Mushroom cook to return to witness box in murder trial
Accused triple murderer Erin Patterson will return to the witness box after telling a jury she foraged wild mushrooms in the lead up to serving poisonous beef Wellingtons.
The 50-year-old has spent two days giving evidence to her Supreme Court trial in regional Victoria, including on Tuesday where she accepted there were death cap mushrooms in the toxic dish.
She will return on Wednesday for a third day as a defence witness.
Patterson has pleaded not guilty to three murders and one attempted murder over the July 2023 lunch she served to her former in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, 70, and Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson, 66.
All three died in hospital days after eating the meals. Patterson maintains the poisonings were not deliberate.
The sole survivor of the lunch was Heather's husband Ian Wilkinson, who has attended court most days since giving evidence in week two of the trial.
He sat silently at the back of the court room on Tuesday as Patterson explained she had begun foraging for wild mushrooms during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Before the end of the day, defence barrister Colin Mandy SC asked Patterson "do you accept there must have been death cap mushrooms" in the lunch she served to her former husband's family.
"Yes I do," she told a full court room and 14 jurors.
She said she started cooking wild mushrooms in the years before the lunch, and "ate it and then saw what happened".
"They tasted good and I didn't get sick," she said.
Patterson said she would forage for mushrooms at Korumburra Botanic Gardens, on her three acre properties in Korumburra and Leongatha, and along a rail trail leading out of Leongatha.
She said she bought a food dehydrator to begin drying mushrooms because she liked eating them but "it's a very small season" and she wanted to preserve them.
Patterson was shown photos of mushrooms in a dehydrator and said she'd picked them from Korumburra gardens and dehydrated them whole as "a bit of an experiment".
"They were still a bit mushy inside," she said.
"They just didn't dry properly."
She said she would dehydrate mushrooms from Woolworths and wild picked mushrooms and put them in containers in her pantry.
The trial continues.
Accused triple murderer Erin Patterson will return to the witness box after telling a jury she foraged wild mushrooms in the lead up to serving poisonous beef Wellingtons.
The 50-year-old has spent two days giving evidence to her Supreme Court trial in regional Victoria, including on Tuesday where she accepted there were death cap mushrooms in the toxic dish.
She will return on Wednesday for a third day as a defence witness.
Patterson has pleaded not guilty to three murders and one attempted murder over the July 2023 lunch she served to her former in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, 70, and Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson, 66.
All three died in hospital days after eating the meals. Patterson maintains the poisonings were not deliberate.
The sole survivor of the lunch was Heather's husband Ian Wilkinson, who has attended court most days since giving evidence in week two of the trial.
He sat silently at the back of the court room on Tuesday as Patterson explained she had begun foraging for wild mushrooms during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Before the end of the day, defence barrister Colin Mandy SC asked Patterson "do you accept there must have been death cap mushrooms" in the lunch she served to her former husband's family.
"Yes I do," she told a full court room and 14 jurors.
She said she started cooking wild mushrooms in the years before the lunch, and "ate it and then saw what happened".
"They tasted good and I didn't get sick," she said.
Patterson said she would forage for mushrooms at Korumburra Botanic Gardens, on her three acre properties in Korumburra and Leongatha, and along a rail trail leading out of Leongatha.
She said she bought a food dehydrator to begin drying mushrooms because she liked eating them but "it's a very small season" and she wanted to preserve them.
Patterson was shown photos of mushrooms in a dehydrator and said she'd picked them from Korumburra gardens and dehydrated them whole as "a bit of an experiment".
"They were still a bit mushy inside," she said.
"They just didn't dry properly."
She said she would dehydrate mushrooms from Woolworths and wild picked mushrooms and put them in containers in her pantry.
The trial continues.
Accused triple murderer Erin Patterson will return to the witness box after telling a jury she foraged wild mushrooms in the lead up to serving poisonous beef Wellingtons.
The 50-year-old has spent two days giving evidence to her Supreme Court trial in regional Victoria, including on Tuesday where she accepted there were death cap mushrooms in the toxic dish.
