ERIN Patterson, the Leongatha mother of two charged with the murders of three of her estranged husband’s relatives, and the attempted murder of another, was in the witness box for her sixth straight day on Tuesday, June 10.
It was Day 29 of the trial in the Supreme Court at Morwell and Crown Prosecutor Dr Nanette Rogers SC continued questioning Mrs Patterson about the events leading up to the lunch of beef Wellington at her home on Saturday, July 29, 2023, and afterwards.
Mrs Patterson returned to the stand in the flowing paisley shirt she has worn on other days; in brown, beige, black and green swirls; black pants and sandals.
She had a pair of reading glasses at the ready, when her attention was directed to printed material on the screen in front of her, taking them off when addressed by Dr Rogers.
The public gallery was packed, as it has been on each day of the trial, with Patterson and Wilkinson family members on one side of the aisle, behind the prosecution, and media representatives and the general public on the other.
The first question from Dr Rogers went straight back to an issue raised by Erin Paterson under cross-examination on Friday, that she had a pre-surgery appointment for a gastric bypass operation in September 2023.
Dr Rogers had been probing Mrs Patterson before the long weekend about her invitation to her husband Simon on July 16, 2023, about also attending the lunch, which he ultimately declined, saying on July 28, the day before the lunch date, that while he felt “too uncomfortable about coming to the lunch with you, mum, dad, Heather and Ian tomorrow”, he was still happy to “talk about your health and implications of that at another time.”
Dr Rogers put it to Mrs Patterson that it was a lie that she had medical issues to discuss with Simon, a reference to an exchange she had with Mrs Patterson a day earlier about messages between Simon’s mother Gail and Erin early in July 2023 about an alleged lump on her arm and medical tests including an MRI and needle biopsy that proved to be fictitious.
- “In this message (July 7, 2023), you purported to carry on the fiction of having a very serious illness, did you not?” asked Dr Rogers.
- “Yeah, that's fair,” said Erin.
Dr Rogers had also been probing Mrs Patterson about claims she told the lunch guests she had a diagnosis for cancer. Mrs Patterson denied she said she had a diagnosis for cancer but acknowledged she told them she had some treatment coming up.
- “You wanted your lunch guests, I suggest, to believe that you would be having treatment for cancer, agree or disagree?” asked Dr Rogers.
- “Yeah, I agree with that,” said Erin.
She followed later with this accusation, which Mrs Patterson denied.
- “I suggest that you never thought you would have to account for this lie about having cancer because you thought that the lunch guests would die?” said Dr Rogers.
- “That's not true,” said Erin.
- “And your lie would never be found out; correct or incorrect?”
- “That's not true.”
That morphed into further questioning on Friday by Dr Rogers about what medical issues may or may not have existed before the meal.
- “But you weren't confronting any medical issues, were you; correct?” asked Dr Rogers.
Erin gave a “yeah, no, yeah” answer, saying she was going to have gastric bypass surgery soon, for which she had a pre-surgery appointment in September 2023 at the Enrich Clinic in Melbourne, a response to her weight loss worries, she said.
Fast-forward to Tuesday this week, and Dr Rogers put it to Mrs Patterson that the Enrich Clinic in Howitt Street South Yarra was a cosmetic dermatology clinic, and that they didn’t offer gastric by-pass or gastric sleeve surgery, nor do they conduct assessments for such procedures.
Mrs Patterson admitted to being “puzzled” by that, saying that perhaps it was a different procedure, that she was looking into liposuction as well.
- “When you gave sworn evidence to this jury last Friday that you had a pre-surgery appointment for gastric bypass surgery booked in for early September with the Enrich Clinic in Melbourne, that was a lie; agree or disagree?” asked Dr Rogers.
- “No, it wasn't a lie. That's what my memory was,” said Erin.
Dr Rogers continued probing Mrs Patterson about other aspects of the case, including Erin searching the iNaturalist website for references to death cap mushrooms, including at Moorabbin at 7.20pm on May 28, 2023, and three minutes later putting in an order of food from the Korumburra Middle Pub in Korumburra.
- “You did that for this iNaturalist post about death cap mushrooms in Moorabbin, correct or incorrect?”
- “Well, somebody did, and that somebody could have been me.”
Dr Rogers also asked Erin Patterson about the plates used for the meal and claims made by the only surviving lunch guest, Ian Wilkinson, that the guests had all been served on large, grey plates, and Erin on a smaller orangey-tan plate.
Dr Rogers reminded Mrs Patterson of her evidence that she said she only owned “couple of black, a couple of white, one that's red on top and black underneath” and one that her daughter had made at kindergarten.
- “The only way I can reconcile that is if I had had [daughter's] kindergarten plate, but that looks nothing like what Ian described.”
But Mrs Patterson had earlier repeated that she couldn’t remember which plate she ate her own meal from at the lunch.
There followed a string of accusations by Dr Rogers:
- Dr Rogers: I suggest that after you had plated the food, you carried the smaller plate over to the dining table for yourself, agree or disagree?
- Erin Patterson: There was no smaller plate.
- Dr Rogers: And you ate from that plate, agree or disagree?
- Erin Patterson: Incorrect.
- Dr Rogers: I suggest that you knowingly served death cap mushrooms in the four separate beef Wellingtons you dished up to your four lunch guests, agree or disagree?
- Erin Patterson: Disagree.
- Dr Rogers: And that you served yourself a beef Wellington which did not have death cap mushrooms in it, agree or disagree?
- Erin Patterson: Disagree.
- Dr Rogers: And you knew that did not contain death cap mushrooms, agree or disagree?
- Erin Patterson: Disagree.
- Dr Rogers: And I suggest that to avoid any, error, in case you accidentally ate one of the poisoned beef Wellingtons, you took the extra precaution of using a different and smaller plate to plate your non-poisoned serve, correct or incorrect?
- Erin Patterson: Incorrect.
- Dr Rogers: And that is why you never suffered the severe illnesses that Donald, Gail, Ian and Heather suffered, correct or incorrect?
- Erin Patterson: Incorrect.
- Dr Rogers: And that's why you did not have amanita phalloides poisoning, correct or incorrect?
- Erin Patterson: Incorrect.
Mrs Patterson was also asked about the leftovers in the bin and how much everyone ate.
Dr Rogers suggested Erin did not tell a single medical person that she had vomited up after the lunch and also quizzed her on the telephone exchange with husband Simon over who would pick up the children from school once it was identified they also needed to be assessed for exposure to mushroom poisoning.
- “I suggest that you paused because you realised that if you insisted on going to pick up the children, that it would undermine your being unwell?” said Dr Rogers.
Erin Patterson disagreed, noting that if she paused during the conversation, it might have been because she was put off by Simon’s sarcasm when he said: “I'm glad to hear you're well enough to drive to Phillip Island.”
This was on Monday, July 31, after Erin had presented at the Leongatha hospital, two days after the meal, complaining of diarrhoea and nausea.
- “Are you making this up as you go along, Ms Patterson?” asked Dr Rogers.
- “No,” said Erin.
Erin Patterson will continue into a seventh day of cross-examination on Wednesday, with a re-examination by her defence counsel, Colin Mandy SC to follow as the marathon triple murder case draws to a close.
Mrs Patterson has pleaded not guilty to all charges, maintaining that the poisonous mushrooms must have inadvertently found their way into the meal, via a tragic mix-up between bought, dried Chinese mushrooms and dehydrated foraged mushrooms.
She says she never knowingly sought out death cap mushrooms and what happened on that day was a tragedy and a terrible accident.
