INFAMOUS: The Mushroom Cap Murders

In 2023, 48-year-old Erin Patterson invited a group of her husband’s family members over, and things took a turn for the worst, and by the worst, we mean murder. Patterson has been convicted of murdering three people and one attempted murder after poisoning them with mushrooms served over a nice dinner. But some questions still remain: How did she go from loving mother to mass murderer, and WHY?

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ashley Flowers?

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• 0:42Ashley Flowers?

  When you're out in nature, you learn to trust your instincts. You pay attention to the trail, your surroundings, and you stay alert to protect yourself from harm. But what if the biggest threat isn't the environment at all? On Park Predators, host Delia DiEmbra explores true crime cases that happen in national parks and remote wildernesses, the places we usually think of as safe and peaceful. Each episode reveals what happened and how much more there is beneath the surface. Listen to Park Predators now, wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Brett. And today, I want to dive into a recent case that was so big, it crossed oceans and gripped crime junkies worldwide.

• 1:26Ashley Flowers?

  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.

• 2:33Ashley Flowers?

  In 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 gonna 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." And she seemed to imply that it was maybe something related to like some health issues.

• 3:18Ashley Flowers?

  So being supportive, they all agree, either like then or over the next few weeks, and they agree on a date, July 29, 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.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  And the aunt and uncle are on mom's side or dad's side?

• 3:38Ashley Flowers?

  His mom. So actually, Gail and Heather are sisters.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:41Ashley Flowers?

  So this group is all set for lunch, but the night before this lunch is set to happen, Simon actually texts Erin 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, and 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.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  Even though like everyone else coming is from his side of the family?

• 4:07Ashley Flowers?

  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 fillet 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. It'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.

• 4:51Ashley Flowers?

  Your parents and Heather and Ian are coming at 12:30. I hope to see you there." Status red.

• 4:57Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 4:58Ashley Flowers?

  But Simon does not come to the lunch. She really had spent a long time making individual beef wellington dish.

• 5:06Speaker 01

  I've done.

• 5:06Ashley Flowers?

  Have you really?

• 5:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it is incredibly like time and work sensitive. Like, it's a lot of work.

• 5:12Ashley Flowers?

  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. And 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 Erin. 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,

• 5:54Ashley Flowers?

  everyone kind of gathers together and they encourage her, "Listen, 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 Erin, 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.

• 6:38Ashley Flowers?

  In the middle of the night, they are each struck with what feels like the effects of food poisoning. I 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? And 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.

• 7:23Ashley Flowers?

  Which, did you like how I put a diagnosis-murder reference in there? Like, where are my geriatric crime show fans?

• 7:28Speaker 01

  Well, and I'm sure they realize, like, one person is suspiciously absent from the hospital now.

• 7:34Ashley Flowers?

  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, and 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.

• 8:20Ashley Flowers?

  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.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:33Ashley Flowers?

  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.

• 8:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:42Ashley Flowers?

  And they have to get ahead of this. According to The Guardian, she told the hospital staff, quote, "Half were fresh from Woolworths, and the other half were dried mushrooms bought from an Asian grocer in the Melbourne suburb of Oakleigh or Glen Waverley," end quote.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  Oh, that's like the worst-case scenario.

• 9:00Ashley Flowers?

  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.

• 9:16Ashley Flowers?

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• 10:00Ashley Flowers?

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• 10:19Ashley Flowers?

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• 11:04Ashley Flowers?

  That's mintmobile.com/crimejunkie. Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com/crimejunkie. Limited time offer, upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for 12 months. Plan required, $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabyte may slow when network is busy. Capable device required. Availability, speed, and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com. When the doctor realizes Aaron left the hospital after not being there long, it is so concerning to him that he calls the triple zero emergency line for police.

• 11:44Speaker 02

  Hello, what addressed you? The 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, P-A-T-T-E-R-S-O-N. First name? Erin, E-R-I-N. When did she present at hospital? Um, at eight oh five. Today?

• 12:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. Um, 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. Uh, two have just been transferred from Ling at the hospital to Dandenong Hospital. Uh, and Erin presented this morning with symptoms of poisoning. Um, and what happened when she presented, she's got up and left?