She will return on Wednesday for a third day as a defence witness.
Patterson has pleaded not guilty to three murders and one attempted murder over the July 2023 lunch she served to her former in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, 70, and Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson, 66.
All three died in hospital days after eating the meals. Patterson maintains the poisonings were not deliberate.
The sole survivor of the lunch was Heather's husband Ian Wilkinson, who has attended court most days since giving evidence in week two of the trial.
He sat silently at the back of the court room on Tuesday as Patterson explained she had begun foraging for wild mushrooms during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Before the end of the day, defence barrister Colin Mandy SC asked Patterson "do you accept there must have been death cap mushrooms" in the lunch she served to her former husband's family.
"Yes I do," she told a full court room and 14 jurors.
She said she started cooking wild mushrooms in the years before the lunch, and "ate it and then saw what happened".
"They tasted good and I didn't get sick," she said.
Patterson said she would forage for mushrooms at Korumburra Botanic Gardens, on her three acre properties in Korumburra and Leongatha, and along a rail trail leading out of Leongatha.
She said she bought a food dehydrator to begin drying mushrooms because she liked eating them but "it's a very small season" and she wanted to preserve them.
Patterson was shown photos of mushrooms in a dehydrator and said she'd picked them from Korumburra gardens and dehydrated them whole as "a bit of an experiment".
"They were still a bit mushy inside," she said.
"They just didn't dry properly."
She said she would dehydrate mushrooms from Woolworths and wild picked mushrooms and put them in containers in her pantry.
The trial continues.
Accused triple murderer Erin Patterson will return to the witness box after telling a jury she foraged wild mushrooms in the lead up to serving poisonous beef Wellingtons.
The 50-year-old has spent two days giving evidence to her Supreme Court trial in regional Victoria, including on Tuesday where she accepted there were death cap mushrooms in the toxic dish.
She will return on Wednesday for a third day as a defence witness.
Patterson has pleaded not guilty to three murders and one attempted murder over the July 2023 lunch she served to her former in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, 70, and Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson, 66.
All three died in hospital days after eating the meals. Patterson maintains the poisonings were not deliberate.
The sole survivor of the lunch was Heather's husband Ian Wilkinson, who has attended court most days since giving evidence in week two of the trial.
He sat silently at the back of the court room on Tuesday as Patterson explained she had begun foraging for wild mushrooms during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Before the end of the day, defence barrister Colin Mandy SC asked Patterson "do you accept there must have been death cap mushrooms" in the lunch she served to her former husband's family.
"Yes I do," she told a full court room and 14 jurors.
She said she started cooking wild mushrooms in the years before the lunch, and "ate it and then saw what happened".
"They tasted good and I didn't get sick," she said.
Patterson said she would forage for mushrooms at Korumburra Botanic Gardens, on her three acre properties in Korumburra and Leongatha, and along a rail trail leading out of Leongatha.
She said she bought a food dehydrator to begin drying mushrooms because she liked eating them but "it's a very small season" and she wanted to preserve them.
Patterson was shown photos of mushrooms in a dehydrator and said she'd picked them from Korumburra gardens and dehydrated them whole as "a bit of an experiment".
"They were still a bit mushy inside," she said.
"They just didn't dry properly."
She said she would dehydrate mushrooms from Woolworths and wild picked mushrooms and put them in containers in her pantry.
The trial continues.
