Mushroom Recap: Who is Erin?

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Devoted mother?

Pathological liar?

Friendless loner?

Ruthless killer?

Who is Erin Patterson?

I'm the ABC's true crime investigative reporter, Rachel Brown.

I'm Stephen Stockwell.

This is the second episode of a five-part series that takes you back through the whole story that started with a homemade meal and ended with a murder trial.

In this episode, Erin Patterson.

Who she is and how she became part of the family she murdered.

Welcome to the case of the mushroom lunch.

Just a week after four people sat down for a family lunch in rural Victoria, three of them were dead.

Homicide detectives are still piecing together what exactly happened at the lunch.

It's certainly looking like the symptoms are consistent with death cap mushrooms.

Erin Patterson said she bought the dried mushrooms at a supermarket and an Asian grocery store months earlier.

I cannot think of another investigation that has generated this level of media and public interest.

Erin Patterson was born as Erin Scudder on September 30, 1974.

Her parents were middle class and well-educated.

You know, I think government workers, academics.

Her mum was a lecturer at Monash University and her dad worked for the government.

She went to school, obviously, and then she went to university at Monash where her mum was teaching.

She was studying science to start with, ended up switching to accounting, but it's not where she landed.

Clever, Stocky.

She landed at Air Services Australia in 2001.

She was there for three years, where she gained a bit of a reputation.

Have you heard some stories?

I have heard some stories.

I've read some stories.

It's a bit divisive when we start talking about people that she used to work with at Air Services Australia.

Now I haven't managed to verify these independently, but the stories that were coming out soon after you and I left Morwell Stockie was of colleagues who said, you know, she

could be aggressive, a pathological liar.

There was a story about her having a pattern of calling in, pretending to be one of her colleagues and calling in sick.

And then when these colleagues would arrive for their shift, their boss, the air traffic controller, was like,

why are you here?

Didn't you call in sick?

And there's a story about her giggling in the corner.

Now, I don't know whether that was a prank or whether another article said she tried to get their lucrative shifts.

I'm not sure.

That was one story that we heard.

I actually heard that story before the trial started as well.

Eventually she was fired for leaving work early and lying about it.

And apparently when she was caught on CCTV, she just said, ah, you got me there.

So she was clearly very bright.

You have to be to get that job.

But the people she trained and worked with said there wasn't something quite right about her.

And behind her back, they were calling her things like Crazy Erin or Scutter the Nutter.

And they said she could be quite manipulative.

Yeah, I mean, you do need to be very bright to be an air traffic controller.

You know, it's something that's incredibly difficult, very high-pressure job.

After she leaves that job, she ends up working for a local council, the Monash Council, staying in that sort of area around Melbourne.

She was an animal welfare officer there, working with the RSPCA, kind of based out of that location.

And that's where she ends up meeting her future husband, Simon Patterson.

He was a civil engineer there.

They met in kind of the early 2000s and started hanging out in sort of like a large eclectic group of work colleagues, like you tend to when you're in a new workplace or any workplace, really.

You've got this sort of big group of people that you might hang out with.

That's where Erin Scudder at the time and Simon Patterson were hanging out.

They were doing things like camping trips and the like together.

Yeah, and Simon says of Erin that she was smart, witty, and that he was really attracted to that, her humour and her mind.

He says they had lots of deep chats about life, politics, religion, even though Simon was a devout Christian and Erin described herself as a fundamentalist atheist.

As you said, you know, she'd hang out with him and his friends and they'd go on trips together.

One time they went to Corranborough and stayed at Simon's parents' house.

And while they were there, Simon took Erin to the Corranborough Baptist Church where Simon's uncle Ian Wilkinson was a pastor.

And Erin was excited because she'd been inside a church before, but she'd never been to a service.

And this, we learned, turned out to be quite a meaningful moment in Erin's life.

Ian Wilkinson stood in front of a banner that said faith, hope and love.

And he gave this sermon.

And afterwards, Erin went up to receive communion.

And she says at that service that she had her first spiritual experience.

A spiritual awakening.

It's kind of, you know, that sort of group church.

experience of being in a group of people, the singing,

the ritual, I guess, of that experience kind of.

