Erin Patterson shed only crocodile tears in court on Monday as the man she tried to murder with a poisoned beef Wellington revealed to her face the full extent of the horror she had inflicted – but still forgave her anyway.
Wearing her now-familiar Paisley pattern shirt, seated within the prison dock of the Supreme Court of Victoria in Melbourne, Patterson stared intently as Pastor Ian Wilkinson spoke of all of the ways she had done him wrong.
Patterson, 50, appeared to choke back tears as Wilkinson addressed the court – but not a single teardrop left her eyes.
Mr Wilkinson was the only survivor of her murderous plot – one that claimed the lives of his beloved wife Heather, her sister Gail and his lifelong friend Don Patterson.
They died after consuming the death cap mushrooms hidden in the beef Wellingtons served at Patterson’s lunch in her Leongatha home, southeast Victoria, in July 2023.
In all the years that followed, Mr Wilkinson had kept stoically silent about his ordeal.
Although called to give evidence at both pre-trial hearings, and Patterson’s 11-week trial, Mr Wilkinson had, until now, been unable to speak about the pain he endured.
Standing bravely before the woman who took his precious wife from him, Mr Wilkinson spoke with courage and grace about his ordeal after it silently brewed within him for too long.
Ian Wilkinson, the sole survivor of the Leongatha mushroom poisonings, comforted his daughter Ruth Dubois (front) in court on Monday as she delivered her victim impact statement
Erin Patterson is brought into the Supreme Court of Victoria on Monday
Released from the burden, Mr Wilkinson stunned the packed courtroom, not with his anger, but with his compassion for his tormentor.
‘I’m distressed that Erin has acted with callous and calculated disregard for my life and the lives of those I love,’ he told the court.
‘What foolishness possesses a person to think that murder could be the solution to their problems, especially the murder of people who had only good intentions towards her?
‘Erin has brought deep sorrow and grief into my life and the lives of many others.
‘The ripples spread out through family, friends, our church, congregation, the local community and beyond you.
‘In regard to the many harms done to me, I make an offer of forgiveness to Erin.
‘I have no power or responsibility to forgive harms done to others in regard to the murder of Heather, Gail and Don, I am compelled to seek justice.
‘However, I encourage Erin to receive my offer of forgiveness for those harms done to me with full confession and repentance. I bear her no ill will.
The Supreme Court of Victoria in Melbourne was packed inside and out with members of the public and media representatives
‘My prayer for her is that she will use her time in jail wisely to become a better person.
‘Now I am no longer Erin Patterson’s victim, and she has become the victim of my kindness.’
Despite her shameless façade of emotion, Patterson never shed a single tear throughout a painful morning of self-truths.
In total, 28 people submitted victim impact statements to the court, with only Mr Wilkinson and his daughter Ruth Dubois reading theirs directly to Patterson in court.
As Mr Wilkinson continued to outline his grief, the weight of the moment became apparent. Recalling the public and media’s morbid fascination with his wife’s killer nearly broke his brave speech.
‘It’s one of the distressing shortcomings of our society that so much attention is showered on those that do evil and so little on those that do good,’ he said.
It was a point not lost on the dozens of people who crammed into courtroom four to watch the pre-sentence hearing.
Members of the public lined up out the door to get one of the few seats in the court’s public gallery, with some true crime fans even flying in from overseas to attend.
The dining table where Erin Patterson served up her deadly lunch
Patterson had used a popular recipe book to cook up the deadly meal
With public seats restricted by the large contingent of reporters in attendance, up to a dozen different people tried to gain access by pretending to be the lone court sketch artist who had been given a prime spot among the media contingent.
‘The greatest impact of Erin’s actions on me has been to deprive me of Heather’s company and Heather’s important place in our family,’ Mr Wilkinson said.
‘The silence in our home is a daily reminder. I continue to carry a heavy burden of grief over her untimely death.
‘It’s a truly horrible thought to live with that somebody decided to take her life. I only feel half alive without her.’
Addressing the ghoulish fascination, Mr Wilkinson broke down in tears and needed to take a short break before composing himself and continuing on.
Mr Wilkinson paid tribute to the friends Patterson had cruelly taken from him.
‘My life is greatly impoverished without them,’ he said.
Mr Wilkinson told Patterson about the awful physical toll her actions had caused him.
Don and Gail Patterson suffered slow and painful deaths after eating the beef Wellingtons
Heather Wilkinson was adored by her husband and family
Erin Patterson in the prison van during her trial in Morwell, in Victoria’s east
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‘I very, very nearly died,’ Mr Wilkinson said.
‘It has taken me the best part of two years for my health and strength to recover to the point that they have.
‘I praise God for my miraculous healing, and I thank the many medical professionals who strive to save all four of us. They threw everything into our care.
‘I joke that I know this because I have a bump on the back of my head from the kitchen sink.’
Mr Wilkinson said his health had never returned to how it was before the fateful lunch.
‘I have reduced kidney function, ongoing respiratory issues and reduced energy,’ he said.
‘And I’ve had to face the many challenges of re-establishing life without Heather,’ he said.
‘I’m suddenly single. The heartbreak of having to wind up her affairs, returning to pastoral work without her help and sage advice, unsettled sleep, nobody to share in life’s daily tasks, which has taken much of the joy of pottering about the house and the garden.
Erin Patterson hands over a ‘burner phone’ to a detective after police conducted a search at her home in the days that followed the lunch
‘Nobody to debrief with at the end of the day. The impacts are so many and varied – some big and myriad of small things.’
When it was time for his daughter to give her statement, Mr Wilkinson stood closely by to offer some kind of comfort in an unimaginably uncomfortable situation.
Ms Dubois went into detail about the kind and caring relationship she had with her mother.
‘Her final conversations with us were not about herself she was more concerned about our family,’ she said.
But the anger felt by Ms Dubois, who, like her father, attended almost every day of Patterson’s murder trial, could not be contained.
‘It is difficult to comprehend how someone could spend months planning this out, researching, collecting the items needed, making the lunch invitation, preparing the meal, sit through eating it, and then to carry on with normal life, all while knowing what tremendous harm that was being caused, followed up by the extraordinary lies and the absolute lack of care shown for the victims,’ she said.
‘There were multiple times during this process when she could have stopped, she could have cancelled the plans.
‘She could have thought about the consequences, been honest, helped the medical staff, potentially changed the outcome, but instead, at every step of the way she chose to follow through.’
When finished, family member Naomi Gleadow was called to read the victim impact statements of those that could not face delivering them in person.
Simon Patterson did not give his victim impact statement in person
The final resting place of Don and Gail Patterson
Like Ms Dubois before him, Tim Patterson, Don’s nephew, expressed anger at Patterson’s cold-blooded actions.
‘Why did Erin decide that she’d make her life’s work a portrait of death and destruction?’ he pondered.
‘Why did she decide to focus her expertly hidden wrath upon the most selfless group of loving people I’ve ever known?
‘Why would God choose such a violent end for those that gave their lives to him?
‘I guess that’s the final injustice in all of this, the lack of explanation, reason, or remorse.’
The last statement to be read was that of Simon Patterson – the father of the killer’s two children.
Mr Patterson outlined the grief those children were now forced to live with for the remainder of their lives.
‘Like all of us, they face the daunting challenge of trying to comprehend what she has done,’ he said.
‘The grim reality is they live in an irreparably broken home with only a solo parent, when almost everyone else knows their mother murdered their grandparents. None of these hurdles that my children face are easy for them to overcome.
‘The fact these foreseeable hurdles were actively put in front of them by their own mother is an impact we will wrestle with for the rest of our lives.’
The hearing continues.
