Erin Patterson has been accused of tampering with prison food and making an inmate sick while working in the jail kitchen, it’s reported.
The allegation was allegedly made by the inmate who said they became ill after eating the food she prepared at Melbourne’s Dame Phyllis Frost Centre in Australia where she’s being held.
Patterson was found guilty earlier today of three counts of murder and one of attempted murder today after serving a beef wellington lunch containing poisonous death cap mushrooms she had foraged.
The inmate says she fell ill after having a dispute with Patterson and believes the 50-year-old was to blame, the Herald Sun reports.
According to a Corrections Victoria source who spoke to the Daily Mail Australia, Patterson had been given a job in the prison kitchen despite the nature of the crime she was charged with.
Her supporters say the inmate’s poisoning accusation is baseless.
Following her conviction at the Supreme Court in Melbourne, Patterson faces life in prison and will be sentenced at a later date.
In 2023 the mother-of-two served the individually cooked beef wellingtons at her home in Leongatha to her parents-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson, Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson and Heather’s husband pastor Ian Wilkinson.
All four guests became ill, with all but Wilkinson dying.
During a nine-week trial the jury was asked to decide if she knew the lunch contained death caps, and if she intended for her guests to die.
Prosecutors did not offer a motive for the killings but had pointed out strained relations between Patterson and her estranged husband, and frustration that she had felt about his parents in the past.
The defence claimed there was no reason why she would want to kill the couples, as she had just moved to a beautiful new home, was financially comfortable and was due to begin studying for a degree in nursing and midwifery.
But prosecutors suggested Patterson had two faces – the woman who publicly appeared to have a good relationship with her parents-in-law, while her private feelings about them were kept hidden.
Her estranged husband Steven Patterson was also invited to the deadly lunch but decided to not to go.
Police have previously said she may have attempted to poison Simon on three separate occasions between 2021 and 2022.
Patterson claimed she did not become ill after eating the wellington because she threw up afterwards because of an eating disorder.
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