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Perth Now
3 hours ago
- Perth Now
Key revelations from mushroom cook's testimony
The Victorian mother-of-two at the centre of a mushroom poisoning case had the opportunity to tell her own story this week as she took the stand at her triple-murder trial. Erin Patterson, 50, is facing trial after pleading not guilty to the murders of her husband's parents and aunt, and the attempted murder of his uncle. Simon Patterson's parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail's sister, Heather Wilkinson, died in the week after the lunch after falling ill from mushroom poisoning. Prosecutors alleged she deliberately poisoned the beef Wellington lunch on July 29, 2023, with death cap mushrooms intending to kill or seriously injure her four guests. Erin Patterson and her estranged husband Simon Patterson. NewsWire Credit: NewsWire Her defence, on the other hand, has argued the case is a 'tragic accident' and Ms Patterson also consumed the death caps and fell sick, though not as sick as her guests. Over five days this week Ms Patterson sat in the witness box about 7 m from the 14 jurors selected to hear her case, answering questions, firstly from her barrister Colin Mandy SC and then from Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC. Her opportunity to tell her own story came after the jury spent five weeks hearing from more than 50 witnesses for the prosecution as Ms Patterson sat in silence at the back of the Morwell courtroom. Mushroom cook agrees death caps in lunch may have been foraged In her testimony to the jury, Ms Patterson conceded death cap mushrooms 'must' have ended up in the beef Wellington lunch she prepared and served for the four guests. The morning of the lunch, she told the court, she started to prepare the duxelles, or mushroom paste, by cooking down two punnets of fresh sliced mushrooms she had purchased from Woolworths. 'So, as I was cooking it down, I tasted it a few times and it seemed a little bland to me, so I decided to put in the dried mushrooms that I'd bought from the grocer that I still had in the pantry,' she said. A court sketch of Ms Patterson in the witness box on Monday. NewsWire / Anita Lester Credit: News Corp Australia Ms Patterson told the jury she had purchased a packet of dried mushrooms in April the same year from an Asian supermarket in Melbourne, initially intending to use them for a pasta dish but deciding against that because they had a strong flavour. She said she now accepts it was possible she had stored wild mushrooms she foraged from her local area and dehydrated in the same Tupperware container. 'At that time, I believed it was just the mushrooms that I'd bought in Melbourne … Now I think that there was a possibility that there were foraged ones in there as well,' she said. Ms Patterson told the jury she first became interested in foraging for wild mushrooms during Covid and educated herself online. Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC is leading the case against Ms Patterson. NewsWire/ David Crosling Credit: News Corp Australia Over a period of months, she said she grew confident to identify 'field mushrooms and horse mushrooms' growing on her property before deciding to eat some. 'When I got to a point I was confident what they were, I cut a bit off, fried it up with butter, ate it and saw what happened,' she said. 'They tasted good and I didn't get sick.' Ms Patterson said she had purchased a dehydrator on April 28, 2023, to begin experimenting with preserving mushrooms because they had a short shelf life. Crown alleges photo shows Ms Patterson calculating 'fatal dose' Under questioning from Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC, Ms Patterson was taken to a photograph of sliced mushrooms on a dehydrator tray being weighed. The weight recorded was 280.0g and metadata from the photo showed it was last modified on May 4. Ms Patterson agreed the photo was 'likely' taken by her and contains her kitchen bench. Ms Patterson told the jury she loved mushrooms and would buy them one or two times a week. Supplied. Credit: Supplied Previously, the jury heard from mycologist Dr Tom May that the mushrooms pictured were 'consistent with amanita phalloides (death caps) at a high level of confidence'. Questioned on if she accepted the mushrooms pictured were death caps, Ms Patterson said: 'I don't think they are'. She also denied she had foraged these mushrooms in the nearby town of Loch on April 28 after seeing a death cap mushroom sighting post on citizen science website iNaturalist on April 18. Dr Rogers suggested the image recorded Ms Patterson weighing the mushrooms to calculate the 'weight required for the administration of a fatal dose'. 