Erin Patterson trial: Update ahead of accused mushroom cook’s triple murder trial
Accused triple murderer Erin Patterson will appear in court for a rescheduled hearing weeks before the start of her trial.
Ms Patterson, 49, will appear at Latrobe Valley Magistrates’ Court via video link on April 22, 11 days before the hearing on May 3, where she will formally enter pleas to three counts of murder and five counts of attempted murder.
The special citation is for “case management purposes”, a spokesperson for the Magistrates Court of Victoria told the newspaper Herald Sun.
Mrs Patterson is accused of poisoning her former parents-in-law Don and Gail Patterson, both 70, and Heather Wilkinson, 66, the aunt of estranged husband Simon Patterson.
Victoria Police have spent 20 weeks preparing evidence against Ms Patterson while she is held at the Dame Phyllis Frost Center in Victoria, a maximum security prison that can hold 600 women.
Accused triple murderer, Erin Patterson (pictured), will face a rescheduled hearing on April 22, weeks before he goes to trial, for ‘case management purposes’
Don and Gail Patterson (left) died, as did Heather Wilkson (right), while her husband Ian Wilkinson (right) spent two months in hospital
Inmates at the prison include “Black Widow” serial killer Robyn Lindholm, gangland matriarch and murderer Judy Moran, violent “petty terrorist” Momena Shoma and Ms. Patterson’s new cellmate: school principal rapist Malka Liefer.
The ultra-Orthodox Jewish director was sentenced to 15 years in prison in August 2023 for sexually abusing two young high school students.
Ms Patterson spent four months working with some of Australia’s most violent women after she was arrested and charged following a Wellington mushroom lunch she allegedly served at her Leongatha home on July 29.
She was arrested at her home on November 2 and taken to Dame Phyllis Frost, where sources say she needs protection from other prisoners because of her alleged crime.
“If Erin were to get out of protection, the girls would hurt her,” they told the Herald Sun.
‘She allegedly killed three elderly people. There is a rule: you don’t touch the elderly and you don’t touch babies, so that’s why you go into protection.
“She would have to have a really, really hard time there, because she would only be able to talk to two or three girls, and that was it.”
Ms Patterson is accused of cooking a lunch of poisonous mushrooms at her home in Leongatha on July 29, leaving three people dead and another fighting for his life.
She will officially enter a plea on May 3 after police spent 20 weeks preparing evidence against her (photo, police at Ms Patterson’s home)
Pastor Ian Wilkinson, 70, was the sole survivor of the deadly lunch, which claimed the lives of his wife Heather Wilkinson, 66, and Don and Gail Patterson, both 70.
Mrs. Patterson’s husband, Simon, bailed on lunch at the last minute.
Court documents show Mrs. Patterson has been charged four times with the attempted murder of her husband.
These would have taken place between November 16 and 17, 2021, between May 25 and 27, 2022, on September 6, 2022 and at the mushroom lunch in July 2023.
It is believed Ms Patterson will be housed in a self-contained unit in Dame Phyllis Frost and will have use of a bed, shower, toilet, sink, desk and cupboard.
Because she is in custody, she does not have to work and is believed to have access to a kitchen where she can prepare her own meals.