The moments from Erin Patterson's evidence that didn't make headlines
In a courtroom cross-examination, the questions largely flow one way.
A lawyer for the defence or prosecution gets the chance to ask questions of the other side's witness, to test the evidence they have given to the court.
It was a principle crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC was quick to highlight to accused killer Erin Patterson this week, as they locked horns over evidence drawn from a computer in Ms Patterson's home.
Dr Rogers had put to Ms Patterson that she'd used her computer in May 2022 to visit iNaturalist website pages containing information about death cap mushrooms.
The court was shown a log of individual URL visits prosecutors said were made on Ms Patterson's PC over a period of time.
Dr Rogers's questioning turned to the "visit count" recorded in the log for one particular URL.
Dr Rogers: You had visited this URL once before on this device, correct?
Ms Patterson: Yes, correct, and I believe it was two seconds earlier.
Dr Rogers: I suggest you're wrong about that; correct or incorrect?
Ms Patterson: Ah, I'm correct.
A short time later, the prosecutor indicated she would move on from the exhibit of URLs visited by the PC.
Dr Rogers: Now I'm moving on to a different topic.
Ms Patterson: Before you do, Dr Rogers, within this record is that second [website] visit … that I was talking about, 7:23:16, 7:23:18.
Dr Rogers: Ms Patterson, I am the person who asks the questions. If there's something that needs to be clarified in re-examination, then your barrister will do so.
Ms Patterson: No problem.
In her evidence, Ms Patterson also told Dr Rogers she did not recall if it was her who was operating the computer when it visited the page.
"Somebody did, and that somebody could have been me," she told the prosecutor.
The exchange was not the only one where Ms Patterson pointed out details she believed to be incorrect.
One example was when she was given a date in 2023 with the incorrect day of the week:
Dr Rogers: [Mobile phone tower expert Matthew Sorrell's] evidence was: "On Monday, 28th of April 2023, the mobile service records for you indicate a possible visit to the Loch township."
Ms Patterson: I'm really sorry, Dr Rogers, could you just repeat the date? ... I just lost focus.
Dr Rogers: On Monday, 28 April … his evidence was: "The mobile service records for you indicate a possible visit to the Loch township."
Ms Patterson: I don't mean to be argumentative, but I think the 28th of April was a Friday. The only reason I remember that, is [my daughter] had two ballets on the 29th and 30th of April and they were that weekend.
Dr Rogers: Ok, I'll change it
Ms Patterson: Ok.
It was an exchange Dr Rogers did not forget, referencing it later that day as she sought to inject a moment of levity into the hours-long examination.
Dr Rogers: I better check with you. Monday, 22 May, it's a Monday?
Ms Patterson: I don't know about that one.
Dr Rogers: It's a joke. It's a joke. I take out the 'Monday'.
Throughout her cross-examination, Ms Patterson was focused on Dr Rogers, blinking rapidly and speaking with a level voice as she rejected the suggestion her actions after the lunch were those of a guilty woman covering her tracks.
She repeatedly denied to the Supreme Court jury that she was guilty of the murder of three in-laws and the attempted murder of a fourth.
She rotated through outfits which have been widely described in media reports and sketches: a paisley-coloured top, a dark-coloured top with white polka dots and a pink shirt.
The 50-year-old kept her glasses in her hands during her hours on the stand, so they were ready if she was taken to one of the many trial exhibits on the computer monitor before her.
Her questioner, Dr Rogers, kept a brisk pace as she sought to make the most of the opportunity to ask questions of the accused.
At times, responses became more personal as Dr Rogers suggested the evidence of Ms Patterson strained credibility.
When questioning turned to the Monday after the Saturday lunch, Ms Patterson was asked about her movements after she discharged herself from Leongatha Hospital against medical advice.
The court heard she arrived about 8am that day but left about 10 minutes later, before returning after a roughly 90-minute absence.
Ms Patterson told the jury she had needed that time to see to things like putting the lambs away to protect them from foxes and packing her daughter's ballet bag, before she could be admitted to hospital for full treatment.
She told the court this week that after returning home she also laid down "for a while".
Dr Rogers: How long did you lie down for?