Belonging too, I suppose, which comes up quite frequently for her, for that need.

Yeah, absolutely.

And it's not too long after this that

Simon and Erin start dating.

I think it's around 2005 that things start to kind of turn a bit romantic.

And, you know, despite Erin describing herself as a fundamentalist atheist, she is kind of leaning into, you know, the religious side of that relationship.

Her and Simon are going to Bible study in Melbourne.

They're attending church in Corranborough when they're visiting Simon's parents on the weekends.

And within a couple of years,

they're getting married.

They did.

And we learned that Erin's own parents weren't there.

When she was asked, where were they?

She curtly said, on a train in Russia on holiday.

So that speaks great volumes.

Simon's cousin, David, walked Erin down the aisle instead of her own father.

And they had it at Corranborough Anglican Church, so not the Baptist Church, but Anglican, so Ian Wilkinson didn't have to work that day.

Heather didn't have to work either, so they could relax as guests.

And Don and Gail, Simon's parents, hired a marquee and put on a buffet for everyone.

Yeah.

While they were dating, so prior to the marriage, Erin's grandmother has passed away.

And Erin inherits quite a large sum of money.

You know, the money that she's inheriting

kind of comes in over this course of several years because it's attached to the sale of commercial properties.

That gives you an idea of the scale of the inheritance that we're kind of talking about here.

We're looking at like $2 million.

So there's a fair bit of money in that.

And that's just for her.

I think this was distributed across many kids and grandkids.

Absolutely.

Yeah, Erin's parents would have inherited a whole bunch of money.

You know, Erin's sister, you know, this is going to be going around.

So, you know, she's come into quite a large sum of money.

And this is something that Rach that, you know, her and Simon use after getting married.

You know, kind of like that's a bit of a nest egg they've got.

And they, you know, it's not something in the, you know, in the immediate term that they're kind of saving and putting away.

They decide to go traveling.

So Simon quit his job.

They gave everything away they had.

They bought a Nissan patrol, hit the open road and they drove through basically the guts of Australia.

Then they spend months in South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe and camping through Namibia.

Now eventually they settle in Perth.

Simon wanted to keep travelling but Erin was 33 years old.

She wants to settle down.

So she convinces Simon reluctantly, I think, to move to Perth and settle there.

And I think with that money, they're able to buy a house mortgage-free.

Yeah, Erin, at this point, you know, is quite keen to kind of start having kids, basically.

So,

yeah, that's what her and Simon do.

Their son is born in 2009 in Perth, but things didn't really go to plan during that.

You know, just a warning here.

You know, it's quite a traumatic birth.

Erin Patterson ends up having an emergency cesarean.

Her son ends up in neonatal intensive care.

The good news is that her son does recover from this.

And the the hospital actually was ready to send him home with his dad, Simon Patterson, but wanted to keep Erin Patterson in the hospital to make sure that she was recovering properly, everything was going well.

She is not keen on the idea of being separated from her newborn son.

She talks to Simon about this, and Simon Patterson, her husband, actually encourages her to sign a discharge against advice form.

So she's able to come home with both of them.

And of course, this won't be the last time that she signs a discharge against medical advice form.

Now, after her son's birth, Erin's feeling isolated over in Perth.

She says she doesn't know what she's doing.

She feels out of her depth.

And Simon's parents, Don and Gail, are very supportive.

They come and visit for a week.

And Erin says Gail is patient and gentle, giving advice on feeding and how to interpret.

Erin's son's cries, things like that.

And Gail says, you know, you don't have to stick to a timetable, just relax and enjoy your baby.

You know, this is at a time when Erin Patterson, as a new mum, is not really feeling like it's something that she's kind of up for.

She's just gone through that traumatic experience.

She's at home.

And, you know, those words from Gail at that point really do mean a lot.

Don and Gail, you know, don't hang around for that long, you know, like a week, Rach.

And they end up traveling back to Corranborough.

And Simon and Erin also.

want to keep traveling.

They've still got that four-wheel drive.

So they take the four-wheel drive and their six-month-old baby on the road, basically.

So they they hit the road up the coast of Western Australia.

So you're cruising past Geraldton, Carratha, Port Hedland, Broome, and then across the Kimberley on the Gibb River Road across that part of the country.

