Mushroom trial: Lights, camera! Global pack poised for action in Morwell

The mushroom cook murder trial has drawn dozens of journalists, documentary makers and authors to regional Victoria. But the locals? I’m not sure they’ll miss us.

Erin Patterson and estranged husband Simon Patterson. Picture: NewsWire

It’s 8am and about 10C in Morwell, Victoria, and a queue has already started outside court.

Another day of the Erin Patterson murder trial isn’t due to start for a couple of hours, but dozens of locals have flocked to the justice hub of the Latrobe Valley to catch a glimpse of the alleged mushroom killer.

Camera crews, documentary makers, authors and journalists – several from each major Australian news outlet – pass through court security and into the buzzing building.

Many file into a designated media overflow room, but a lucky six, whose outlets have been drawn out of bowl from the court kitchenette, are permitted to watch the live action in the courtroom itself.

The international press is here, too; the Daily Mail UK has dropped in from time to time, as has the BBC. Perhaps this is because of their great nation’s love of beef Wello; or, more likely, it’s because they’ve been drawn to the most peculiar case you could imagine, centred on a suburban mother of two who allegedly selected poisonous mushrooms to kill her three elderly relatives.

The interest in this case has been phenomenal. And it peaked early on, particularly when the jury heard the first witness account of the lunch from its sole survivor.

Less attention was paid to some of the prosecution’s more technical evidence, such as from the nurse who analysed the victims’ diarrhoea or the mushroom expert who walked the jury through the key characteristics of a death cap.

But now, as the trial draws to a close, those lining up outside court in the wee hours appear to be holding out for a verdict.

Twelve jurors will be the ones to deliver that verdict, selected from the current pool of 14. They are the ones who can determine the facts of the case, and they must do so based on the evidence that has been presented to them – dispassionately, logically and with an open mind.

The jury may find Patterson guilty. It could determine that the prosecution team, led by Nanette Rogers SC, proved beyond reasonable doubt that Patterson did indeed deliberately use death cap mushrooms to kill her ex-husband’s parents and aunt.

Or, after more than a month in the dock listening to witnesses testify to her relationships, her movements and her state of mind, Patterson could leave the Latrobe Valley courthouse a free woman.

In his opening address, judge Christopher Beale informed them of the task that lay ahead.

“In a criminal trial the prosecution must prove the accused’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt,” he said.

Accused mushroom cook killer Erin Patterson appears in the Victorian Supreme Court. Picture: NewsWire/ David Crosling

“This means you cannot be satisfied she is guilty of a charge if you have a reasonable doubt about whether she is guilty of that charge.”

He said Patterson “does not have to prove anything”.

“That never changes from start to finish,” he said. “It is not for her to demonstrate her innocence but for the prosecution to prove the charges they have brought against her.”

Jurors will have plenty to digest as they head into deliberations. They have heard evidence from Patterson’s estranged husband, Simon Patterson, about how their relationship soured in 2022 over financial disagreements.

He told the court he was invited to the lunch but pulled out at the last minute, telling Patterson he was too uncomfortable to attend.

She told him she was disappointed in his decision and had spent a “small fortune” on beef eye fillet.

The sole surviving guest of the lunch, Ian Wilkinson, told the court about being in the room as Patterson served up the meal.

He said she was reluctant to let her guests tour her pantry and rejected help from the two women present at the lunch when they offered to help plate up the beef Wellington. He also testified to Patterson informing her guests of her cancer diagnosis. A diagnosis both the prosecution and the defence agree was a lie.

Survivor Ian Wilkinson has attended court during the trial. Picture: NewsWire/ David Crosling

Several medical witnesses have testified to treating the lunch guests and Patterson in the days after the meal.

An intensive care specialist from Austin Hospital gave evidence that the four guests suffered from organ failure. He spoke about performing emer­gency surgery on two of the guests – lifesaving surgery in the case of Wilkinson. Leongatha Hospital doctors testified to seeing Patterson admit herself two days after the meal, complaining of diarrhoea and nausea. At that time her guests were becoming critically unwell.

She discharged herself against medical advice, they said, but returned a short while later. A nurse who took care of her said she did not look unwell.

The court heard about how the leftovers of the meal were seized from a bin outside Patterson’s home and passed between the police, doctors, a mycologist (mushroom expert, to the uninitiated), a plant scientist and a forensic toxicologist to be analysed.

Traces of death cap mushroom toxins were found in the mushroom paste and meat.

A Monash city council worker has told the court about his pursuit across a dozen or so Asian grocers in southeast Melbourne in attempts to find the mushrooms Patterson had said she bought for the meal.

The jurors have seen CCTV clips taken from relevant periods surrounding the lunch, including when Patterson allegedly ditched her Sunbeam dehydrator at the Koonwarra tip.

Patterson’s record of interview with the lead investigator in the case, Stephen Eppingstall, also was played. In it she claimed to have never foraged for mushrooms and said she did not own a dehydrator.

The interview was taken the same day police located a dehydrator manual in her bottom kitchen drawer.

Patterson has since admitted these were lies, with the defence telling the jury she was overwhelmed by the fact four people had become so ill because of the food she’d served them.

The court also has heard evidence from two witnesses who posted online sightings of death cap mushrooms in regional towns near Patterson’s home in the months leading up to the lunch.

A cell tower expert said it was possible Patterson’s device entered those towns after the posts were made but he could not be definitive.

It is anyone’s guess how much longer we have until this case wraps up and, at this stage, the court has not heard the closing addresses from the prosecution or defence.

But of the attention it has drawn to this Victorian town? I’m not sure they’ll miss us.