Melbourne, Australia — The only survivor of a lethal lunch laced with poisonous mushrooms mentioned on Monday he felt solely half alive following the demise of his spouse and he continued to grieve the lack of his two closest mates.
Ian Wilkinson learn the primary sufferer influence assertion in at a sentencing listening to for Erin Patterson on the Victoria state Supreme Courtroom.
The 50-year-old will probably be sentenced on Sept. 8 on three counts of homicide and certainly one of tried homicide. The prosecution argued for a life sentence with out chance of parole, whereas protection attorneys need her to develop into eligible for launch after serving 30 years.
“The offending here is horrendous,” Justice Christopher Beale informed the courtroom.
A jury convicted Patterson in July of murdering Wilkinson’s spouse Heather Wilkinson, her sister Gail Patterson, and her husband Don Patterson with a lunch of beef Wellington pastries and foraged demise cap mushrooms in July 2023.
Erin Patterson was additionally convicted of trying to homicide Ian Wilkinson, who spent weeks in a hospital and survived after receiving a liver transplant.
Wilkinson, a Baptist pastor, described his spouse as a lady who took her religion severely and was full of affection, pleasure, peace, endurance, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control.
Ian Wilkinson, the one visitor to outlive a poisonous mushroom lunch with Australian assassin Erin Patterson, leaves the Supreme Courtroom of Victoria following the day’s proceedings in a pre-sentencing listening to in Melbourne on August 25, 2025.
MARTIN KEEP / AFP by way of Getty Pictures
“I only feel half alive without her,” Wilkinson mentioned earlier than weeping.
“It’s one of the distressing shortcomings of our society that so much attention is showered on those who do evil and so little on those who do good,” he added.
He described Gail and Don Patterson, the mother and father of Erin Patterson’s estranged husband Simon Patterson, because the closest folks to him after his spouse and household.
“My life is greatly impoverished without them,” Wilkinson mentioned.
“I’m distressed that Erin has acted with callous and calculated disregard for my life and the lives of those I love. What foolishness possesses a person to think that murder could be the solution to their problems, especially the murder of people who have only good intentions towards her?” he added.
Wilkinson supplied Patterson his forgiveness for the harms she had completed to him.
“I say ‘harms done to me’ advisedly. I have no power or responsibility to forgive harms done to others,” Wilkinson mentioned.
“My prayer for her is that she will use her time in jail wisely to become a better person,” he added.
Wilkinson mentioned his personal well being has by no means absolutely recovered and that he has decreased liver perform, ongoing respiratory points and fewer vitality, AFP reported. “I very, very nearly died,” he informed the courtroom.
Erin Patterson attended the Melbourne courtroom in individual on Monday, carrying a paisley prime with a light-weight brown jacket. She appeared emotionally moved as Ian Wilkinson spoke.
Convicted assassin Erin Patterson is escorted out of the Supreme Courtroom of Victoria following the day’s proceedings in a pre-sentencing listening to in Melbourne on August 25, 2025.
MARTIN KEEP / AFP by way of Getty Pictures
Seven family of victims both learn influence statements to the courtroom on Monday or had them learn on their behalf.
Erin Patterson faces a possible life sentence for every of the murders and 25 years for tried homicide.
She may have a month after her sentencing to lodge an enchantment in opposition to her sentence and conviction.
The protection submitted that Erin Patterson claimed she had been recognized with Asperger’s syndrome and that her husband believed she suffered from nervousness, high-functioning autism and potential ADHD.
The choose mentioned the proof of Asperger’s “doesn’t have a lot of credibility.”
Prosecutor Jane Warren dismissed the claims of psychological well being situations as rumour proof.
She mentioned Beale ought to present Erin Patterson no mercy. She likened the case to 1 in 2017 when Michael Cardamone was sentenced in Victoria to life in jail with out chance of parole for the homicide of a neighbor he burned alive.
“It is a crime that is so cruel and so horrific that, in our submission, the offender is not deserving of this court’s mercy,” Warren mentioned.
