Police alleged Erin Patterson used a toxic penne pasta, a chicken korma curry and a vegetable wrap to poison her husband Simon, before hosting the lunch where she served a beef Wellington containing death cap mushrooms.
Patterson pleaded not guilty and was set to also plead not guilty to other charges dating back to 2021 and 2022.
Last month, she was found guilty of the murders of Simon Patterson’s parents Don and Gail Patterson and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson, as well as the attempted murder of Heather’s husband Ian, who all fell ill after a lunch at her home in July 2023.
The jury in Patterson’s marathon trial were not told details about the alleged incidents involving Simon Patterson, which he said resulted in him being hospitalised.
A source of the alleged poisonings was not confirmed, according to evidence in court, although prosecutors claimed a medical expert said his symptoms were consistent with ingesting rat poison on one occasion.
Patterson was ready to fight the charges relating to Simon at a second criminal trial after the beef Wellington murder trial. However the second trial never went ahead because attempted murder charges were dropped by prosecutors in April 2025, just before the first trial began.
In court, prosecutors did not outline why the attempted murder charges were discontinued.
In pre-trial hearings, Simon testified that he held suspicions his wife had been trying to poison him before his parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and aunt and uncle, Heather and Ian Wilkinson, attended the fatal lunch on July 29, 2023.
Pastor Ian Wilkinson (left) survived but his wife Heather and in-laws Don and Gail Patterson died after the Leongatha lunch. (Supplied)
The police brief of evidence contained allegations from Simon that Erin Patterson had tried to poison him between November 16 and 17, 2021 using a penne bolognese served in a Tupperware container, the evening before the couple went on a camping trip to Wilsons Promontory.
“She told me she’d made pasta for all of us and she was going to feed [it] to the kids that night when she gave it to me,” Simon told a pre-trial hearing in October 2024.
At the time, the couple were living separately, and Simon testified that he took the food home.
“I couldn’t tell you if it was a message or a phone call, she encouraged me to have tea … and not wait too late to have tea,” he testified.
Simon said he ended up in hospital for an overnight stay, suffering from vomiting and diarrhoea.
Coma followed chicken curry on camping trip, court heard
Simon said he fell sick again with the same symptoms during another camping trip with his estranged wife, this time at Howqua in Victoria’s High Country between May 25 and 27, 2022.
“We had a chicken korma curry on the second night,” he said.
“While Erin was preparing food I was getting the fire going so I didn’t watch her prepare it.”
Simon said he was assessed at the Mansfield Hospital, but was discharged later that afternoon. A few days later, however, Simon said his condition worsened while he was at home.
Simon testified that he ended up in a coma and required life-saving surgery at the Monash Hospital in Melbourne.
“They’d done a lot of tests. They hadn’t found the cause of what happened to me but they seemed to have dealt with the symptoms effectively that there was a good chance I would make a full recovery,” he said in October 2024.
Simon said he spent weeks in rehab and continued to recuperate at Erin’s home, where he shared the house with his wife and their children.
Erin Patterson’s murder trial focused on the lunch held at her Leongatha home on July 29, 2023. (ABC News: Michael Lorigan)
During his recovery, Simon said his wife became frustrated and was giving him the “cold shoulder”.
“It seemed obvious to me that she didn’t want me to be there in an increasing way,” he said.
“One morning she came in while I was in bed and she told me that she was very upset with me, that I spent a lot of my time in bed, that I did not help out around the home like she would like me to, that I didn’t get up early to bring the kids to school at all.”
Husband suffered slurred speech after eating vegetable wrap, court told
Simon said he fell seriously ill again on September 6, 2022 after he and his wife returned to Wilsons Promontory.
“Erin said she’d bring food for the trip,” he said.
“She brought items to make a curry, a vegetable wrap for me. I think she had some of those things but not in a wrap.Â
“I trust my memory of this. The wrap was prepared and when I see that I can picture the wrap in the aluminium foil, and I can picture the ingredients in her lunch which weren’t wrapped.”
