By Brett Lackey For Daily Mail Australia
00:13 28 Sep 2023, updated 00:36 28 Sep 2023
Detectives investigating the deaths of three people who fell ill after eating a Beef Wellington meal in rural Victoria will be focusing on one major question, according to a leading expert.
Pastor Ian Wilkinson was the only person to survive the poisonous meal dished up on July 29 by Erin Patterson, 48, at her home in Leongatha, while his wife Heather, her sister Gail Patterson and her husband Don Patterson died.
World-renowned forensic anthropologist Dr Xanthe Mallett said after tests appear to have confirmed poisonous mushrooms caused the deaths, the investigation will be looking closely at a food dehydrator thrown away by Ms Patterson.
‘That’s probably the crux of this whole case, Erin Patterson said she disposed of that dehydrator in the tip shortly after the meal,’ Dr Mallet told Sunrise on Thursday.
‘The question is, are there spores in the dehydrator? That’s an extremely important piece of information that could either confirm or refute whether deathcap mushrooms have ever been in that dehydrator.’
Police found the food dehydrator at a local tip, which Ms Patterson claimed she dumped amid concern her estranged husband would connect it to the meal and blame her for his parents’ death and thereby gain custody of their two children.
She told police the mushrooms used in the lunch were a mixture of button mushrooms bought from a supermarket and dried mushrooms she bought from an Asian supermarket in Melbourne months earlier.
Erin Patterson has denied any wrongdoing, and Daily Mail Australia is not suggesting that she intentionally poisoned her four relatives.
On Wednesday, veteran The Age journalist John Silvester wrote in a newspaper column that forensic tests have confirmed the lunch guests ate poisonous mushrooms.
‘The good news is that detailed forensic tests have come back and confirmed the cause of the three deaths is indeed mushroom poisoning,’ the well-connected writer, author and podcaster said.
‘The bad news is that how the mushrooms ended up on the lunch table remains a matter of conjecture.’
Victoria Police declined to comment on – or confirm – Mr Silvester’s claims to Daily Mail Australia. ‘The investigation remains ongoing.’
Dr Mallet said the confirmation of the toxin was an important development.
‘It is certainly is an important step forward.’
‘Deathcap mushrooms contain three different types of toxin, so they would have to make sure they could test the remains and any other samples that were available to them to determine specifically what the type of toxin was.’
‘Because at some point, charges may be laid against somebody, and the test will have to stand up to forensic scrutiny in court at that stage.’
‘The police will follow every line of enquiry, they have to be sure of their conclusions, and we have two paths to follow then after that.’
‘It will either go to colonial inquest or charges will be laid against somebody for supplying and providing those mushrooms that went into that meal – and we don’t know how that happened.’