• 12:55Speaker 02

  Uh, no, she was, there, there was time for the nurse to begin observations and I, uh, I was managing the other critically unwell patients, so I had a brief chat to her about where the mushrooms were obtained. Um, and, uh, after that, uh, while I was attending the other patients, the nurse informed me that she had discharged herself against medical advice. So she left at ten 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, the meal, uh, was confirmed by five people, uh, and, uh, four of those, uh, people are now hospitalized.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  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?

• 13:46Ashley Flowers?

  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. I 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.

• 14:31Ashley Flowers?

  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. She'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 gonna 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. They get checked out. She gets checked out.

• 15:17Ashley Flowers?

  And they're all completely fine. Like, fine, like there's nothing in their system? It, 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 cap mushrooms. But your question is a pointed one. What is her story? Yeah. Because over the coming week,

• 16:00Ashley Flowers?

  Gail, and Dawn, 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. Well, and they do.

• 16:41Ashley Flowers?

  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? And let me just tell you what she said, like verbatim. She said, quote, "I loved them a lot.

• 17:23Ashley Flowers?

  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 like seriously ill. But Ian definitely told them about it after he recovered. And nope, no record of cancer.

• 18:07Ashley Flowers?

  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. Lie two. 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? Had. Oh. Because police end up learning later that while everyone was in the hospital, she went and disposed of the dehydrator. Hmm.

• 18:50Ashley Flowers?

  And she did something else really damning to cover her tracks.

• 18:57Ashley Flowers?

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• 19:41Ashley Flowers?

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• 20:01Ashley Flowers?

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• 21:21Ashley Flowers?

  Let 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. This was shortly before even the lunch invite. Oh. So there was kind of a long game there.

• 22:06Ashley Flowers?

  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. Yes. And when it's tested, they find traces of death cat mushrooms.

• 22:48Ashley Flowers?

  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. Line 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 like taking a keen interest in mushroom foraging based on her search history.

• 23:32Ashley Flowers?

  So it's not like they have proved then that she's like 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 cap 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, starting at least in May 2022. Now, fast forward nearly a year later.

• 24:13Ashley Flowers?

  On April 18th, 2023, a retired pharmacist logs the location of death cap mushrooms in a town called Lock. And then on May 21st, 2023, in a different town called Altrim, someone else logs a location where they saw death cap 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. But here is the clincher.

• 24:57Ashley Flowers?

  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. So 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.

• 25:42Ashley Flowers?

  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.

• 26:02Speaker 01

  Is she not in the house during the search?

• 26:05Ashley Flowers?

  Oh, no, she is. This is what's so wild. She is there with them. And normally, they're like searching your property, right? Like, 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.

• 26:28Speaker 01

  I mean, how do you even explain that away?

• 26:30Ashley Flowers?

  I like, everything they've got against her, I think it's gonna be hard.

• 26:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:35Ashley Flowers?

  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?

• 26:46Speaker 01

  I truly cannot even begin to wonder.

• 26:50Ashley Flowers?

  A true crime Facebook community?

• 26:53Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh, please don't be Crime Drunky.

• 26:54Ashley Flowers?

  It's not, it's not. I mean, again, don't give us a bad name, Erin, but like, it's, uh, they don't ever name it, as far as I can tell, but I actually had our team check, not Crime Drunky, 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 Drunkies, 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, right? It's not like they're, it's DMing and they're talking about ways to kill people or anything like that.

• 27:22Speaker 01

  It becomes like their own little community.

• 27:23Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, their friend group. They're talking about life. They're talking about what they're making for dinner and their kids and like, whatever, yeah.

• 27:28Speaker 01

  Loaded, loaded conversation here.

• 27:30Ashley Flowers?

  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. This is a different story. Because you see, even though things had been amicable between Simon and Erin 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,

• 28:13Ashley Flowers?

  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, like, 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. And this check of a box had, like, 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, okay, that's out the window. I'm filing for child support. We're gonna figure out how to split up the kids', like, medical expenses, school stuff, everything. And so things were just, like, tense, right?

• 28:54Ashley Flowers?

  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, she 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 texts that they start pulling in this, like, group message or whatever over time

• 29:39Ashley Flowers?

  does not look favorable for Erin, and I can even have you read some of them.

• 29:43Speaker 01

  Okay, so these are some of the texts?

• 29:44Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah.

• 29:45Speaker 01

  "This family, I swear to fucking god, nobody 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." She, 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 their concern about not wanting to feel uncomfortable and not wanting to get involved in their son's personal matters are overriding that, so [bleep] them. I 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

• 30:28Speaker 01

  and that I had no choice but to claim?

