Lawyers point finger to app in case of woman who allegedly killed her family after feeding them deathly mushrooms

Lawyers are referencing an app in the case of a woman who allegedly killed her family after feeding them deathly mushrooms.

The world has been left gripped by an ongoing trial currently taking place in Australia where Erin Patterson is being accused of murdering three people after allegedly serving them beef wellington laced with death cap mushrooms.

Patterson’s defence have argued that this was not done deliberately.

And now a new element has been added to the story.

Nine

Prosecutors have now claimed that Patterson used a phone app called iNaturalist to find a location where death cap mushrooms grow in order to forage them for the fatal meal.

The app enables users to capture images of plants and fungi that they see and upload it to identify what it is.

This is done using a combination of artificial intelligence and crowd-sourcing.

Users also have the option to make their searches public for others to use the information.

Now though, it appears that the app could become a key factor in the trial where Patterson is being accused of murdering three people and attempting to murder a fourth.

The fateful day occurred when Patterson invited the family of her estranged husband over for lunch in 2023.

This included her husband’s parents, Donald and Gail Patterson, Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, and Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson.

The prosecution claims there were four grey dinner plates used to serve the meal while Patterson ate from a smaller orange one.

All guests of the lunch became seriously unwell following the meal and were admitted to hospital.

Three people at the meal later died from death cap mushroom poisoning (Albert Fertl/Getty Images)

Donald, Gail, and Heather lost their lives.

The defence team have argued that the prosecution are attempting to cast Patterson’s behavior in the days following the meal as ‘incriminating’, but instead that she simply ‘panicked because she was overwhelmed’.

They added: “Might people say or do things that are not well thought out... and might make them look bad?

“The defence case is that she panicked because she was overwhelmed by the fact that these four people had become so ill because of the food she had served them. Three people died.”

Patterson had previously posted online about her food dehydrator, boasting that she was ‘hiding’ mushrooms in everything.

While initially claiming that the mushrooms were bought from a store, Patterson has since admitted that she foraged them.

The trial continues at Latrobe Valley magistrates court in Victoria, Australia.