Erin Patterson used death cap mushrooms in a beef Wellington she served to members of her extended family in 2023, killing three of her four lunch guests in a triple homicide that shocked Australia. For Vittles, Aaron Timms asks, “What were the specific historical conjunctures that led Patterson to choose, for her victims, death by duxelles?”
Patterson’s escapades took place against the backdrop of a nation suddenly mad for foraging – or at least dead keen on the idea of a trained professional doing it for them. Death caps are not, I probably don’t need to point out, the type of thing Australians usually like to harvest for their own consumption. But thanks to the species identification tool on iNaturalist – a photo-based, user-sourced biodiversity platform that includes more than 300 million observations of plants and other organisms worldwide – they’re relatively easy to identify. Indeed, Patterson relied on iNaturalist to scout her noxious haul, diverting users’ cautionary tagging of death caps on the platform towards a far darker end.
More picks about true crime
The House on West Clay Street
“Tabatha Pope thought she’d finally found an affordable place to live. It was the beginning of a nightmare.”
The Diabolical World of Phone Scams
“How the RCMP busted the biggest fraud ever to target Canadians—and why they can’t keep up anymore.”
The Squatters of Beverly Hills
“Or maybe he saw the empty home and realized that, with a little cunning, he could simply move in.”
