Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Spurned Woman POISONS IN-LAWS DEAD with Fancy 'Home Made' BEEF WELLINGTON

Episode Date: January 2, 2024

Erin Patterson tries to enlist her estranged husband's family to help reunite the family.  Patterson cooks a big meal of Beef Wellington and invites her ex, Simon Patterson, as well as Simon's parents Gail and Don Patterson. Erin also invites Gail's sister Heather and her pastor husband, Ian Wilkinson to the dinner.  Simon Patterson cancels at the last minute. The rest of the family enjoys the meal.  Gail Patterson, 70, and her husband, Don, 70, both get sick within a day of eating the food.  Gail Patterson's sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66, and her husband Pastor Ian Wilkinson, also get sick. All three die a few days later. Much beloved Pastor Ian Wilkinson survives the meal but now needs a liver transplant.   Police opened an investigation saying the people who fell ill and died displayed symptoms of having eaten death cap mushrooms. Erin Patterson is arrested and charged with 3 counts of murder and 5 counts of attempted murder. The 49-year-old maintains her innocence and stresses she did not intentionally poison her guests.     Joining Nancy Grace Today: Jarrett Ferentino – Homicide Prosecutor in Pennsylvania; Host: “True Crime Boss” Podcast; Facebook & Instagram: Jarrett Ferentino  Dr. Bethany Marshall – Psychoanalyst (Beverly Hills); Twitter: @DrBethanyLive/ Instagram & TikTok: drbethanymarshall; Appearing in the new show, “Paris in Love” on Peacock Chris McDonough – Director At the Cold Case Foundation, Former Homicide Detective; Host of YouTube channel: “The Interview Room” Joe Scott Morgan – Professor of Forensics: Jacksonville State University, Author, “Blood Beneath My Feet,” and Host: “Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan;” Twitter: @JoScottForensic Dr. Lyle D. Burgoon, Ph.D. – Toxicology Expert, President and CEO of Raptor Pharm & Tox, Ltd., and Fellow of the Academy of Toxicological Sciences; Critical Science Podcast: https://critscipod.com; Twitter/X: @DataSciBurgoon Nicole Partin - CrimeOnline.com Investigative Reporter; Twitter: @nicolepartin   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. How does a woman go from a life of privilege after she inherits wealth and property to being questioned regarding a mushroom lunch. Okay, let that sink in. A woman with vast wealth and property now is being questioned about a mushroom lunch. Mushrooms. I can take them or leave them. Don't love them. Don't hate them. But I'm looking at them now completely differently after a fatal mushroom lunch. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here

at Crime Stories and on Sirius XM 111. First of all, who is she? Who is the mushroom chef? Listen to this. Erin and her sister sign when grow up in the suburbs with their parents, Heather and Aiden Scudder. Her father's a government worker, and her mother, Dr. Heather Scudder, became a university lecturer in 19th century literature. As an adult, Erin Scudder takes an air traffic control course and begins work at a local airport. Coworkers say she's a bit of a genius as an air traffic controller. A few years later, Erin marries Simon Patterson. The two met in college and have two children, a son and a daughter. The Pattersons stay married a few years, but differences lead to a divorce. It appears to

be an amiable one. Appears to be an amiable one. And in fact, by all accounts, it is. They co-parent the children. A wealthy mother of two, Aaron Patterson led a life of privilege. So how did that take a U-turn? And where did all the money come from? Listen. When Erin Patterson's parents die, she inherits enough money to purchase several local properties outright. With no mortgages to pay, she builds a multi-million dollar property portfolio. The Daily Mail refers to her as a wealthy heiress. The money allows her to live

without having to work a steady job and gives her time to be with her two children. Okay, that sounds good to me. Who gets to have all that money and property without working a steady job? I like the part about being with the children all the time, but how is she perceived to be a chef, a mushroom chef. And what happened to that beef Wellington? I've got a lot of questions and I'm sure so do the police and so do family members of Gil Patterson, Don Patterson, Heather Wilkinson, Ian Patterson, and Simon Patterson. I bet they'd like to know all the answers. How did we get to that Beef Wellington lunch? Listen.

Erin Patterson and her husband Simon are separated, but maintain a good relationship. Could there be a reconciliation at hand? Patterson puts together a brunch with her estranged husband, her in-laws, her mother-in-law's sister, and her pastor husband to discuss the relationship. Eric Patterson, according to the Daily Mail, believes the family would side with her in trying to convince Simon to get back together. Okay, joining me, an all-star panel, including a mycologist, the author of Fungipedia, a brief compendium of mushroom lore.

You can find him at LawrenceMillman.com. But first, to Ash Short, senior editor of the Daily Wire. Ash, thank you for being with us. Absolutely. Ash, question. I want to hear about Erin Patterson. I want to hear who is she? What kind of chef is she? Why the interest in mushrooms? And who's dead? Well, Erin Patterson, I mean, apparently she regularly cooked. And, you know, if you're making beef Wellington, I mean, that's not exactly an easy dish. So, you know, she had to have had some experience making this. Well, hold on.

