Accidental foraging, reasonable doubt and ‘lies upon lies': Erin Patterson jury hears week of closing submissions in triple-murder trial

The Guardian

8 hours ago

Colin Mandy SC, Erin Patterson's barrister in her triple-murder trial, was into the final minute of a closing submission that spanned three days when he started repeating one phrase, almost like a mantra, over and over.
It was the last time the jury would hear from anyone in the case other than Justice Christopher Beale, a coda after the prosecution's closing argument and evidence from more than 50 witnesses.
Twelve times Mandy said it in the last 60 seconds or so, the only answer, the one thing he wanted the jury to know: 'not guilty'.
Patterson, 50, is facing three charges of murder and one of attempted murder in the Victorian supreme court. The charges relate to allegedly using death cap mushrooms in beef wellingtons served to lunch guests at her house in Leongatha on 29 July 2023.
Patterson has pleaded not guilty to murdering the relatives of her estranged husband, Simon Patterson – his parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and aunt, Heather Wilkinson – and attempting to murder his uncle, Ian Wilkinson, Heather's husband.
'If you think that it's possible that Erin deliberately poisoned the meal, you must find her not guilty,' Mandy said.
'If you think that maybe Erin deliberately poisoned the meal, you must find her not guilty.
'If you think that she probably deliberately poisoned the meal, you must find her not guilty.'
'Possible', 'maybe' and 'probably' were emphasised, a nod to what Mandy says is a prosecution case that has not cleared the high bar of reasonable doubt.
The jury should not consider the trial like a boxing match, prosecution and defence slugging it out, but the high jump, Mandy told the court. Only the prosecution, however, had to clear that bar; Patterson didn't even need to jump.
'If you think at the end of your deliberations, taking into account the arguments that we've made that it is a [reasonable] possibility that this was an accident … you must find her not guilty,' Mandy said.
'And if you think it is a reasonable possibility that her evidence was true, you must find her not guilty.
'Our submission to you is the prosecution can't get over that high bar of beyond reasonable doubt. And when you consider the actual evidence … and consider it properly, methodically, analytically, your verdicts on these charges should be not guilty.'
Of the evidence given by Patterson, Mandy told the jury she came through unscathed, her account of what really happened the day of the lunch intact.
'Her account remained coherent and consistent, day after day after day, even when challenged, rapid fire, from multiple angles, repeatedly.'
Even if the jury were not convinced of that account, it did not mean Patterson was guilty, he said.
'If you reject her evidence, then what you have to do is take that evidence, put it to one side, and still consider whether the prosecution has proved the case beyond reasonable doubt on the evidence that they bring,' Mandy said.
In the prosecution's telling, it wasn't just that Patterson's evidence was not convincing: it was a 'calculated deception' played on the jury.
The contrast in message between the defence and prosecution was also delivered with a contrast in style.
Nanette Rogers SC delivered the prosecution's closing address carefully and evenly, with the occasional pause for effect, her adherence to the pages in front of her so regimented that she would repeat sentences if she started them differently to how they had been written.
Mandy was far more animated, almost theatrical, with flourishes that bordered on the comical.
He mocked the prosecution case that Patterson planned the murders as far back as 28 April 2023, when it is alleged she picked death cap mushrooms after finding a post on iNaturalist, a citizen science website where the location of the mushrooms was shared.
'On the Crown case, you might think remarkably, extraordinarily, Erin Patterson observed and acted on the only two sightings of death cap mushrooms ever in South Gippsland … like she was sitting there waiting for them,' Mandy said.
'Never seen them before in South Gippsland. iNaturalist says they don't grow here. Refresh. Nup, still not there. Refresh. Still not there. Refresh, still not there.'
Mandy then exclaimed 'ah', his hands wide, pretending to be Patterson discovering the post about death cap mushrooms.
'How likely is that?' he asked.
Mandy lent all the way forward on to the lectern at this stage and immediately shifted tone. 'There's not one scrap of evidence that she actually saw those posts,' he said, shaking his right pointer finger towards the jury.
The closing addresses are not evidence, but new matters emerged, or were drawn into sharper focus.
Mandy said it was possible Patterson became unwell earlier than her lunch guests because she tasted the duxelles as she prepared the beef wellingtons.
Patterson said the duxelles tasted bland when she cooked down button mushrooms bought from the supermarket, so she added dried mushrooms from a Tupperware container in her pantry. At the time, she thought these were from an Asian grocer, but now believed the container also held death cap mushrooms she accidentally foraged.
Mandy made clear, however, that Patterson gave no such evidence that she re-tasted the duxelles after adding the dried mushrooms.
He also wanted to make clear Patterson was 'not on trial for lying'.
Moreover, Mandy told the jury, if she had been lying about some of the points the prosecution alleged she had, she would have told better lies: why say she didn't know what was in her vomit, if saying it contained beef wellington would help her? Why not say she had vomited after overeating sooner, given that the greater proximity of vomiting to eating the beef wellington, the greater the likelihood it would reduce the extent of illness?
This came after Rogers had catalogued these lies – lies she said Patterson told to other witnesses in the case, and to the jury. Lies told not in the heat of the moment, lies Patterson has admitted, lies she has not.
Perhaps the starkest of these, Rogers said, was Patterson's lie about weight loss surgery.
'In the lead up to the lunch and in the periods after the lunch, Erin Patterson told so many lies it's hard to keep track of them. She has told lies upon lies because she knew the truth would implicate her,' the prosecutor said.
'When she knew her lies had been uncovered, she came up with a carefully constructed narrative to fit with the evidence – almost. There are some inconsistencies that she just cannot account for so she ignores them, says she can't remember those conversations, or says other people are just wrong, even her own children.
'You will therefore have no difficulty in rejecting … that this was all a horrible foraging accident.'
Rogers said there was no other 'reasonable alternative explanation for what happened to the lunch guests, other than the accused deliberately sourced death cap mushrooms and deliberately included them in the meal she served them, with an intention to kill them'.
Justice Christopher Beale has told the jury that his closing charge to them, when he will discuss the legal principles that apply to them considering their verdict and direct them on how the evidence can be used, will take at least two days.
'First of all, maintain an open mind. You have heard the evidence. You have heard the closing speeches of the prosecution and the defence, but you have not heard my charge,' Beale said.
'The second point, and the last point, is it is more important than ever that you have a good weekend. I really want you to come back refreshed.'
The trial at the Latrobe Valley law courts in Morwell was originally expected to last five to six weeks, but is set to stretch into a ninth.
Court will resume on Tuesday, meaning the jury will not retire to consider its verdict until Wednesday at the earliest.