Leongatha mushroom deaths: ‘I’ve been painted as evil witch’, laments Erin Patterson

The woman who cooked a deadly beef Wellington meal, and named as a suspect in the deaths of three elderly people, is angry.

Erin Patterson on Monday. Picture: Brooke Grebert-Craig

The woman who cooked the deadly beef Wellington meal with toxic mushrooms suspected of killing three elderly people has lamented “being painted as an evil witch’’ and becoming a prisoner in her own home, unable to receive support.

A frustrated Erin Patterson, 48, revealed her dismay at being unable to have friends over at her Leongatha house in Victoria’s South Gippsland region to support her because she claims they are averse to media attention.

Painting herself as a victim, Ms Patterson also denied leaking her police statement which detailed for the first time her version of events. This included that she had lied about the disposal of a food dehydrator, which may have been used to prepare the meal being blamed for the deaths.

Ms Patterson, who broke up with husband Simon years ago, is a suspect in the deaths but ­detectives are keeping an open mind about what happened and her role in the scandal. “I lost my parents-in-law, my children lost their grandparents,’’ she told The Australian.

“And I’ve been painted as an evil witch. And the media is making it impossible for me to live in this town. I can’t have friends over. The media is at the house where my children are at. The media are at my sister’s house so I can’t go there. This is unfair.’’

Police have revealed that Ms Patterson is a suspect in the deaths because she was the only one of five adults who either didn’t die or fall gravely ill.

She steadfastly maintains her innocence, claiming the fungi were button mushrooms bought from the supermarket and dried mushrooms from an unspecified Asian grocery.

Ms Patterson denied releasing the statement she made to police, detailing her version of events that led to the deaths of her former parents-in-law Don and Gail Patterson and another elderly woman, Gail Wilkinson.

In the statement, Ms Patterson confirms for the first time that her estranged husband Simon Patterson, who lives at nearby Korumburra, about 120km southeast of Melbourne, had accused her of poisoning his parents on July 29.

“I didn’t put any statement out,’’ she said on Tuesday.

“I have no idea how it got out. I made a statement to the police.’’

The Australian is not suggesting Ms Patterson deliberately poisoned her guests, just that the police are investigating what happened on the day.

Her statement made to police admits that she lied to investigators about the dehydrator, falsely claiming she had dumped it a long time ago before it surfaced soon after the deaths.

The police statement reportedly states that Ms Patterson also fell sick after serving the meal, which included so-called death cap mushrooms, which can cause organ failure.

She told police she had served the meal and allowed the victims to choose their plate before eating the meal herself.

Her children, she alleges, also had eaten beef Wellington left overs the following night but stripped of the mushrooms ­because they didn’t like them.

It could take weeks or even months for the toxicology reports to be finalised into how the three elderly people died, however police are confident it was the ­result of the victims having been served death cap mushrooms.

The Australian can also reveal that the fourth victim, Baptist pastor Ian Wilkinson, is not on the list for a donor liver at the Austin Hospital, potentially giving police and his family cause for optimism that he can survive his illness.

This does not mean that Mr Wilkinson is still not gravely ill after the lunch, but sources said it could suggest his liver is not as badly damaged as first reported.

If he recovers, it would provide the police with a potential second witness from the lunch, depending on his recovery.

Ms Patterson said that as she battled through the fallout of the suspected mass poisoning she was being deprived of aid from people who wanted to visit.

“Nobody wants their face in the media,” she said.

Ms Patterson left her home several days ago amid intense pressure and was photographed in Melbourne’s legal precinct, having previously given a no-comment interview to police.

Described by locals as shy, she owns a $1m-plus townhouse in the eastern Melbourne suburb of Mt Waverley, which neighbours said was rarely visited.

“I hardly ever see anyone there. Rarely at all,’’ a neighbour said. Another neighbour said she had not seen a visitor to the ­address in seven or eight years.

She and Simon Patterson have owned several properties in ­ Korumburra, where the four ­elderly people resided.

Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine head of forensic pathology Dr Linda Iles said that in some cases it could take “a very long time’’ for all tests to be conducted and results to be collated.

She said it depended on the complexity of the toxicology and the circumstances in each individual case.