See the evidence used to convict Erin Patterson in the mushroom murder trial

RNZ News

2 days ago

By
Joseph Dunstan
,
Madi Chwasta
and
Mikaela Ortolan
, ABC
Erin Patterson passes her phone to police during a search of her home in August 2023.
Photo:
ABC / Supplied / Supreme Court of Victoria
The jury in Erin Patterson's trial sat through weeks of evidence before convicting her of murder.
On Monday, Patterson was
found guilty
of the murders of her parents-in-law Don and Gail Patterson and Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson. She was also found guilty of the attempted murder of Heather's husband Ian.
Here's some of the key pieces of evidence shown to the jury during the trial.
During the trial, the jury heard Erin Patterson explain in detail how she prepared individually wrapped beef Wellingtons for the lunch at her Leongatha home on 29 July, 2023.
Patterson explained to the jury that she modified a recipe from Australian author Nagi Maehashi's cookbook RecipeTin Eats Dinner to create the meal.
Beef Wellington leftovers were sent to the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine.
Photo:
ABC / Supplied / Supreme Court of Victoria
She said she swapped the traditional log of meat for individual parcels, due to a lack of availability of eye fillet at her local Woolworths. The court heard how she individually wrapped the separate Wellingtons to ensure not every portion was laced with deadly poison.
Two days after the lunch, Patterson told police where they could find leftovers of the meal at her home and they were fished out of the bin.
The leftovers, which included bits of pastry and mushrooms, were analysed by multiple experts. While visual inspections did not reveal visible traces of death cap mushrooms, a chemical analysis showed the presence of the Beta-amanitin toxin, which is present in death cap mushrooms.
Testing revealed the presence of toxins consistent with death cap mushrooms.
Photo:
ABC / Supplied / Supreme Court of Victoria
The jury was shown these images during the trial.
Photo:
ABC / Supplied / Supreme Court of Victoria
Patterson told the court the leftovers comprised mushroom paste and pastry that she had scraped off the Wellingtons before serving the meat to her children the day after the lunch. Prosecutors said that was a lie, and her children never ate leftover meat from the contaminated meal.
Images showing death cap mushrooms on a scale were extracted from Erin Patterson's tablet device.
They were shown to several people during the trial, including fungi expert Tom May who, with a "high level of confidence", identified them as being death cap mushrooms.
This image was retrieved from Erin Patterson's iPad.
Photo:
ABC / Supplied / Supreme Court of Victoria
During cross-examination, prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC said the photos had been taken by Patterson and showed her weighing death cap mushrooms she'd picked from Loch a few weeks before the lunch, after seeing the toxic species flagged on the citizen science website iNaturalist:
Dr Rogers: I suggest that you were weighing these mushrooms, these death cap mushrooms, so that you could calculate the weight required for the administration of a fatal dose for one person, agree or disagree?
Patterson: Disagree.
Dr Rogers: And the weight required for five fatal doses, for five people, agree or disagree?
Patterson: Disagree.
An iNaturalist user posted about a death cap mushroom sighting at Loch in April 2023.
Photo:
ABC / Supplied / Supreme Court of Victoria
A Sunbeam food dehydrator owned by Erin Patterson became an item of interest early in the trial.
The trial heard Patterson bought the appliance for $229 on 28 April, 2023.
She later admitted to lying to police about owning the item, and to dumping it at the Koonwarra Transfer Station.
Police discovered the dehydrator at the tip on 4 August, 2023, days after the lunch, and took these photos while also obtaining CCTV.
CCTV from Koonwarra Transfer Station shows Patterson dumping the dehydrator.
Photo:
ABC / Supplied / Supreme Court of Victoria
Police found the food dehydrator at the tip.
Photo:
ABC / Supplied / Supreme Court of Victoria
One of Patterson's Facebook friends, Daniela Barkley, also gave police screenshots of a chat they were in together.
One of the images shows a message Patterson sent where she told her Facebook friends she'd been blitzing mushrooms so that she could hide them in food to feed her children.
