Erin Patterson trial: Exhibits and pictures shown to the jury released by Victorian Supreme Court
Incredible new images have revealed a mystery at the heart of mushroom cook Erin Patterson’s murder trial.
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Court exhibits from the Erin Patterson trial reveal a mystery at the heart of the Victorian mother’s mushroom murders: what happened to her pink Samsung phone?
CCTV images, captured from when Patterson briefly checked herself into hospital after the fatal beef wellington lunch and released by the court on Monday, show her with a pink Samsung phone.
But police say they never recovered that device.
Instead, a separate photo shows her handing over a different phone to police investigators - one she had scrubbed, or “factory reset”, several times - when officers searched her home on August 5.
The court heard during the trial one of those factory resets took place remotely, after police had taken the device from her.
Police say Patterson primarily used the pink Samsung between February and August of 2023.
The prosecution argued Patterson swapped phones to hide evidence of her crimes.
During the trial, Patterson’s barrister Colin Mandy SC suggested police could have missed the device - referred to as Phone A - when they searched her home.
The images are part of a sweep of freshly released material in the aftermath of the jury’s guilty verdict on Monday, as she spent her first night as a convicted killer behind bars.
Other footage shows Patterson dumping a dehydrator containing death cap mushrooms at the tip.
The numerous exhibits were shown to the jury during the triple-murderer’s marathon trial.
The jury found her guilty of poisoning Don and Gail Patterson, and Heather and Ian Wilkinson at the lunch she hosted on July 29, 2023.
Only Ian, the Korumburra Baptist Church pastor, survived the lunch after spending about a month and a half in hospital.
Prosecutors argued during the trial that Patterson’s actions in the days following the lunch could only reasonably be explained by her knowing the guests were poisoned with death caps while she was not.
Jurors were told these included dumping the Sunbeam dehydrator on August 2 and lying to police by claiming she had never foraged for mushrooms or owned a dehydrator.
After seven days of deliberations, jurors unanimously found Patterson guilty of three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder on Monday afternoon.
Patterson had pleaded not guilty, arguing at trial she did not intentionally poison the meal with death cap mushrooms and did not want to harm her family members.
She will return to court for a pre-sentence hearing at a later date.
Following the verdict, Victoria’s Supreme Court released a series of photos, videos and exhibits presented to the jury over the nine-week trial.
Erin’s plates
Pictures of killer cook Erin Patterson’s crockery also threw a key issue left unanswered at trial into stark focus.
The triple-murderer, 50, was found guilty of poisoning Don and Gail Patterson and, Heather and Ian Wilkinson with a beef wellington lunch she hosted on July 29, 2023.
Giving evidence about the lunch, Ian told the jury he remembered Patterson serving the guests on four large grey plates and eating from a smaller “orangey-tan” dish.
Prosecutors had labelled this a “striking” piece of evidence.
Ian Wilkinson was a compelling witness who was able to recall a substantial amount of detail about the lunch, Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC said.
“You can confidently accept what he told you about the details of the lunch, including the four grey plates and the fifth odd plate,” she said.
Patterson’s husband, Simon Patterson, gave evidence of a similar statement by Heather the morning after the lunch.
He told the jury she looked puzzled and asked; “I noticed Erin served herself food on a coloured plate, which was different to the rest.”
Simon told the court Heather again brought up the topic as he drove her and Ian to hospital.
“She asked me, ‘Is Erin short of crockery? Is that why she would have this different kind of coloured plate’,” he said.
“I said, ‘Yes, Erin doesn’t have that many plates’ and that may be the reason.”
Patterson herself denied she owed grey or tan coloured plates, insisting she did not even own a full set of plates.
This was seemingly backed up by images taken from Patterson’s Leongatha home on August 5 — seven days after the lunch — as police searched the property.
Instead they found several white plates, several black plates, smaller black and red plates and a multi-coloured plate — which Patterson claimed were the only ones she owned.
No explanation for the discrepancy was put forward by the prosecution and Patterson’s defence urged the jury to find Ian was mistaken.
The deadly beef wellington
Pictures of the deadly meal Erin Patterson used to kill three members of her husband’s family have been released by Victoria’s Supreme Court.
This included pictures of leftovers from the meal taken from the garbage bin outside Patterson’s Leongatha home two days following the lunch.
The jury heard the existence of leftovers were first raised when Patterson attended Leongatha Hospital complaining of gastro on July 31, 2023.