As short, there's always a first time. My husband gave me, at my request, blame me, the entire Julie Child cookbook collection. And I bravely waded into it. I started with a cocoa van. So there's a first time for everything, whether you're good at it or not. Okay, go ahead. So maybe this was her first time. I mean, I would assume that she had, you know, made this before.

If you're going to try and make this dinner or this lunch for people that you're trying to reconcile with their son, you know, I wouldn't use that for the time to experiment. True. use that for the time to experiment. But within days, three people, that means Aaron Patterson's ex-in-laws, Gail and Don, died along with Gail's sister, Heather. They died. And then Ian, the aunt-in-law's husband, he was released some weeks later, finally recovering enough to be released from the hospital. So let me understand something, Ash Short, DailyWire.com. Aaron Patterson wanted to get back with Simon. Now, you know it's serious when you call the preacher and you enlist the preacher to try to work a reconciliation. So the whole family, all of the in-laws, the sister, the love object, her ex-husband, and the preacher, everybody's

going to get together and they're all over for lunch. So as short, the husband, and this is all to get him back on board with reconciliation. The husband can't make it. Right. He backed out at the last minute. Oh, wait, that's a big difference. And can't make it. And was it no show backed out? So which one is it?

Did he just say, yeah, I'm not going. Or did something happen and he could not make it? Something happened and he couldn't. He backed out at the last minute. OK. I'm not exactly. Or did something happen and he could not make it? Something happened and he couldn't. He backed out at the last minute. Okay. I'm not exactly sure what it is. Okay. Does anybody on the panel actually know what a beef wellington is?

Oh, yeah. I love it. Well, I've got to go to Lawrence Millman on this. Mycologist. Lawrence Millman, author of Fungipedia, a brief compendium of mushroom lore. I don't know how brief it is. Lawrence, what's a beef wellington? You do have to have mushrooms.

Well, I'm an authority on mushrooms, but not on beef wellingtons. You've just lost all credibility, Millman. I'm sorry. If you don't know about every mushroom recipe. I'm sorry. There's no mushroom named beef wellington. There's how many to follow these.

Who just said, I love Beef Wellington? Was that Robin Dreek? Yes, I love Beef Wellington. Okay, you're now the Wellington expert. Dreek, you're in. Milman, you're out. With me is Robin Dreek joining us. Robin is... Napoleon was out too, so I'm in good company. He was out of

Wellington. Behavior expert, former FBI special agent. Now listen to this. Chief of the FBI Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program. As much as I scream how much I hate the feds, even though I was a fed for three years, they are incredible at the Counterintelligence behavioral analysis program. It's amazing. He's author of Sizing People Up, a Veteran FBI Agent's Manual for Behavior Prediction.

And you can find him at peopleformula.com. Robin Drake, I believe in addition to all that, that was you claiming you like Beef Wellington. You want to describe what it is or do I have to tell it? So I'll do the best I can because I'm not a foodie connoisseur. But yes, every holiday at our house, we have Beef Wellington and it is a beautiful, tender beef that is in a pastry. And wrapped in that pastry is basically some sort of mushroom compote that goes around it. So it's a mushroom glaze that is wrapped around that beef and then the pastry is rounded and then baked. So that's what it is. So yeah, mushrooms are heavily involved. My husband definitely knows the way to my heart is through my stomach. Okay, if you and I, he

actually took me out for Beef Wellington. And it's I've never made it myself and I love to cook but it's as you said a very tender piece of beef like it's nice and crispy on the outside of the beef on the inside it's just barely pink and then around that is this flaky like a Chris it's not croissant but it's croissant like all the way around it it's the beef is encased in this croissant type outer covering. And also in there are these really tender mushrooms. As he said, I like a compote and it's amazing. I've never even tried coq au vin.

Yes. Beef Wellington. No, I was not even tried. Coca-Vein, yes. Beef Wellington, no. I was not that adventurous. So my point is, and this is where the shrink comes in. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Dr. Michelle Joy is with me, forensic clinical academic psychiatrist, author of An Illustrated History of the Insanity Defense. Now, see, I would love to read that whole thing.