Ms Patterson: I don't know.
Dr Rogers: That's untrue, isn't it? … It's untrue that you lay down?
Ms Patterson: No.
Dr Rogers: Surely that's the last thing you would do in these circumstances?
Ms Patterson: It might be the last thing you'd do, but it was something I did.
Dr Rogers: After you'd been told by medical staff that you had potentially ingested a life-threatening poison, isn't it the last thing that you would do, is to lie down in those circumstances?
Ms Patterson: They didn't tell me it was life-threatening.
By any measure, Ms Patterson's time in the witness box was a lengthy one, stretching over eight days of hearings.
And in a case where the complex brief of evidence has ranged from computer and mobile phone data to the science of differentiating fungi, moments have often been needed by all of the parties conducting the trial to double-check the facts on record.
But by the end of the week, the time for questioning Ms Patterson was over, and the evidence phase of the trial drew to a close.
Now the prosecution and defence will trawl through the hours of transcripts and reams of documents as they prepare to deliver their final arguments in one of Australia's most closely watched trials in years.
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Almost two years after four of her husband's family members fell deathly ill following a lunch she hosted, alleged poisoner Erin Patterson has broken her silence. For eight days, the 50-year-old sat in the witness box of a regional Victorian courtroom as she answered thousands of questions about her life, her relationships and the events surrounding July 29, 2023. Her evidence was, at times, intensely personal as the alleged triple-murderer spoke about issues in her marriage, feeling ostracised from her husband's family, lies she told and an eating disorder no one knew about. And it all played out in front of a jury of her peers, her in-laws and a packed public gallery – some lining up for hours in near-zero temperatures to ensure a seat in the second floor courtroom. This Thursday, on day 31 of the trial, senior Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC closed off five days of cross-examination with three questions that lie at the heart of the Crown's case. 'I suggest that you deliberately sourced death cap mushrooms in 2023; agree or disagree?' Dr Rogers asked. 'Disagree.' 'I suggest you deliberately included them in the beef Wellingtons you served to Don Patterson, Gail Patterson, Ian Wilkinson and Heather Wilkinson; agree or disagree?' 'Disagree.' 'And you did so intending to kill them; agree or disagree?' 'Disagree.' Ms Patterson has pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder with her defence arguing she did not intentionally poison anyone and the case is a tragic accident. Her estranged husband Simon Patterson's parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and his aunt, Heather Wilkinson died from death cap mushroom poisoning in the week after eating a beef wellington lunch she hosted. The fourth guest, Heather's husband Korumburra Baptist Church pastor Ian Wilkinson, recovered and has been a regular face in the Morwell courtroom alongside other members of the Wilkinson and Patterson families. On the stand, Ms Patterson denied wanting to harm any of her four guests and said the July 29 lunch was spurred by a desire to close some distance she had felt in recent months. She told the jury after her separation from Simon in 2015, Don and Gail had remained central figures in her life, particularly after the deaths of her own parents. But she felt Simon had a hand in ostracising her from his family and had decided to be more proactive 'so I didn't lose that connection'. She said Simon and her had struggled to communicate over the entirety of their relationship but remained close after their split until a child support dispute in late 2022 created tension. 'We didn't relate on friend things, banter, like we used to. That changed at the start of the year,' she said. Ms Patterson told the jury she chose to make beef wellington for the lunch because it was a dish her mother would make for special occasions, modifying Nagi Maehashi's recipe from a log to individual portions because she could only find eye-fillet steaks. She said she primarily used button mushrooms from Woolworths to make the duxelles, or mushroom paste, but added dried mushrooms from her pantry because the dish 'seemed a little bland'. She gave evidence the dried mushrooms were purchased from an Asian grocer in Melbourne's east in about April the same year and had a 'pungent smell'. 