Erin Patterson: Alleged poisoner quizzed on mushrooms used in deadly lunch
A doctor who treated Erin Patterson has told a court there was no “clinical evidence” she had experienced mushroom poisoning three days after the lunch.
The triple-murder trial of Erin Patterson has been told poisonous death cap mushrooms had been spotted months earlier in the region.
Mycologist Tom May, a former principal research scientist at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne, gave evidence on Tuesday about death cap mushrooms as a slide show was presented to the jury.
He told the court they were non-native and first sighted in Canberra in the 1960s, but they’d since been seen in NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania.
Dr May said they formed an “obligate relationship” with trees from the oak family, only sited close to oak, beech and chestnut trees.
He said the sprouting body of the fungus was most commonly found in the months of April and May but had also been observed in summer and winter months after a period of “decent rainfall”.
Once sprouted, he said, the body of the mushroom would last up to a few weeks, while the mycelium below ground could live for decades or even centuries.
Dr May described the cap of the mushroom as typically “greenish or yellowish but may be whitish or brownish”.
In Victoria, the mycologist said death cap mushrooms were observed most frequently in the metropolitan Melbourne region, particularly in the east.
In the East Gippsland region, Dr May said there had been three reports of death cap mushrooms, one historical record in Morwell and two in April and May 2023 in Outtrim and Loch that were posted to citizen science website iNaturalist.
Expert posted death cap sighting online
Questioning has turned to a post made by Dr May on iNaturalist where he identified death cap mushrooms in the locality of Outtrim in the afternoon of May 21, 2023.
Dr May said he was in town to give a presentation to a local community group about fungi when he spotted the growth nearby while walking.
Posting under the name of funkeytom, Dr May said he geolocated the sighting on iNaturalist to within 20m.
“It was in Outtrim and I believe it would have been Neilson St in Outtrim,” he said.
Prosecutors allege the very next day, Ms Patterson’s mobile data “suggests” she travelled to Outtrim at about 11am before returning to her Leongatha home.
Expert quizzed on risk of ‘misidentifying’ wild mushrooms
As defence barrister Sophie Stafford cross-examined Dr May, she took him through 10 photographs of possible death cap mushrooms with the expert offering his opinion on whether he was confident he could classify each as such.
He agreed that even for an expert, positively identifying mushrooms “is challenging”.
Quizzed on the possibility of misidentification, Dr May agreed that was why the majority of mushroom poisonings occurred.
Ms Stafford took the witness to a research paper he had co-authored in 2023 which examined the use of phone applications to identify mushrooms and concluded it’s use for the identification of poisonous species was poor.
He told the jury there was no simple rule that was “totally reliable” to distinguish toxic mushrooms from edible ones.
“After the first fatality of amanita phalloides three decades ago, I was saying ‘just don’t eat wild mushrooms’,” he said.
“Over the years... I would now advocate for this slow mushrooming apprenticeship.”
Dr May told the court calls to the Victorian poisons information centre had risen in recent years and it appears there was a rising number of people interested in foraging for mushrooms.
“In general that appears to be the case,” he said.
“The number of calls does seem to be rising but the population of Melbourne is also growing.”
Dr May will continue giving evidence when the trial resumes on Wednesday.
Alleged poisoner quizzed on mushrooms
Monash Health director of public health of infections diseases Rhonda Stuart was called to give evidence on Tuesday about her interactions with Ms Patterson on July 31, 2023, two days after the fatal lunch.
She told the court that she was questioned by Ms Patterson on why she was interviewing her, responding: “If the mushrooms she bought were causing a public health issue I’d need to know about it.”
Dr Stuart said Ms Patterson told her that she used two types of mushrooms, fresh from Woolworths and dried from an “Asian grocer”, when preparing the beef wellington lunch.
“She said they were in a sealed packet but she opened the packet and put them in another container,” Dr Stuart said.
“She said she made a paste, and when I asked her about the dried mushrooms, she said she’d used the entire lot so there was nothing left over.”
Dr Stuart told the court that Ms Patterson told her that “she ate about half of the meal”.
Ms Patterson ‘looked very well’ in hospital
Called to give evidence on Tuesday, Monash Health emergency registrar Laura Muldoon told the jury that there was no “clinical evidence” Ms Patterson experienced mushroom poisoning on August 1.
According to Dr Muldoon, Ms Patterson had “chapped lips” but otherwise looked well and was discharged from hospital later that evening.
“I noted that she looked clinically well. She had some chapped lips but otherwise looked very well,” she said.
Ms Patterson was transferred to Monash Health’s emergency department after self-presenting to Leongatha Hospital on July 31 and complaining of diarrhoea and abdominal cramping.
Quizzed by prosecutor Sarah Lenthall on if there was any clinical evidence for amanita phalloides poisoning or any other toxin, Dr Muldoon responded “no”.
She told the court that she was tasked with sending remnants of the beef wellington meal, retrieved from Ms Patterson’s bin, to a mycologist at the Royal Botanical Gardens.
The court was shown a photo depicting pastry with a small amount of brown material separated from the rest of the dish.
Another doctor at Monash Health, Varuna Ruggoo, said Dr Muldoon’s notes said there were “no concerns” about poisoning.
“She wrote in her notes there were no concerns about that kind of poisoning because liver tests were all in normal limits,” she said.
Why mushroom murder trial didn’t sit on Monday
Jurors in the weeks-long trial were told on Thursday last week by trial judge Justice Christopher Beale that they’d be getting a long weekend as a measure expected to save time.
“I’ve just been having a discussion with counsel about the way the case is progressing and the way that we can save some time and we can best achieve that by not sitting on Monday,” he said.
“There are things happening behind the scenes to try and condense the material that will be presented to you and if Monday is devoted to that rather than you sitting here in court listening to some evidence, I expect the case will conclude earlier.”
Ms Patterson is facing trial after pleading not guilty to three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder relating to a fatal lunch she hosted at her home in Leongatha, a small dairy town in Victoria, on July 29, 2023.
Her husband’s parents Don and Gail Patterson, both 70, and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson, 66, died after consuming death cap mushrooms inside a beef wellington that Ms Patterson served.
Ms Wilkinson’s husband Ian Wilkinson, 71, survived after a long stint in hospital.
Ms Patterson’s defence counsel says she did not intentionally or deliberately poison anyone, calling the deaths a tragic accident, and that she too fell sick after eating the lunch.
The trial, now in its third week, continues.