And I'm going to. I am going to finish it. An Illustrated History of the Insanity Defense. That could really help me in court. You can find Dr. Joy at West Philly Morbid Art. Dr. Michelle, thank you for being with us. If you want to impress somebody and you have them over for dinner, if you have the wherewithal, this is the thing to cook, right? My question to you is not about the foodie aspect of this, but the psychological implication. You're trying to get back with your ex. You want a

reconciliation. You enlist the preacher to speak to the family. You get the in-laws, and I mean the mother-in-law, the father-in-law, you got the sister, the brother, all everybody's in-laws coming to your place. And of course, shocker, the ex can't make it at the last minute. Right. I mean, that's a lot of effort, a lot of effort. It seems like that she was putting into this. Yeah. Forget about the sides. You can't just have just the beef Wellington. You got to have the salad and the greens and the blah, blah, blah. Okay. Go ahead. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, just the effort that's put into this, not only the cooking, right. You know, the shopping, whatever is kind of going into it, but coordinating this, inviting all of the people. I mean, that's consistent with really wanting to reconcile, right? It's in line with what she's saying that she wants to do those behaviors. But I do imagine that there was a sense of rejection from however it was communicated that her ex did not want to come, could not come right kind of at the last minute. And I imagine there was a big sense

of kind of rejection and feeling unwanted associated with not showing. What do you make of the Herculean effort? Listen, tonight is my mother's 92nd birthday. You know how long I've been working on supper? Two days. I'm making her her favorite cubed steak. Why cubed? Because it's easier for her to chew and she needs the red meat for her iron and her kidney. And I can't even remember what else. With sweet Vidalia onions and a special brown gravy I make, plus her favorite tender, fresh green beans. Okay. And I picked that for her and I've been working on it now. Seriously, today is day three. Okay. Because I love her and I want it to be special and wonderful. So if I've been working on this for three days, how long did she work on a beef wellington?

Some of us had to look it up on Google to make sure we even knew what it was. Explain what that means, doctor. And a lot of guys won't get this. Sorry, guys. Yes, I stereotype to you. But I'm telling you, it's an effort of love is what it is, Dr. Joy. Exactly. That's what I was going to say.

The act itself, this preparation is an act of nurturing and kind of caring. Food is a nurturing thing. That's how we think of it. And that act is an act of love and nurturing to spend so much time preparing a meal for someone. Lawrence Millman, joining me out of Cambridge, a mycologist, author of Fungipedia.

I've said this a couple of times, but I love this. Fungipedia. A brief compendium of mushroom lore. Lawrence, many people wrongly assume that if you cook mushrooms, you cook out the poison. For instance, people say, don't wash your chicken. It just spreads the germs all over the sink area. And when you cook it it's going to cook away the germs okay that might be true but not necessarily with mushrooms unlike

mushrooms chicken are not inherently poisonous so how does that work you cook the mushrooms that doesn't remove any poisonous aspect well Well, it doesn't at all. And with respect to the truly toxic mushrooms, and of course, there are different types of poisonous mushrooms. Okay, wait, Lawrence Millman, I got to get comfy because I can tell this is going to be good. Okay. Okay. Start over. Go ahead. I want to hear everything about poisonous mushrooms. Yeah. Well, there's some that cause gastroenterological problems. So it's a stomach upset, you know, opens the sluices at both ends, if you follow me. Yeah.

So on. And then there are very few. You don't want anything coming out the wrong end at supper. Go ahead. Well, right. But I mean, most of the poisonous ones are, you know, stomach upset, vomiting, etc. But there are a few. Go ahead and say it. Diarrhea. We say a lot worse on Crime Stories.

Diarrhea, know that. That's modest, modest, modest, modest. There are very few that go to the kidneys and the liver. And I believe we may be talking about one of those. Hold on just a moment. Wait a minute. When I hear poisonous mushrooms, I assume you're going to die. Absolutely not. No, they're poisonous. The word, you know, no, please let me educate you. Please do. After all, I'm a doctor. You know, I felt like saying Dr. Millman, but. Yeah, that's fine. But I mean, the great majority of the ones that are poisonous, and there's only a small portion, they're more poisonous plants, percentage-wise, than poisonous mushrooms.

But we don't go out and chew on a plant. I would no more go outside and chew on a pine straw than the man in the moon. But mushrooms, you know, that's, you know, open. I will eat it. Well, that's true, but this goes back a long time. It's called mycophobia. It's a phobic reaction toward mushrooms.

The same people have, people have phobic reactions to snakes and spiders. This is in that realm. I never heard this. Wait a minute. Well. Dr. Michelle Joy, you better look this up really quickly if you don't already know about it. I've never heard of it.

There is a mushroom phobia? Yes, it's called mycophobia. It goes back a long, long time. In the Middle Ages, people thought that mushrooms were all toxic because toads sat on them and imparted their venom to the mushrooms, and that's why they were called toadstools. Okay, I've never known that. Go ahead. Now you do. I do. Yes. But I want to hear some more about this. Look, in all the homicides I have prosecuted, all the ag assaults, I've never had a mushroom poisoning. Joe Scott Morgan, have you? Yeah, I have never, ever.

And I've worked a number of cases involving poisonous agents, but never a mushroom poisoning case. So I am completely all ears. Okay, hold on. Jackie's holding up. Mycophobia. Okay, go ahead. Yes, there are many, many mushroom poisoning mysteries, especially English mysteries, where a victim is poisoned purposely by a mushroom. Okay, wait a minute.

