Crucial move in police case against mushroom cook Erin Patterson

The first morsels of information in the police case against Leongatha woman Erin Patterson have been laid bare almost nine months to the day since the notorious mushroom lunch.

Almost nine months to the day since the most notorious lunch in the world, the triple murder case it stirred up has taken a leap forward.

Victoria Police confirmed on Friday that Homicide Squad detectives had finalised and served the brief of evidence to the lawyers of the cook charged with killing three relatives – Erin Patterson.

This is in line with the magistrate’s demand that it be finished by March 25.

Just as very little is known about the private family lunch on Saturday, July 29, 2023, the details of the brief will remain hidden from the public.

That is until Ms Patterson returns to court in May, when the first morsels of information are expected to be laid bare.

Sources familiar with the case say the brief is expected to include several witness statements and photographs which will be relied on by the prosecution as evidence.

For six hours after the arrest of Ms Patterson, police were with the accused murderer in the Leongatha home where she cooked the fatal beef wellington.

Sniffer dogs darted about the yard as searches began on the Red MG in the driveway. Suitcases loaded with possible evidence accumulated in the same driveway.

Technology is likely to play a big role in the brief.

Examination of CCTV, credit card usage, internet history, tollway movements and phone data is part of almost every modern investigation.

This element got an extra dimension when technology detection dogs were unloaded.

The canines are trained to sniff out mobile phones and things like SIM cards which someone may not want found.

Police are due to hand up the evidence they will rely on in the case against Erin Patterson. Picture: Brooke Grebert-Craig

Toxicology reports which have taken months to finalise could be key.

As for Ms Patterson, she has presented a pained front since July, all untamed hair and mumbled hostility for the uproar.

After one intrepid journalist knocked at her door, a sign warning of the prosecution of trespassers materialised on her property fence.

At one point she insisted she bought dried mushrooms for the meal at an Asian grocer in Melbourne’s east, and that she dumped a mushroom dehydrator in a panic.

She also said that she had done nothing wrong.

Only two people can properly describe the July 29 lunch. One is Ms Patterson.

The other is Ian Wilkinson, a pastor who has since recovered from the cusp of death to face a future without his wife, Heather.

Ms Patterson did not sign the statement she gave to police and which was released to the media in August.

Investigators will have worked tirelessly to interrogate its contents, nevertheless.

Her children were at the local cinema when the lunch happened, she said.

Homicide detective Inspector Dean Thomas has said that the children were at the house and he has not shifted from that public position since.

Erin Patterson is accused of attempting to kill her ex-husband Simon on four separate occasions. Picture: David Geraghty

Simon’s parents, Don and Gail Patterson, both died in the days after the lunch. Picture: Supplied

It has been widely reported that the lethal catch-up last July was supposed to be a coming together after an apparently amicable separation between a husband and a wife.

Then, three of the guests – Heather, and Ms Patterson’s former in-laws Don and Gail Patterson – dropped dead in the days afterwards, in dreadful ways which trumped the Herculean efforts of teams of surgeons.

Heather Wilkinson also died following the lunch, while Ian Wilkinson miraculously recovered. Picture: Supplied

Their purported symptoms – vomiting, stomach cramps, liver failure – allegedly matched the markers for death cap mushroom ingestion.

Poisonings hold a ghastly fascination that date back to Ancient Greece.

Deliciously diabolic, they command a unique gallows humour that can seem so at odds with their murderous intent.

Victims boast no clues to the doom that they themselves, unwittingly, propel by the most automatic of functions.

Sipping a cup of tea. Nibbling on a biscuit.

Many observers are poised to add beef wellington, a darling go-to concoction of the 1970s, to the list of lethal weapons.

Originally published as Crucial move in police case against mushroom cook Erin Patterson