A woman accused of having killed parents-in-law with poisoned wellington beef is expressed during the trial

Erin Patterson, 50, is accused of having killed the parents-in-law Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail Heatchinson’s sister, as well as the attempted murder of Heather’s husband, the local pastor Ian Wilkinson, by serve them mushrooms from the death cap In a Wellington beef meal, she prepared for them in 2023.

Later in the evening, the four guests of Patterson “fell ill”, with only Ian Wilkinson surviving after being hospitalized.

While the prosecutors insist that it served them the deadly dish on purpose, Patterson maintained his innocence – with his defense team insisting that she did not mean any harm and it was not a “tragedy and a terrible accident”.

Patterson took a position for the first time on Monday, the defense calling on him to testify after the prosecutors wrapped their file against her. She first talked about her relationship with the son of Don and Gail, Simon Patterson, who began in 2005 before the couple was tied in 2007.

By Sydney Morning HeraldErin said that before getting married, she was an atheist who was trying to convert the Christian Simon by her side. “But things happened in the opposite direction and I became a Christian,” she said, after having lived what, in her words, “can be better described as a spiritual experience” after having gone with him to the Church.

On the stand, she would have credited Gail for having supported her after the “traumatic” birth of the couple’s first baby – saying that Simon’s parents “came very quickly” to help.

“Don and Gail came very quickly. It would have been only a few weeks,” she said. “I remember being really relieved that Gail is there because I really felt out of my depth.”

After a trip through Australia in 2009 with Simon and their 3 month old son, Erin said that she and her husband were separating for the first time when she returned to Perth. They would meet, before finally to separate for good in 2015. By Erin, however, she and Simon had a solid relationship of coparer.

“Obviously, our relationship had trouble provoking separation, (but) it was really important for us to cooperate (our son) and to make it as easy as possible,” she said, by ABC News Australia. “Mainly what we struggled with in all our relationship … It was, we just couldn’t communicate well when we were disagreeing on something.”

“We could never communicate in a way that would make each of us feel heard and understood,” she added, even if she described their global relationship as “functional”.

At the beginning of 2023, she said, she began to feel more distance between her and her parents-in-law too and saw it less and less-because, in part, when she left the same city than them.

“I had felt for a few months that my relationship with the wider family of Patterson, in particular Don and Gail, may have had a little more distance or space between us,” she said. “I had started to have worries that Simon no longer wanted me to get too involved with the family. Maybe I was not invited to so much.”

Speaking of her own mental state before death, Patterson said that she was fighting against low self -esteem and weight gain, and that “planned to undergo weight loss surgery”.

“And more than I did incursions at the average age, the less I felt good about my skin, I suppose,” she said, concluding her testimony for the day. She will be back on the stand on Tuesday.

According to The guardianHis testimony comes after the guest of the surviving dinner, Ian Wilkinson, took a position for the accusation – claiming that Erin would have served their meals on gray plates, before sitting with a smaller and orange -colored plate.

Erin’s lawyer also said during the opening declarations that she too fell ill after eating the same meal, but not at the extremes as her guests. He also denied having deliberately tried to find mushrooms of the decline in death while looking for their meal.

After the death of Heather and Gail, but before Don’s death, Erin actually spoke with journalists in front of his house.

“I am devastated by what happened,” she said, calling Heather and Gail “some of the best people I have ever met.” She said that her mother-in-law was like the mother that she “did not have” after her death four years ago, adding that she “was never good and kind to me”.

“They have never hurt me,” she said about Wilkinsons. “I am so devastated what happened and the loss of the community and families and my own children who have lost their grandmother.”

When he asked her questions about lunch, she told journalists: “What I can tell you is that I just can’t understand what happened. I just can’t understand what happened … I pray that (gift) pass, because my children love it. I am devastated, I love them, I can’t believe it.”

A journalist also asked questions about detectives saying that she was considered a suspect at the time.

“I say that I did not do anything. I loved them and I have devastated that they left and I hope that with each fiber of my being that don passes,” she said, before entering the inside and avoiding any questions where the mushrooms came from.