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The Independent
27-05-2025
- The Independent
Erin Patterson trial hears it is ‘highly unlikely' shop-bought mushrooms could prove deadly
A health official has told an Australian court that it is 'highly unlikely' the deadly mushrooms involved in a high-profile suspected triple murder came from commercial supply chains, including Woolworths and Asian grocers. The testimony of Sally Ann Atkinson came during the trial of 50-year-old Australian woman Erin Patterson, who is accused of serving a lunch containing toxic mushrooms that led to multiple deaths in 2023. Ms Atkinson ruled out that store-bought mushrooms could be deadly or contaminated and discussed her department's report after the deaths of three of Ms Patterson's relatives that 'the risk to public health was deemed very low'. Ms Atkinson said that she spoke with Ms Patterson several times by text and phone in the days after the fatal mushroom lunch in July 2023. She told the court that the department of health's investigation into the suspected mushroom poisoning continued until 11 August, after which a report was compiled. Ms Atkinson said the department concluded it was 'highly unlikely' that commercially sold mushrooms – those available in supermarkets – were contaminated with amatoxin, the deadly toxin found in death cap mushrooms, as these fungi grow only in the wild. The Food Safety Unit found no issues with the mushroom supply to Woolworths and no evidence of food packaging tampering, she said. Quoting from the department's report, Ms Atkinson said: 'Based on the above, the risk to public health was deemed very low. No food sampling, other than samples already collected from the lunch … were considered to be warranted.' Ms Patterson is facing charges of murdering Don Patterson, Gail Patterson, and Heather Wilkinson, as well as attempting to murder Ian Wilkinson – relatives of her estranged husband, Simon Patterson. She is accused of lacing a dish with deadly death cap mushrooms and serving it to her relatives after inviting them for lunch. Prosecutors allege she called the meeting with the pretext of sharing medical information – an allegedly fabricated cancer diagnosis. Ms Patterson, 50, has pleaded not guilty. In the court on Tuesday, Ms Atkinson said that during her conversations with Ms Patterson she gave different versions of what happened after the fatal lunch. At first, she made it seem like she might have used the dried mushrooms in another meal before the beef Wellington, the health official testified. Later, Ms Patterson said she hadn't used them before. She also first said she bought all the ingredients on the same day, but later said she bought them over a few days. And at one point, she said she shopped in Mount Waverley, but later changed that to Glen Waverley, referring to two suburbs in Melbourne, Ms Atkinson told the jury on Tuesday. The jury had earlier heard that Ms Patterson told Ms Atkinson she had bought the mushrooms used in the beef Wellington from a Woolworths in Leongatha and an Asian grocer in Melbourne. Also on Tuesday, detective sergeant Luke Farrell detailed the search of Ms Patterson's Leongatha home on 5 August 2023, about a week after the fatal lunch, with Ms Patterson present during the visit at approximately 11.40am. The jury was shown photographs from the search, including kitchen drawers where an instruction manual for a Sunbeam dehydrator was found tucked away. Other images revealed digital kitchen scales with a glass bowl inside a pantry and a RecipeTin Eats: Dinner cookbook on the countertop. The cookbook contained a piece of tissue used as a bookmark, while a separate page featuring a beef wellington recipe was stained with cooking liquids. Officers also found a jug with liquid in the pantry and a platter of cut fruit in the fridge. The trial continues.