Others showed images of a mushrooms in the dehydrator.
Photo:
ABC / Supplied / Supreme Court of Victoria
Patterson messaged her friends photos of dehydrated mushrooms.
Photo:
ABC / Supplied / Supreme Court of Victoria
Erin Patterson's home was the subject of a police search on 5 August, 2023.
These photos show the dining table and open-plan living space of the Leongatha home where Erin Patterson hosted the lunch.
They were shown to Ian Wilkinson as he gave evidence to the trial about the lunch and where guests were sitting.
Also present in the kitchen was a copy of the RecipeTin Eats Dinner cookbook.
Erin Patterson's dining room where she hosted the fatal lunch.
Photo:
ABC / Supplied / Supreme Court of Victoria
A RecipeTin Eats book photographed in Patterson's kitchen.
Photo:
ABC / Supplied / Supreme Court of Victoria
Patterson told the trial she'd only moved into the house about a year before the lunch after overseeing its creation:
"I was involved right from the beginning of the design, I suppose. Simon and I were involved through the whole design process, but I drew a design myself first in like, Microsoft Paint and gave that to the building designer and he said, 'that will never work engineering-wise, let's move it around a bit', you know, but it modelled quite closely on how I wanted things sorted out."
The images also showed some of the plates in Patterson's kitchen.
During the trial, Ian Wilkinson gave evidence that guests were served on white plates, while Erin ate her meal from a small orange plate.
Erin Patterson said she had served the meals on a variety of plates - some white, some red and black. A rainbow-striped plate was identified in the trial as one made at kindergarten by Patterson's daughter.
Patterson said she served the beef Wellington on different types of plates.
Photo:
ABC / Supplied / Supreme Court of Victoria
Photo:
ABC / Supplied / Supreme Court of Victoria
The day after the deadly lunch, Erin Patterson took her son to Tyabb for a flying lesson which was cancelled not long before they were due to arrive.
During that trip, she made a stop at a service station.
CCTV footage shows a red car pulling up at the petrol station and Erin Patterson exiting the car before entering the building.
The now convicted triple-murderer is seen walking to a bathroom, and then nine seconds later, walking out.
During the trial, Patterson told the jury she went into the toilet to dispose of soiled tissues that she used after she made an emergency roadside stop to relieve herself.
She later bought some food, which she said was for her children, before leaving.
During the trial, Leongatha Hospital doctor Chris Webster said he had called triple-0 after Erin Patterson left the hospital on Monday morning against medical advice.
At the time, he was concerned she had been exposed to a potentially lethal dose of death cap mushroom toxin.
But Patterson told the medical staff she could not be admitted for treatment because she needed to sort out the animals at home and pack her daughter's ballet bag.
She then left the hospital for roughly 90 minutes, during which she told the court she attended to those matters and then had a lie-down. Prosecutors said this was a lie, and she used the time to fabricate a story about buying mushrooms at an Asian grocer.
Dr Webster told the trial said he only made the "serious" decision to call police after three calls to Erin's mobile phone went through to voicemail.
"I was apologetic and informed the voicemail that I would have to contact the police for her health and safety and request that they bring her back to hospital," Dr Webster told the trial.
Throughout the trial, there was plenty of evidence that Erin Patterson's mother-in-law Gail Patterson was attentive and loving.
Patterson herself told the court Gail had been an invaluable support for her during her early period of motherhood.
Gail Patterson recorded the lunch in her diary.
Photo:
ABC / Supplied / Supreme Court of Victoria
Her mother-in-law had also marked out the date of the beef Wellington lunch in her diary.
"Lunch at Erin's w Heather + Ian."
A jury ultimately found it was a lunch where she was murdered by her daughter-in-law.
A hearing is expected to be held in the coming weeks to begin Patterson's sentencing, after which she could attempt to appeal her convictions.
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ABC