Erin Patterson opens up about weight struggles in her murder trial over a fatal mushroom lunch

Erin Patterson spent much of week six of the mushrooms murder trial in the witness box. This is what happened when she was asked about her weight.

Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers outside the Latrobe Valley Law courts. Picture: Getty Images

Erin Patterson called her struggle with her weight a rollercoaster.

She told the jury the highs and lows of what she said was her intensely private – and largely unsuccessful – fight that started when her mother put her on the scales as a child each week to account for her calorie intake.

Accused mushroom cook killer Erin Patterson. , Picture: NewsWire/ David Crosling

Giving evidence, Patterson said the focus on her size, which morphed into portliness as an adult, started with her eating less as a child and then, in her 20s, it had a complex counter-effect on her body image, leading to binge eating.

It would not be long before the body image claims would land right in the middle of the mushrooms murder trial, with the court hearing that the accused had binged on orange cake after the death cap mushrooms lunch.

After the bingeing, she says she threw up on the afternoon of July 29, 2023, the day that triggered the deaths of three elderly people.

“Um, I’ve had it ever since I was a teenager – as long as I can remember,’’ she told the jury of her body image problems.

“I mean it’s been a rollercoaster over the years. When I was a kid, mum would weigh us every week to make sure we weren’t putting on too much weight –- so I went to the extreme of barely eating then to, through my adulthood, going the other way and bingeing, I suppose, for want of a better word.

“I never, never had a good relationship with food.’’

In the end, the mushrooms murder trial is a lot about food, food that Patterson served on that day, and whether it was just a tragic mistake there were death cap mushrooms inside her beef Wellingtons that led to three deaths.

She has pleaded not guilty to murdering three people and has consistently maintained her innocence.

For most of the sixth week of the mushrooms murder trial, Patterson has been in the witness stand being questioned first by her silk Colin Mandy SC and then by chief prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC.

There were frequent references this week to Patterson having lied over key aspects of the case including her food dehydrator and foraging for mushrooms, which she now says occurred in the weeks after the dehydrator was bought in late April two years ago from Hartley Wells-Betta Electrical in Leongatha, South Gippsland.

It was under Mandy’s questioning that Patterson detailed what she said was her plans to have gastric band surgery in Melbourne to help control her weight, adding that her claims of ovarian cancer weren’t the real reason that the elderly guests – and her estranged husband Simon – had been invited to eat.

Meal survivor Ian Wilkinson leaves with one of his daughters at court in Morwell for the Erin Patterson's trial. Picture: NewsWire/ David Crosling

Mr Wilkinson leaves with one of his daughters at court in Morwell. Picture: NewsWire/ David Crosling

The binge eating evidence went like this under Mandy.

Mandy: “You say binge eating?”

Patterson: “Yeah.”

M: “What did that involve?”

P: “Eating everything that you can find your hands on to feel sick.”

M: “And then? Then what would you do?”

P: “And then bringing it back up again.”

M: “And did you do that binge eating around other people?”

P: “No, I didn’t.”

M: “When did you … engage in that kind of behaviour?”

P: “When people weren’t around. It was a very private thing. Yeah.’’

While evidence has been heard that Patterson’s alleged ovarian cancer was the reason for the lunch, she told the jury that there was really a more complicated reason.

She was considering weight loss surgery and may need future help with the children, telling the jury she was embarrassed about having cosmetic surgery.

“So I was planning to have gastric bypass surgery and so I remember thinking – I didn’t want to tell anybody what I was going to have done,’’ Patterson said.

“I was really embarrassed about it, so I thought perhaps letting them believe I had some serious issue that needed treatment might mean they’d be able to help me with the logistics around the kids and I wouldn’t have to tell them the real reason.’’

Then there was the period after the beef Wellington lunch when she gave evidence that she did some housework and then turned her attention to an orange cake that her late mother-in-law had bought for the gathering.

Under questioning from Mandy, Patterson explained what happened after the lunch.

“Um, and I kept cleaning up the kitchen and putting everything away, um, and I had a piece of cake and then another piece of cake and then another,’’ she told the jury.

Mandy: “How many pieces of cake did you have?”

Patterson: “All of it.”

M: “How much had been left?”

P: “Probably a good two-thirds of it was left.”

M: “And what happened after you ate the cake?”

P: “I felt sick. I felt over-full, so I went to the toilets and brought it back up again.”

M: “How did you feel the rest of the afternoon?”

P: “Well, after I’d done that, I felt better, but I had – I had some sort of loose stools, I suppose.’’

Patterson appeared in court again on Friday, having been the main witness throughout the week, facing cross-examination from the prosecutors.

Rogers tilted the lectern at a 45-degree angle towards Patterson, while the accused fiddled with her glasses, spinning them around and then often squinting in the direction of the bar table.

It was a day of almost always robust questions and answers, and her evidence will continue on Tuesday.