Erin Patterson originally faced several charges of the attempted murder of her estranged husband Simon. (AAP: Diego Fedele)
After eating the meal, Simon said he felt like he “really needed to go to the toilet”. He said he passed out and was hospitalised again, and experienced slurred speech and possible seizures.
Simon said he spoke to a doctor, Christopher Ford, in late 2022 and raised suspicions his wife was trying to poison him.
“He was very thoughtful,” Simon testified. “He said, I suggest you don’t tell too many people about that.”
Around the same period, Simon removed Erin as his medical power of attorney and began tracking his meals in a spreadsheet, the court heard.
Simon said he never thought other people were at risk and believed he was his wife’s only alleged target. It was why he didn’t warn his parents when they decided to go to Erin’s house in Leongatha on July 29, 2023.
Simon was a last-minute withdrawal from the lunch, and sent a text message cancellation to his wife the night before.
“I thought there’d be a risk that she’d poison me if I attended,” he said during the 2024 pre-trial hearing.
The charges against Erin Patterson relating to her husband were dropped by prosecutors. (ABC News: Paul Tyquin)
In the week after the lunch, and while the guests were close to death, several of Simon’s relatives told pre-trial hearings that he called a meeting in the Austin Hospital chapel.
“He wanted to tell us that his own illnesses had been a deliberate act, that he’d stopped eating food Erin had prepared because he suspected that she might have been messing with it,” Simon’s cousin Ruth Dubois testified.
“He was really sorry he hadn’t told our parents or our family about this.”
In the pre-trial hearings, Simon said the source of his repeated illnesses was never confirmed.
‘Rat poison’ article found on Erin Patterson’s computer, court heard
During the pre-trial hearing, Patterson’s defence lawyer told the court a medical expert who had analysed Simon’s medical records from the time of his third illness had concluded his symptoms were consistent with low potassium levels.
Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers said an article was found on Erin Patterson’s computer relating to barium carbonate “around the time” Simon fell sick in September 2022.
“Barium carbonate is a rat poison,” Dr Rogers said, adding that the prosecution had commissioned another report from the same medical expert which said Simon’s symptoms were consistent with barium carbonate ingestion.
Prosecutors had hoped the recently concluded trial in Morwell would comprise seven charges — three murder charges and an attempted murder for the beef Wellington lunch, and three separate charges relating to alleged poisonings of Simon.
However, in the lead-up, Justice Christopher Beale ordered the Simon-related charges be “severed”, or split off into another trial. It was a ruling the DPP was unable to overturn despite a challenge in the Court of Appeal.
In the Court of Appeal, Colin Mandy SC argued that his client would face “unfair prejudice” if both sets of charges were heard in one trial.
One of the appeal judges, Phillip Priest, seemed to agree.
“I suppose it could be said, well, the evidence of [the four lunch charges] appears to be stronger than the evidence on the [three Simon charges],” he said.
“It’s a very short hop, skip and a jump to convicting on the other three.”
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Because the “Simon charges” were severed (and later dropped), the jury in the lunch trial did not hear about Simon’s prior illnesses, concerns he had allegedly raised, or the chapel meeting.
After her arrest in November 2023, police also charged Erin with one count of attempted murder in relation to Simon Patterson on July 29, 2023, the date of the beef Wellington lunch. Even though he did not attend, police alleged she planned to lace his meal with death cap mushrooms.
That charge was also dropped after the Office of Public Prosecutions took charge of the case.
On May 1, while the jury was out of the room, Simon referenced the discontinued charges while sitting in the witness box.
“The legal process has been very difficult,” he said.
“Especially the way it’s progressed in terms of the charges relating to me and my evidence about that — or non-evidence now, I guess I have a lot to grieve and am grieving a lot about all this stuff here, as I’m sure you can imagine.
“All the hearings that’s led up to this, all the discussions about the way we got to this point here, where I’m sitting here, half-thinking about the things I’m not allowed to talk about. I don’t actually understand why, it seems bizarre to me, but it is what it is.”