Mushroom cook husband Simon Patterson reveals a painful story no one should have to tell
The estranged husband of Erin Patterson was almost inconsolable as he shared heartbreaking details of his loved ones’ dying hours, and how he was also invited to the lethal lunch.
The Mushroom Cook
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Simon Patterson was supposed to go to the lunch in which three people – his mum, dad and aunt – would be fatally poisoned by death cap mushrooms in beef wellington, served with mashed potato, beans and gravy.
But the night before, he changed his mind, and sent his apologies – to his estranged wife – by text message. He felt “too uncomfortable” to go, he explained.
His wife, Erin Patterson, replied five minutes later.
His non-attendance would be “really disappointing”. She wanted it to be a “special meal”, and it “is important to me that you’re all there tomorrow”.
Patterson didn’t go, and didn’t die – or nearly die – as did his family members who did go.
Mr Patterson is sharing a story that everyone wants to hear, yet it’s also a story which no one should have to tell.
About the dying hours of his loved ones’ lives, of his father who could barely speak because “he wasn’t right inside”, and of his aunt hunched over, clutching a bucket for the vomiting.
About the painful details of a protracted break up which, as he puts it, he tried for years to avoid.
And about the despairing questions of that aunt, Heather Wilkinson, who despite being drastically ill wanted to know why Erin Paterson’s plate at the lunch was a different colour.
Mr Patterson is in the Latrobe Valley Law Court, in Morwell, answering a days’ worth of questions about the worst days of his life.
Erin Patterson is in the cluttered courtroom when he is summoned to give evidence. She again wears pink and white stripes, hair brushed down, glasses perched on her head.
She looks at him, but he doesn’t look at her, at least until he is settled in a chair and scans the room.
There will be tells of Mr Patterson’s grief – long pauses, a request for tissues, the blowing of his nose and (occasional) wiping of his eyes.
Yet there will also be wry smiles for the technology delays, and shows of patient resignation for the tenor of the day ahead.
Mr Patterson seems prepared for – or is that hardened to? – the onslaught of questions which await.
Erin Patterson touches her nose at one point early in his evidence, as if seeking composure, as he embarks on the longer explanation of their failed relationship.
They’re still legally married, it seems, except that they permanently separated in 2015.
Yet family holidays – mum, dad, two kids – ensued, and there was an attempted reconciliation after a trip to Africa in 2018.
He’d been drawn to her intelligence and wit when they got together while working at Monash City Council.
They’d been breaking up – and reuniting – since a camping trip around Australia soon after the birth of their first child in 2009.
They were off then on, off then on. It was always Erin leaving Simon.
But they were always friends, as he saw it. Even as the world submitted to, then shook off, Covid, phone messages were often exchanged, banter mostly, about politics and what not, as well as the practicalities of shared parental care.
Properties were bought jointly, despite the separations, and substantial chunks of money – largely from Erin Patterson inheritances – had been loaned to Mr Patterson’s siblings.
Mr Patterson wanted his marriage to work. So did his parents, who were very fond of their daughter-in-law, especially dad Don, who had a gentle way and a love of knowledge.
The final tipping point - a disagreement over money - in the Patterson relationship plays like a familiar point of no return for anyone with children who has endured an acrimonious split.
Simon and his wife sat in his car in October, 2022. He had told the tax office he was “separated”, which had tax implications for Erin.
As he recalls, Mrs Patterson said she would seek child support and duly applied for it.
Mr Patterson, who says he acted on the advice of Child Support, then resisted paying school fees and medical bills because he would be paying the child support, which the court later heard would eventually be calculated at less than $40 a month.
Mrs Patterson appealed to her husband’s parents about the non-payments. They suggested that the two of them sort it out together.
It’s unknown whether these incremental disintegrations of a marriage have any relevance to the serving of a fatal lunch eight months later, when Erin Patterson announced that she had ovarian cancer (she did not), and would soon start treatment.
Because of that lunch, a woman stands trial charged with the murder of people she says she loved, while her husband is forced to share various shades of grief that no mechanism of justice will dim.
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