Accused mushroom murderer details what she left in and out of cookbook beef wellington recipe
Accused mushroom murderer Erin Patterson has told a court why she picked beef wellington to serve her lunch guests and about “deviations” she made to the cookbook recipe — admitting the possibility existed there were foraged mushrooms in the mix.
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Mushroom cook Erin Patterson “panicked” after her estranged husband accused her of poisoning his parents with a deadly beef wellington meal, a jury has heard.
Ms Patterson took to the witness box in her own triple-murder trial for a third day in a row, admitting foraged mushrooms may have been in the meal she served her in-laws.
The mother of two also told the Supreme Court jury she vomited after the lunch and conceded she “misled” her guests about having cancer.
Ms Patterson is standing trial in Morwell, accused of murdering Simon Patterson’s parents Don and Gail, both 70, along with Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson, 66.
The prosecution alleges she served them individual beef wellingtons she had deliberately laced with death caps at her Leongatha home on July 29, 2023.
Heather’s husband, pastor Ian Wilkinson, 71, was the only guest to survive.
At the start of the marathon trial, defence barrister Colin Mandy SC claimed what happened was a “tragedy and a terrible accident”.
But on Wednesday, the accused triple murderer had the chance to explain her version of events, in her own words, before she faces cross-examination by the Crown prosecution.
Ms Patterson, 50, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder.
THE BEEF WELLINGTON
Ms Patterson said after having lunch with Don and Gail on June 24, she decided to host another with Heather and Ian to strengthen their “connection”.
She said her mother would cook beef wellingtons on “important occasions” and thought she would give it a go using her RecipeTin Eats cookbook.
But she explained that she had to make “some deviations”.
“I couldn’t find … the big log that the recipe called for, the tenderloin or whatever they call it, so I had to use individual steaks,” she said.
Ms Patterson added that she left out the prosciutto because Don did not eat pork and instead of making a “crepe layer”, she used filo pastry.
She said she started by frying garlic and shallots for the “mushroom duxelles” to coat the meat before adding mushrooms she bought from Woolworths.
But because it tasted a “little bland”, she said she grabbed a container of dried mushrooms.
“I chopped them up and I … sprinkled them over the duxelles,” she said.
She told the court she believed only dried mushrooms from an Asian grocer, which she purchased in April, were in the container.
“I think that there was a possibility that there were foraged ones in there as well,” she said.
Before her guests arrived, she said she fried the eye fillets, assembled six beef wellingtons and then placed them in the oven.
THE LUNCH
Don, Gail, Heather and Ian arrived at 12.30pm with an orange cake and a fruit platter after Simon pulled out the night before, telling Ms Patterson he felt “too uncomfortable”.
“What plates did you use to serve up the food?” Mr Mandy asked.
“The dinner plates I had, so I think there’s a couple of black, a couple of white, one that’s red on top and black underneath … and then I’ve got one that (my daughter) made at kindergarten,” Ms Patterson replied.
She confirmed she did not own any other dinner plates or any grey plates.
During the second week of the trial, Ian testified that the guests ate off grey plates, while she ate off a smaller, “orangey-tan” plate.
Ms Patterson said she served five dishes and put the sixth beef wellington in the fridge.
“Grab a plate, guys,” she recalled saying to her guests as she prepared gravy.
She added that she grabbed the last plate, but does not remember which it was.
She also remembered Gail and Heather offered to help her plate the food, but she declined.
“I would have said something like: ‘No, it’s fine … it’s all under control’,” she said.
The court heard the Wilkinsons ate all of their meals, Don ate all of his and Gail’s leftovers as she didn’t finish hers and Ms Patterson ate a “quarter to a third” of hers.
THE CANCER CLAIM
At the end of the lunch, Ms Patterson said she told her guests she had an “issue” a couple of years earlier where she thought she had ovarian cancer.
“I’m not proud of this, but I led them to believe that I might be needing treatment in regards to that in the next few weeks or months,” she said.
The court heard Ms Patterson was planning to have gastric bypass surgery at that time and did not want to tell anyone about it.
“I was really embarrassed about it, so I thought perhaps letting them believe I had some serious issue that needed treatment might mean they’d be able to help me with the logistics around the kids, and I wouldn’t have to tell them the real reason,” she said.
She admitted she lied 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 didn’t want to tell anybody. I shouldn’t have lied to them,” she said.
Ms Patterson added that her children were not at the lunch because she thought it would be “easier” to talk about her medical issues.
