‘Death wall’ found in home of chef suspected in fatal mushroom poisoning

The former home of the woman who prepared the lunch in a suspected fatal mushroom poisoning that killed three people featured a creepy “death wall” with disturbing children’s drawings of tombstones and an ominous warning that “you don’t [have] long to live.”

A photo obtained exclusively by news.com.au from inside the Korumburra home previously owned by Erin Patterson shows a large section of one wall covered in red, blue, and black graffiti.

“You don’t long to live 1 hour exactly,” one section reads.

“Your dead from my sword,” another says.

Underneath two stick figures of a male and female are the words “I am dead” and “No I am really dead”, above what appear to be three tombstones.

One of the tombstones appears to say “Grandma R.I.P.” while the third reads “ME R.I.P.”

Next to the light switch is written “The Moulettt Man The Moulett Man.” Other random scrawls on the bizarre mural include “eternity”, “oh oh yeah” and “get ready.”

“We started calling it the death wall,” said the tradie who took the photo.

The man, who asked not to use his name, got a phone call from a real estate agent last year asking him to paint the wall so the property could be sold.

“I’ve looked at it and gone, holy sh*t, what the hell’s going on here?” he told news.com.au.

“I went, this is actually really scary for kids to do this inside the kitchen-dining room. I didn’t think it was right, it looked scary. It just didn’t look right to me as a parent.”

The 46-year-old said he was struck by the multiple references to death, particularly the tombstones.

“That sort of stood right out. It was eerie. I think I put four coats of primer undercoat and two coats of wall paint to cover all that text.”

The tradie said he snapped the picture and apart from showing a few mates, didn’t think of it again until the fatal mushroom poisonings hit the headlines.

“Now of course this mushroom thing’s come out,” he said.

The tradie described the Pattersons as “sort of a quiet family.”

It’s understood Patterson’s two children, who she shares with her estranged husband Simon, are in Year 7 and Year 5.

“They keep to themselves,” he said.

The tradie told news.com.au he was aware homicide detectives wanted to speak to him about the photo, the existence of which had been previously reported.

Another tradesperson who saw the wall said it was “just not something you would typically expect children of that age to be drawing on the wall.”

“You’d think they’d be drawing flowers and unicorns, not gravestones and death,” he said. “I was surprised, but at the time I didn’t think anything more of it. It’s a bit weird but I see weird sh*t every day.”

His understanding was that Patterson’s explanation for the drawings was “she’s gone out or something and the kids were there and had done that while they were out.”

“It was very strange to see – it was just an unusual thing for a child to draw,” he added.

Property records show the three-bedroom, two-bathroom house, described in the listing as an “ideal family home” and “great for entertaining,” was sold last August for $353,700.

Patterson, 48, allegedly cooked a dish containing deadly death cap mushrooms on July 29 and served it to four people at a lunch at her home in Leongatha, southeast of Melbourne, 15 minutes from Korumburra.

Her former parents-in-law Don and Gail Patterson and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson died from symptoms consistent with death cap mushroom poisoning after lunch.

Patterson denies any wrongdoing and has reiterated her innocence on several occasions.

Wilkinson’s husband, Ian, a pastor at Korumburra Baptist Church, is still in hospital.

Simon Patterson, Erin’s estranged ex-husband, was supposed to also be at the meal but pulled out, a close friend told The Daily Mail.

“They went to her house for a mediation to talk to the family. Simon was supposed to go there for lunch but he pulled out in the last minute otherwise he would be in that death bed too,” the friend said, adding that Mr. Patterson was not interested in getting back together with the mother of his children.

One friend told The Australian that Mr. Patterson’s family was worried about Ms. Patterson’s “mental state” so they accepted the lunch invitation to “make sure she was in the right mental health to resume a relationship with Simon.”

Neither Ms. Patterson nor her two school-age children became ill after lunch.

It comes after Mr. Patterson claimed in a social media post that he had to be put into an induced coma last year following a sudden mystery gut illness.

“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,” he wrote.

“My family were asked to come and say goodbye to me twice, as I was not expected to live.”

Death cap mushrooms can be responsible for serious, fatal damage to the liver and kidneys.

They can cause abdominal pain, vomiting, and nausea but much of the damage can be done before symptoms occur.

Ms Patterson was interviewed by police last weekend and her home was searched.

No charges have been laid.

Police have warned people not to speculate about the case because it could turn out to be “very innocent.”

According to 7 News, she initially told police that she picked up the mushrooms from a local shop in the Leongatha area.

On Monday, she conceded she had lied to police initially in a new detailed statement about what happened before and after the suspected poisoning.

“I am now wanting to clear up the record because I have become extremely stressed and overwhelmed by the deaths of my loved ones,” Ms. Patterson said in a written statement to police, obtained by the ABC.

“I am hoping this statement might help in some way. I believe if people understood the background more, they would not be so quick to rush to judgment.”

In the latest statement, Ms. Patterson said she too became ill after eating the beef wellington dish and explained that the leftovers had been given to police as evidence.

She claimed the fungi used in the dish were a mixture of button mushrooms bought at a supermarket chain and dried ones from an Asian grocery store in Melbourne months prior.

“I am now devastated to think that these mushrooms may have contributed to the illness suffered by my loved ones. I really want to repeat that I had absolutely no reason to hurt these people whom I loved,” she said.

“I now very much regret not answering some [police] questions following this advice given the nightmare that this process has become.”

In her statement, Ms. Patterson said she dumped a food dehydrator at a local tip after the disastrous lunch following a conversation about the gadget with her children, where her ex-husband had asked, “Is that what you used to poison them?”

She said in the statement she then “panicked” over the thought that she could lose custody of her children, according to the ABC, and rid herself of the processor.

She has consistently and strenuously denied any wrongdoing and maintains her innocence.

She said she had not told the truth to investigators when she told them she dumped it “a long time ago.”

Patterson said her children were not present at the time of the meal, stating they had actually gone to the movies.

They ate the leftovers from the lunch the following night.

Patterson said her children did not like mushrooms, so she “scraped” them off.

In her statement, she claimed that she was contacted by the Department of Health asking what could have caused her guests’ violent reactions.

She paid tribute to her in-laws, stating she had a “deep love and respect for them” and believed they were “exceptional” role models for her children.