food store in Melbourne where she said she bought dried mushrooms from. And so much of her story just isn't making sense to them. So was this murder or was this a tragic accident? And in the wake of this tragedy, it depends on who you ask. Erin, you ask Erin.

13:10Well, and they do. Even before Dawn had passed away, they were pulling her in to talk to police. And it was actually in an interview with them that she learned of Gail and Heather's passing. And she told police she had no idea what was going on, but she has been trying to be as helpful as possible, providing staff with as much information as possible to get to the bottom of this. You mean like maybe the name of the Asian grocery store that no one can find? Ideally, that would be nice. But no, she doesn't remember. So police are like, listen, let's just start at the beginning. Why did you invite them all over for this lunch that ended up killing them?

13:48And let me just tell you what she said, like verbatim. She said, quote, I loved them a lot. They've always been really good to me. And they always said to me they'd support me with love and emotional support, even though Simon and I were separated. And I really appreciated that because both my parents are gone. End quote. And to tell them about her cancer. What cancer? She doesn't have cancer. I'm sorry, what? Yeah, now I don't know if they even knew about the ruse that she used to get everyone over there in that moment. Because it's a little unclear to me if Gail, Heather, or Dawn, or even Ian were in a position to tell police about that before they got seriously ill.

14:29but Ian definitely told them about it after he recovered. And nope, no record of cancer. So let's call that question one, lie one. Question two, do you own a dehydrator and have you ever foraged for mushrooms in the past? Because no way were these death cap mushrooms bought from a store. And she says, nope, but you know, you might find a manual for a dehydrator at my house somewhere. You might, I don't know. Erin. Lied to. But she's trying to get ahead of them, I think, because they had or eventually will search her home. And she knew that they were going to be looking at her. Okay, so like, why does she have a dehydrator?

15:11Had. Oh. Because police end up learning later that while everyone was in the hospital, she went and disposed of the dehydrator. And she did something else really damning to cover her tracks.

15:29Let me just back up and break down for you the case that the prosecution ends up making against Erin. Because what she did, how she tried to lie about it and then cover her own tracks, the way she was caught lying on the stand, it is bonkers. And I think it's easier if I just kind of fast forward and tell you everything they find over the course of their investigation. So like I said, no cancer. Not then, not ever. They realized that the health ruse had started even before she invited everyone to lunch. So for a while, she had been telling people about a lump in her elbow and that she was maybe going to be going to the hospital, having a biopsy or some tests or whatever.

16:09This was shortly before even the lunch invite. So there was kind of a long game. She was like planting the seeds. Yeah, except there was no lump in her elbow. There was no biopsy. There were no scans. Nada. all a ruse to get people to her house for lunch. I told you she got rid of the dehydrator. Now, it's not like she could say, oh, you know, it was so old, I tossed it whenever ago. Totally unrelated to this. That thing was purchased on April 28th, 2023. Oh, so brand new. Yeah. And they find CCTV footage of her going to a dump to get rid of this thing on August 2nd, 2023. Oh, so like when she's in hot water.

16:50Yes. And when it's tested, they find traces of death cat mushrooms. So we are now 100 % sure that she didn't buy dried mushrooms from anyone. She dried them. Which also means then she picked them. Correct. Lie number three. She absolutely did forage for mushrooms. And we know this because of digital data that they collected from her devices. Like tracking? Yes. So they did a search of Erin's home pretty early on, and they collected phones, computers, tablets, everything. According to an article by the Australian Broadcast Company, it looks like starting in May 2022, so the year before all this, all of a sudden Erin started taking a keen interest in mushroom foraging based on her search history.

17:39So it's not like they have proof then that she's out there picking shrooms, but she started visiting a site called iNaturalist, where, quote, users share observations from nature to a community map, end quote. Like, ooh, saw this here. Oh, yeah. Saw this rare or weird thing over here. And by the way, death cat mushrooms aren't something that is just around everywhere, like in this area of Australia. They're actually like pretty rare, specifically in this area. Now, I haven't seen anyone report like that she was on the site logging anything. She seems, from what I can tell, just to be an observer.

18:14starting at least in May 2022. Now, fast forward nearly a year later. On April 18th, 2023, a retired pharmacist logs the location of death cat mushrooms in a town called Lough. And then on May 21st, 2023, in a different town called Outrem, someone else logs a location where they saw death cat mushrooms. Now, literally within like the first day of when one of those like pops up, Erin had gone to the site and she spent about an hour on it. So it is very likely that she saw it. And then according to the BBC, quote, her mobile phone location data appeared to show her traveling to both areas and purchasing the infamous food dehydrator on her way home from one of those trips, end quote.

19:02But here is the clincher. And the thing that I was saying I think is so damning. They don't even have all of her mobile phone data to work with. What do you mean? So they end up finding out that this woman had three different phones, two Samsung phones and a Nokia. Now, they only really talk in detail about the two Samsung phones, which they end up referring to as like phone A and phone B. Phone A is the one that they know she used for years before all of this, right? It's like her phone. Right. This is the phone that they can also see in the CCTV footage when she goes to the hospital initially.