• 30:31Ashley Flowers?

  Point it.

• 30:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And a completely different vibe than what she was telling everybody.

• 30:37Ashley Flowers?

  Right.

• 30:37Speaker 01

  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?

• 30:44Ashley Flowers?

  Again, 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, he had no idea that she felt this way about his parents.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  That's kind of the piece that's missing for me. Like, she hates Simon over the separation and the money stuff. 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 the aunt and uncle come into this? Like, they seem completely separated from all this.

• 31:11Ashley Flowers?

  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. Like, they said this lunch invite felt kind of out of the blue to them.

• 31:31Speaker 01

  So she's just so angry she wanted to take out this entire family?

• 31:36Ashley Flowers?

  Yes, I don't know.

• 31:38Speaker 01

  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.

• 31:50Ashley Flowers?

  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 that same friend group or whatever, where she basically was saying that she had been hiding powdered mushrooms and everything to like sneak them to her kids because they didn't like them. So she was like making them, drying them, making them powder, mixing them up and like putting them in brownies or whatever. And according to The Guardian, this friend group also said that she sent pictures of a Hydrator in her kitchen that was apparently exclusively used for mushrooms. And by the way, they also find that picture. So she got ahead of that one.

• 32:30Ashley Flowers?

  But for as planned as this seems with the phones and the like, oh, look, I'm doing something with mushrooms. That is totally not nefarious. This whole thing was also really sloppy because they also find pictures on a tablet of hers where there are mushrooms on a scale that an expert later identifies as like he believes they're death cap mushrooms. So from start to finish, this woman left a trail of circumstantial evidence pointing right at her. All the way back to the fact that she was not sick at all.

• 33:03Speaker 01

  Right. I was thinking about that. Like, did they not, like, they were all at this lunch at her house together. Did they not notice that she just wasn't eating?

• 33:11Ashley Flowers?

  No, she was eating lunch. She, because like you said, remember she

• 33:13Speaker 01

  They were individual ones.

• 33:15Ashley Flowers?

  Yes.

• 33:15Speaker 01

  She made a special non-poison one for herself.

• 33:18Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah. And Ian, our lone survivor, he says that like, looking back, he remembers that she didn't want help. Like serving everything up. And while everyone that was there ate off of gray plates, hers was orange.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  I know this is like a fool's errand, but I'm trying to like put myself in her shoes to understand how she would even think that there's a remote possibility that she'd get away with this. Like, I mean, I guess I would assume she's counting on that no one would live to tell the tale. So who cares if she faked cancer, the weird plate thing wouldn't come out, like.

• 33:53Ashley Flowers?

  Take away those two pieces that we know because Ian survived. There's still like an overwhelming amount of circumstantial evidence that is piling up against her. Including, by the way, speaking of her not being sick, I forgot to mention this. Remember how she is telling everyone she has like bad diarrhea?

• 34:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, she couldn't like drive because of it.

• 34:15Ashley Flowers?

  Which, by the way, I never thought I would say diarrhea so much in a single episode. So yeah, so she's like, this is why I'm not gonna go to the hospital, get checked out, whatever. Well, apparently, that first day, her son had some kind of flying lesson that was scheduled, and she drove him like 90 minutes away for this thing. And that whole time, she made one stop at a rest stop or gas station or something. There is CCTV footage of her going inside, going to the bathroom, but for nine seconds, and then leaving. Now, that's not a smoking gun of anything. It's, again, circumstantial evidence, but of yet another lie. Mm-hmm. But like, everything in this is circumstantial. And the thing is, Erin says that she can explain all of it.

• 34:59Ashley Flowers?

  And she tries to, because after she is charged with murder, the trial becomes one of the biggest spectacles in Australia. Like, this year, while we in the US had Karen Reed, round two, they were all obsessed with Erin Patterson's trial. So with the whole world watching, Erin Patterson takes the stand for eight days in her own defense. All right, where to begin? I'm just gonna kinda go down the punch list. Okay. So, she says that she made individual Wellingtons, not one big one, because when she went to the store, they just didn't have like the big cut that she needed. Now, why not go to the butcher and get the thing that you need, so you don't have to change the whole recipe? And she's like, "I don't know, man, it was easier this way."

• 35:44Ashley Flowers?