Daily Mail
27-05-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
Erin Patterson mushroom murder trial LIVE updates: Text messages reveal what Erin Patterson told health official about her deadly lunch - and the claim that 'conflicted' with what the mushroom chef told her earlier
00:43 Text messages reveal what Erin Patterson told health officer about the deadly lunch The Victorian Department of Health's Sally Ann Atkinson (pictured below) told the jury she believed the death cap mushroom poisoning outbreak was 'quite unusual' before messages between her and Erin Patterson were revealed in court. The health officer also said she wanted to get the deadly mushrooms off the shelves of stores if they 'existed'. Patterson has claimed she had purchased button mushrooms from a local Woolworths as well as dried muhsrooms from an unamed Asian store in Melbourne. Ms Atkinson said she attempted to call Patterson on August 1 before texting her at 3.50pm that same day. She asked for specific information about the lunch she served her guests including any drinks and ingredients used. 'I need to know what drinks were served, I need to know what shallots were used,' the health officer wrote. Ms Atkinson told Patterson she needed 'more precise information about the packaging' of the mushrooms as well as 'any roads you were parked on or (were) near those stores'. 'Just things to think about when I need to speak to you again,' Ms Atkinson ended her message. Patterson responded at 4.08pm on August 2. 'Hi Sally I will try to get that information all to you as soon as possible,' she wrote. 'I'm just dealing with trying to manage and look after the kids in hospital here and a bit snowed under trying to manage that. 'I'll get this info to you as soon as I can but I've just been in a couple of meetings with people at the hospital when you've been trying to call.' Ms Atkinson sent a return message to Patterson barely a minute later and asked about the children. 'Yeah they're fine thank you,' Patterson responded at 4.11pm. 'Very glad to hear that,' Ms Atkinson immediately replied. Ms Atkinson said she also attempted to call Patterson later that evening but there was no answer. She said she left a voicemail and received no return call. Ms Atkinson said Patterson sent a text message again later on August 2. 'She'd told me she'd bought everything on the Friday evening, (the) texts conflicted with earlier assertions,' Ms Atkinson told the court. Ms Atkinson sent Patterson a message back: 'Hi Erin, I have taken a couple of photos of zip-lock type bags with just white labels on them.' The jury heard Ms Atkinson then sent Patterson photos of mushrooms in zip-lock bags. 'Can you tell me please if either of those sizes looks about right and whether the label size seems about right to you,' she wrote. The jury heard Patterson circled one of the zip-lock mushroom bag images and responded. 'Looking at the size and volume of things in the supermarket I realise there's no way it can have been 100g worth,' Patterson wrote. 'I was thinking about the weight of that amount of fresh I think, but dry (mushrooms) weigh a lot less. 'Yes that store doesn't look familiar but that style of packaging and labelling is exactly what I meant. 'They weren't whole like those shitake mushies in the photos, they were sliced. And yes the packaging was about half the size of that.' Ms Atkinson then asked Patterson to speak to her on the phone. Patterson responded: 'Sure.' The pair spoke again at about 11.20am on August 3. The jury heard the pair discussed the cooking process surrounding the lunch she served her guests. Ms Atkinson and Patterson also communicated about the mushrooms she used in the beef Wellington. The court heard Patterson said the mushrooms were sliced but not dark. She said they had a similar colour to button mushrooms. Patterson also sent two texts to Ms Atkinson describing the pastry she used for the beef Wellington. 'Hi Sally I used a combination,' Patterson wrote. 'It was all Pampas puff pastry from Woolworths. I had some already in the freezer and used that up and I also bought some more from Woolies that week I believe. 'It was either just the basic Pampas puff pastry or the Pampas butter puff pastry.' A second text read: 'Oh I also used filo pastry, it comes as a roll in a blue box from the freezer section of Woolies. I bought that new.' Everything you need to know about the Erin Patterson mushroom murder trial overview so far Erin Patterson, 50, is accused of murdering her in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail's sister, Heather Wilkinson, after allegedly serving them a beef Wellington lunch which included death cap mushrooms. Patterson is also accused of attempting to murder Heather's husband, pastor Ian Wilkinson, who survived the lunch after spending several weeks in an intensive care unit. The court heard Patterson's estranged husband, Simon, was also invited to the gathering at her home in Leongatha, in Victoria's Gippsland region, but didn't attend. Witnesses told the jury Patterson ate her serving of the lunch from a smaller and differently coloured plate than those of her guests, who ate from four grey plates. Patterson told authorities she bought dried mushrooms from an unnamed Asian store in the Monash area of Melbourne, but health inspectors could find no evidence of this. Victoria's health department declared the death cap mushroom poisoning was 'isolated' to Patterson's deadly lunch. Multiple witnesses, including Simon Patterson, Ian Wilkinson and other family members, have given emotion-charged evidence to the jury. Medical staff have told the jury of the painful symptoms the dying lunch guests and Mr Wilkinson suffered. An expert witness told the court death cap mushrooms were detected in debris taken from a dehydrator Patterson had dumped at a local tip. Telecommunications expert Dr Matthew Sorell also told the jury that Patterson's phone was detected near areas in Outtrim and Loch where death cap mushrooms had been spotted. Victoria Police Cybercrime Squad senior digital forensics officer Shamen Fox-Henry said he found evidence of a death cap mushroom on data from a computer seized from Patterson's Leongatha home on August 5, 2023. On Friday, Austin Hospital intensive care director Professor Stephen Warrillow told the jury he was at the Melbourne health facility in July 2023 when the poisoned lunch guests were transferred to his care. Professor Warrillow said all patients received intense treatment and Don received a liver transplant. On Monday, a protester ambushed the trial demanding to know how Justice Christopher Beale 'could be a judge'. The man (pictured below) wearing a yellow T-shirt with the slogan, 'All we are saying is give truth a chance' went on a rant just after the jury re-entered the courtroom. 'Mr Beale how could you be a judge when you rig court cases,' the man yelled. Detective Leading Senior Constable Stephen Eppingstall, the police informant in the Patterson trial, approached the man and walked him out of the courtroom. The trial resumed without further interruption. After lunch Wilkinson sat in court and listened as details of his wife died from death cap poisoning were aired in court. The jury also heard the text exchanges between health department officer Sally Anne Atkinson and Patterson in the days after the deadly lunch as authorities rushed to solve the cause of the outbreak. The trial continues.