You said mysteries. You mean real mysteries or are you on BritBox? No, no, no. I mean murder mysteries by, yeah, by my English murder mystery writers. But in reality, far fewer. It's not common at all. Accidental poisonings, yes, but not purposeful ones. Not very common. I mean, if you watch BritBox, I'm talking, you know, oh, gosh, of course, Agatha Christie, you know, anything by her, which, of course, includes Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Or you could go with Father Brown. You could go with Sister Boniface.

You could go with Midsommar Mysteries. There's just so many directions to go on BritBox. And, yes, they love a good mushroom poisoning. But you're saying that that doesn't happen that often to the point that you die? Not that often. If you want to get rid of a person, you know, cooking mushrooms, picking the right mushroom and do so, it's a lot more complicated than other more simple ways of disposing of the person, you know, with a knife, a gun, or a club. I mean, with a mushroom, and also the other thing is that often, you know, it doesn't work

because the person will triumph over it. And each, there might be two of the same mushrooms right next to each other uh same species but they will have different uh amounts of the toxin so one person might die from eating it and the next person who eats the other one might just have a bad stomach ache. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Dr. Lawrence Millman is speaking with us from Cambridge. Dr. Millman, you stated that most often a mushroom poisoning, in your words, would simply result in vomiting, nausea, or diarrhea. Yes. And that is very rare that the person actually dies. Is that correct? It's very rare. When I'm talking about a poisoning, I'm talking mostly, I'm talking accidental poisonings.

And most, 99% of the time, sometimes idiosyncratic reactions to a mushroom, vomiting, diarrhea, etc. But the point is this, there are only a very few mushrooms that go farther and can work as murderers themselves. Not many. You have to know. And people, you know, most people who make mistakes, vomiting, diarrhea, you know, there's the very few that have caused deaths. Well, you said very rarely do mushrooms cause a death. Well, how about three deaths? Take a listen to our Cut 8 Crime Online. Erin Patterson prepares the family meal, a hearty beef wellington garnished with mushrooms. The two children eat something completely different simon patterson's parents gail patterson her husband don both get violently ill within a day of eating the wellington gail patterson's sister heather wilkinson and her husband ian wilkinson

all get sick and have to go to the hospital the next day all three died a few days later pastor ian wilkinson survives the meal but remains in the hospital in critical condition awaiting a liver transplant. A liver transplant? Okay, I'm worried about his liver transplant. What about the three dead people? Ash Short joining me, senior editor, The Daily Wire. Three dead and one needs a liver transplant? Right, I mean, that would have to be the kind of dangerous mushroom that we heard about earlier.

One of the few. They did find some death cap mushrooms in those who had died. Now, there's some issues with that. That they're normally found in autumn. And this lunch was in winter so you know it wouldn't be as though she could just walk outside and find them you know just around so either she would have had to have collected them and planned this whole thing or it was some sort of accident she said she got the mushrooms from two different grocery stores, one of which

was an Asian grocery store. Okay, wait a minute. My son is an Asian chef, believe it or not. He loves cooking and eating Asian food. We go very often to the Asian supermarket, and I don't even know what all that is. But you're right. Some of the things he picks out, I don't even know what it is. It looks all dried up. But it tastes wonderful. And you're telling me as short, she went to two stores, including an Asian grocery to get the mushrooms. That's what she ended up telling police. The Asian grocery store and others in the area completely denied selling any kind of dangerous mushrooms. And there were no recalls and no, you know, issues found in the days after this. But this is the only meal that all of these people

enjoyed together. So that's got to be the source is that meal. They all went their separate ways. That's the common link. Joe Scott Morgan joining me. Joseph Scott Morgan, professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University, author of Blood Beneath My Feet and host of a hit series, Body Bags with Joe Scott Morgan. Joe Scott, thank you for being with us. Joe Scott, we kind of, we were speaking with Ash Short from Daily Wire just then. I kind of glazed over when she said death cat mushrooms

were found in the victims. Okay, hold on right there. Could you describe to me the autopsy procedure where you actually look at the food the victim has in their stomach and why you do it. It's very often critical. It's critical in the sense that when we're trying to determine what's referred to as postmortem interval, relative to digestion, Nancy, the human body moves at a relatively predictable pace. Some of that is influenced certainly by an individual's own physiology. If they have some kind of disease process that's going on, you know, some kind of gastric problem that might inhibit their ability to process food. But most people are going to process food at a specific rate. So you're going to go first into the stomach and open the stomach, which we do in every autopsy, and check the contents.

