{"id":90950,"date":"2025-08-25T05:11:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T05:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/90950\/"},"modified":"2025-08-25T05:11:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T05:11:08","slug":"mushroom-murder-family-of-toxic-lunch-victims-face-killer-in-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/90950\/","title":{"rendered":"Mushroom murder: Family of toxic lunch victims face killer in court"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Who is Erin Patterson?published at 05:33 British Summer Time<\/p>\n<p>05:33 BST<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-8kvzjk-Contributor etflsgg2\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/464329f5-654d-4eda-9ba7-9ca7ccb0e253.jpg.webp.webp\" width=\"64\" height=\"64\" class=\"ssrcss-11yxrdo-Image edrdn950\"\/>Simon Atkinson<br \/>Australia producer, BBC News<\/p>\n<p>      <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A woman in a frey sweater with the numbers &quot;86&quot; on its front walks down a busy street, flanked by people in suits and a microphone\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/aa19724f-5fb0-4d05-8f52-3c5c3d20e953.jpg.webp.webp\"  width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" class=\"ssrcss-11yxrdo-Image edrdn950\"\/>Image source, Getty Images<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Erin Trudi Patterson, who turned 50 while awaiting trial, has had a varied career, including as an accountant, an air traffic controller and an animal welfare worker &#8211; where, in the early 2000s, she met Simon Patterson.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In court, Simon spoke of her as a &#8220;quite witty&#8221;, \u201cfunny\u201d and &#8220;very intelligent&#8221; woman \u2013 and of a friendship that slowly turned romantic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">They married in 2007 and had their first of two children soon after. And though they separated in 2015, they remain married today \u2013 despite what was portrayed in court as an often fractious relationship.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Erin helped out at the church Simon attended, edited a local community newsletter and \u2013 as the trial heard \u2013 joined true crime Facebook groups.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Financially, Erin told the court she was very comfortable. The jury heard of large inheritances from her relatives and a portfolio of properties \u2013 including the Leongatha home where she served the fateful lunch.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Erin told the court that at the start of 2023, she had been accepted into a bachelor of nursing and midwifery, which she\u2019d chosen to defer for a year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Life, however, has panned out very differently.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Who is Erin Patterson?published at 05:33 British Summer Time 05:33 BST Simon AtkinsonAustralia producer, BBC News Image source,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90951,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-90950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}