19:38So they know she's still using it around the time of all of this. But when they end up searching her home, when they end up collecting her devices, she gives them phone B. What happened to phone A? Who the heck knows? But they can see that some shady stuff happened with the phones while detectives were in her house doing the search on August 5th. Phone B had been factory reset and the SIM card in phone A was removed and then put into a Nokia phone. Is she not in the house during the search? Oh, no, she is. This is what's so wild. She is there with them. And normally they're like searching your property, right?

20:19Like they're obviously suspicious of her by this point. They like make you stay by them. Well, she told one of the detectives that she needed some privacy to call her lawyer. So they let her go into a room by herself for a moment. And this, they believe, according to the data logs, is when some of this stuff starts happening. I mean, how do you even explain that away? I like everything they've got against her. I think it's going to be hard. Yeah. And one of the other things that they have against her are some chat logs with a group that she has on Facebook, like this small group of friends. Because before she killed her family, guess what this woman was a part of online?

20:54I truly cannot even begin to wonder. A true crime Facebook community? Oh my gosh, please don't be crime junkie. It's not. I mean, again, don't give us a bad name, Erin, But like it's they don't ever name it as far as I can tell. But I actually had our team check, not Crime Junkie, as far as I know. Anyways, it's not like she just joined this group. She was part of this group a while back. And really what ended up happening is kind of like so many of our Crime Junkies. She ends up bonding with kind of a group of people who move their chat outside of the group. And it it really isn't even about true crime.

21:25Right. It's not like they're it's damning and they're talking about ways to kill people or anything like that. It becomes like their own little community. Yeah. Their friend group. They're talking about life. They're talking about what they're making for dinner and their kids and whatever. Loaded conversation here. And what's so interesting is that police can see in all these communications that to this group, Erin shares a very different version of her relationship with her in-laws than the one that she'd been telling police. Right. Like, oh, I love them. They're there for me. Like, they're wonderful.

21:54This is a different story. Because you see, even though things had been amicable between Simon and Aaron since they separated years before, there was a pretty drastic shift within the last year. And the prosecution alleges that it was all really set in motion when the couple each filed their taxes in 2022. Because on those forms, Simon's accountant listed him as separated, which they were, but that was never how they had filed all like all the years before. And apparently filing this way had some major financial implications for Erin. She was the one with the money in the relationship after getting a big inheritance from her grandmother and then her mother when they each passed away.

22:36And this check of a box had, like I said, big implications for her. And it turned into this big thing because while they had kind of like figured out how to live their life and share responsibility or whatever, now Erin was like, OK, that's out the window. I'm filing for child support. We're going to figure out how to split up the kids, like medical expenses, school stuff, everything. And so things were just like tense. Right. And by July, where before they would at least like text, have some chatty banter, like, how are you doing? Whatever. Like all signs of a friendship were in the past. And even though Simon would later tell the court that from his perspective, she really did seem to love his parents.

23:17She was telling her friends in this group, in her online group, a different thing. She had apparently tried to go to them to kind of ask them to like help mediate between her and Simon. Basically like talk some sense into your son so we can figure this out. But they didn't want to help. They're like we are staying out of it. You guys need to work this out between the two of you. And so the text that they start pulling in this like group message or whatever over time does not look favorable for Aaron. And I can even have you read some of them. Okay. So these are some of the texts. Yeah. This family, I swear to fucking God.

23:55Nobody bloody listens to me. At least I know they're a lost cause. So anyway, I sent a group message to all of them last night saying how Simon's behavior is unconscionable. I think that's what she's trying to say. It's kind of spelled weird. And asking me to withdraw the child support claim is wrong and disadvantages me and his children and how dare he, etc. I'm sick of this shit. I want nothing to do with them. I thought his parents would want him to do the right thing, but it seems they're concerned about not wanting to feel uncomfortable and not wanting to get involved in their son's personal matters are overriding that, so f*** them.

24:27I don't need anything from any of these people. His mom was horrified I had claimed child support. Why isn't she horrified her son is such a deadbeat and that I had no choice but to claim? Pointed. Yeah, yeah. And a completely different vibe than what she was telling everybody. Did Simon and his family, were they feeling any of this animosity or was it still like we're all amicable, like you were saying? Again, I mean, I think things were tense with Simon, hence why he didn't want to go to the lunch and bail last minute. Thank God. But no, I mean, he had no idea that she felt this way about his parents.

25:02That's kind of the piece that's missing for me. Like, she hates Simon over the separation and the money stuff. She hates his parents because she thinks they should be stepping in or telling their son what to do or just didn't raise him right or whatever. Like, where did Anna and uncle come into this? Like, they seem, dude, completely separated from all this. This is the part that makes no sense to me. And the part that no one can seem to make sense of. Because they were, like, acquaintances at best, per what Ian said on the stand. And there's never anything suggesting that she went to them for any kind of support or, like, asking them to step in.

25:35Like, they said this lunch invite felt kind of out of the blue to them. So she's just so angry she wanted to take out this entire family. Yes, I don't know. And I mean, you teed this up to be like, was this murder? Question mark. But I feel like the answer is pretty obvious. And it also feels super premeditated. I mean, she was porging and drying mushrooms. I know. And it even feels like she was trying to lay the groundwork for a defense on some things long before it even happened. because like police also found one message in like that same friend group or whatever, where she basically was saying that she had been hiding powdered mushrooms in everything to like sneak them to her kids because they didn't like them.