Erin Patterson’s estranged husband Simon saw her mother more than she did as text messages resurface
New details have emerged about Erin Patterson’s estranged husband, her parents and her mum’s former home as neighbours react to her being sent to prison. SEE THE VIDEO.
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Erin Patterson’s estranged husband visited her parents more often than she did, with the triple murderer accused of abandoning her mum.
New details have emerged about Patterson’s dysfunctional relationship with her own family who had retired to Eden on the NSW coast.
Sources have revealed that Erin rarely visited her mother Heather after her father died of cancer.
“Simon visited with the kids but Erin never came up,” a source said.
Simon would take the couple’s children to a theme park nearby.
“He took the kids to Magic Mountain in Merimbula, they loved it,” the source added.
On the rare times that Patterson did return to see her mother, she was distant and aloof.
“I walked into the house and Heather introduced me to Erin but she had her head stuck in a tablet, she didn’t even acknowledge me,” the source added.
Heather was moved into a nursing home before she died of cancer in 2019, while her husband Hugh died of pancreatic cancer about three years earlier.
The fresh details of Patterson’s distant relationship with her parents was first revealed by the Herald Sun in 2023 in shocking text messages sent by the mass murderer.
In the texts, sent shortly after Mrs Scutter’s death, Patterson describes her mother as a “cold robot” and said her father was “a doormat”.
“My (We) had a horrible upbringing. Mum was essentially a cold robot,” the messages said.
“It was like being brought up in a Russian orphanage where they don’t touch the babies.”
Another read: “Dad wanted to be warm and loving to us but mum wouldn’t let him because it would spoil us so he did as he was told.
“She would shout at him if he did the wrong thing so he became very meek and compliant.”
She was living alone in Eden, a picturesque town seven hours drive from Melbourne.
Heather had been frail health in her final years, with neighbours saying that she had a fall in her home and was not found overnight.
Neighbour John Mathieson said Heather and Hugh would have been devastated at what their daughter had done.
“I’m glad they’re gone because I don’t know how they would have coped,” he said.
“They were lovely people, always travelling. I would take around tomatoes there when we had too many. This is just a tragedy.”
Mr Mathieson said that Heather never drove a car and was isolated after her husband died.
“I offered to teach her to drive but that didn’t happen,” she said.
He could find no reason why Patterson would have become a killer, saying that her parents were polite, kind neighbours and friends.
Patterson’s home overlooks the beach at Eden, with 180 degree across the sheltered bay.
A $14,000 lift had been installed in the double-storey home about a year before Heather died.
However she went to a nursing home before she died of cancer.
Patterson and her sister sold the home in 2019 for $900,000, despite their parents paying $795,000 in 2009.
The home has now become a stop on a walking trail for tourists coming off the cruise ships that dock at the nearby deep water harbour.
The new owner of the house said tourists often take photographs of the home.
He said he had never met Patterson or her sister, only dealing with the real estate agent.
The home was sold quickly, with most of the furniture added as part of the purchase.
The new owner said the home was now likely to be worth $2 million, with the link to the Mushroom Cook possibly increasing its value.
Other neighbours were devastated at Patterson’s triple murder.
“What’s happened to her kids?” a source said.
“Her parents were just such nice people. They travelled a lot, we would get postcards from Lake Titicaca in Bolivia.
“Her mum edited children’s books. What (why) would Erin do this?”
Stephen.drill@news.com.au
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