'Disagree,' Ms Patterson responded. The trial is being heard in the country Victorian town of Morwell. NewsWire / Josie Hayden Credit: News Corp Australia Mushroom cook tells jury she lied to health authorities because she was scared Ms Patterson said she first learned her in-laws had fallen ill the day after the lunch on a phone call with her estranged husband on July 30. The following day, she told the court, she attended the local Leongatha Hospital too seek treatment for gastro when the resident doctor, Dr Chris Webster, said 'we've been expecting you'. 'I think I said to him, 'Why? Why are you asking?', and he said that there's a concern or we're concerned you've been exposed to death cap mushrooms,' she said. 'I was shocked but confused as well … I didn't see how death cap mushrooms could be in the meal.' Crowds have lined up outside the court to sit in the public gallery. NewsWire/ David Crosling Credit: News Corp Australia Ms Patterson told the court she first began to suspect foraged mushrooms may have ended up in the lunch at Monash Medical Centre when Simon accused her of poisoning his parents. In his own evidence, at the start of the trial, Simon Patterson told the jury he did not say this to his wife. Ms Patterson told the jury on August 2, the day after her release from hospital, she disposed of her dehydrator at the Koonwarra Transfer Station. 'I was scared that they would blame me for it,' she said of the decision. 'Surely if you loved them (her in-laws) you would have notified health authorities about the possibility of the foraged mushrooms in the container?' Dr Rogers asked. 'Well I didn't,' Ms Patterson replied. 'I had been told people were getting treatment for possible death cap mushroom poisoning so that was already happening.' Erin Patterson appeared emotional at times on the stand. Brooke Grebert-Craig. Credit: Supplied Ms Patterson confirmed she did not notify anyone of her suspicions and lied to both police and health authorities in the following days by claiming she did not forage for mushrooms. She was taken to a series of messages exchanged with public health officer Sally Anne Atkinson, where Ms Patterson insisted the only mushrooms in the meal were from Woolworths and an Asian grocer. Asked what her state of mind was in relation to the Asian grocer, she said she 'still thought it was a possibility, but I knew it wasn't the only possibility.' Ms Patterson told the court she first learned of Heather and Gail's deaths as police searched her home on August 5 and continued to lie. 'It was this stupid knee-jerk reaction to just dig deeper and keep lying. I was just scared, but I shouldn't have done it,' she said. Simon's parents Don and Gail Patterson died a day apart in early August. Supplied Credit: Supplied Ms Patterson claims she vomited after deadly lunch Ms Patterson also told the jury she had long struggled with both her weight and relationships to food since childhood – describing it as a 'rollercoaster'. 'Mum would weigh us every week to make sure we weren't putting on too much weight … I went to the extreme of barely eating then to, through my adulthood, going the other way and bingeing,' she said. She told the court she had engaged in binge eating until she was sick then 'bringing it back up' since her 20s and no one knew. Erin Patterson legal team including Colin Mandy SC, Sophie Stafford and Bill Doogue. NewsWire / Luis Enrique Ascui Credit: News Corp Australia In the lead up to the July 29, 2023, lunch, Ms Patterson said she had been engaging in this behaviour 'two or three times a week'. She told the court that at the lunch with Don, Gail, Heather and Ian, she only ate some of her serving, but consumed about two-thirds of an orange cake after her guests left. 'I had a piece of cake and then another piece of cake and then another,' Ms Patterson said. 'I felt sick. I felt overfull, so I went to the toilets and brought it back up again.' Ms Patterson is expected to return to the witness box and continue giving evidence when the trial resumes on Tuesday.