  Okay, fine. And she says, yes, the plates were different, but she didn't have a complete set of matching plates, which is actually backed up by other people who testified too. Okay, but, like, how did you not get sick? And here is where we got a brand-new confession of sorts, for the very first time. She said that she has had body image issues since she was very young, and for much of her life, she would binge eat and then purge. And she said, on that day, she ate her lunch, she said she didn't eat the whole Wellington, like a quarter or a half of it, or whatever. But then, she ate almost an entire cake that one of the guests brought.

• 36:29Ashley Flowers?

  And then, feeling ill from overeating, she went to the bathroom and threw up, and that's probably why she didn't get sick. Now, they ask her on the stand, like, did you barf the beef Wellington up? Like, that's the thing. And she's like, um, yeah, probably, maybe, I don't know. There's no way to be sure. But she still does maintain that she was mildly sick. Now, when they confront her with the video showing this long drive she makes, but where she doesn't even go to the bathroom long enough to wash her hands, much less anything else. She says that she went in there to throw away tissues because she actually, like, couldn't hold it earlier, had to stop on the side of the road or something to relieve herself. And so she had, like, tissues and a dog bag or something that she cleaned herself up with and, like, threw it away. That's why she was in there so, like, for such a short time.

• 37:14Ashley Flowers?

  But her son, who is in the car ride with her, cannot verify this.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  Okay, what about the whole reason for this lunch to begin with? Like, what's the explanation for the fake cancer? You can't really explain that conversation away.

• 37:28Ashley Flowers?

  She tried. So, and this, like, this is where, like, there ends up being this huge Perry Mason gotcha moment in court. I know, my, like, shows. Diagnosed as murder, Perry Mason, I'm, like, killing this guy.

• 37:40Speaker 01

  Where's murder she wrote?

• 37:41Ashley Flowers?

  So, in court, they're asking her about this. And she's like, no, I didn't have cancer. But this goes back to her body image issue. She said that she wanted to have gastric bypass surgery, but she was too embarrassed to tell people that. But she knew that she was gonna need the family's, like, help and support with the kids post-op. So she made up the whole cancer story. Because she's like, basically, like, I'm gonna have surgery either way. I was just telling this other thing, so, because I didn't want to tell them what I was really having, like, done. So on the stand, they're like, okay, gastric bypass surgery, cool. Was it booked? Yes. Okay, where? So she tells them, and she gets caught on the stand, lying, because that place didn't even offer gastric bypass surgery.

• 38:25Speaker 01

  What?

• 38:26Ashley Flowers?

  I know. I don't, like, what are you thinking?

• 38:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, my God. Okay. That doesn't explain anything. That's wild. But there's more here, like, disposing of evidence, like the phones, the dehydrator.

• 38:39Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, basically, she says at certain points when she realized that people were suspicious of her or like trying to blame her, she panicked and just did things that are dumb and make her look guilty. Like the whole dehydrator thing, she says she tossed that because her husband was accusing her in the hospital of killing his parents, which he says is untrue. He's like, I never accused her of that, like, early days. And then the phone stuff, I mean, she has like a number of weird reasons that were all kind of different in the time leading up to trial, but like, all in all, it was, it boiled down to basically her like panicking when she knew police were looking seriously at her. Now, as for where the mushrooms came from, whereas before she always told police she

• 39:24Ashley Flowers?

  never foraged mushrooms and she bought those dried mushrooms from an Asian grocer. Now, she admits that she did get into foraging during lockdown and she's always loved eating mushrooms and she said her kids had even seen her forage mushrooms before, by the way, they deny this. And she adds that while she does forage, she definitely didn't go foraging in that one town where the death caps were spotted after they were posted online, even though her-

• 39:53Speaker 01

  I would say even though she went there right after it was posted.

• 39:55Ashley Flowers?

  Her phone location suggests she was in that area.

• 39:58Speaker 01

  Like, knowing what she's accused of, I feel like I shouldn't be shocked that she's bringing the kids into this so much, but I still kind of am. Like, she's really relying on them a lot for like, they saw me here, they can verify that we did this. Like, dragging them into this feels like very low in a way that is even shocking for this case.

• 40:20Ashley Flowers?

  I know. And like, I mean, really, how lucky for them that they still have their father, but like, I can't imagine what this does to a person, especially like a minor, a kid, trying to reconcile that your mom would do something like this and the fact that she would like toss you out there as a part of a lie, expecting you to- What, back her up while you also know that she planned for your dad to be at that lunch?

