Erin Patterson denies foraging death cap mushrooms hours before buying food dehydrator, murder trial hears

Erin Patterson has denied leading health officials on a “wild goose chase”, and that she foraged death cap mushrooms two hours before buying a food dehydrator, a Victorian court has heard.

Patterson, 50, faces three charges of murder and one charge of attempted murder relating to poisoning four lunch guests with beef wellington served at her house in Leongatha, Victoria, on 29 July 2023.

Patterson has pleaded not guilty to murdering her estranged husband Simon Patterson’s parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and his aunt Heather Wilkinson, and attempting to murder Ian Wilkinson, Simon’s uncle and Heather’s husband.

Lawyers for Patterson say the death cap mushroom poisoning was a tragic and terrible accident.

In her seventh day in the witness box, Patterson was again asked repeatedly by Nanette Rogers SC, for the prosecution, whether she agreed with a series of suggestions about the lunch, and her behaviour in the weeks before and after it.

Illustration: Guardian Design

Patterson denied that she deliberately bought separate eye fillet steaks as she wanted to make individual beef wellingtons and not because she could not source a single larger “log” of eye fillet, as the recipe had called for.

She agreed that she may not have needed to put additional dried mushrooms in the dish, given she had bought enough mushrooms from the supermarket for the recipe, but denied that the dried mushrooms were too “overpowering” to be included in the “special” beef wellingtons.

“I thought it was the perfect dish for them,” Patterson said.

Patterson also denied she had been wrong to tell police she had been “very helpful” to health authorities who were trying to find an Asian grocer she had bought dried mushrooms from, nor that she lied about buying these mushrooms.

“You sent them on a wild goose chase, trying to locate this Asian grocer, correct or incorrect?” Rogers asked.

“Incorrect,” Patterson replied.

She also said she did not know or suspect that Don and Gail were ill because of eating the beef wellington at the time she decided to feed leftovers of the dish to her children for dinner the night after the lunch.

Rogers said it was alleged Patterson visited Loch in April and Outtrim in May after posts were made on the website iNaturalist identifying sightings of death cap mushrooms in the nearby towns.

Rogers said that Patterson picked death cap mushrooms in Loch on 28 April 2023, and within two hours of finding them went and bought a Sunbeam food dehydrator to dry them.

Patterson denied that she had seen the iNaturalist posts, or deliberately visited the towns on the dates in which the prosecution alleges her phone data suggests she did so.

The court has previously heard that Patterson dumped the food dehydrator at a local tip the week after the lunch. It was later recovered by police and a forensic examination uncovered her fingerprints and traces of death cap mushrooms.

Patterson admits she dumped the food dehydrator, saying she did so in a panic about a visit child protection authorities were planning to make, and the fact she says Simon accused her of using it to poison his parents.

Patterson’s supreme court trial at the Latrobe Valley law courts in Morwell continues.