Later the same day they were located by police and taken, first to Leongatha Hospital, before being transported alongside Patterson by ambulance to the Monash medical centre.
Leongatha Hospital’s Dr Chris Webster told the jury during the trial he had placed Ms Patterson on the phone with Senior Constable Adrian Martinez-Villalobis and she gave him permission for the officer to enter her property.
Constable Martinez-Villalobis said Ms Patterson was “co-operative throughout the exchange” and instructed him that leftovers would either be in her indoor or outdoor bin.
The table and kitchen
The leftover food was located at the bottom of her outdoor red-lidded bin in an “seeping” brown paper Woolworths bag, the officer said.
“It was primarily maybe one-and-a-bit beef wellingtons,” he said.
“I used another one of the bags that were in the bin … because it was seeping a bit from the bottom and I didn’t want to get dirty.”
Constable Martinez-Villalobis then took the bag to Leongatha Hospital where he handed it over to a nurse about 10.19am.
The jury heard Patterson prepared six individually-portioned beef wellington serves, five for her lunch guests and one spare.
Prosecutors alleged the sixth was earmarked for her husband, Simon Patterson, should he have changed his mind and attended the lunch.
Patterson, on the other hand, claimed she served the meat from the sixth, with the pastry and mushrooms scrapped off, to her two children for dinner on the 30th.
The jury was told a sample containing a small portion of beef located in the leftovers, was later found to contain traces of the toxins found in death cap mushrooms.
Images of death cap mushrooms from Patterson’s tablet
Police retrieved images of death cap mushrooms on scales from Patterson’s tablet.
Prosecutors argued Patterson had taken the photos of the death caps she had picked from Loch a few weeks before the lunch and weighed them to calculate how much to give to deliver a fatal dose to her guests.
Patterson saw a notice from the website iNaturalist warning of death caps in Loch.
The dehydrator
Patterson bought a Sunbeam dehydrator in April.
The jury heard the morning after she was discharged from hospital following the deadly lunch, she drove to the Koonwarra Transfer Station and dumped the device, which was later located by police and found to have death cap remnants.
CCTV captured the moment at Koonwarra.
She said she picked and dehydrated mushrooms from the Korumburra Botanical Gardens earlier that year and later believed it was possible she accidentally included them in the meal.
Patterson told the jury she had bought dried mushrooms from an Asian grocer in Melbourne in April that year, storing them in a Tupperware container in her pantry and adding them to the duxelles because she thought the dish was “a little bland”.
Explaining why she dumped the dehydrator, Patterson said Simon had accused her of using it to poison his parents while in hospital on August 1 and she began to panic, fearing she would be wrongly blamed.
The burner phone
CCTV captures Patterson’s pink Samsung phone at hospital.
But the police never located it.
Instead, she handed over a separate phone, one she had “factory reset” six times.
Mother-in-law’s diary
Mother-in-law Gail Patterson made a note in her diary about the lunch.
The entry read: “Lunch at Erin’s w Heather + Ian.”
Throughout the trial, there was evidence that Gail was attentive and loving.
Patterson herself told the court Gail had been an invaluable support for her during her early period of motherhood.
The nine-second toilet stop
CCTV footage captured Patterson using the Caldermeade BP station toilet for just nine seconds, one day after the lunch, claiming she was ill.
Wearing a grey long-sleeved top and white pants, with a black handbag slung over her shoulder, Ms Patterson gets out of her red MG car and visits the bathroom for nine seconds.
She then browses the store, first at the pre-prepared meals and then the confectionary aisle before purchasing items and leaving.
Leongatha Hospital
CCTV captured the moment Patterson left Leongatha Hospital on July 31 after just five minutes, against medical advice.
A call from doctor Chris Webster to the police on that morning was also played to the jury.
Dr Webster was treating Patterson’s victims and he was concerned she had also been exposed to the poisonous death caps.
He made the call to the police after failing to reach Patterson on her mobile number.
In the call, he informs the police that four patients are at serious risk after the poisoning.
Each of the lunch guests were in hospital the morning of July 30 and their conditions continued to deteriorate to the point the quartet were on life support and in induced comas by August 1.
None of the medical witnesses in the trial said Patterson appeared unwell and she showed no markers of death cap poisoning.
Originally published as Erin Patterson trial: Exhibits and pictures shown to the jury released by Victorian Supreme Court
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