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The woman in Australia who cooked a meal using mushrooms suspected to have caused the deaths of three of her relatives gave a written statement to police on Friday insisting that the fatalities were a tragic accident.
Erin Patterson, who has not been charged in connection with the case which has gripped Australia, said she too was hospitalized after eating the beef wellington. Authorities say Patterson’s 70-year-old parents-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson, as well as Gail’s 66-year-old sister, Heather Wilkinson, displayed symptoms associated with the ingestion of death cap mushrooms before they died following the lunch at Patterson’s home in the town of Leongatha around 70 miles southeast of Melbourne on July 29.
Heather Wilkinson’s husband, Ian Wilkinson, 68, was also left in critical condition after consuming the mushrooms. He remains in hospital while waiting for a liver transplant. Police said last week that Patterson is being treated as a suspect in their investigation into the deaths but that detectives are keeping an open mind. The mushrooms have not yet been definitively ruled as causing the fatalities.