Australian Woman Arrested: Suspected Death-Cap Mushroom Poisoning Leads to Police Intervention

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Australian police have taken a woman into custody for questioning as part of their months-long investigation into the mysterious deaths of three people in a suspected case of mushroom poisoning.

Erin Patterson invited two couples to lunch at her rural home in the state of Victoria one Saturday in late July. A week later, three of the four guests were dead, and the other was seriously ill. Authorities suspect they ate death cap mushrooms, or Amanita phalloides, one of the deadliest known mushrooms to humans.

On Thursday, homicide squad detectives arrested Patterson, 49, at her home in Leongatha, a bucolic country town about 70 miles southeast of Melbourne, shortly after 8 a.m. local time. They also began to search the property, including using detection dogs.

Patterson has not been charged and denies any wrongdoing. In Australia, suspects can be taken into custody for questioning before charges are filed. “The investigation remains ongoing,” Victoria Police said in a statement Thursday.

The guests at the July lunch — the host’s in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, both 70; and a local pastor, Ian Wilkinson, 69; and his wife, Heather Wilkinson, 66 — were served beef Wellington,

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