‘Who would kill these kind people?': Defence says lack of motive shows mushroom deaths were accidental

Sydney Morning Herald

11 hours ago

One thing everyone can agree on is that Erin Patterson's four lunch guests were all lovely people.
Heather Wilkinson helped care for the accused woman's daughter, Ian Wilkinson was the local Baptist church pastor and Don and Gail Patterson were loving parents and grandparents.
But on Tuesday, jurors in Erin Patterson's triple murder trial were told to put all their empathy and emotion for the group aside.
Defence barrister Colin Mandy, SC, said that just like judges of the law, the jury must use their heads and not their hearts to decide on Patterson's guilt or innocence.
'In this case, three people died, one person very nearly did. This was a terrible tragedy for those people and their families,' Mandy said in his closing address on Tuesday.
Mandy said it was clear that Ian Wilkinson was a good person, and there was no reason not to believe that Don, Gail and Heather were as well.
'There's two reasons why it's important to acknowledge that,' he said. 'The first is that as human beings, specially as members of this wider community, you [the jury] would have felt empathy for those witnesses and for the families and for their loss. A deep empathy because it's desperately sad.'
But Mandy added that while jurors might have an instinctive reaction to say someone must be held to account for the three guests' deaths, their job was to decide whether a criminal offence had occurred beyond reasonable doubt.
'We know the actions of Erin Patterson caused the death of three people and the serious illness of another, and as ordinary people ... [that] might bring that desire for retribution or revenge. But a jury has to fiercely guard against that reaction.