Erin Patterson says she made herself sick after the meal

An Australian woman who is tried for murder says that she has sustained the poisonous mushroom meal that her family members killed after Binge-eating dessert.

Erin Patterterson is not guilty of four charges – three of murder and one of attempted murder – during the Beef Wellington -Lunch in her regional Victorian house in July 2023.

Justice officers claim that Mrs. Patterson has deliberately served toxic Death Cap Cushignons, but only for her guests. Her defense team says that the polluted meal was a tragic accident and claims that it had also made their client sick.

On her third day of testimony, Mrs. Patterterson told the court that she had eaten only a small part of lunch and later consumed two -thirds of a cake before she broke.

Mrs Patterson also admitted that she had lied about a diagnosis of cancer – whose judiciary officers say she was bringing the guests to her house – because she is too embarrassed to tell them that she was actually planning to undergo an operation of weight loss.

Three people died in the hospital in the days after meals, including the former in -laws of Mrs. Patterterson, Don Patterson, 70, and Gail Patterson, 70, as well as Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66.

A single lunch guest survived, the local pastor Ian Wilkinson, after weeks of treatment in the hospital.

The Victorian process of the Supreme Court – which started almost six weeks ago – has heard of more than 50 witnesses and attracted enormous global attention.

In the Morwell courthouse, Mrs. Patterson gave a detailed report of the fatal lunch and said she had invited her guests under the starting point that she wanted to talk about health problems.

The 14-person jury heard that Mrs. Patterterson by “trying to decide a fairly long process of deciding” for lunch before he chose to make beef Wellington.

The dish – usually prepared with a long strip of filet steak, wrapped in cakes and mushrooms – was something that Mrs. Patterterson’s mother made when she was a child to mark special occasions, she said.

On the morning of lunch, Mrs. Patterson told some garlic, shallots and various bins from supermarket-purchased mushrooms that were finely chopped in a food processor.

“I cooked that for a long time,” she said. “You have to take almost all the water out,” she added, so the mushrooms will not moisten the pastries.

“While I was cooking, I tasted it a few times and it seemed a bit faint,” she said.

At the moment she decided to add some dried mushrooms that she had bought from an Asian grocer in Melbourne a few months earlier and stored in a container in her pantry.

Asked if that container possibly contained other types of mushrooms, said Mrs. Patterterson, who stifled, said, “Now I think there is a possibility that there were also prorstrists.”

Yesterday the court heard that Mrs. Patterson had started foraging for mushrooms at locations close to her Leongatha house in 2020, and her long-standing love for mushrooms had been expanded with wild mushrooms because they had “more taste”.

Mrs. Patterson told the court that she had served the food and instructed her guests to take a plate herself while she had finished preparing gravy.

There were no assigned seats or plates, she told the process.

Mr. Wilkinson previously told the process that the guests had received every gray plates while Mrs. Patterson had eaten an orange.

Under the interrogation of defender Colin Mandy, Mrs. Patterterson said that she had no gray plates, instead black plates, white plates and one that was red at the top and black.

During lunch, Mrs. Patterterson said she didn’t eat much of her food – “a quarter, a third, somewhere in the neighborhood” – because she was talking.

After the guests left, she cleaned up the kitchen and ate a slice of orange cake that Gail had taken and then “another piece and another piece” before she finished the rest of the cake.

“I felt sick … crowded, so I went to the toilets and brought it up again,” she said.

“After I did that, I felt better.”

Yesterday the court heard that Mrs Patterson had struggled with bulimia since her teenage years and was susceptible to regular food and broke after meals.