• 40:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:44Ashley Flowers?

  Like, I don't know what their relationship with their mom was like before all this, but I haven't heard any wild stories. I mean, part of what I think captivated a nation and the world was you don't often see someone who is described as a loving mother turn into a mass murderer. Like, do you then have to go back and rewrite your whole history with someone like that?

• 41:04Speaker 01

  I would say for me, it feels like you'd have to like question so many of your interactions

• 41:07Ashley Flowers?

  What is real? Like, was it always an act or like just recently? And like, one of the things that came out in court that I actually found really interesting was around Erin's faith or lack thereof. So, early on in her life, she had been an atheist and she said that she tried convincing Simon, who was a Christian, to be atheist too. But in 2005, when they were dating, he took her to, of all places, Ian's church.

• 41:33Speaker 01

  Ian, only survivor Ian.

• 41:35Ashley Flowers?

  Remember, he is a pastor, like was, still is. But he took her to a service and she said that she, at this service, had a spiritual experience and became a Christian herself. Then and there. But the prosecution put forward some messages, or like, actually more like emojis she sent, that made it appear that she mocked the family's religious beliefs to other people. And her friend group purported that she told them she was still an atheist. And she thought Simon's religious background was difficult. But on the stand, she remains adamant that she is a Christian.

• 42:10Speaker 01

  Erin, thou shalt not lie. It's in like the top 10.

• 42:15Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, and it was clear to the jury that's what she had done over and over again. Lie, lie, lie to police, to her family, right there to the jurors. And after nine weeks of trial and six days of deliberation, on July 7th, 2025, a jury in the Supreme Court of Victoria convicted her of three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. So- What's gonna happen next is she basically is gonna have 28 days from the time of sentencing to appeal her conviction, her sentence. And as of this recording, that sentencing hasn't happened yet. But usually, they say they do that within about a month. So like when this episode comes out. Right now. Right now, right?

• 42:57Ashley Flowers?

  So if you follow us on Instagram, at Crime Junkie Podcast, I'll be posting an update to let you know when that happens, which will put a clock on the appeal. And I would be shocked if she didn't appeal. Same. Listen, I am, I think I'm still totally consumed with trying to understand why. Especially why for Ian and Heather, this aunt and uncle that you were barely close with, one of whom was a pastor, your pastor. I mean, it's part of the reason why I found like the whole talk of religion so interesting, even though it wasn't a core part of the trial. Like, it's not real evidence, but I wonder if there's something there. Like, I just can't put my finger on it.

• 43:39Ashley Flowers?

  And in court, by the way, she said like, oh, yes, I said these things, but I was frustrated. And you're like pulling out like the worst moments, like, right? Which happens in trial, yeah. God, like, God forbid I'm ever on trial. Like, I don't want anyone going through my text messages. But I don't know, like, is that real? Like, is this, I think we have to point to them so much, or why people do is because, like, without those, nothing makes sense. It like has to, you have to have them to like complete painting the picture, right? Yeah, but I'm not sure you can make sense of someone who was willing to do what Erin did to her kids, to Simon and to her in-laws. And listen, if she was honest about her beliefs, maybe she'll have a come to Jesus.

• 44:19Ashley Flowers?

  And her family, if no one else, will get whatever answers they need to, to move forward.

• 44:39Ashley Flowers?

  You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, crimejunkiepodcast.com. And you can follow us on Instagram, at Crime Junkie Podcast. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode.

• 45:27Ashley Flowers?

  Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. I think Chuck would approve.

• 45:36Speaker 01

  Growing up in a small town, I know how deeply a crime can shake a local community. And I know that what makes the headlines is rarely the full story. That's what Kylie Lowe explores on her show Dark Down East. She digs into cases from Maine and New England using original reporting, archival records, and conversations with the people who knew them best. Each episode takes you inside the communities these stories shaped, and the families who never stop searching for answers. Listen to Dark Down East wherever you get your podcasts.

• 46:04Speaker 03

  When the nights grow longer, the shadows start to stir, and that can only mean one thing. Full Body Chills is back. This season, step inside original tales where every doorway leads somewhere darker, every stranger carries a secret, and nothing is ever quite what it seems. Each story takes you somewhere new, but be careful. You never know what might follow you home. So gather round, listen close, and stream Full Body Chills wherever you get your podcasts.