West Australian
3 hours ago
- West Australian
Erin Patterson trial: Four takeaways from alleged beef Wellington poisoner's week in the witness box
The Victorian mother-of-two at the centre of a mushroom poisoning case had the opportunity to tell her own story this week as she took the stand at her triple-murder trial. Erin Patterson, 50, is facing trial after pleading not guilty to the murders of her husband's parents and aunt, and the attempted murder of his uncle. Simon Patterson's parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail's sister, Heather Wilkinson, died in the week after the lunch after falling ill from mushroom poisoning. Prosecutors alleged she deliberately poisoned the beef Wellington lunch on July 29, 2023, with death cap mushrooms intending to kill or seriously injure her four guests. Her defence, on the other hand, has argued the case is a 'tragic accident' and Ms Patterson also consumed the death caps and fell sick, though not as sick as her guests. Over five days this week Ms Patterson sat in the witness box about 7 m from the 14 jurors selected to hear her case, answering questions, firstly from her barrister Colin Mandy SC and then from Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC. Her opportunity to tell her own story came after the jury spent five weeks hearing from more than 50 witnesses for the prosecution as Ms Patterson sat in silence at the back of the Morwell courtroom. Mushroom cook agrees death caps in lunch may have been foraged In her testimony to the jury, Ms Patterson conceded death cap mushrooms 'must' have ended up in the beef Wellington lunch she prepared and served for the four guests. The morning of the lunch, she told the court, she started to prepare the duxelles, or mushroom paste, by cooking down two punnets of fresh sliced mushrooms she had purchased from Woolworths. 'So, as I was cooking it down, I tasted it a few times and it seemed a little bland to me, so I decided to put in the dried mushrooms that I'd bought from the grocer that I still had in the pantry,' she said. Ms Patterson told the jury she had purchased a packet of dried mushrooms in April the same year from an Asian supermarket in Melbourne, initially intending to use them for a pasta dish but deciding against that because they had a strong flavour. She said she now accepts it was possible she had stored wild mushrooms she foraged from her local area and dehydrated in the same Tupperware container. 'At that time, I believed it was just the mushrooms that I'd bought in Melbourne … Now I think that there was a possibility that there were foraged ones in there as well,' she said. Ms Patterson told the jury she first became interested in foraging for wild mushrooms during Covid and educated herself online. Over a period of months, she said she grew confident to identify 'field mushrooms and horse mushrooms' growing on her property before deciding to eat some. 'When I got to a point I was confident what they were, I cut a bit off, fried it up with butter, ate it and saw what happened,' she said. 'They tasted good and I didn't get sick.' Ms Patterson said she had purchased a dehydrator on April 28, 2023, to begin experimenting with preserving mushrooms because they had a short shelf life. Crown alleges photo shows Ms Patterson calculating 'fatal dose' Under questioning from Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC, Ms Patterson was taken to a photograph of sliced mushrooms on a dehydrator tray being weighed. The weight recorded was 280.0g and metadata from the photo showed it was last modified on May 4. Ms Patterson agreed the photo was 'likely' taken by her and contains her kitchen bench. Previously, the jury heard from mycologist Dr Tom May that the mushrooms pictured were 'consistent with amanita phalloides (death caps) at a high level of confidence'. Questioned on if she accepted the mushrooms pictured were death caps, Ms Patterson said: 'I don't think they are'. She also denied she had foraged these mushrooms in the nearby town of Loch on April 28 after seeing a death cap mushroom sighting post on citizen science website iNaturalist on April 18. Dr Rogers suggested the image recorded Ms Patterson weighing the mushrooms to calculate the 'weight required for the administration of a fatal dose'. 'Disagree,' Ms Patterson responded. Mushroom cook tells jury she lied to health authorities because she was scared Ms Patterson said she first learned her in-laws had fallen ill the day after the lunch on a phone call with her estranged husband on July 30. The following day, she told the court, she attended the local Leongatha Hospital too seek treatment for gastro when the resident doctor, Dr Chris Webster, said 'we've been expecting you'. 