Erin Patterson verdict live updates: Mushroom killer guilty on all charges over fatal beef Wellington lunch

We’re closing our live coverage for today, but if you want to catch up on all the latest from the Erin Patterson trial as it happened, scroll through the posts below.

To recap:

• Erin Patterson was found guilty on three counts of murder and one of attempted murder.
• Never-before-seen pictures of the convicted killer were released moments after the verdict.
• And reports come in that Patterson had been thrown in solitary confinement after fellow inmates accused her of tampering with prison food.
• Here’s the full wrap of the trial too.

Thanks for joining us.

Pictures of the deadly meal Erin Patterson used to kill three members of her husband’s family have been released by Victoria’s Supreme Court.

Following the verdict, a series of photos, videos and exhibits presented to the jury over the nine-week trial can now be shown.

This included pictures of leftovers from the meal taken from the garbage bin outside Patterson’s Leongatha home two days following the lunch.

The jury heard the existence of leftovers were first raised when Patterson attended Leongatha Hospital complaining of gastro on July 31, 2023.

Later the same day they were located by police and taken, first to Leongatha Hospital, before being transported alongside Patterson by ambulance to the Monash medical centre.

Leongatha Hospital’s Dr Chris Webster told the jury during the trial he had placed Ms Patterson on the phone with Senior Constable Adrian Martinez-Villalobis and she gave him permission for the officer to enter her property.

Constable Martinez-Villalobis said Ms Patterson was “co-operative throughout the exchange” and instructed him that leftovers would either be in her indoor or outdoor bin.

The leftover food was located at the bottom of her outdoor red-lidded bin in an “seeping” brown paper Woolworths bag, the officer said.

Read the full story and watch the newly released video evidence.

Convicted murderer Erin Patterson was thrown into a notorious isolation cell called the “slot” after she was accused of tampering with inmates’ food while in prison, awaiting trial.

Patterson was found guilty on Monday of murdering Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson, and the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson after they ate a meal she prepared containing poisonous mushrooms.

The bombshell allegations were allegedly made by inmates at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre in Melbourne, according to News Corp reports, but could not be published until after the trial concluded.

Prison guards moved Patterson into an isolated area of the jail after another inmate allegedly fell sick from a meal they shared in the same area of the maximum security facility.

Reports of tensions between Patterson and fellow inmates began to surface after the Leongatha mother was thrown behind bars in 2023 following her arrest for the murders.

Patterson spent 22 hours a day isolated from all other inmates while in the “slot” during an internal investigation that found no reason to take the matter further.

Read the full story.

Erin Patterson had a three-word message for her friend moments after learning a jury had found her guilty of murdering three of her in-laws and attempting to murder a fourth with a deadly mushroom meal.

She sat emotionless, barely reacting, in the Victorian Supreme Court as she was convicted over the deaths of parents-in-law Don and Gail Patterson and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson, and the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson.

But as she was led away by court staff after the verdict, Patterson broke her silence to tell friend and supporter Ali Rose Prior “see you soon”.

Ms Prior faced a media scrum as she left court, confirming to reporters the message Patterson had given her.

She was then grilled about her relationship with the triple murderer and what she knew of Patterson’s feelings about the jury’s decision.

“I am saddened,” Ms Prior said about the guilty verdict, before adding, “it is what it is.”

“I’m her friend. I will visit her.”

Read the full story.

Parents-in-law Don and Gail Patterson, as Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson and her husband Ian Wilkinson arrived for the “special” lunch at 12.30pm at Erin Patterson’s Leogatha home.

They came armed with a “nice” fruit platter and an “orange cake” which later became key to the Patterson’s evidence.

After the lunch, Patterson’s ex-partner Simon Patterson arrived with the children and they all spent time with the family.

Patterson claimed that is when she binge ate two thirds of the orange cake.

Feeling ashamed and sick after eating the beef Wellington lunch and the orange cake, Patterson told the court that she took herself to a bathroom and made herself sick, vomiting the contents of her stomach.

Erin Patterson will soon be taken from the Victorian Supreme Court in Morwell to the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre in Ravenhall.

The maximum-security women’s only correctional facility is where Patterson has been since November 2023.

The facility is located around 200km away from the Morwell court where Patterson was found guilty of murder and attempted murder.

It can now be revealed that throughout the trial, Patterson would be brought from the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre on Monday mornings and not return until Friday afternoons.

During the week, Patterson slept in police cells adjoining the court precinct in Morwell.

After Erin Patterson was found guilty of the murder of Don and Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson and the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson, Victoria Police acknowledged the outcome.

“Our thoughts are with the respective families at this time and we acknowledge how difficult these past two years have been for them,” Victoria Police said in a statement.

“We will continue to support them in every way possible following this decision.

“We would also like to acknowledge the work of homicide squad detectives over the course of this complex investigation, as well as the significant support received from a number of other areas across Victoria Police.”

Police said that the Patterson and Wilkinson families would not be providing a statement through police at this time, instead asking for privacy.

To guide her first attempt at a beef Wellington, Erin Patterson said she turned to her hard copy cookbook, RecipeTin Eats by Nagi Maehashi.

It was a recipe Patterson said she “roughly” followed, admitting she had to “make some deviations”.

“I couldn’t find the big log that the recipe called for, the tenderloin, so I had to use individual steaks,” Patterson told the court during her trial.

Patterson described in detail her “very long” preparation of a mushroom duxelles, a key part of the beef Wellington recipe.

She said she used a “low heat” to “get almost all of the water out” of the mushrooms, a step that would prevent her pastry from getting “soggy”.

“I tasted it a few times,” she told the court during her trial.

“It seemed a little bland to me. I decided to put in the dried mushrooms I bought from the grocer that I still had in the pantry.”

However, a jury has now found Patterson guilty of deliberately adding death cap mushrooms to that meal to murder her lunch guests.

Erin Patterson told the court that in the lead-up to the fatal beef Wellington lunch on Saturday July 29, 2023, at her Leongatha home she “lied” to her family, making them believe she had found “a lump”, had received “a needle biopsy” and was scheduled to have an MRI, none of which was true.

“I shouldn’t have done it,” a tearful Patterson told the court.

Her mother-in-law Gail Patterson, who Patterson feared was becoming distant, followed up on the false health concerns, to which the accused killer cook replied saying she would “talk more about it” when she saw them in person.

Patterson became emotional when talking about the lies when she gave evidence, saying she was “planning on having gastric bypass surgery” and that her falsehood could allow her family to continue supporting her without knowing the truth.

“I went through quite a long process of deciding what to cook,” Ms Patterson said when asked about the men for the fatal lunch.

“I remembered on really important occasions my mum would cook beef Wellington as a kid.”

Patterson admitted to taking to a Facebook group to “vent” in a “desperate” move that she said she now regrets.

“This family, I swear to f..king god,” Ms Patterson posted in what she felt was a “private” space.

She accused her in-laws of only wanting to “pray” for her children and not help resolve ongoing issues.

“I’m sick of this s..t,” Ms Patterson wrote in a later post, adding she wanted “nothing to do” with Mr Patterson’s family.

Discussing her “venting” messages about her in-laws, whom she has been found guilty of murdering, Patterson broke down, saying “they didn’t deserve it”, adding she wished she “never sent” the messages.

Despite wishing her words were not posted, Patterson said she felt “heard” by an online community of supportive women.