Death Cap Mushroom Poisoning: The Australian Family Lunch Murders

Erin Patterson murdered her former in-laws Gail Patterson, Don Patterson, and Heather Wilkinson using death cap mushrooms in Leongatha, Victoria, Australia on July 29, 2023. The homicide investigation revealed Patterson served poisoned Beef Wellington at a family lunch, resulting in three deaths and one attempted murder of survivor Ian Wilkinson. Forensic evidence included death cap traces in a concealed food dehydrator, digital records of foraging locations, and destroyed phone data showing mushroom weighing photos from months before the fatal meal.

So there's this lunch in a small Australian town. Just a regular Sunday afternoon thing. Former in-laws coming over, the kind of gathering where everyone's trying to be polite even though the family relationships are kind of a mess. Erin Patterson says she wants to talk about her recent cancer diagnosis. Except she doesn't have cancer. And the Beef Wellington she's serving? Yeah, that's got death cap mushrooms in it. Three people die. One survives after a liver transplant and seven weeks in the hospital. The thing is, death cap poisoning has this window where you feel completely fine for hours. No symptoms. Nothing. By the time the vomiting starts, it's basically too late. We're talking about someone who photographed mushrooms on a scale months before this lunch, dumped a food dehydrator at the tip the day after leaving the hospital, and factory reset her phone four times. This is the story of how a family meal became a mass murder.

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