And we'll collect the samples, actually. It's kind of fascinating. People might not realize this, but at autopsy, many times, particularly when it comes to vegetable matter, we can visually or grossly identify certain items that are still contained in the stomach at that point in time, like green leafy vegetables, that sort of thing. I've actually seen mushrooms in gastric content before. And so we would collect those to do analysis from that perspective. I recall a case where a victim had eaten a dessert. And you know how some people will actually eat the edible gold, actual gold.

Something seems very wrong about that to me. But anyway, that was still in the stomach. And they could identify, you know, started basically building a timeline based on that.

And as Joe Scott Morgan, who is an esteemed professor of forensics, and their criminal procedure, criminal justice program at Jacksonville State University is amazing. In fact, you and I did a reenactment there of the Ellen Greenberg murder, as I say, suicide, as they say. I want to go to Dr. Lawrence Millman. Dr. Millman, I understand you have a point you want to make. Please jump in. Well, the point is this, that in the U.S., a goodly percentage of people who die from eating death cap mushrooms are Asian. And it's because the death cap looks like a mushroom that grows in Southeast Asia and is found at markets. I would say well over two

thirds per year, and there's no more than a dozen or so a year deaths from eating this death cap. In the U.S., there's a dozen deaths from eating death cap. First of all, a mushroom named death cap mushroom. Why would you eat that? Number one, why would you even? They wouldn't know because they're mistaking it for a mushroom that grows that's edible that grows in asia in southeast asia they're making a mistake now can you imagine

are you referring to the amanita phalloidis amanita phalloidis very good i've been waiting all day to say that as soon as you came on. Okay. Waiting. Thank you. Okay, go ahead. Yeah. So one can perhaps imagine a similar mistake made once in one Asian market where specimens are collected. Oh, this looks like an edible. We find it at home, but it's not home. And they sell it or they dry it

and sell it because a lot of mushrooms that are sold are initially dried and then sold, people rehydrate them. Okay, hold on. As much as it pains me to say this. A defense for her is forming in my head based on what Dr. Lawrence Millman, who is an expert in the study of fungi, mushrooms. James Shelnut, a high-profile lawyer joining us out of Alabama, 27 years on big city metro area major case, former SWAT, now the head of the shell nut firm, the death cap mushroom. I innocently was describing shopping in the Asian market with my son and we've done it all. You know, tried to make our own sushi, make our own mochi, whatever it is, we've made it or tried to make it and we've eaten it all. And when I go with him, a lot of the things he picks out, I don't

even know what they are. They're shriveled up brown pieces of something. But once you cook them, they're delicious. And now I'm hearing Dr. Millman state that the death cap has a lookalike in Asia and that markets sometimes think that's what they're getting and they get the death cap. What if, and I'm certainly not saying this is true, but what if she goes in? I mean, is it a stretch to believe she wanted to kill the whole family after she's met with the preacher to try to engineer reconciliation? Did she go into an Asian market, not really understand what she was getting, trying to she gets the lookalike, but it's a death cap? Oh, it's very ironic, but not surprising that you make that statement, because as both of us who have prosecuted cases and put the bad guys in jail, bad women in jail, you know, you have to think like a defense lawyer is going to think. Well, that's how you win your

case. You shoot down their defense before they can raise it. I mean, what if she thought she was getting a puffball or a paddy straw. Those are two imposters of the death cap. Oh, I think it's absolutely a possibility, and that is going to be a defense. But do we believe it? After I knew we were going to cover this case, I did a little bit of research on mushrooms, and I don't have the knowledge that the doctor has. But I will tell you, also look, and those types of mushrooms are also indigenous to Australia. They were first identified in Australia in the 60s.

They are indigenous there. And not to take a right-hand turn, but I'd be very interested to know. So back to Dr. Lawrence Millman, I just threw out a little mushroom knowledge about the puffball or the patty straw. But I'm just wondering, is that the mushroom to which you're referring that is a lookalike or are there more? There are several others. No, there are various wild mushrooms that show up in markets in Asia that are lookalikes. Now, to me, I'm knowledgeable, it wouldn't be a lookalike. But to someone who is just interested in edibles and dining, but think, oh, this is exactly like it, and they won't know anything more, and they'll buy it, and it could be a problem. And also for a market, I mean, I'd say extremely

uncommon for one of these in the market, but let's say someone goes out and collects them and thinks, oh, this is just like our wonderful mushroom at home in Laos, and brings it to their own market, thinking that they're going to delight their customers with it. But delight isn't going to be the right word in the end. Wouldn't it be illegal for a market or supermarket to sell death cap mushrooms? No, no, they're not. Knowing that they're death cap, they're picking something and selling them that looks like, just as the folks, you know, in the U.S., the ones who die from this mushroom, a large percentage of them are from Asia because they've

mistaken it. So would perhaps, perhaps is the key word, a person who's selling them at a market. Oh, this looks like this is exactly the mushroom we have at home. It's so tasty. We'll sell it as a tasty mushroom. Nancy, can I just step in for a minute? Yes. Is this Ash or Dr. Joy? This is Ash. Ash. Hey, and Ash, I want to follow up before I lose that thought, especially if the mushrooms are dried. For me, anyway, it's a lot more difficult to tell what the hay they are when they're dried. Okay, jump in, Ash Short. So we have been talking about Asian grocers, and while it is a possibility,

the Asian grocers in the area where Erin Patterson lived rejected her claims. And there were never any health warnings or product recalls issued in relation to her lunch. So just want to put the counterpoint out there. And my question would be if they did have a death cat mushroom. Well, first of all, did she even go to those grocery stores? Can we confirm that? That's her story. Why would I believe her?