'I think I said to him, 'Why? Why are you asking?', and he said that there's a concern or we're concerned you've been exposed to death cap mushrooms,' she said. 'I was shocked but confused as well … I didn't see how death cap mushrooms could be in the meal.' Ms Patterson told the court she first began to suspect foraged mushrooms may have ended up in the lunch at Monash Medical Centre when Simon accused her of poisoning his parents. In his own evidence, at the start of the trial, Simon Patterson told the jury he did not say this to his wife. Ms Patterson told the jury on August 2, the day after her release from hospital, she disposed of her dehydrator at the Koonwarra Transfer Station. 'I was scared that they would blame me for it,' she said of the decision. 'Surely if you loved them (her in-laws) you would have notified health authorities about the possibility of the foraged mushrooms in the container?' Dr Rogers asked. 'Well I didn't,' Ms Patterson replied. 'I had been told people were getting treatment for possible death cap mushroom poisoning so that was already happening.' Ms Patterson confirmed she did not notify anyone of her suspicions and lied to both police and health authorities in the following days by claiming she did not forage for mushrooms. She was taken to a series of messages exchanged with public health officer Sally Anne Atkinson, where Ms Patterson insisted the only mushrooms in the meal were from Woolworths and an Asian grocer. Asked what her state of mind was in relation to the Asian grocer, she said she 'still thought it was a possibility, but I knew it wasn't the only possibility.' Ms Patterson told the court she first learned of Heather and Gail's deaths as police searched her home on August 5 and continued to lie. 'It was this stupid knee-jerk reaction to just dig deeper and keep lying. I was just scared, but I shouldn't have done it,' she said. Ms Patterson claims she vomited after deadly lunch Ms Patterson also told the jury she had long struggled with both her weight and relationships to food since childhood – describing it as a 'rollercoaster'. 'Mum would weigh us every week to make sure we weren't putting on too much weight … I went to the extreme of barely eating then to, through my adulthood, going the other way and bingeing,' she said. She told the court she had engaged in binge eating until she was sick then 'bringing it back up' since her 20s and no one knew. In the lead up to the July 29, 2023, lunch, Ms Patterson said she had been engaging in this behaviour 'two or three times a week'. She told the court that at the lunch with Don, Gail, Heather and Ian, she only ate some of her serving, but consumed about two-thirds of an orange cake after her guests left. 'I had a piece of cake and then another piece of cake and then another,' Ms Patterson said. 'I felt sick. I felt overfull, so I went to the toilets and brought it back up again.' Ms Patterson is expected to return to the witness box and continue giving evidence when the trial resumes on Tuesday.
ABC News
3 hours ago
- ABC News
Joseph Dunstan
The 50-year-old, who has pleaded not guilty to three charges of murder and one of attempted murder, admitted several times she had used lies and exaggeration in the past. 2h ago 2 hours ago Fri 6 Jun 2025 at 9:22pm Erin Patterson didn't tell a "single person" that she may have accidentally added foraged mushrooms to a lunch that eventually killed three of her relatives, her murder trial has heard. 20h ago 20 hours ago Fri 6 Jun 2025 at 3:22am The prosecution will continue their cross-examination of Erin Patterson, who has been accused of killing three relatives by serving them a meal that contained death cap mushrooms. Follow the trial as it happened 12h ago 12 hours ago Fri 6 Jun 2025 at 11:17am Health issues "planted" and mushrooms weighed to determine fatal doses. Here's how accused triple-murderer Erin Patterson responded to a number of accusations the prosecutions put forward during cross-examination. 