Australian toxic mushroom meal survivor says he’s ‘half alive’ after wife’s killing

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Mr Ian Wilkinson is the sole surviving guest from a fatal lunch served by Erin Patterson in 2023.

PHOTO: REUTERS

MELBOURNE - The only guest to survive a toxic mushroom lunch with Australian murderer Erin Patterson said on Aug 25 that he feels “half alive” without his wife, who was one of the three victims.

Pastor Ian Wilkinson wept in court as he spoke of the loss of his wife Heather after she ate a beef Wellington dish laced with death cap mushrooms – the world’s deadliest fungi.

Patterson, 50, was convicted in July of serving the poisonous fare to her husband’s parents, aunt and uncle at a sumptuous lunch in her rural home in the state of Victoria in 2023.

Within days, the parents and aunt were dead, but the uncle – Mr Wilkinson – survived after weeks in hospital to give testimony at his host’s murder trial, which became a global media sensation.

Patterson was present in the Supreme Court of Victoria in Melbourne for the two-day hearing, set aside for relatives to testify to the impact of her crimes and for lawyers to argue over the severity of her sentencing.

“I continue to carry a heavy burden of grief over her untimely death,” the pastor said of his wife.

“It is a truly horrible thought to live with that somebody could decide to take her life. I only feel half alive without her.”

The pastor, who spent weeks in hospital after sharing the same beef-and-pastry meal, said his own health had never fully recovered.

“I