Updated 01:01 | Published 00:54
The family meal turned into a fatal tragedy – which shakes the whole of Australia.
Hostess Erin Patterson, 48, is suspected of killing three relatives with poison ivy.
– I didn’t do anything, I loved them, she says.
On July 29, five adults and two children sat down for a family meal in the Australian village of Leongatha, a two-hour drive southeast of Melbourne.
A week later, three of the adults would be dead while a fourth was fighting for his life. The fifth, 48-year-old Erin Patterson, is now being investigated on suspicion of having poisoned her guests with poisonous mushrooms, writes BBC.
Erin’s parents-in-law Gail and Don Patterson, both 70, had come over to her place for Saturday lunch to see their two grandchildren. There they had been joined by Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson, 66, and her husband Ian, 68.
The four guests were well-liked residents of the neighboring community of Korumburra, where Ian was a priest in the local church.
Got sick right away
But shortly after lunch, everyone in the party became ill. Their condition worsened and they soon had to be taken to a hospital in the city of five million Melbourne to receive better care.
Even so, Heather and Gail died last Friday. The next day, Don took his last breath. Ian remains in hospital in a critical condition awaiting a liver donation.
The police believe that the four lunch guests ate insidious fly agaric insidious fly agaric A deadly poisonous mushroom in the agaricus genus. The cap is usually greenish with darker threads as well as white discs and white spore powder. Grows mainly in Europe, but also in North America, south-eastern Australia, South America, Asia and Africa. In Sweden, it grows south, up to the Mälardalen. – which are deadly to ingest. Meanwhile, Erin and her two children are doing well. The two children, who according to the police have been taken into the care of the authorities as a “security measure”, ate a different meal than the adults.
Many uncertainties
In addition to this, there are many uncertainties surrounding the death lunch. Investigators tell the BBC they don’t know if Erin ate the same food as the guests – or even if the fungus was in the food she served.
Erin had previously separated from her ex-husband — Gail and Don’s son — but investigators said they had parted ways as friends. But the police do not rule out that a crime has been committed.
– At this point, the deaths are unsolved, says Dean Thomas of the murder squad to the BBC.
– It could be very innocent, but we just don’t know.
The suspect herself says she cannot understand what has happened.
– I didn’t do anything, I loved them, Erin told reporters outside her home in tears, according to the BBC.
– Gail was the mother I never had. My own children have lost their grandmother. They were some of the best people I’ve ever known. I am devastated that they are gone.
Daily Mail has posted photos of mushrooms growing outside Patterson’s home. When the villa was sold, it had been described as a natural wonderland, the newspaper writes.
On Saturday, technicians searched the property and seized a number of items, including a drying machine believed to have been used to prepare the mushrooms.
The village in shock
Erin refused to answer questions about which dishes were served to which guests or where the mushrooms came from.
The death has shaken the small community in the Australian state of Victoria.
– No one could imagine that it could happen here, says the area’s mayor Nathan Hersey to the BBC.
– Who in their right mind could imagine that we would lose people who contribute and give so much – in such a way? People are grieving and extremely sad.
In a statement, the families hailed the victims as “pillars of faith” in the small community.
“Their love, steadfast faith and selfless service have left an indelible mark on our families, Korumburra Baptist Church, the local community and people around the world,” read a statement published in the local newspaper South Gippsland Sentinel Times.