The 13 questions police will likely be asking about the Leongatha deadly mushroom lunch

As police probe the mysterious, deadly mushroom lunch case they will likely be asking the host and “person of interest” Erin Patterson many of the questions Victorians are also pondering.

As police probe the mysterious, deadly mushroom lunch case they will likely be asking the host and “person of interest” Erin Patterson many of the questions Victorians are now also pondering.

In an extraordinary story of twists, turns, shocks and new developments, here are 13 questions that remain unanswered — for the Victorian public at least.

Here, also, are some of the people police will likely want to quiz in their bid to get to the bottom of the deaths of Erin Patterson’s former in-laws, Gail and Don Patterson, and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson following the July 29 beef wellington lunch.

Heather’s husband — Baptist pastor Ian Wilkinson — remains in a critical but stable condition in the Austin hospital.

The Herald Sun is not suggesting that Ms Patterson intentionally fed her guests toxic mushrooms, just that police are investigating the incident.

No charges have been laid.

1. Where is the Asian grocer located precisely that Erin Patterson claims to have purchased the dried mushrooms she used in the beef wellington dish she cooked for her guests? Ms Patterson says she cannot remember the name of the Mt Waverley store she bought the package of dried mushrooms from three months before the lunch, but what about it’s location?

2. Why did Ms Patterson feed her two children leftovers from the lunch the following night, when the dish had made her guests so ill? Ms Patterson also claims she became ill from the lunch herself — enough to present at the local hospital. She has claimed she scraped the mushrooms off the beef wellington for her children because they don’t like them — but if the dish had made others who consumed it so ill, it would appear an odd choice to give any of the dish at all to her own children.

Erin Patterson claims she also became ill from the lunch, but fed her children the leftovers from it. Picture: Brooke Grebert-Craig.

3. In a statement her lawyers provided to police this week, Ms Patterson said she was given a “liver protective drug” when she presented at the hospital feeling unwell. Some Victorian doctors have taken to social media to inquire what this drug could have been.

4. Ms Patterson also admitted in her statement to lying to police about when she dumped a dehydrator at the local tip. Ms Patterson confirmed she ditched the dehydrator after her ex-husband Simon Patterson asked: “Is that what you used to poison them?” She admitted she lied to police, telling them she disposed of it “a long time ago”. But it begs the question, if the dehydrator wasn’t used to dry mushrooms and played no role in the deadly lunch preparation, why dump it all? And also why dump the dehydrator but keep the beef wellington?

5. While police initially told media Ms Patterson’s two children were present at the lunch but served separate meals, Ms Patterson has since said they were at the movies. Who were they with?

6. No doubt police will want to speak with Ms Patterson’s children but they will also want to speak with her ex-husband Simon about the fears he has apparently raised with friends over what he believes may have been previous poisoning attempts.

Simon Patterson, the ex-husband of Erin Patterson. Picture: Supplied

Dried mushrooms at an Asian grocery. Picture: Brooke Grebert-Craig

7. A question still remains as to why Mr Patterson pulled out of the lunch he was also invited to, in what has been reported to have been part of a mediation process between his parents and his ex-wife.

8. And police will want to talk to extended members of the Patterson family about the nature of the relationship between Erin Patterson and her former husband and former in-laws, Gail and Don Patterson, both of whom are now dead. Is it true, as has been previously reported, that they were not keen on any possible reconciliation between Erin and Simon, and would not have supported it?

9. Police will also be extremely keen to speak with Ian Wilkinson, the sole surviving guest from the lunch — who remains in the Austin hospital awaiting a liver transplant. If and when Mr Wilkinson wakes and is in a position to speak, he will likely be questioned at the first possible opportunity.

10. The Herald Sun revealed a paramedic who treated a dying guest alerted investigators to a conversation he had with the ­patient. It’s not known what the ­patient told the ambulance officer, only that the paramedic ­believed it necessary to pass the information on to police. Police will be keen to know the full details of that conversation and what was said to the paramedic.

Erin Patterson’s Leongatha house, where the deadly lunch was served. Picture: Ian Currie

11. Police will want to know about strange drawings on a wall inside Ms patterson’s former home, that a tradesman called a “death wall” and said he had been asked to paint over. The wall featured grim, child hand drawings of tombstones and messages including “you don’t (have) long to live”.

12. Police will likely be now searching Erin Patterson’s phone for messages, her computer for emails and scouring her internet search history - wherein vital clues to what really happened on July 29 — and also before the day, and afterwards - may lay.

13. Leongatha and Korumburra locals say they don’t know if Erin Patterson was a forager for mushrooms or of other wild foods — police will certainly want to know whether she was.