Shame, embarrassment, self-loathing. The picture of an accused mushroom killer

Alone in the witness box, looking down on her barrister and a room full of curious observers, Erin Patterson shared sides of herself most people would be nervous telling their friends, let alone strangers.

That she’d binge-eaten nearly a whole orange cake by herself and thrown it back up. “I had a piece of cake. And then another. And another.”

The defence team arrive at court.Credit: Jason South

That she lied to her in-laws about having cancer because she had enjoyed the attention. “I didn’t want their care for me to stop, so I kept it going.”

That she’d had diarrhoea and an embarrassing emergency toilet stop on the side of the road. “I went off into the bush and went to the toilet.”

That her fake cancer diagnosis was used to explain any trips to the hospital she may need to take for the secret gastric band surgery she wanted to have.

“I was planning to have a gastric bypass surgery and I remembered thinking I didn’t want to tell anybody what I was going to have done. I was really embarrassed about it.”

Dressed in a sage-green jumper, black pants and sandals, Erin Patterson’s brunette hair was out, resting down below her shoulders.

Across more than five hours of evidence, tears flowed as she spoke about lying to her in-laws and saw pictures of her children.

A white tissue remained in her hand, dabbing at her nose or briefly removing her glasses to wipe her eyes when she became emotional.

Biting her lip as it moved, she says her son and his “papa” Don Patterson were like two kindred spirits born decades apart.

“[My son] just loved him,” she says.

A court sketch of Erin Patterson giving evidence in the witness box.Credit: Anita Lester

During other evidence she spoke matter-of-factly about family life, the logistics of juggling her children and her son forgetting plans made just the night before.

Erin Patterson used the words embarrassed and ashamed repeatedly as she went over her body-image issues and the lies she told her lunch guests about her health.

“I’m not proud of this but I led them to believe that I might be needing some treatment in regards to that [ovarian cancer] in the next weeks or months,” she told the Supreme Court jury at Morwell.

“I did lie to them.”

The accused woman said she only ate a quarter or a third of her serve of the beef Wellington that contained the death cap mushrooms that claimed the lives of her in-laws and Heather Wilkinson and left pastor Ian Wilkinson critically ill.

“I was talking a lot. I was eating slowly. That’s about all I can say.”

Under questioning from her barrister, Colin Mandy, SC, the 50-year-old recounted how she wanted weight-loss surgery but didn’t want to tell anybody.

“I was really anxious and stressed about this upcoming procedure that I was going to have and I just wanted to know that it would be sorted and I would not have to worry ... about the kids.

“I was really embarrassed. I was ashamed of the fact that I didn’t have control over my body or what I ate. I was ashamed of that ... I didn’t want to tell anybody.”

She said it played in to her decision to lie about having cancer.

“Primarily in my mind I was thinking I might need help with the kids ... and I might need to explain why I was going up to the hospital for a day or two, so that was really the focus of what I was talking about.”

After her lunch guests left, Erin Patterson said she ate about two-thirds of the orange cake that Gail had brought for them to share.

“I felt sick. I felt overfull. So I went to the toilet and brought it back up again.”

After three days of evidence that have touched on her own self-loathing, the packed public gallery are being given a picture of the accused killer cook.

Erin Patterson has pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and one of attempted murder after pastor Ian Wilkinson survived the lunch at her Leongatha home on July 29, 2023. She concedes death caps were in the food she served but claims the fatalities were a tragic accident.

The trial continues.