NAMES and places familiar to South Gippsland residents have been a feature of Erin Patterson’s triple murder trial in the Supreme Court in Morwell during the first nine days of the trial.

From the Betta Home Living store in Leongatha where Erin Patterson purchased the Sunbeam Food Lab Electronic Dehydrator for $229, at 12.17pm on April 28, 2023, which was allegedly found to contain death cap mushroom remnants when it was recovered from the Koonwarra Tip…

To the wayside doughnut stop at Koo Wee Rup where Erin Patterson and her children stopped for dim sims, a hot dog and coffee on a trip to the Tyabb airport the day after the fateful lunch…

To the location of the lunch itself in Gibson Street Leongatha, on Saturday, July 29, 2023…

The evidence from a steady stream of witnesses over the past week and a half has been punctuated by well-known locations and names.

Here are a few of the local references:

• While the adults were having the meal at Erin’s place that day in July 2023, Simon and Erin’s children, together with a friend, went to the Leongatha Cinema to watch the animated Disney film ‘Elemental’ and have lunch at Maccas in Leongatha.
• Erin took one of the children later on Saturday evening to get some dinner at Subway.
• About 11 to 12 hours after the lunch, four of the guests, Gail and Don Patterson, and Heather and Ian Wilkinson had each developed severe gastroenteritis-like symptoms and presented themselves the next morning to the Korumburra and Leongatha hospitals respectively, Ian and Heather taken there by nephew Simon when they were told an ambulance would not be with them for an hour, and after finding Korumburra hospital was at capacity.
• Simon Patterson attended the Korumburra Baptist Church every Sunday, where he operated the audio-visual equipment, and since COVID, a livestream of the service. His wife Erin and children mostly attended fortnightly, Erin helping to connect the livestream comments from home on alternate weekends.
• As well as Gibson Street in Leongatha, several street names in Korumburra were mentioned where either Erin or Simon or both lived between the time of their marriage in June 2007 and mid-2023.
• It has been alleged by the Crown Prosecutor Dr Nanette Rogers in her opening remarks that two hours before Erin Patterson purchased her new food dehydrator from Hartley Wells in Leongatha, she travelled to and remained in the Loch area near where Christine McKenzie, a retired pharmacist and senior poisons information specialist at the Victorian Poisons Information Centre, had documented, collected and posted photographs of death cap mushrooms growing under some oak trees on the iNaturalist website page.
• A similar incident has been alleged in relation to a site at Outtrim.
• Woolworths in Leongatha where some of the fresh mushrooms were allegedly purchased, IGA in Leongatha, the schools attended by the Patterson children, and doctors and staff at the local hospitals.

They’ve all been referred to in evidence by witnesses and in allegations made by the prosecution.

Erin Paterson has pleaded not guilty to all charges, three of murder involving her in-laws Gail and Don Patterson, and Gail’s sister Heather and one count of attempted murder where Heather’s husband Ian was allegedly the intended victim, claiming that what happened was a tragedy and a terrible accident.

The trial continues at Morwell on Tuesday, May 13.