Is there a surveillance video? Is there a receipt? Is there anything to show she really did do that? And that's a problem in this case is because the police aren't, they're saying they're looking into this. They've collected a food dehydrator as if she had collected these mushrooms back in August when they were or autumn when they were in season and dried them out to be used later. But they sent that out for testing. We don't know the results of that testing. So we have all of these police kind of saying things without any. Sounds like a lot of loose ends. Great. Right, exactly. Yes, jump in, Joe Scott. Yeah, hey, look,

I got to tell you, from an investigative standpoint, if it were me and I was heading up the investigation, I would seek out individuals that rank with Dr. Millman in this particular area of the world, this geography, and ask them, listen, where is our largest concentration of this population? Where are they most commonly found? And take me to this location. And let's begin to look at this from the perspective of a true investigation where you've got the alleged perpetrator here that's kind of concentrically located.

Does this individual have access and opportunity? Does she have knowledge of this? Well, there's something else, Joe Scott. There's something else. Take a listen to our Cut 7, Sidney Sumner, Crime Online. While Erin Patterson hopes the family dinner will convince her ex-husband to give their marriage another try, the family has something else in mind. Simon Patterson cancels at the last minute. The Daily Mail reports Erin Patterson is wrong in thinking she has the

support of the Patterson family. The family reportedly thinks there is something off about Erin and they don't think it's wise for Simon to reunite with her. A family friend says this wasn't lunch. It was an intervention with the pastor, Ian Wilkinson, as mediator. Simon is not interested in getting back together. Okay, that changes everything for me. Because now we know the family did not want the reconciliation. She had to know that. He, the love object, the husband, the father of her children did not want a reconciliation.

And I'm just wondering why they went through with it. That changes the entire dynamic, Dr. Michelle Joy. Right. That's exactly what I was thinking. But as one of the other guests was saying, did she know it? And when did she find out? I mean, given this context of how long this meal takes to prepare, I mean, were these ongoing conversations he canceled at the last minute? Did she really know for these multiple days that this was a rejection, you know, or even that far in the past if she had collected and, you know, dehydrated these mushrooms?

I think there's so much about timeline here. But yes, I mean, it was probably felt at some point in some way as a rejection, not only by him, but by the whole family. But still, you know, those kind of pieces of the puzzle are still a bit confusing to me. And according to the grocery stores, they don't sell that mushroom. Do we even know she bought them? Because we're learning something new, another piece of the puzzle. Listen to Cut 9. Police begin investigating the deaths. Four of the seven people at Erin Patterson's house the day she serves beef wellington garnish with mushrooms get sick. Two, her children. They ate something different. The remaining adult is

Erin Patterson herself. She doesn't get sick either. As the investigation progresses, police reveal the reason why they think everyone got sick. They all displayed symptoms of having eaten death cap mushrooms, which reportedly grow wild near Erin's house. Grow wild near their home? What else do I know about a death cap mushroom? Listen. Amanita phalloides is also known as a death cap mushroom. Its large domed cap looks fairly innocuous, similar to many edible wild mushrooms, but as the name suggests, it is deadly poisonous. A death cap smells sickly, sweet, and rancid as it matures, but in its button stage, it is virtually odorless. Death caps grow in forests, particularly under oak and beech trees. It only takes ingesting very little of the cap to be lethal, and its symptoms don't always appear right away.

Thousands have died mistaking death caps for edible mushrooms. Note, death caps contain the poison aminatin and are responsible for 90% of deaths by fungus with half a cap or even less enough to kill a person. Half a cap or less? When we're saying cap, Dr. Lawrence Millman, that's the top of the mushroom? That's the top. Like the umbrella? The umbrella-like shape of it, yes. But you can, by the way, people often ask, can you touch a toxic mushroom?

And you can touch it all you want. You need to get a chunk of it in your stomach. You can smell it too. And I've often said that the odor is something like a hospital sick room of amnitofloides. Why would anybody eat that? Well, you know, they may have not smelled it. They might. But, you know, we're talking everybody. You said everybody. But we're talking about a very sparse number of people who've died. I mean, as I said, maybe 12 people a year, 12, 14 people a year in the U.S. die. More people die from dog bites than from eating this mushroom.