'I thought it was the perfect dish for them,' the accused woman said. Ms Patterson said she made six beef wellingtons, serving five to herself and her guests, and serving the last one to her children for dinner the following night with the pastry and mushrooms scrapped off. She said in the aftermath of the lunch she believed she only used mushrooms from the two sources but now accepts she 'may' have added dehydrated wild mushrooms to the Tupperware container in her pantry. The jury heard Ms Patterson bought a dehydrator on April 28, 2023. She told the court she bought the Sunbeam device so she could preserve foods including wild mushrooms and denied a suggestion by prosecutors that the purchase was made two hours after picking death cap mushrooms in the nearby town of Loch. She further disputed Dr Roger's suggestion that a photo located in the Google Photos cache data on a Samsung tablet depicts death caps on a dehydrator tray with the last modified date of May 4. In her recorded interview with police a week after the lunch, Ms Patterson said she'd never foraged for mushrooms. On the stand however, she admitted this was a lie, telling the jury she developed an interest in wild mushrooms during the early 2020 Covid lockdowns. Over a period of months she said she grew confident in identifying field and horse mushrooms in the paddocks on her property, before 'eventually' eating them. 'I cut a bit off one of the mushrooms, fried it up with some butter, ate it, and then saw what happened,' she said. 'They tasted good and I didn't get sick.' Ms Patterson said over the following years she would go foraging in nearby areas and cook the wild mushrooms into meals for her and her children. But she said she'd never foraged at two locations, Loch and Outtrim, where prosecutors allege phone records indicate a possible visit after death cap sightings were posted on iNaturalist. In cross-examination, she refuted a suggestion by Dr Rogers that her interest in mushrooms was invented 'to try and explain why you put foraged death cap mushrooms in the meal'. In her evidence, the accused woman disputed several aspects of lunch survivor Ian Wilkinson's account to the jury of the event. He described the four lunch guests eating off large grey plates while Ms Patterson ate off a smaller 'orangey-tan' plate and her sharing an ovarian cancer diagnosis and asking for advice on how to tell the children. Ms Patterson said she did not own grey plates, nor an orangey-tan one or even four plates of a set. The jury was shown images taken from the police walk-through on August 5 which show two white plates, two black plates, a black and red plate and a multi-coloured plate. Ms Patterson confirmed these were the only plates she owned. She also disputed that she told the guests she had cancer, claiming she said she might have some 'upcoming treatment' after telling Don and Gail she was receiving testing on a lump on her elbow earlier that year. Ms Patterson admitted she lied to Don and Gail about undergoing a needle biopsy and MRI but said she was planning on using the lump, which has resolved itself, as cover for weight-loss surgery. 'I'd been fighting a never-ending battle of low self-esteem most of my adult life, and the further inroads I made into being middle aged, the less I felt good about myself, I suppose,' she said. 'I was ashamed of the fact that I didn't have control over my body or what I ate … I shouldn't have lied to them.' Ms Patterson told the court she'd never had a 'healthy relationship' with food and had been bingeing and purging since her 20s – something she hid from everyone around her. 'In some intense periods it could have been daily, then it could be weekly or monthly,' she said. She said at the lunch she only ate a portion of her beef wellington but after her guests left, she cleaned up and binged on an orange cake Gail had brought. 'I had a piece of cake and then another piece of cake and then another,' she said, her voice faltering. The alleged poisoner said she felt sick and 'brought it back up' some time that afternoon, but would not be drawn on if she vomited the beef wellington. 'I couldn't be sure what was in my vomit,' she said. Ms Patterson disputed a suggestion by Dr Rogers that her account of vomiting was a lie to account for why she didn't fall seriously ill like her guests. 'I wish that was true, but it's not,' she said. Ms Patterson said she had a pre-assessment scheduled for gastric bypass surgery at the ENRICH Clinic in Melbourne two months after the lunch but cancelled it in the fallout. In a last-minute statement produced by prosecutors on June 11, ENRICH Clinic testified they'd never offered gastric bypass surgery. Ms Patterson refused to concede she lied, saying that was her memory but perhaps it was another weight loss procedure, such as liposuction. Her barrister Colin Mandy SC later produced a screenshot of the ENRICH Clinic's website, which contained a post saying they stopped offering liposuction in June 2024. After Ms Patterson's evidence concluded on Thursday, jurors were told by Justice Christopher Beale that marked the 'completion of the evidence in this case'. The trial is expected to resume on Monday as prosecutors deliver their closing address before the defence follows suit. The trial continues.
