The doctor who led the fight to save Erin Patterson’s mushroom poisoning victims described the horrifying effects of the toxins that alarmed his team and raised suspicions that they were dealing with a killer.
Dr Stephen Warrillow, director of intensive care at Austin Health in Victoria, said the four patients who had eaten the beef wellington dish cooked by Patterson were among the sickest he had ever seen.
Patterson, 50, was found guilty this week of murdering her former husband’s parents, Gail and Donald Patterson, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, and of attempting to murder Heather’s husband, Ian.
Patterson had invited them for a meal at her home in Morwell, Victoria, on 29 July 2023 and served them beef wellington containing toxic mushrooms.
They fell sick shortly afterwards and died, except Ian, who survived after a period in hospital.
She had also invited her estranged husband, Simon Patterson, to the lunch, but he cancelled the day before because he was feeling too “uncomfortable” amid rising tensions between them.
Dr Warrillow described to the ABC how each of the four guests spiralled into multi-organ failure despite the best efforts of his team.
The four patients were “devastatingly unwell”, Dr Warrillow recalled, but what rang the alarm bells for his team was they all showed the same pattern of organ failure, which pointed to a common and powerful toxin.
“Certainly, the sickest patients in the whole state,” he said, “but it is unusual to have four patients similarly afflicted and they were critically ill with multiple organ failure.”
The triple murder trial of Patterson gripped Australia for over two months as shocking details emerged of how she had murdered three of her estranged husband’s relatives.
Patterson denied deliberate poisoning and contended she had no reason to murder her elderly in-laws. But the jury rejected her defence that the inclusion of toxic mushrooms in the meal was a terrible accident.
The death cap mushroom toxin first attacks the liver and the damage quickly spreads. Kidney failure follows, then circulatory collapse and broader metabolic failure.
“Once the liver fails, it tends to drag down all the other organs with it,” Dr Warrillow pointed out.
The four patients were put on mechanical ventilators and dialysis machines to purify their blood.
Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson became too sick to be even considered for liver transplants, the lead doctor said. Don Patterson was able to get one but could not be saved.
“Liver transplantation is one of the most complex and lengthy surgical procedures that we would ever do. The patient has to be sick enough to need one, but well enough to get through the surgery,” Dr Warrillow said.
Ian Wilkinson, a local pastor, was only saved due to “extraordinary work by the bedside clinical team” at the ICU despite his multiple organ failure, Dr Warrillow said.
His family was told he might not survive but measures supporting his circulation to try to clear toxins from his blood helped.
“He had very high levels of acid in his blood, higher levels of ammonia toxin in his blood, and looked very much like he was likely to die,” the doctor recalled. “It’s quite a remarkable outcome for him that he was ultimately able to survive and could recover so well in the end.”
Dr Chris Webster, who treated Heather Wilkinson before the incident, said her death was “particularly distressing”. He described the couple as “humble, softly spoken, unassuming and respectful of each other”.
Dr Webster said that he immediately suspected Patterson of foul play after she had told him the mushrooms came from Woolworths.
He described her demeanour as “evil” and “sociopathic” and said her lack of concern after being told she might have been exposed to a deadly toxin raised serious alarm.
Recalling Patterson's behaviour at the hospital, Dr Webster said she sat just metres away from two of the critically ill victims, Ian and Heather, without showing the slightest concern.
“That absence of concern for the wellbeing of Ian and Heather, I found that quite stark in terms of its oddness,” he said. “It contributed to the ongoing tapestry in my mind of her culpability.”
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