Well, I don't want either. But that said, is this the first time? Wait for it. Take a listen to our cut 13. Questions arise when investigators discover ex-husband Simon Patterson spent three weeks in the hospital while he was still married to Erin. According to a Facebook post, a mystery illness put him in intensive care for 21 days after he collapsed at his home while suffering from an undiagnosed stomach illness. Simon Patterson says he was placed into an induced coma, enduring three emergency operations,

mainly on his small intestines. Patterson says his family was asked to come and say goodbye to him twice as he was not expected to live. The couple are believed to have separated soon afterwards. Patterson says his family was asked to come and say goodbye to him twice as he was not expected to live. The couple are believed to have separated soon afterwards. Okay, a tiny bit more before I go to Joe Scott Morgan and our mushroom expert, Dr. Milnen. Lesson 14.

Several friends tell Daily Mail that Simon Patterson had not suspected the mystery illness to be linked to foul play. But with the death of family members, Simon Patterson is questioning whether his illness may also have been due to inadvertently ingesting toxic mushrooms. Court documents allege Aaron Patterson tried to kill her estranged husband three times between November 2021 and September 2022. Police are now looking at medical records. Okay, Joe Scott Morgan, they call the priest three times. They call the family to come say goodbye to the husband. This occurs while they're still married and living together three weeks in the hospital. Had to have portions of his small intestine, three emergency operations. Help me out, Joe Scott. What happened? Well, he presents probably, which a lot of these people do, it sounds like, with a condition similar to gastroenteritis. You know, when you show up and you've got diarrhea, nausea, vomiting perhaps, you might present in kind of a confused state. And, you know, to Dr. Millman's point, and this is really fascinating relative to how

this thing is kind of masked, just like he had mentioned, there are very few of these fatal poisoning events with this mushroom. Get this. If you're a clinician, you're an ER physician, and you're treating these folks, and they roll in, you're not going to, you hear hoofbeats, and you're not going to think camel, Nancy. You know, they're thinking they're going to treat this as if it's some kind of, you know, gastrointestinal disturbance at first. And the thing about this particular mushroom and the way it presents is that you go through this first cycle of exposure to this where, you know, your guts are all torn up, you feel horrible. And then you begin to kind of, you get a little bit better and it goes into what they,

it's kind of like a dormant phase, but it's not dormant. The toxins in the same begin, begin at a cellular level. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I just snapped out of my reverie. When you said cellular level, I'm like a snake charmer. Like I'm listening to Joe Scott Morgan and I'm hearing intestinal gastroenteritis, cellular level. And bam, the main thing I'm thinking, Shelnut, James Shelnut, court documents allege Aaron Patterson tried to kill her estranged husband three times between November 21 and September 22. To H-E-double-L with the supermarket, the woman's already suspected of trying to kill the husband three times already. Oh, yeah, absolutely. You know, it's going to be real interesting.

I'm sure the police have already requested this as to what research this lady has done. You know, this is not something that the normal person has some some super knowledge on. You have to have researched this. I mean, when I want to make a mushroom dish, which my husband is the one that loves the mushrooms. I go to Instacart and I go blah, blah, blah. I don't even know what I get. And that's what goes in. I get it from Kroger or Publix or Ingles.

I'm not worried. What is that shriveled up little piece of something? I don't even know what goes in. I get it from Kroger or Publix or Ingalls. I'm not worried. What is that shriveled up little piece of something? I don't even know what that is. Three times, three times court documents reveal the ex thought she was trying to kill him. And let me go to ask short with daily wire. What can you tell me about, you know, that dehydrator that she would have possibly picked mushrooms and dehydrated them to use later? What happened to that dehydrator? Because apparently she told police that she dumped the appliance, quote, a long time ago.

Right. But she then, in a statement that she handed over to police, she admitted that she dumped that food dehydrator in a panic after her ex-husband accused her of poisoning his parents. So it hadn't been a long time ago. Okay, wait a minute. Can I just tell you something that just happened? And everybody's got to weigh in. My mom fell asleep in a chair. And she fell off the chair and hit her head. Mm hmm. And she said she was fine. But I rushed her to the hospital just to make sure there was not a bruise.

There was no blood. But just to make sure she didn't bump her head and somehow get a slow brain bleed like I talk about all the time. The first thing I did was not get rid get rid of all the nanny cam footage in the house and turn my phone into airplane mode and rent a car to take her to the hospital or why? Because that's not what's on my mind. Why did this woman feel she had to get rid of the dehydrator. So what if he said, you killed my family? Why would that lead her to kill her dehydrator? I mean, to dump her dehydrator. Robin Drake joining me. He is the expert in behavioral analysis.

