The remarkably unremarkable life of Erin Patterson

The world was introduced to Erin Patterson in front of her cherry-red SUV, parked in the driveway off a quiet cul-de-sac in the little Victorian town of Leongatha. Sporting a light grey jumper, loose white pants and her signature sandals, the then 48-year-old pleaded her innocence to the journalists firing questions about a fatal lunch she had hosted a week earlier. That meal killed Patterson’s in-laws Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson, and critically injured Heather’s husband, Ian.

Those first images, taken on a dreary Monday in August 2023, were the first insight into a life that has since been dissected by investigators, lawyers, the media and the public for nearly two years. The life of a woman who, until then, lived an unremarkable life. A woman who hates hospitals, adores her children and loves animals. A woman who is introverted and highly intelligent.

And a woman who was found guilty by a jury of meticulously planning the murder of family members she purported to love.

The world was introduced to Erin Patterson in August 2023 as she spoke outside her Leongatha home. Credit: Marta Pascual Juanola

The ensuing investigation would expose Patterson, first and foremost, as a self-confessed liar, capable of committing and concocting an elaborate story to cover up her crime. Patterson herself acknowledged, during her eight days in the witness box, to destroying evidence and lying to detectives, friends and family. She faked a cancer diagnosis to entice her guests to the fateful lunch, a jury found, and fabricated stories such as buying mushrooms from an Asian grocer and a plan to undergo gastric bypass surgery.

Erin Trudi Scutter was born on September 30, 1974, the youngest daughter of Heather and Eitan Scutter. She grew up in the middle-class Melbourne suburb of Glen Waverley in a family of high achievers. The matriarch of the family lectured at the nearby Monash University, teaching children’s literature. Patterson and her sister, Ceinwen, attended the same university. Patterson obtained a degree in business accounting.

Like her mother, she enjoyed studying and is frequently described by those who know her as a sharp thinker. “Erin is very intelligent,” Simon, her estranged husband, told a jury. “I guess some of the things that attracted me to her in the first place was definitely her intelligence. She is quite witty and can be quite funny.”

One of her fellow true crime aficionados described her as a “super-sleuth”, earning a reputation as one of the best and fastest at researching in their online community.

Before she met Simon, Patterson trained and worked as an air traffic controller, a challenging occupation that demands quick thinking and the ability to stay calm under pressure.

Simon Patterson outside the court in early May.Credit: Jason South

She went on to become an animal welfare officer for Monash City Council. In 2005, through mutual friends, she met Simon, who was working at the council as a traffic engineer. “We would come up against each other at lunch, after-work drinks, that sort of thing,” Patterson recalled.

The pair married in 2007, a year after Patterson’s beloved grandmother died and left her an inheritance of about $2 million. Patterson used the sizeable gift to set up the new family with a home in Western Australia, and later in 2012, when they moved to Korumburra, near Simon’s parents in South Gippsland.

The windfall also meant Patterson could focus on being a homemaker while also pursuing her passion for learning. She opened a bookstore during their stint in WA, took on courses from law to veterinary science, and a quasi-vanity role as “editor” of the community newsletter, The Burra Flyer, in Korumburra.

“I was comfortable financially, such that I could afford to go to university and I didn’t need to work a full-time job at the same time,” Patterson said.

Her greatest joy was her children, a son born in 2009 and a daughter in 2014. “Her life appeared to revolve around them,” online friend Christine Hunt told the jury, recalling the mother of two would frequently post videos and photos of her children. Another online friend, Daniela Barkley, said they were “all she really cared about in life”.

The arrival of the children also brought the Patterson family closer into Erin and Simon’s lives. Gail and Don Patterson travelled to Perth to help the couple after the birth of their firstborn son.

“[Gail] gave me good advice about just relaxing and enjoying it; you don’t have to stick to this timetable, this schedule – just relax and enjoy your baby,” Patterson said.

A close bond also formed between Patterson and her sister-in-law when both women became pregnant at the same time – Patterson with a daughter, her sister-in-law with a son. Their two newborns, arriving three days apart, were referred to in the family as “the twins”.

Pastor Ian Wilkinson, the sole surviving lunch guest. Credit: Jason South

The Patterson family also influenced her view on religion. Patterson recalled having a “spiritual experience” during a trip to Korumburra around 2005 when Ian Wilkinson, a pastor, led a sermon in front of a banner emblazoned with the words “faith, hope, and love”.

“I’d been approaching religion as an intellectual exercise up until that point,” Patterson said. “I had a religious experience there, and it quite overwhelmed me.”

The Patterson family’s dedication to faith would later strain her relationship with Simon and her in-laws. Her online friends noted her complicated relationship with religion, recalling that she was an atheist, but took her kids to Bible study and attended church.

Cracks in Erin and Simon’s marriage were forming early on. Shortly after the birth of their son, the new family packed up their life in Perth, embarking on a trip across Australia in a four-wheel-drive with little else but a tent. They travelled for months, reaching the northern tip of Cape York. But the trip was cut short when Patterson abruptly flew home to Perth alone, leaving Simon and her son in Townsville.

“I packed everything up and [my son] and I drove across Australia through the middle, straight back to Perth,” Simon said, explaining that Patterson was “struggling inside herself”.

She testified that she had struggled with body image and low self-esteem for her entire life. “I was really embarrassed. I was ashamed of the fact that I didn’t have control over my body or what I ate,” Patterson said.

Simon observed: “I don’t think she has a high self-esteem.”

Later, she would claim that her binge-eating and bulimia would be the reason she threw up on the Saturday when she served the poison lunch meal, limiting her exposure to the death caps that killed and wounded the others. The jury did not believe her.

She had a complicated relationship with her estranged husband, their marriage marred by repeated break-ups and reconciliations before they eventually separated in 2015. They stayed on good terms, and the family of four continued to take trips around the world – jet-setting to South Africa, Botswana and New Zealand.

“We really liked each other still. It was just the living together that didn’t work,” Patterson said of the split.

In 2022, Patterson moved into her dream bush home in Leongatha, which she designed using the program Microsoft Paint. She tended sheep and goats and had a dog. Her social life – apart from family – revolved around online friendships with women she met in a true crime Facebook group who she had never met.

It was about this time that Patterson’s relationship with Simon deteriorated, which also put a strain on her interactions with Don and Gail.

In May 2022, responding to a Mother’s Day text from Gail, Patterson replied: “Thanks Gail, Happy Mother’s Day to the best mum-in-law anyone could ask for xxoo.”

Patterson messaged friends online at the time that Don and Gail were a lost cause. “This family, I swear to f---ing God,” one message read.

Seven months later, she fed them a beef Wellington with a mushroom crust laced with death cap mushrooms. The meal killed her children’s beloved “nan and papa”, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson. Pastor Ian Wilkinson, whose sermon changed Erin’s view on faith all those years ago, lived to testify against the woman whose life is now confined to the four walls of a jail.

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