The court heard the guests prayed for her health before leaving around 3pm.
THE AFTERMATH
Ms Patterson said she cleaned the kitchen before eating some of the orange cake.
“I had a piece of cake, and then another piece of cake, and then another,” she said.
She revealed ate all of the remaining cake, which was about two thirds.
“I felt sick. I felt overfull, so I went to the toilets and brought it back up again,” she said.
Ms Patterson told the jury on Tuesday she had struggled with binge eating and bulimia most of her life.
She said she felt better later that afternoon, but started experiencing diarrhoea between 10pm and midnight “every 20 minutes or so”.
The next day, on July 30, she drove her son to his flying lesson in Tyabb, but while they were driving there, she said she pulled over because she needed to go to the toilet.
“I went off into the bush and went to the toilet,” she said.
“I had diarrhoea … I cleaned myself up a little bit with tissues and put them in a dog poo bag and put it in my handbag and we hit the road again.”
The court heard they stopped at a service station in Caldermeade where she dropped the bag into a bin and later a doughnut van in Koo Wee Rup where her son bought her a coffee with her card while she stayed in the car.
The court heard she did not want to cook dinner when they returned home and gave the children the leftovers of the lunch in the fridge.
She said she removed the pastry and mushrooms from the beef wellington, splitting it onto two plates with potatoes and beans for the children to eat.
THE HOSPITAL
Ms Patterson said the diarrhoea came back “more strongly” that night.
“I thought that perhaps I needed to go to hospital and get some fluids,” she said.
The jury has previously heard she arrived at Leongatha Hospital around 8am and told Dr Chris Webster she was not an “urgent” patient because she only had gastro.
“I remember feeling a little bit unsettled, because when I said my name, his reaction communicated that he knew who I was,” she told the court.
Ms Patterson said Dr Webster told her they were concerned she had been exposed to death cap mushrooms.
“I was shocked, but confused as well,” she said.
She recalled that she could not understand how death caps could be in the meal.
Earlier, she denied foraging for mushrooms in Loch and Outtrim and denied seeing posts on citizen science website iNaturalist about death caps being spotted in those areas.
Ms Patterson said she was told by Dr Webster she needed to be medicated and sent to Melbourne via ambulance, causing her to feel “anxious”.
The court heard she left the hospital about five minutes later to pack her daughter’s ballet bag and put her lambs into a shelter, before returning at 9.48am.
THE ACCUSATION
She was brought to Monash Medical Centre where she met Simon and her children, with the four of them having a discussion about the lunch and her dehydrator on August 1.
“I remember explaining about how there was a concern that the lunch I had served on Saturday might have made people unwell,” she said.
At some stage, the children left the room, leaving Simon and his estranged wife.
“He said to me: ‘Is that how you poisoned my parents, using that dehydrator?’” she said.
“I said: ‘Of course not’.”
She said his comment prompted her to reflect on the lunch and she started to wonder whether mushrooms she had foraged and dehydrated had gone into the container with the dried mushrooms from the Asian grocer.
“Simon seemed to be of the mind that maybe this was intentional and I just got really scared,” she said.
She told the court she thought it was a “possibility” the dried mushrooms from the Asian grocer were responsible for the guests’ illnesses.
But by August 2, she said she started to think foraged mushrooms were also in the meal.
She admitted she dumped the dehydrator at the local tip that day.
“I was scared of the conversation that might flow about the meal,” she said.
“I was scared that they would blame me for … making everyone sick.”
THE PHONES
Ms Patterson was also asked about the factory resets of the Samsung phone, dubbed Phone B, seized by police on August 5.
She confirmed she reset the phone on August 2 to set it up with a new phone number because she did not want Simon to contact her.
But she said she reset the phone again on August 5 because she “panicked” and did not want police to find photos of mushrooms and the dehydrator.
She confirmed she reset it remotely the next day.
When police searched her home on August 5, Erin says Phone A – a Samsung phone she was using before she set up Phone B – was on a window sill near a charging station.
She told the court Phone A and a Nokia were not seized during the search.
“I took the SIM out of Phone A and put it into the Nokia,” she said.
Last week, Detective Leading Senior Constable Stephen Eppingstall told the court police never located Phone A or the Nokia.
The trial, before Justice Christopher Beale, continues.
Originally published as Accused mushroom murderer details what she left in and out of cookbook beef wellington recipe
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