Robin Drake, that's screaming guilt to me. Yeah, and she made one statement that I've really zeroed in on on this case so far. And that is, she says, I really want to repeat that I had no reason to hurt these people whom I love. These people, she has a separation from them. So if she's doing this out of love, that's a weird thing to say. I mean, think about this. You've never referred to your mother as that mother or anything else. This is my mother. So there's no possessive pronoun in there whatsoever. And so that was really telling to me. You know what? I'm so glad you said that because I hadn't thought of that, Robin's Reek. When you said mother, I thought of my mother-in-law who, mother-in-law and my

father-in-law, do you know, I've known them since 79, never had a crossword with them in all those years ever. I would never say that woman. I would never call Mrs. Lynch that woman ever. Very telling. It really is, Robin, and you just picked up on that. Okay, James Shelnut, weigh in. Well, you know, the first thing I'm thinking is. I thought you were going to say she's in a whole heap of trouble.

Go ahead. That's a fact. But I will tell you this. Look, if you really believe, if you really believe that these mushrooms that you bought from this store are the source of this. You know, the first thing I'm doing, I'm saying, hey, here's my credit card statement where I bought these mushrooms. Here's my receipt where I bought these mushrooms. This is the day that I was in. Go back and check the cameras.

I was there. I want these people held accountable. I'm not getting rid of evidence. I'm trying to help them build a case against the people who sold the mushrooms. You are so right. I also didn't think of that. This is Ash short again. Sorry.

A counterpoint that could possibly be in Erin's defense is that you're told that, you know, these mushrooms that you put in your dehydrator killed some people. Could you panic and just throw it away because you're afraid of touching it or having it near in your kitchen to poison other people. Well, I would think she'd be afraid, even if she is innocent, that she would be charged and get rid of the evidence. But back to shell nut, some people like me, I would say I did use the mushrooms and I got them at this place and I dehydrated them here. But I never had any idea that there, as Dr. Millman is telling us, that they were death caps. I totally agree. Innocent people offer transparency and she's not being transparent. Dr. Joy, jump in. What do you think? Well, I was going to say, you know, in there, this is maybe not the most psychiatric thing that I've ever said, but at least from my experience in the area that I live, people do forage mushrooms.

They also sell mushrooms that they forage to restaurants. They sell them to markets. And so I just wanted to go back to that statement about the market not, quote, having these mushrooms. I mean, people, that is a possibility, too, at least within the area that I live. You don't know where every single mushroom is coming from, even at the markets and the restaurants. So, you know, again, not the most psychiatric thing that I've ever said, but definitely from that perspective. I mean, going to the actual question at hand, though, I really think so much of it depends on when he canceled, when these conversations were about him, you know, the family not wanting to reconcile and that timeline of her cooking, preparing the meals and the meal and when she got the mushrooms.

Really, that's what it's down to for me, because if she didn't know those things before she spent these days, you know, preparing, I don't feel that even the sense of rejection would have mattered no matter how intense it was. But you've also got to take into account the other three alleged incidents where she tried to kill her husband, according to him. Correct. Jackie's question is, would the residue from death cat mushrooms in the dehydrator taint other food? That's her question. Lawrence Millman, we need help. Can you help us?

Well, let me offer a suggestion, first of all. I mean, it doesn't take a Sherlock Holmes to see that all the other people got sick, but she did not. There is a point on that. Now, granted, you have to take Erin, in her statement to police, said that she had gone to the hospital with stomach pains and was given a liver drug. Now, the police obviously have to check that. We don't know.

Just like so many other things in this case, we don't know what police have checked. But we do know that she's charged. Right. She has been charged. So maybe they did find these things and are just not telling us. She also told police that her kids ate the meal as leftovers, but they scraped the mushrooms off because they don't like them. What a coinkydink. And that's a technical legal phrase that she didn't end up having a liver transplant or die, and her children don't like mushrooms, in her words, and they scrape them off.

So she and her two children live with no liver transplant. Everybody else gets horribly, horribly ill or dies. Now, what were you saying, Dr. Millman? No, I was just mentioning that, the fact that she didn't seem to get sick. But now I find out that she did get sick. Well, we don't know that, Dr. Millman, just because she said she was sick. She also said she didn't use the dehydrator.

Is there proof of her going to the hospital? I have no proof she went to the hospital. Zero. Yeah. No, it's very interesting. And what the liver problem is, probably the most dramatic one. One of the ways in which people on the road to death might survive is by being given a liver transplant. This inhibits cell division. The cells essentially are no longer alive and the body responds accordingly. So, you know, it attacks cells.

It's the amatoxins that are there. They attack cells and make cell division difficult, if not impossible. And the other thing is that toward the beginning, outward symptoms don't even begin until considerable cell damage is done. That's a big problem. This is what I know as the case stands now. The testimony from the sole survivor of the deadly mushroom lunch could be crucial to the outcome of this case.

Let's hope he lives. We wait as justice unfolds. Goodbye. This is an iHeart Podcast.