The mushroom lunch, according to the accused

Ian Wilkinson told the jury he was in the main body of the church when his wife told him they’d been invited for a meal at Erin Patterson’s.

“She was fairly excited,” the pastor recalled.

“We were very happy to be invited. Seemed like maybe our relationship with Erin was going to improve.”

Wilkinson said there was no reason given for the lunch and that he wondered aloud to his wife about why suddenly, they were invited.

Erin Patterson says she extended the invitation to Simon despite a relationship they both agreed had become less friendly and more formal.

By this time, she says, she’d long held an interest in foraging for mushrooms, borne out of pandemic lockdown walks with her children.

Years later, Patterson told the jury she bought a dehydrator in April 2023 from the local electrical store as she was eager to learn how to dehydrate wild and store-bought mushrooms to ensure she could eat them, and other foods, year round.

It became somewhat of an experiment, she told the Morwell jury, working out how to best dehydrate the fungi, and she said she would later eat them or blend them into a powder to hide in her children’s food for added nutrition.

It was during this time, she said, that she shared details of her life with a group of Facebook friends, who spoke regularly about everything from recipes to their children, politics and world events.

Their conversations were frequent, and the court heard 600 pages of messages were obtained from early to mid-December 2022 alone.

In them, Patterson spoke about issues with her separation from Simon, described him as a “deadbeat” father and complained that her attempts to get her in-laws to intervene were falling on deaf ears.

“This family I swear to f—ing god,” one post read.

“Nobody bloody listens to me, at least I know they’re a lost cause,” another read.

“I’m sick of this shit I want nothing to do with them,” a third post read. “F— them.”

Patterson, the court heard, later told police she loved and had a great relationship with Don and Gail Patterson.

“They got on very well I think,” Simon told the jury. “She especially got along well with Dad. They shared a love of knowledge and learning and an interest in the world, and I think she loved his gentle nature.”

Erin Patterson said by the time she organised the lunch she feared Simon was creating distance between her and his parents.

“They did love me and I did love them,” she said.

“I had felt for some months my relationship with the wider Patterson family, particularly Don and Gail, had a bit more distance and space put between us.”

In the days before the lunch, Erin Patterson says she wanted to cook her guests something special, better than the shepherd’s pie she’d last served the Pattersons.

She said she remembered her mother cooking beef Wellington and used the RecipeTin Eats cookbook to help guide her preparation.

Shopping receipts show Erin Patterson made repeat trips to the supermarket to buy pastry, mushrooms and steak.

The night before the meal, Simon Patterson sent her a text message and the former couple had a terse exchange.

“I feel too uncomfortable about coming to the lunch with you, Mum, Dad, Heather and Ian tomorrow, but I’m happy to talk about your health and implications of that at another time. If you’d like to discuss on the phone, just let me know,” Simon texted.

Erin replied: “That’s really disappointing. I’ve spent many hours this week preparing lunch for tomorrow, which has been exhausting in light of the issues I’m facing, and spent a small fortune on beef eye fillet to make beef Wellingtons because I wanted it to be a special meal, as I may not be able to host a lunch like this again for some time. It’s important to me that you’re all there tomorrow, and that I can have the conversations that I need to have. I hope you’ll change your mind. Your parents, and Heather and Ian are coming at 12.30. I hope to see you there.”

Erin Patterson told the jury she’d been unable to buy a single large piece of steak so decided instead to make individual parcels of beef Wellington for each guest, six in total.

She began preparing the meal by making a mushroom duxelle, or paste, using the mushrooms she bought from Woolworths. But when she tasted it, she was worried it was too bland.

She says she grabbed a Tupperware container she believed contained “pungent” dried mushrooms she bought three months earlier from an unidentified Asian grocery store in the City of Monash area of Melbourne.

As her guests’ arrival drew nearer, Erin Patterson says she dropped her children and their friend off in town to eat McDonald’s and watch a movie.

When the Wilkinsons and her in-laws arrived, Gail carrying an orange cake and Heather a fruit platter, the group toured her garden and the women Erin Patterson’s new pantry.

They then gathered in the open-plan kitchen and dining area where the host plated up mashed potatoes, green beans and individual beef Wellingtons about 12.30pm.

Erin Patterson told the jury that when she turned her back on the group to heat pre-made gravy satchels, the women began carrying the plates to the table.

One, Erin Patterson says, remained on the kitchen bench and that’s the one she took to eat from.

The accused says the group chatted as they ate, and she talked so much she ended up eating little of her meal.

She says they spoke about politics and current affairs before she led them to believe she had an illness, but never used the word ‘cancer’.

Her guests left in time for Ian Wilkinson to attend a 3pm appointment. Erin was left home on her own until Simon picked the children up from their movie and dropped them home.

The following morning, the accused says, she learnt from her estranged husband that his parents were unwell.

She says she too was suffering from diarrhoea but took imodium so she could take her son to a flying lesson.

The trip was interrupted, she says, when she had to stop to defecate on the side of the road, and she cleaned herself and placed tissues in a doggy bag until she could dispose of them in a bathroom toilet at the Caldermeade BP service station.

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Patterson says that on the Sunday evening – July 30, 2023 – she scraped the mushroom paste and pastry off the leftovers and fed her two children what remained.

She says as her diarrhoea worsened, she felt too unwell to eat the dinner and instead unsuccessfully attempted to eat cereal.

In the following days, she says, she took herself to hospital for what she believed was gastro, and left at one point to take care of her animals and children, before returning to be admitted and transferred to a Melbourne hospital for investigation of possible death cap mushroom poisoning.

She says that while in hospital, Simon said to her, “Is that how you poisoned my parents, using that dehydrator?” She denied the allegation.

The jury heard that sent her into panic as it dawned on her that there may have also been foraged mushrooms in the Tupperware container.

She returned home, grabbed the dehydrator and dumped it at the local tip.

The mother of two says she later factory reset her mobile phone because she did not want police to find the images she had of her drying mushrooms, and lied to police about ever foraging.

She denies ever deliberately poisoning anyone, or deliberately lying to police to cover her tracks.

That is how Patterson says she came to be wrongly accused of murdering Don and Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson, and attempting to murder Ian Wilkinson.

Prosecutors spent five days cross-examining her about her version of events as evidence in the seven-week-long trial drew to a close.

They claim the accused saw online posts about death cap mushrooms located in her area, and that mobile phone tracking shows she travelled to the sites, including Loch and Outtrim, to purposely pick death caps.

Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers, SC, told the jury Patterson’s version of events are a lie and that she lured the lunch guests to her home with a fake cancer diagnosis and fed them the death caps.

And, prosecutors allege, if Simon Patterson had attended lunch, his estranged wife would have also fed him a poisoned pastry parcel.

The prosecution alleges that in the aftermath of the fatal lunch, the accused took steps to conceal her involvement, was never unwell and lied to police in her record of interview.

“I suggest that you deliberately sourced death cap mushrooms in 2023. I suggest you deliberately included them in the beef Wellington you served to [your four guests]. You did so intending to kill them,” Rogers asked the accused this week.

“Disagree,” Erin Patterson replied three times, after each accusation.

After 31 days of evidence, the jury will next week hear closing arguments and then be left to decide whose version of events they believe.

Patterson has pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and one of attempted murder.

The trial continues.

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