Tip manager tells Erin Patterson mushroom murder trial of dehydrator found in e-waste bin

The manager of a South Gippsland tip has told Erin Patterson’s murder trial that a food dehydrator was found in an e-waste bin at the transfer station two days after CCTV showed a woman in a red car dropping off an item.

Koonwarra Transfer Station and Landfill operations manager Darren Canty told the Supreme Court hearing in Morwell on Wednesday that he had been contacted by police on August 4, 2023, and asked to look at video footage from two days earlier.

Darren Canty at La Trobe Valley Law Courts, Morwell.Credit: Justin McManus

He said that on the footage, he saw a woman attending the site in a red 4WD-type vehicle entering around 11.30am.

In CCTV played to the jury, a woman wearing white pants can be seen driving into the site to a beige shed in the background.

The shed, Canty said, contained clearly marked bins for e-waste, mattresses and batteries.

In the footage, the woman can be seen exiting the car, walking to the boot and opening it before removing a square-looking black item from inside.

The woman is then seen carrying the item inside the tip shed.

Seconds later, she is seen on CCTV again returning to her car, closing the boot and driving away.

Canty said that the same day he had received the police call, he had asked an employee to look inside the shed.

“He then called me back and sent me a photo. He said it kind of looked like a microwave dehydrator, but wasn’t quite sure because he did not get it out of the bin,” Canty said.

Photographs shown to the court showed a black Sunbeam dehydrator inside an e-waste bin.

Canty said a search of the site’s business records had shown the e-waste deposit was paid for at 11.35am using eftpos.

Erin Patterson is accused of murdering her parents-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, by serving them poisonous mushrooms in a beef Wellington she cooked at her Leongatha home on July 29, 2023.

The Pattersons and Heather Wilkinson died in the days after the meal from the effects of mushroom poisoning. Heather’s husband, Ian, survived after weeks in hospital.

Erin Patterson has pleaded not guilty to three charges of murder and one of attempted murder. Her lawyers have said the deaths were a terrible accident.

No evidence Erin Patterson suffered cancer or poisoning: doctor

The final witness on Wednesday afternoon was Professor Andrew Bersten, an intensive care specialist.

Bersten told the court he had examined Erin Patterson’s medical records, including those from during her time at Leongatha and Monash hospitals in late July and early August 2023.

He found that her presentation was consistent with someone having a diarrheal illness.

He said he had not been shown any evidence that showed she had suffered from toxic poisoning, or cancer, during this same time.

Professor Andrew Bersten.Credit: Justin McManus

When examining the results of the accused woman’s fecal specimen taken on July 31, 2023, he found no pathogens were detected.

The court heard Erin Patterson was released from hospital about 2.45pm on August 1, 2023.

Expert kept leftovers in home fridge after testing meal, court told

Earlier on Wednesday, a fungi expert from Melbourne’s Royal Botanic Gardens said she had kept the leftovers from the beef Wellington meal in her refrigerator at home after testing the food for toxic mushrooms.

Mycologist Camille Truong told the court she had been working at the Royal Botanic Gardens when she had received a call to help identify mushrooms in the leftovers.

Camille Truong, a mycologist at the Royal Botanic Gardens, outside the Latrobe Valley Law Courts in Morwell on Wednesday.Credit: Justin McManus

Truong said that on July 31, 2023, she received an email from toxicologist Laura Muldoon at Monash Health but was unable to identify the type of mushroom from the attached pictures, which were also shown to the jury.

“Usually with toxicologists when we discuss the case, we ask several questions that can help us identify the mushroom based on where it was found. So I asked her if she knew what the source of the mushroom was, where it was found, if the person who cooked it remembers the colour before it was cooked,” she told the jury.

“I then told her that based on this photograph, I wouldn’t be able to give her an identification.

“[Muldoon] said they had been bought from a supermarket. And a Chinese shop, I believe.

“I did indicate to her if the mushrooms were coming from a shop or supermarket, it’s … impossible to be death cap mushrooms, as they only grow in the wild.”

Due to a misunderstanding, the court heard that Truong had left work early for the day before receiving a message from a receptionist telling her that a parcel of leftovers had arrived for her at her office. She then asked a colleague to drop the leftovers at her home.

Truong said the leftovers had been in a large zip-lock bag when they arrived at her home, and she set up a small microscope in her house to look at the meal.

She said she did not see any death cap mushrooms inside, and she put the lunch leftovers in her fridge at home. She took the leftovers back to her workplace and tested them again later the next day.

She told the jury the only mushrooms she could identify were field mushrooms, typically found in supermarkets.

“I was told all the mushrooms were coming from … a shop or supermarket. No foraging activity,” she said.

The leftovers were then collected by the Department of Health about 1pm on August 2, 2023, she said.

Dried death caps emit ‘very unpleasant’ smell: expert

Identifying specific mushroom species is a difficult process and can often be confirmed only in a laboratory rather than out in the field, a mushroom expert told the trial.

On Wednesday morning, mushroom expert Tom May was asked about an article he had co-authored about the accuracy of mushroom identification tools.

Mushroom expert Tom May arrives at court on Wednesday.Credit: Justin McManus

While under cross-examination by defence barrister Sophie Stafford, the mycologist agreed that accurately identifying fungi was a challenging process that often required testing under a microscope.

He said there was no obvious odour from death cap mushrooms when they were freshly picked, although they did emanate a strong smell when dried.

“My experience with death cap mushrooms is when they are first collected, there’s no particular smell, slightly sweet perhaps. I have dried death caps on a number of occasions, and I find the smell to be very unpleasant,” May said.

Digital photographs of selected mushroom specimens included in Tom May’s study, displayed to the jury in the Erin Patterson murder trial.

May agreed that in an article Stafford was asking about, he had written that only 62 of the 78 mushroom photographs he had analysed as part of his report could be confidently identified as a particular species.

He agreed there was a possibility the 62 could also have been identified by error as the study looked at photographs of mushrooms supplied to the poisons hotline, and not captured by the authors live in the wild.

May was taken through a series of photographs of mushrooms that had grown in Victoria, including in Gippsland.

He was also taken through screenshots of other mushroom images uploaded on the iNaturalist website, the state’s most popular citizen scientist website of its kind.

Digital photographs of some of the more challenging mushroom species to identify that were included in May’s study, clockwise from top left: Volvopluteus gloiocephalus, Omphalotus nidiformis, Leucoagaricus leucothites, Amanita phalloides, Bolbitius titubans, Marasmius oreades.

The images were shown to the jury on Wednesday as May was asked questions from the defence about identifying different types of mushrooms using features including the top, stem and gills of fungi.

He agreed some posts to the page were “research-grade” verified – where a number of people have supported the identification – while others, including some from the Gippsland area, were unverified observations.

In another post shown to the jury, a suspected Oudemansiella gigaspora was posted in Narbethong, north-east of Melbourne.

May agreed it had similar features to death cap mushrooms – brownish and with a smooth cap, white stem and gills.

A screenshot of the iNaturalist page that was shown to the jury, showing a species of mushroom that is not a death cap.

He also agreed Oudemansiella gigaspora was known to grow in the Gippsland area and not known to be poisonous to humans.

The court heard that in May 2024, a woman died in Victoria after consuming death cap mushrooms she had picked from her front garden and cooked into a meal with her son.

May agreed the coroner’s office later recommended additional public awareness about the dangers of eating wild mushrooms.

He said he had since provided advice on an advertising campaign run by the Department of Health.

The jury was also shown a slide that indicated 529 death cap mushrooms had been found growing in the Royal Botanic Gardens in South Yarra between 2020 and 2023.

The trial continues.

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