DAY 27 of the marathon mushroom murder trial at Morwell was a day of big moments.
Here’s one of them from Crown Prosecutor Dr Nanette Rogers SC.
“I suggest that you never thought you would ever have to account for this lie, about having cancer, because you thought that the lunch guests would all die?”
“That's not true,” said the Leongatha mother of two, Erin Patterson, who is facing three counts of murder and one of attempted murder arising out of a poisonous lunch of beef Wellington at her home in July 2023.
Mrs Patterson was into her third day in the witness box, swapping the sage-green jumper of the day before for a favoured paisley shirt in subdued colours.
“You told this lie, I suggest, as part of your efforts to get the lunch guests, and Simon, to attend your lunch; correct or incorrect?” asked Dr Rogers.
“Incorrect,” said Erin.
“And, further, that you intended to serve one of those beef Wellingtons to Simon Patterson, had he turned up for lunch that day?
“If he'd come, I would have given him a beef Wellington too, yes. But not one with death cap mushrooms in it intentionally, if that was your question,” said Mrs Patterson.
Defence lawyer for Erin Patterson, Colin Mandy SC, had a few of his own.
“Did you intentionally include death cap mushrooms in the beef Wellingtons you prepared on July 29?” he asked.
“No,” said Erin Patterson.
Mr Mandy followed up with a series of “formal questions” at the end of Erin Patterson’s evidence in chief, underscoring the gravity of the situation.
“Did you intend to kill or cause really serious injury to Donald Patterson by serving that meal?”
“No, I didn't.”
“Did you intend to harm him in any way at all?”
“No.”
Mr Mandy intoned the same serious refrain for Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson, slightly altered for Ian Wilkinson, the only person other than Erin Patterson herself to survive the deadly meal.
Erin Patterson answered “no” or “no I didn’t” each time, sobbing as Mr Mandy named each of the four victims, watched by members of the Patterson and Wilkinson families, including Ian Wilkinson seated as they have been each day in the body of Courtroom Four.
There were other big moments and not all of them critical to the outcome of the trial.
Dr Rogers had taken up her cross-examination of Erin Patterson an hour into the day and immediately addressed the issue of the dehydrator and the now accepted fact that Mrs Patterson did forage for mushrooms in the period leading up to the beef Wellington lunch.
Dr Rogers: “You knew the dehydrator reduced mushroom mass by 90 per cent, because you'd weighed the mushrooms before and after you dehydrated them. Is that correct?”
Erin Patterson: “I did.”
Rogers: “You were interested in how much mushrooms weighed before and after being dehydrated, correct.”
Patterson: “That's obvious from this post? Yes.”
Dr Rogers put it to Mrs Patterson that she also experimented with hiding dried mushrooms in her children’s food, including muffins, spaghetti, lasagne, stew and brownies on Erin’s evidence, to see if she could successfully hide mushrooms in the food that she served.
And after showing Erin Patterson a series of photos of mushrooms set out on trays being weighed, Dr Rogers drew her attention to one particular tray of mushrooms.
Rogers: “It was Tom May's evidence that the mushrooms in these images were consistent with amanita phalloides to a high degree of confidence. You heard him say that?”
Mrs Patterson agreed.
Dr Rogers went on to suggest that these were mushrooms foraged by Erin Patterson at Loch, on or after she purchased the dehydrator from Hartley Wells in Leongatha on April 28, 2023, collected from Loch after seeing Christine McKenzie’s post on the iNaturalist website.
Erin Patterson disagreed.
Rogers: “I suggest that you were weighing these mushrooms, these death cap mushrooms, so that you could calculate the weight required to administer a fatal dose for one person and the weight required for five fatal doses, for five people. Do you agree or disagree?”
Patterson: “I disagree.”
The court also heard how Erin Patterson finally came to the realisation, on Tuesday, August 1, that some of the dried, foraged mushrooms had somehow mixed with the dried mushrooms from the Asian grocers and found their way into the beef Wellington lunch.
And, ironically, given the statements she has made during the trial, about the communication problems she has had with her estranged husband Simon, it was ultimately a remark by Simon in the Monash hospital that day, plus the risk that child protection services might take the children away, that, on her evidence, she finally faced up to the truth.
It was Erin Patterson’s evidence on Wednesday this week that Simon accused her of poisoning his parents during a discussion about putting powdered mushrooms in the kids’ muffins.
“Is that how you poisoned my parents, using that dehydrator?” Mrs Patterson said Simon asked her, to which she responded “of course not”.
It was after that exchange that Erin Patterson went home and the very next day took the dehydrator to the Koonwarra tip, not to avoid detection by police as much to avoid the scrutiny of child protection officers, she said.
The other momentous announcement was made by the judge, Justice Beale, just before morning tea on Thursday, advising the jury, without putting a figure on it, that the case could extend beyond two weeks after the long weekend.
“So, with those things to think about, you can go out and enjoy a cup of tea or coffee,” he said.
Erin Patterson has pleaded not guilty to all charges, maintaining that what happened was a tragedy and a terrible accident. The trial continues in the Supreme Court at Morwell on Friday, and after a three-day break for the long weekend.