23h ago 23 hours ago Fri 6 Jun 2025 at 12:16am Accused triple-murderer Erin Patterson has denied telling guests at her fatal lunch that she had cancer, despite evidence to the contrary given earlier in the trial by the sole surviving guest. Yesterday at 7:19am Thu 5 Jun 2025 at 7:19am Accused killer Erin Patterson faces more questions on the witness stand at her triple-murder trial. She's accused of killing three relatives by serving them a meal that contained death cap mushrooms. Follow the trial live. Yesterday at 7:22am Thu 5 Jun 2025 at 7:22am Erin Patterson has detailed to a jury how foraged mushrooms may have ended up in a beef Wellington dish that killed three relatives and made another seriously ill. Wed 4 Jun Wed 4 Jun Wed 4 Jun 2025 at 7:19pm Erin Patterson tells her triple-murder trial she first began foraging wild mushrooms during Victoria's COVID lockdowns, years before hosting her in-laws for a fatal meal. Tue 3 Jun Tue 3 Jun Tue 3 Jun 2025 at 8:37am Erin Patterson is giving evidence for a second day in her triple-murder trial. She's accused of murdering three relatives by serving them a meal that contained death cap mushrooms. Look back at how Tuesday's hearing unfolded in our live blog. Wed 4 Jun Wed 4 Jun Wed 4 Jun 2025 at 12:48am Accused triple-murderer Erin Patterson is called to give evidence in her trial, where she stands accused of deliberately poisoning her in-laws with a meal containing death cap mushrooms. Mon 2 Jun Mon 2 Jun Mon 2 Jun 2025 at 9:04am Erin Patterson's triple murder trial continues in Morwell. She's charged with three counts of murder over the deaths of three relatives who died from after eating a meal she prepared containing death cap mushrooms. Mon 2 Jun Mon 2 Jun Mon 2 Jun 2025 at 11:35pm A SIM card in one of accused triple murderer Erin Patterson's mobile phones was being swapped over while homicide detectives were searching her home a week after she hosted a deadly mushroom lunch, a jury has been told. Wed 28 May Wed 28 May Wed 28 May 2025 at 5:30am A week after hosting her in-laws for a deadly mushroom lunch, Erin Patterson told police officers she was still trying to understand what had gone fatally wrong, a murder trial jury has heard. Tue 27 May Tue 27 May Tue 27 May 2025 at 7:33am Erin Patterson has pleaded not guilty to murdering her estranged husband's parents and his aunt by feeding them poisonous death cap mushrooms in July 2023. Follow the evidence as it happened. Tue 27 May Tue 27 May Tue 27 May 2025 at 10:36am An investigator looking into a deadly 2023 lunch told the court that details in Ms Patterson's account of events changed over the course of several conversations. Mon 26 May Mon 26 May Mon 26 May 2025 at 7:44am Erin Patterson's triple murder trial continues from Morwell. She is charged with murdering three relatives who ate a meal she prepared which contained death cap mushrooms. Follow the trial live. Mon 26 May Mon 26 May Mon 26 May 2025 at 7:51am Erin Patterson is accused of murdering three relatives by serving them a beef Wellington that contained death cap mushrooms. Look back at how the day in court unfolded. Fri 9 May Fri 9 May Fri 9 May 2025 at 4:32am Medical staff who examined Ms Patterson in the aftermath of a deadly mushroom meal at her home have given evidence to a murder trial jury. Look back at how Thursday's hearing unfolded in our live blog. Thu 8 May Thu 8 May Thu 8 May 2025 at 7:14am A Supreme Court murder trial hears Erin Patterson was initially "reluctant" to have her children brought to hospital for medical checks after they allegedly ate leftovers from a lunch contaminated with death cap mushrooms. Look back on how the day's hearing unfolded in our blog. Wed 7 May Wed 7 May Wed 7 May 2025 at 6:55am Ms Patterson is accused of murdering three relatives by serving them a beef Wellington laced with poisonous death cap mushrooms. Follow the trial in our live blog. Tue 6 May Tue 6 May Tue 6 May 2025 at 6:44am Erin Patterson's Facebook friends took to the witness box in her murder trial over a lunch served to her in-laws containing death cap mushrooms. Look back at how the hearing unfolded in our live blog. Mon 5 May Mon 5 May Mon 5 May 2025 at 7:04am Senior Liberal figures say the party must review the way it ran its election campaign, after it was reduced to just a small handful of seats across the Melbourne region. Sat 3 May Sat 3 May Sat 3 May 2025 at 2:28pm Accused triple-murderer Erin Patterson's estranged husband Simon Patterson appeared for the second day as a witness in her trial. Look back on how it unfolded in our live blog. Fri 2 May Fri 2 May Fri 2 May 2025 at 3:54am The jury in Erin Patterson's murder trial hears the accused tried to persuade her estranged husband to attend the lunch where four guests ate meals containing death cap mushrooms. Look back on how the hearing unfolded in our live blog. Thu 1 May Thu 1 May Thu 1 May 2025 at 7:23am Organisers of Melbourne's Invasion Day rally say they have no plans to disrupt the Australian Open, and misinformation suggesting they did has caused "harm and distress". Thu 23 Jan Thu 23 Jan Thu 23 Jan 2025 at 5:37am
