Surviving guest recalls becoming deathly ill following mushroom lunch

A pastor who survived being poisoned with death cap mushrooms has recalled the lunch that claimed the lives of three others and the dramatic fight to save his life.

Korumburra Baptist church pastor Ian Wilkinson, 71, gave evidence in accused killer Erin Patterson’s murder trial on Tuesday, telling the jury that all four lunch guests – Ian, his wife, Heather, and Don and Gail Patterson – became increasingly unwell with vomiting and diarrhoea about 12 hours after the beef Wellington meal at Erin’s house.

Ian Wilkinson arrives at court on Tuesday.Credit: Jason South

The day after the lunch, Ian’s nephew, Simon Patterson, drove Ian and Heather Wilkinson to Leongatha hospital. Simon’s parents, Gail and Don Patterson, had already been transported by ambulance.

When pressed about the meal, Ian Wilkinson maintained Erin, 50, had served all four guests on grey plates, while she ate off a tan-orange plate.

Wilkinson, who was still wearing his wedding ring almost two years after the death of his wife, also said his relationship with Erin appeared friendly and amicable but he didn’t believe it had much depth.

“Never had arguments or disputes. She just seemed like an ordinary person,” he said.

When he and his wife were invited to Erin’s home for lunch, Wilkinson said he thought it might improve their relationship.

“Heather … told me we’d been invited to Erin’s home for a meal,” he recalled. “She was fairly excited, and she said it was good news, sort of thing. I really can’t remember the details.

“There was no reason given for lunch. I remember talking to Heather wondering why suddenly the invitation.”

Wilkinson arrived at the court precinct shortly before 9am on Tuesday as the doors were being unlocked, entering the court building with three family members. Dressed in a grey collared shirt and black vest, he took a seat in the witness box less than 10 metres from the accused murderer.

Don Patterson, Gail Patterson, Heather Wilkinson and Ian Wilkinson were poisoned by a mushroom meal.

When the four guests arrived at Erin’s house, Wilkinson said they made their way to the open-plan kitchen, dining and living area.

He said Heather was interested in pantries and had asked the host, “Can I have a look at your pantry?”

“I noticed Erin was very reluctant of the visit to the pantry. I thought maybe the pantry was a mess, it’s going to be an embarrassment, so I won’t add to the embarrassment by joining the party,” he said.

After a garden tour, the pastor said the group gathered back in the kitchen area, where Erin was mashing potatoes and plating up the lunch.

When Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson offered to help, the offer was rejected.

They then sat down to eat, all the guests off grey plates and Erin off what Ian Wilkinson said was an “odd plate”, an orange-tan coloured plate that she carried to her own place at the table.

“We said grace,” Wilkinson said. “I [then] ate the entire meal.”

He said Don Patterson ate half of his wife’s meal but everyone else finished their own plates before Erin told the group she had been diagnosed with cancer.

“She was asking our advice about that, ‘should I tell the kids or not tell the kids about this threat to my life?’ ” the pastor said.

“In that moment, I thought, ‘This is the reason we’re being invited to the lunch’.”

Wilkinson said he had said a prayer for Erin and her children before the guests all left.

The church pastor of 26 years said he and his wife went to bed about 10.30pm but within hours began to feel unwell, spending the night coming and going from the laundry and bathroom before Simon Patterson arrived at their doorstep the next morning and drove them to hospital. Don and Gail Patterson were already there, having been taken in an ambulance.

Ian Wilkinson said that while in hospital, Heather remembered Erin eating off a different coloured plate and questioned whether that had something to do with them being unwell.

At that point, he said staff in the urgent care area thought the four had food poisoning from the meat in the lunch dish, and they were admitted to a ward.

Wilkinson told the jury he had been awakened the next morning – July 31, 2023 – by hospital staff in a panic.

“We were abruptly woken up by a group of nurses who literally ran us down the corridor in our beds to the urgent care area. [Doctor] Chris Webster was waiting in the urgent care area. He said that he had had communications from Dandenong Hospital indicating suspected mushroom poisoning,” Wilkinson told the court.

“He was very frank and said it was an extremely serious situation, he said there is time-critical treatment available, and he was very concerned that we be transported quickly to Dandenong.”

The witness said he and his wife were swiftly taken via waiting ambulances to Dandenong Hospital.

He told the jury that at Dandenong Hospital, he remembered hearing his sister-in-law Gail Patterson’s voice coming from the pod next to him.

Ian Wilkinson leaves court on Tuesday.Credit: Jason South

That was one of the last things he remembers, the court heard, before he was sedated, intubated and later moved to the Austin Hospital.

The court heard Ian Wilkinson was in intensive care at the Austin until August 21, 2023, when he was moved onto the ward to recover from death cap mushroom poisoning.

He returned home about September 11, 2023. The other three lunch guests died in hospital.

Erin Patterson has pleaded not guilty to all charges and maintains the deaths were a tragic accident.

On Tuesday, the court also heard from medical witnesses including some of the hospital staff who first came into contact with the ill guests, and the owner of a store where Erin Patterson had purchased an electronic dehydrator in the months before the fatal lunch.

The jury heard a toxicologist is expected to give evidence on Wednesday.

The trial continues.

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