Erin Patterson’s texts leak: Mushroom chef’s messages about her inheritance and buying the house where she cooked deadly lunch – as the mother-of-two is charged with murder

Text messages sent by Erin Patterson to a friend have been leaked after the Leongatha mushroom chef was charged with three counts of murder and five counts of attempted murder.

The text exchanges with another woman reveal details of Ms Patterson clearing out her late mother’s home in 2019, and then using her inheritance to buy the property where she would later host the fatal mushroom lunch.

In one text, Ms Patterson said it was her lifelong dream to build the house at Leongatha, in Victoria’s Gippsland region, where the 49-year-old was arrested on Thursday morning.

The property – searched for hours by forensic officers and officers with detector dogs before police took Ms Patterson to Wonthaggi police station and charged her – – was ‘a bush block’ back in 2019.

Ms Patterson was arrested at the house at about 8am on Thursday. Last night she was charged with three counts of murder and five of attempted murder. She will face court on Friday morning.

Four of the attempted murder charges relate to her estranged husband Simon Patterson, including three alleged incidents where he fell ill before the deadly beef Wellington lunch – which he did not attend.

Simon is understood to be ‘doing ok’ in the wake of Erin’s charges and is ‘focused on his kids’ wellbeing’.

Back in 2019, when she was telling her friend on the day she bought the land that she had a notebook ‘full of house sketches’, Mr Patterson texted: ‘I bought this today. Literally so excited I can’t breathe!!!’

In texts a few weeks earlier, Ms Patterson had revealed she ‘loves books’ and ‘spent my childhood reading in my room’. She also sent photos of the pile of books she had cleared from the oceanfront property she had just inherited from her mother.

‘It’s hilarious… towering piles of books. It felt sad to leave the house, it felt super weird to be staying there without my mum.

‘I borrowed my husband’s ute. I just stuffed about a thousand books into the back of his ute. So we get back and he’s like, “Lemme help you get the boxes out of the back.”‘

Erin adds five tears-of-joy emojis, and writes, ‘Sorry, you’ll get your ute back Friday after I take the books out one by one.’

Ms Patterson and her sister inherited the million-dollar house in Eden, NSW, that was owned by their mother, children’s literature critic Dr Heather Scutter, in May 2019.  

She bought the property on Gibson Street, Leongatha, weeks later and built a two-storey house on the one-hectare block, saying in a text that she had ‘inspected the block fifteen times’ after ‘eyeing it off’ for months.

Texting her friend, Ms Patterson said: ‘It’s amazing, really closer to the town where my kids go to school but still feels like a bush block.

‘All my life, I’ve wanted to live in the forest. There are even a couple of koalas in those trees!’

She added that ‘koalas are ok’ and then joked that ‘wombats are a bit scary and emus scare the ever loving f*** out of me’.

When asked about the settlement of the sale, Ms Patterson joked that in the time she had to wait she was ‘thinking of getting a goat or two to keep the weeds down until building starts’.

On Thursday morning, Victoria Police detectives painstakingly picked apart the home Ms Patterson built on that land after she was arrested over the poisonous mushroom meal that led to the death of three people.

Heather Wilkinson, 66, her sister Gail Patterson and her husband Don Patterson, both 70, all died in August, days after eating a beef Wellington cooked by Ms Patterson and served at the house.

The Pattersons were the parents of Ms Patterson’s estranged husband, Simon. 

Ms Wilkinson’s husband, Baptist church pastor Ian Wilkinson, 68, was the sole survivor but was left critically ill and spent almost two months in hospital.

A specialist police team of investigators on Thursday searched Ms Patterson’s home where the fatal family lunch took place on July 29. 

Forensic experts were spotted rifling through a crowded garage attached to the home and combing through the interior of her red MG ZS SUV in the property’s driveway.

Detectives also employed specially trained ‘technology detector dogs’ that can sniff out USB memory keys and sim cards to help scour the property.

The dogs were seen exploring various locations around the home, with a sofa on a rear deck of the home closely inspected.

Ms Patterson’s car was also given a thorough search several times by detectives and the sniffer dogs. 

Five cars, including Ms Patterson’s, were parked in her driveway on Thursday morning. Ms Patterson’s empty bins remained uncollected outside her property.

After being questioned by detectives at Wonthaggi Police Station for hours, Ms Patterson was charged on Thursday evening with three counts of murder and five counts of attempted murder.

She is due to appear at Morwell Magistrates’ Court on Friday morning.

The murder charges and two of the attempted murder charges relate to the incident on July 29 where four relatives were taken to hospital after they fell ill following a meal at Patterson’s home, which her estranged husband Simon Patterson was invited to.

The other attempted murder charges relate to three separate incidents involving Simon, after which police allege he fell ill. 

Her arrest comes after pastor Wilkinson was said to be helping homicide detectives with the investigation following his release from hospital on September 23.

Police believe the symptoms the four diners experienced were consistent with the effects of eating death cap mushrooms.

Homicide Squad Detective Inspector Dean Thomas said the charges are just the next step in what has been an incredibly complex, methodical and thorough investigation.

‘Over the last three months, this investigation has been subjected to incredibly intense levels of public scrutiny and curiosity,’ he said in a statement.

‘I cannot think of another investigation that has generated this level of media and public interest, not only here in Victoria but also nationally and internationally.

‘I think it is particularly important that we keep in mind that at the heart of this, three people have lost their lives. These are three people who by all accounts were much beloved in their communities and are greatly missed by their loved ones.’

He acknowledged the deaths and alleged incidents continue to have a significant impact on the immediate families of those involved.

‘In smaller communities such as Leongatha and Korumburra, a tragedy such as this can reverberate for years to come,’ Detective Inspector Thomas added.

‘I know that people will no doubt have many unanswered questions about this matter, however I urge people to be especially mindful of unnecessary speculation and not sharing misinformation.

‘Our thoughts today are with the families of those impacted and we will continue to ensure they are provided with all the necessary support they need.’

Ms Patterson became the focus of the police investigatiom after it was revealed she cooked the meal. She has strongly denied any wrongdoing.

Death cap mushrooms contain a deadly amatoxin that catastrophically attacks a person’s body and essentially ‘melts down a person’s liver’, one medical expert told Daily Mail Australia.

It is so potent that you do not even need to eat part of the mushroom for it to be lethal; just consuming liquid the mushrooms were cooked in can be enough to kill.