Mushroom cook Erin Patterson: ‘I felt sick, I felt overfull. So, I went to the toilet and brought it back up’

Erin Patterson told a court she threw up after a deadly meal, and how a personal habit might have been the very thing that saved her from the same fate as her guests.

Erin Patterson looked positively weary as she embarked on her third day of evidence in the trial that will determine the rest of her life.

Her slight country twang, elongated “yeahs” and habitual dabbing at her eyes punctuated her testimony, as she took the jury through her account of the fateful family lunch.

On Wednesday, Ms Patterson, was again asked to detail the shame of her unhealthy relationship with food.

Her fears of losing touch with family – an emotion only matched by her self-loathing – was, she says, the reason she invited her four guests to the lunch that killed three of them, and nearly killed another.

Beef wellington had been one of her mum’s specialties, Ms Patterson explained, but she had never made one herself.

“I remembered on really important occasions, my mum would make a beef wellington when I was a kid, and I thought I’d do that too, I’ll give it a go,” Ms Patterson testified.

Over lunch, the Pattersons – Don and Gail – and Wilkinsons – Heather and Ian – talked about their lives, family, a bit of politics, current affairs, and of course the kids.

Then, Ms Patterson says, the topic of cancer came up.

Erin Patterson is on the witness stand after three people died eating Death Cap mushrooms from a meal she had cooked. Picture: Jason Edwards

She was too “ashamed and embarrassed”, she told the Supreme Court, to tell anyone, let alone her in-laws and extended family, about her plans to have gastric bypass surgery.

Instead, she admitted, she told her lunch guests of her non-existent cancer battle.

She felt it not only garnered compassion, it gave her cover if and when she went under the knife.

“It was right at the end of the meal and I mentioned that I’d had, maybe not ‘scare’ is the right word, but I had an issue a year or two earlier where I thought I had ovarian cancer,” she told the packed Morwell courtroom.

“I’m not proud of this but I led them to believe that I might be needing some treatment in regards to that (cancer) in the next few weeks or months.

“I do remember I referred to upcoming treatment. Because primarily in my mind I was thinking I might need help with getting the kids … and might need to explain why I was going to the hospital for a day or two.”

Crown prosecutors Nanette Rogers and Sarah Lenthall leave court in Morwell. Picture: David Crosling

Asked if she misled her four lunch guests, Ms Patterson answered, “I did … I did lie to them.”

“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 and embarrassed. I didn’t want to tell anybody. But I shouldn’t have lied to them.”

Then, in a bizarre twist, Ms Patterson revealed her binge-eating habit might have been the very thing that saved her from the same fate as her guests.

Survivor from the meal, Ian Wilkinson. Picture: David Crosling

Ms Patterson testified that after the group had left she tucked into two-thirds of an orange cake, which had been brought by Gail.

“I had a piece of cake, and then another piece of cake, and then another,” she confessed.

Asked by her barrister, Colin Mandy KC, how much of the cake she ate, Ms Patterson replied: “All of it”.

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

Ms Patterson had already told the court there had been too much chatter over lunch for her to finish her beef wellington, which she cooked and now accepts contained poisonous mushrooms.

Originally published as Mushroom cook Erin Patterson: ‘I felt sick, I felt overfull. So, I went to the toilet and brought it back up’