SYDNEY: Three Australians died of organ failure after eating a beef Wellington dish laced with toxic mushrooms, a medical specialist said Friday during a triple-murder trial sparked by the deaths.
Erin Patterson, 50, is charged with murdering the parents and aunt of her estranged husband in 2023 by serving them a hearty lunch laced with lethal death cap mushrooms.
She is also accused of attempting to murder her husband’s uncle, who survived the meal after a long stay in hospital.
Patterson has pleaded not guilty to all charges in a trial that has drawn intense interest from around the world.
Intensive care specialist Stephen Warrillow told the high-profile trial on Friday how doctors had scrambled to save the lunch guests.
But as the toxins coursed through their bodies, causing multiple organs to shut down, there was little they could do.
“It was very apparent that this was not survivable,” Warrillow said, talking about one of the victims he treated.
Another victim got “relentlessly worse” even after receiving a liver transplant, he said.
“We had no other treatments to offer, no other therapies. He was dying,” the doctor said.
Warrillow was asked if the organ failure was caused by mushroom poisoning.
“That’s correct, yes,” he told the court.
Patterson was estranged from her husband Simon, who turned down the invitation to the July 2023 lunch.
But his parents, Don and Gail, died days after eating the beef-and-pastry dish.
Simon’s aunt Heather Wilkinson also died, while her husband Ian fell seriously ill but later recovered.
The court earlier heard how Erin Patterson had sent messages to a Facebook group chat in December 2022, several months prior to the lunch, saying she wanted “nothing to do” with her in-laws.
Patterson and estranged husband Simon were at odds over finances and child support, the court heard, and she had sought help from his parents, who refused to intervene.
“I’m sick of this shit I want nothing to do with them,” Patterson wrote in one message.
The prosecution alleges Patterson deliberately poisoned her lunch guests and took care that she did not consume the deadly mushrooms herself.
Her defense says it was “a terrible accident” and that Patterson ate the same meal as the others but did not fall as sick.
The trial is expected to last another two weeks.
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Guests died of organ failure after toxic mushroom lunch, Australian court hears
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Guests died of organ failure after toxic mushroom lunch, Australian court hears
- Erin Patterson is charged with murdering the parents and aunt of her estranged husband in 202
- Patterson served them a hearty lunch laced with lethal death cap mushrooms
China to support ‘reunification forces’ in Taiwan, go after ‘separatists’
BEIJING: China will offer firm support for “patriotic pro-reunification forces” in Taiwan and strike hard against “separatists,” the top Chinese official in charge of policy toward the democratically-governed island said in comments published on Tuesday.
China, which views Taiwan as its own territory despite the objections of the government in Taipei, has ramped up its military and political pressure against the island as Beijing seeks to assert its sovereignty claims.
Addressing this year’s annual “Taiwan Work Conference,” the ruling communist party’s fourth-ranked leader Wang Huning said officials must advance the “great cause of national reunification,” the official state-run Xinhua news agency said.
It is necessary to “firmly support the patriotic pro-unification forces on the island, resolutely strike against ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces, oppose interference by external forces, and safeguard peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” Xinhua paraphrased him as saying.
The Beijing meeting was also attended by Foreign Minister Wang Yi, underscoring how China sees Taiwan as an issue it needs to promote on the international stage.
China has long offered Taiwan a Hong Kong-style “one country, two systems” model of autonomy, though no major Taiwanese political party supports that.
Taiwan’s government says Beijing’s rule in the former British colony has only brought repression, with Taiwan President Lai Ching-te on Tuesday citing the sentencing of
Hong Kong tycoon Jimmy Lai
to 20 years prison the previous day.
“Jimmy Lai’s sentencing exposes the Hong Kong national security law for what it is — a tool of political persecution under China’s ‘one country, two systems’ that tramples human rights & freedom of press,” Lai wrote on X.
There was no immediate response to Wang Huning’s comments from Taiwan’s government, which says only the island’s people can decide their future.
Beijing has repeatedly warned other countries including the US against meddling in Taiwan issue, which it said is its internal affair.
In a call with US President Donald Trump last week, China’s President Xi Jinping said the Taiwan issue is the most important issue in China-US relations and Washington must handle the issue of arms sales to Taiwan with prudence.
China refuses to speak to Taiwan’s president and has rebuffed his repeated offers of talks, saying he is a “separatist” who must accept that Taiwan is part of China.
Wang was speaking just a week after meeting a delegation from Taiwan’s largest opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT), who were in Beijing for a meeting of party think-tanks.
Speaking to reporters earlier on Tuesday in Taipei, KMT Vice Chairman Hsiao Hsu-tsen, who led the delegation to Beijing, said there had been no discussion of political issues when they met Wang, as the trip there was to discuss topics like tourism and AI.
China, which views Taiwan as its own territory despite the objections of the government in Taipei, has ramped up its military and political pressure against the island as Beijing seeks to assert its sovereignty claims.
Addressing this year’s annual “Taiwan Work Conference,” the ruling communist party’s fourth-ranked leader Wang Huning said officials must advance the “great cause of national reunification,” the official state-run Xinhua news agency said.
It is necessary to “firmly support the patriotic pro-unification forces on the island, resolutely strike against ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces, oppose interference by external forces, and safeguard peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” Xinhua paraphrased him as saying.
The Beijing meeting was also attended by Foreign Minister Wang Yi, underscoring how China sees Taiwan as an issue it needs to promote on the international stage.
China has long offered Taiwan a Hong Kong-style “one country, two systems” model of autonomy, though no major Taiwanese political party supports that.
Taiwan’s government says Beijing’s rule in the former British colony has only brought repression, with Taiwan President Lai Ching-te on Tuesday citing the sentencing of
Hong Kong tycoon Jimmy Lai
to 20 years prison the previous day.
“Jimmy Lai’s sentencing exposes the Hong Kong national security law for what it is — a tool of political persecution under China’s ‘one country, two systems’ that tramples human rights & freedom of press,” Lai wrote on X.
There was no immediate response to Wang Huning’s comments from Taiwan’s government, which says only the island’s people can decide their future.
Beijing has repeatedly warned other countries including the US against meddling in Taiwan issue, which it said is its internal affair.
In a call with US President Donald Trump last week, China’s President Xi Jinping said the Taiwan issue is the most important issue in China-US relations and Washington must handle the issue of arms sales to Taiwan with prudence.
China refuses to speak to Taiwan’s president and has rebuffed his repeated offers of talks, saying he is a “separatist” who must accept that Taiwan is part of China.
Wang was speaking just a week after meeting a delegation from Taiwan’s largest opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT), who were in Beijing for a meeting of party think-tanks.
Speaking to reporters earlier on Tuesday in Taipei, KMT Vice Chairman Hsiao Hsu-tsen, who led the delegation to Beijing, said there had been no discussion of political issues when they met Wang, as the trip there was to discuss topics like tourism and AI.
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