They then head down to Alice Springs, back out across over to Queensland, right up to the top of the Cape.

and then coming back down again.

There's some tension that starts to develop in that relationship.

You You know, this is a long trip.

They're with a very young child.

And that tension kind of peaks with Erin Patterson bailing on Simon and her less than a one-year-old son in Townsville.

She gets on a plane, she flies back to Perth and leaves them to drive home.

How long would that drive be?

About a week?

It takes about a week or so for Simon to actually get back to Perth with their son.

Yeah, so by November, Erin has had enough of travelling, but it's also the first time that some cracks start to appear in their marriage.

So back in Perth, they go to marriage counselling, they're living separately, Simon's renting at a caravan park, I think, and they're caring for their son 50-50.

Erin's running a second-hand bookstore in Pemberton.

And she says that they just had issues with communication.

And Simon says Erin didn't seem that happy.

She attempted to reinitiate her vet studies at Murdoch University, University, but it was too hard for various reasons, including having had a baby.

But

it's still amicable, and also with the money that she's inherited, she ends up loaning Simon's siblings big loans to help them buy houses or set up houses of up to $400,000 each.

And they end up, her and Simon end up getting back together.

2012 is another rough year.

She had a failed pregnancy.

There's another separation, but then they're back together by the end of 2012.

And in 2013, they move back to Victoria and in 2014 their daughter's born.

Yeah, they are settling in Corranborough to raise their newborn daughter.

Again, they already have a son at this point.

But even after that birth, obviously there's a period of reconciliation through there.

But that tension continues past this point.

You know, they move back to Victoria 2013, daughter's born in 2014, and in 2015, they split again.

Yeah, they just both of them say they couldn't seem to disagree without hurting each other.

And I think Erin describes the relationship at one point as toxic.

And so end of 2015, Erin decides to leave Simon.

The couple formally separate.

According to Erin, they reconcile briefly a few times in the years that follow, but for the most part, their relationship is over, a romantic one, anyway.

But they're determined to keep things good for the children, who at that time were only one and six years old.

And then Stocky, they write down everything they had, property, cash, money owed to them from those loans that she gave Simon's siblings.

And they just drew a line down the middle.

No lawyers, nothing.

This is the part I find incredible is just kind of how amicable.

the split is and the division of assets at this point.

Yeah, I've seen some friends go through divorces.

So messy, nothing like this.

So this is kind of impressive for them to just sit down.

Money doesn't seem to be, you know, an issue.

They're just like, look, let's just split it fairly.

Simon gets half of Erin's inheritance.

I think it was about $800,000 each.

And he says money's generally not a factor in Erin's life decisions.

the children, so they arrange for the kids to spend as much time as possible with both parents.

And for the most part, it works.

Erin and Simon get along great.

Even Stocky, in 2019, so four years after the separation, Erin's mum dies and leaves her estate to her two daughters.

And Erin buys a house in Mount Waverley and one in Leon Gatha.

And she puts Simon's name on both those titles, even though they're separated.

So, I mean, pretty impressive.

separation by all accounts.

And they continue to holiday together as a family, both around Australia and overseas.

And the whole time, Erin continues to be included in family gatherings with Don and Gail that relationship by all accounts remains healthy and happy including the relationship that Don and Gail have with their grandkids and you know we've seen a beautiful video of Don doing a science project with the son in the backyard trying to make a rocket propelled car

and Erin even continued to bring the children to the Coranborough Baptist Church where Ian Wilkinson is the pastor and Erin helps out with live streaming the services during COVID.

And it's kind of not long after COVID or that kind of, you know, initial wave of COVID that there's that tension starts to emerge again or, I guess, grow in the relationship between Erin and Simon Patterson.

There is a kind of spat around child support and tax status that kind of emerges in late 2022.

That's right.

So

he's dropping the children off at Erin's house.

She comes out and gets in the car and says she needs to talk.

It's clear she's upset.

Erin has discovered that Simon's tax return has for the first time noted that the couple are separated.

And so up until now, even though they had been separated, they've both just been contributing to things the kids need, you know, doctors, schools, things like that.

