A LOT was made during the 11-week mushroom murder trial at Morwell of diarrhoea, unfortunately.
Some of it tragic, some of it fabricated.
Watery stools, explosive diarrhoea, frequency, consistency, inspections by nurses, analysis.
Whether one such incident happened, in the bush near Nyora, on the way to a flying lesson at Tyabb on Sunday afternoon, July 30, a day after the deadly lunch, was a matter for the jury.
Erin Patterson, the convicted murderer of three of her in-laws, and the attempted murderer of a fourth, gave evidence she did stop for a poo in the bush. Her teenage son, seated in the front seat of the car, didn’t remember the incident.
It was the prosecution case that it’s something a kid would remember their mum doing.
It was all to do with a serious question about why Erin Patterson wasn’t as sick as her in-laws, after allegedly eating the same meal, or why she wasn’t sick at all, and tied up with evidence about different coloured plates and separate packages of beef Wellington; it became a crucial part of the prosecution case.
Here’s what Erin Patterson had to say about the bush-poo stop at Nyora and the visit to the BP at Caldermeade.
Defence counsel, Colin Mandy SC asked her what happened:
Erin: Well, I was driving. [Son] was in the front and [daughter] was in the back.
Both allegedly had their headphones on using their phones or tablets.
Erin: So, maybe about half an hour into the trip, I felt like I needed to go to the toilet. So, we pulled over on a stretch of the road where there's quite a bit of bush along the way. It’s before where the South Gippsland Highway meets the Bass Highway. Somewhere around the Nyora turn-off, somewhere around there.
Erin: I pulled over and I went off into the bush and went to the toilet. I had diarrhoea. I cleaned myself up a little bit with tissues, and put them in a dog poo bag and put it in my handbag and we hit the road again.
Thereafter, she stopped at the BP in Caldermeade, went into the bathroom for a documented nine seconds, to put the soiled tissues in the bin, and without washing her hands, on the prosecution’s submission, went rifling through the sandwich cabinet (see CCTV footage HERE) for some sandwiches for the kids.
It was nearly 3.30pm by then and they continued on their way to Tyabb for her son’s flying lesson while she knew the other four lunch guests were languishing in hospital, following a phone conversation with Simon earlier, unable to get the specific antidote for death cap mushroom poisoning.
Crown Prosecutor Dr Nanette Rogers dismissed the bush-poo episode in her closing as just another way to deflect suspicion over the lack of evidence of a significant diarrhoeal illness.
Dr Rogers: On the morning of Sunday, 30 July, [son] came downstairs to find the accused drinking coffee at the dining table. She told him she felt sick and said she had to go to the toilet a few times over the night. [Son] said she looked normal. He did not notice the accused going to the toilet frequently, or suddenly on the Sunday morning.
Dr Rogers: You heard that on the Sunday afternoon, [son] had a flying lesson in Tyabb, about an hour and 10 minutes away from Leongatha one way. [He] said he didn't know why the accused drove him to the lesson as she said she was feeling sick. [He] said they didn't even have to go if she wasn't feeling well, but the accused was “quite persistent” that they should go, and so they did.
Dr Rogers: They drove for one hour and five minutes before the instructor called to cancel the lesson due to poor weather. One hour and five minutes in the car. In her evidence, the accused claimed that she had to pull up on the side of the road and go to the toilet in the bush. But [son] did not refer to any such stop occurring during the trip to Tyabb. He was sitting in the front passenger seat. We suggest that if his mother had had to make an emergency toilet stop on the side of the road, that is something he would have recalled when he was specifically asked whether she had gone to the toilet at all during the trip.
Erin Patterson pulled up in her distinctive red car at the door of the service station shop, walked to the toilet, came back to the food section, selected one pack of sandwiches, handled it, and then put it back, ultimately buy some lollies, a ham, cheese and tomato sandwich and a sweet chilli chicken wrap which she said was for the kids.
She allegedly ate nothing on the trip, nor crucially, was there evidence, beyond her own statement, under oath in the witness box, that she stopped to go to the toilet.
It was at 8.05am the next day, Monday, July 31, after putting the kids on the bus to school, that she presented at the Leongatha Hospital, complaining of diarrhoea and nausea.