ABC News
26-05-2025
- ABC News
Details in accused killer Erin Patterson's account of deadly lunch to authorities changed, court hears
Erin Patterson kept giving "different" information to the health official leading an urgent investigation into the death cap mushroom poisoning that killed three of her in-laws, a murder trial jury has heard. Ms Patterson, 50, has pleaded not guilty to three charges of murder and one of attempted murder over a beef Wellington meal containing death cap mushrooms she served to four relatives in 2023. On Monday afternoon, the Department of Health's Sally Ann Atkinson told the Supreme Court trial how her public health team urgently investigated the death cap poisonings in the wake of the Leongatha lunch. Ms Atkinson, who headed up a team that specifically investigated gastro-related outbreaks, told the court she "immediately" escalated the response when a doctor notified her unit of suspected amatoxin poisoning in at least five people on July 31. The trial of Erin Patterson, who stands accused of using a poisoned meal to murder three relatives, continues. Follow the latest developments in our live blog. "Because this was something that was quite unusual ... [it] sounded very serious," she said. Ms Atkinson said the health department quickly established a team of people to respond to the issue, including food safety officers tasked with pulling any mushrooms from supermarket shelves that posed a risk to the community. The health official said on August 1 she called Erin Patterson on her mobile and asked her about her symptoms. She said Ms Patterson told her that she had experienced "explosive diarrhoea" the night after the Saturday lunch and into the Sunday of the next day. Ms Atkinson said Ms Patterson told her everyone at the lunch had eaten the same food, which was separately plated up and included a packet gravy in addition to the beef Wellingtons, mashed potatoes and beans. She said Ms Patterson told her it was "a meal she'd never made before and she wanted to do something fancy". She said Ms Patterson had told her the mushrooms in the dish were a mixture of Woolworths button mushrooms and dried mushrooms from an Asian grocer in the Oakleigh, Clayton, or Mount Waverley areas. But she said Ms Patterson later told her that store could have been the Glen Waverley area, not Mount Waverley, and rather than buying most of the fresh ingredients on the Friday before the lunch, she had in fact bought the fresh ingredients over Wednesday to Friday. Ms Atkinson said Ms Patterson's account of what she did after buying the dried mushrooms from an Asian grocer months before the lunch also became "different" over time. Initially, Ms Atkinson told the court Ms Patterson informed her that she had bought the dried mushrooms "for a specific meal she was making, which I think was a pasta dish or something". She said Ms Patterson told her she had opened the clear bag the mushrooms were in and "thought they smelt funny". Ms Atkinson said she understood from her first conversation with Ms Patterson that some of the dried mushrooms were used in a pasta dish, and the rest set aside in a Tupperware container. But she said later, Ms Patterson told her she had never cooked a meal with the dried mushrooms before the beef Wellington lunch. "The initial conversation seemed to indicate she'd used some of them in the first dish and … now she was saying that she had not. But she wasn't very clear," Ms Atkinson said. Earlier in the day, the hearing was briefly interrupted by a protester, who began shouting and questioning the authority of Justice Christopher Beale before he was swiftly removed from the courtroom. Ms Patterson's lawyers cross-examined Victoria Police digital forensics witness Shamen Fox-Henry, who was asked about his role in analysing data from devices seized as part of the investigation. The court heard Mr Fox-Henry used a digital tool to preserve hard-drive data from a computer, before analysis of its contents. The court previously heard the computer involved was found in Ms Patterson's house and had been used to visit the iNaturalist and Korumburra Middle Pub websites in 2022. The trial has previously heard sightings of death cap mushrooms were uploaded to the iNaturalist website in areas a short drive from Erin Patterson's home in Leongatha, in the months before she hosted the deadly lunch the next year. The trial last week also heard that phone data suggested Ms Patterson had visited Loch and Outtrim shortly after death cap mushroom sightings were made to iNaturalist, although her defence lawyer told the court any conclusion about her movements based on phone data was just "speculation". Defence barrister Colin Mandy SC questioned Mr Fox-Henry on the rigour he had applied to the process and what double-checks had been done to ensure details of the digital data police had analysed was accurate. Mr Fox-Henry told the court the software used, Magnet Axiom, would have identified if there was an error or issue in the data. "The forensic imaging software that we use dictates whether or not there has been a failure," he said. On Monday the trial also heard from forensic pathologist Brian Beer, who said autopsies of Gail Patterson, Don Patterson and Heather Wilkinson in the days after their deaths revealed extensive liver damage and organ failure consistent with death cap poisoning.