So this separated on the form.

Erin is angry that that will mean that she should and has to now claim tax family benefit that she says she should have been claiming for the past three years.

And she says she's annoyed that Simon hadn't told her sooner.

Either way, they agree that Erin applies for child support and the conversation seemed to end amicably.

But Simon says this is a massive shift in their relationship and the chats go from being frequent and chatty to you know, clinical, cursory, sometimes ignored completely.

And then stocky more financial issues crop up because when Simon starts paying child support payments, the government decides that he owes about $40 a week, which is not going to cover the kids' private school fees.

They start to disagree over other things like doctors' fees.

And Erin says she feels hurt when Simon refuses to pay for things, but he believes he's just following the government orders about child support instructions and things like that.

Erin says he was being a bare minimum parent and then then the bickering continues when Erin feels like she's being left out of family gatherings, like Gail's 70th birthday party.

Yeah.

And, you know, her frustration with Simon Patterson is pretty clear at this point.

You know, she's

going actually to the family, to Don and Gail Patterson, to talk to them and ask if they're able to help.

kind of moderate some of these conversations to kind of go, hey, look, this is this tension that exists between Simon and I at the moment.

These are the issues they're having.

Are you able to to kind of help us work through some of that?

And Don and Gail sort of say, well, look, well, you know, we're trying to have this conversation.

We

really just doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

We're not sure we're able to help you.

You know, maybe you should consider praying about this.

Yeah, and that does not go down well.

Praying and paying, they also offer to pay, you know, and Erin takes that as, oh, they're just trying to just...

brush off the problem.

And she says, I don't want your money.

That's not what I'm asking.

I'm asking you to moderate this dispute.

They're super uncomfortable though.

They don't want to get in the middle.

They say they don't want to take sides.

They tell Erin it's too uncomfortable and awkward and that Erin and Simon just need to sort it amongst themselves.

And yeah, as you said, they say that they'll pray for them.

And she starts sending messages to women in a Facebook chat group.

You know, it started as a bigger group looking at the

case of Callie Lane, the polo player accused of murdering her daughter.

And then

they become a kind of smaller group and send messages about their life and kids and stuff.

And so she starts venting to this group of women.

And she says, quote, I wonder if they've got any capacity for self-reflection at all.

And she's talking about Don and Gail here.

Erin says, I mean, clearly the fact that Simon refuses to talk about personal issues in part stems from the behaviour of his parents and how they operate.

According to them, they've never asked him what's going on with us, why I keep kicking him out.

It's too awkward or uncomfortable or something.

So that's his learned behaviour.

Just don't talk about this shit.

And then we get into the messages that we've heard a lot and a language warning here.

She writes, this family, I swear to fucking God, they're a lost cause.

I'm sick of this shit.

I want nothing to do with them.

So fuck them.

Later, Erin says that she regrets writing this and that she's ashamed that she wrote it.

She says, I wrote that and I was venting and I was frustrated, but I regret writing it it and I'm ashamed I wrote that.

These messages are sent less than a year before Aaron Patterson's fatal lunch.

They become a key part of the case against Aaron Patterson.

Everything you've heard in this episode is taken from evidence we heard in court or from ABC reporting.

And tomorrow we're going to continue this story, taking you through the preparations Aaron Patterson made for the fatal lunch, from searching for death cat mushrooms to buying a dehydrator to how she lured her guests to her house.

The case of the mushroom lunch is produced by ABC Audio Studios and ABC News.

It's presented by me, the ABC's true crime investigative reporter, Rachel Brown, and Stephen Stockwell.

Our executive producer is Claire Rawlinson, and supervising producer for this series is Yasmin Parry.

Many thanks to Audio Studios manager Eric George and our True Crime Commissioning executive producer Tim Roxborough for helping make this show a reality.

This episode was produced on the land of the Wurundjeri people.

Deeply insightful.

One hour.

Deeply personal.

Two mics.

Two microphones.

Four locks going at the same time, one for each hand.

Can you murder him, please?

Hey, what?

Unforgettable stories.

We got hit by a wave and I was just in this sort of penumbra of bubbles, this world of fizz.

And it was very beautiful.

I didn't notice that I was drowning.

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