Mushroom cook thought guests would take her cancer tale to the grave, Crown claims

It’s the cancer story prosecutors claim mushroom cook Erin Patterson thought she’d never have to account for.

That she had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer and needed treatment and help breaking the news to her two children.

Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers, SC, and Detective Acting Sergeant Stephen Eppingstall.Credit: Jason South

Sole lunch survivor Ian Wilkinson told the Supreme Court that Erin Patterson, at the lethal lunch, had broken the news of her cancer to guests, telling them she was anxious about telling her kids.

Simon Patterson said his father Don Patterson, a victim of the mushroom poisoning, had relayed to him that Erin Patterson was expecting to have chemotherapy and surgery.

But before the jury in Morwell on Thursday, the 50-year-old accused quibbled with the suggestion she’d told her guests she had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer, or cancer of any kind.

“I suggest you never thought you’d have to account for this lie about having cancer because you thought the lunch guests would die,” Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers, SC, said.

Ian Wilkinson outside court.Credit: Jason South

“That’s not true,” Patterson replied.

During her first day of cross-examining the accused, Rogers repeatedly asked her about her “so-called cancer diagnosis”.

Erin Patterson agreed she had researched the symptoms online for things including stage-four cancer, but denied doing so as part of a ploy to convince her family she was very unwell.

“This would allow you to tell a more convincing lie about having cancer?” Rogers asked.

Erin Patterson, her in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson (bottom right), and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson (top right).Credit: Matthew Absalom-Wong

“I mean theoretically that’s true, but that’s not what I did. I was concerned that I had ovarian cancer, I was concerned that I had something wrong with my brain.”

In the lead-up to the lunch, Erin Patterson agreed she didn’t have any medical appointments relating to cancer, despite telling Gail Patterson she was undergoing medical investigations.

Rogers asked the accused if she purposely carried on the fiction that she had a serious illness. The accused agreed.

She disagreed though, that she did so as part of her efforts to lure her lunch guests and her estranged husband, Simon Patterson, to attend a meal at her home.

“I had initially thought I had an issue with my elbow, I’d had a lot of pain for a number of weeks, I thought I had a lump,” she explained.

“I had told Don and Gail about what I was worried about. I’d probably whinged a bit too much to Don and Gail about it and felt a bit embarrassed by that, and they made me feel loved and cared for in the way that they were asking about my health and I didn’t want that to stop, so I kept going.”

Once at the lunch on July 29, 2023, the accused denied telling her in-laws and the Wilkinsons she had cancer.

“I don’t remember saying I’d had a diagnosis,” she said.

“I don’t think I was that specific.

“There was nothing to tell the kids and I had no intention to tell the kids anything about it. My concern about the children that I was trying to convey was how to manage them in light of it all … the fact that I might need some treatment in the future.”

Erin Patterson agreed this was different to what Ian Wilkinson had earlier told the jury about what was discussed at her Leongatha home.

The accused did though agree that she wanted her lunch guests to believe she may be having treatment for cancer.

“Yeah, I agree with that,” she said.

After three days of evidence under questioning from her own lawyer, Colin Mandy, SC, it was the first time Erin Patterson was grilled by prosecutors.

Within seconds of rising to her feet, Rogers launched into questioning Erin Patterson about myriad lies she had told about her use of a dehydrator and foraging for wild mushrooms.

“I agree that I lied because I was afraid I would be held responsible,” she said.

She also admitted dumping the dehydrator at the local tip after she was released from hospital in August 2023.

She denied though knowing death cap mushrooms had been prepared in it, or having ever held any intent to pick, dry, cook and serve the poisonous mushrooms to her lunch guests.

If Simon Patterson had attended the lunch, she said she would’ve served him a beef Wellington too.

“You know if you told the police the truth, you knew it would implicate you of deliberate poisoning of four lunch guests,” Rogers asked.

“No, that is not true,” the accused woman replied.

“I suggest you were testing how you could hide mushrooms in food without anyone noticing,” Rogers asked when detailing how Patterson had hidden mushrooms in muffins for her kids.

“Yes, that’s fair,” the accused replied.

Erin Patterson said she had foraged for mushrooms between April and July 2023 at her property, the Korumburra Botanic Gardens, and a nearby rail trail. But she denied ever seeking out the death cap variety.

The accused was taken to photographs on a device seized by police at her home in August 2023, which included mushrooms drying on the trays of a dehydrator.

She was asked if these were death cap mushrooms and whether she picked them at Loch after an online post pinpointing their location. She disagreed.

“I did not deliberately put death cap mushrooms in the meal,” Erin Patterson said.

Other photographs shown to the accused included drying mushrooms on trays that had been placed on kitchen scales.

The accused denied she was doing so to work out the weight required to administer a fatal dose for a person.

Earlier in the day, Mandy had ended his questioning of his client by asking why she had disposed of the dehydrator and lied to police.

Erin Patterson said it was a stupid reaction but she just “digged [sic] deeper and kept lying”.

“I was just scared. I shouldn’t have done it,” she said.

Mandy also asked her if she had ever intended to kill Don and Gail Patterson or Heather Wilkinson.

“No, I didn’t,” Erin Patterson repeatedly replied.

Patterson is accused of murdering her in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, by serving them poisonous mushrooms in a beef Wellington lunch.

Don and Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson died in the days after the meal from the effects of mushroom poisoning. Heather’s husband, Ian, also ate the lunch but survived after weeks in hospital.

Patterson has pleaded not guilty to three charges of murder and one of attempted murder.

The trial continues.

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