In case you haven’t been following the story of Aussie woman Erin Patterson: she’s been accused of murdering her ex-husband’s family by serving them poisonous death cap mushrooms at a lunch she hosted at her home, while she ate from a different-coloured plate to everyone else.

Patterson is charged with 3 counts of murder after her former in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson died in hospital following the meal. She’s also caught an attempted murder charge after Heather’s husband Ian was the only one to survive the meal (following a lengthy hospital stay).

And so, Patterson successfully killed 3 out of the 4 attendees at her lunch party, but it turns out another lucky escapee was ex-husband Simon Patterson, who had been invited to the lunch but did not attend.

Here’s the text where Simon informs Erin that he won’t be coming, and her extremely disappointed response:

Simon wrote in a text: ‘Sorry I feel too uncomfortable about coming to lunch with you, mum, dad, Heather and Ian tomorrow but am happy to talk about your health and implications of that at another time. If you’d like to discuss on the phone just let me know.’

Patterson responded: ‘That’s really disappointing. I’ve spent many hours this week preparing lunch for tomorrow which has been exhausting in light of the issues I’m facing and spent a small fortune on beef eye filet to make beef Wellingtons because I wanted it to be a special meal as I may not be able to host a lunch like this again for some time. ‘It’s important to me that you’re all there tomorrow, and that I can have the conversations that I need to have. ‘I hope you’ll change your mind. Your parents, Heather and Ian, are coming at 12.30, and I hope to see you there.’

Well, clearly it was ‘important’ that he was there, because her master plan was to wipe out Simon and his entire family with her serving of poisonous mushrooms. Simon had a feeling that it wasn’t a good idea for him to turn up, and it turned out to be the smartest decision he ever made, even if he must be feeling a tremendous amount of guilt about what happened in his absence.

His two children, whom he shares with Erin, also skipped out on the meal to go to the cinema. Mental.

It’s also worth noting that Simon himself suffered a mystery illness and nearly died in 2022 after being served a meal by Erin, from whom he had split ‘amicably’ several years earlier.

In a Facebook post at the time, he wrote: ‘I collapsed at home, then was in an induced coma for 16 days through which I had three emergency operations mainly on my small intestine, plus an additional planned operation. My family were asked to come and say goodbye to me twice, as I was not expected to live.’

During the fatal lunch, Erin Patterson also lied to her in-laws that she had cancer, for whatever reason. Her lawyer insists the poisoning was accidental, saying it was ‘a tragedy, a terrible accident’.

I guess that’s the only angle they can run with at this point, but I doubt any jury on the planet is going to buy it.

The trial – which is expected to last for six weeks – continues.