MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — A lady accused of serving her ex-husband’s household toxic mushrooms pleaded not responsible in an Australian courtroom on Tuesday to 3 prices of homicide and 5 prices of tried homicide.
Erin Patterson, 49, appeared briefly in Latrobe Valley Magistrates Court docket by video hyperlink from a Melbourne jail, the place she has been held since her arrest in November final yr. She is accused of killing her former parents-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson, each 70, and Gail Patterson’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66.
All three died in a hospital days after consuming a meal at Patterson’s residence in July.
She pleaded not responsible to all prices and can seem at Victoria state’s Supreme Court docket in Melbourne for the primary time on Might 23.
Proceedings have been fast-tracked after Patterson disbursed with a committal listening to the place a Justice of the Peace would have examined the prosecution’s case to make sure there’s ample proof to warrant a jury trial.
She has not utilized to be launched on bail throughout any of her 4 courtroom appearances.
Erin Patterson can be accused of the tried homicide of her ex-husband, Simon, at that lunch and on three earlier events relationship again to 2021. Simon Patterson didn’t settle for an invite to attend the lunch.
She has additionally been charged with the tried homicide of Wilkinson’s husband, Ian Wilkinson.
Ian Wilkinson spent seven weeks in a hospital following the lunch.
Police say the signs of the 4 sickened members of the family have been according to poisoning from wild Amanita phalloides, generally known as loss of life cap mushrooms.
Erin Patterson might resist 25 years in jail for every tried homicide cost, whereas homicide within the state of Victoria carries a most sentence of life imprisonment.
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