Erin Patterson’s mushroom meal photos released alongside damning court evidence
A recording of an emergency call made by a doctor concerned for Erin Patterson’s welfare after she left hospital despite claiming to have eaten a poisonous beef Wellington has been released.
A recording of an urgent triple-0 call made by a Leongatha Hospital doctor concerned for Erin Patterson’s welfare after she discharged herself from hospital despite claiming to have eaten the same poisonous meal she used to kill three people has been released by the Victorian Supreme Court.
The audio was dropped along with a tranche of video and photo exhibits that were presented to the jury throughout Patterson’s 10-week trial, including CCTV footage of the moment Patterson discharged herself from hospital against medical advice after claiming to have eaten the poisonous meal she served her lunch guests.
The court has also released photos of the leftover meal, and the Sunbeam dehydrator Patterson used to dry out the deadly mushrooms she used to kill her in-laws, Don Patterson and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, at a lunch at her home.
Patterson on Monday was convicted of the murders of the three guests, along with the attempted murder of Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson, who ate the meal but survived to give evidence at trial.
Patterson has always maintained she ate the same meal as her guests at the lunch, and her defence team at trial said she likely did not fall as sick as her guests because she made herself vomit after the meal.
The jury were shown Patterson’s Woolworths purchase history from the days before the July 29, 2023 lunch showing, on July 23, 2023, she bought sliced mushrooms, pastry, onion shallots, brown onions, Bulla choc bars, San Marina salami, shaved turkey and Vaalia for Kids yoghurt.
She bought more pastry on July 27, 2023, four beef eye fillet steaks and Gravox sauce and gravy. A day later, she bought more pastry, more beef, more Gravox and 1.5kg of potato mash.
Prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC questioned why she bought 1.75kg of mushrooms, despite the beef Wellington recipe only requiring 700g. Patterson, under cross-examination, said she ate 1kg of mushrooms before the lunch.
Patterson drove her son to his flying lesson in Tyabb the day after the lunch, stopping at a BP petrol station in Caldermeade along the way.
Footage taken at the service station showed she arrived about 3.19pm on July 30, 2023, wearing white pants and a grey jumper. Patterson, who had said she was suffering from diarrhoea at the time and had made an emergency road-side toilet stop minutes earlier, went straight to the bathroom where she remained for nine seconds.
When she emerged, she browsed the aisles before buying lollies, a ham sandwich, and a sweet chilli chicken wrap. She exited the store about 3.21pm.
Patterson attended the Leongatha hospital on July 31, 2023 complaining of nausea and diarrhoea. At about 8.10am – five minutes after arriving at hospital – she discharged herself against medical advice.
Once she left, doctor Chris Webster – believing she had eaten the same toxic meal of the lunch guests who were slowly deteriorating – called the police and sent officers to her home to perform a welfare check on her.
“I have a concern regarding a patient that presented here earlier but has left the building and is potentially exposed to a fatal toxin from mushroom poisoning and I’ve tried several times to get hold her on her mobile phone,” Dr Webster is heard saying in the recorded phone call.
“So there were five people that ate a meal on Saturday and two of them are in intensive care at Dandenong Hospital, two have just been transferred from Leongatha Hospital to Dandenong Hospital and Erin presented this morning with symptoms of poisoning.”
Police arrived at Patterson’s home shortly after she returned to Leongatha Hospital about 10am. Dr Webster connected Patterson with the officers over the phone and she instructed them on where to find the leftovers of the beef Wellington in a bin outside her house.
The officers transported the leftovers of the meal back to the hospital where they inspected by doctor Veronica Foote. The beef Wellington was then transferred in an “urgent taxi” for further examination by Monash Health emergency registrar Laura Muldoon.
The meal was also examined by a Royal Botanic Gardens of Victoria research scientist Camille Truong under a microscope at her home.
“I used a small tray and tweezers which I also sterilised with alcohol wipes,” she told the court during trial. “I used tweezers. I carefully took out the mushroom pieces onto the tray.”
Plant Health Australia scientist David Lovelock, who inspected the meal four days after the fatal lunch, said he received the leftovers in double ziplock bags. He removed the food from the bags, before inspecting it and photographing it.
During trial, Patterson admitted to ditching a Sunbeam dehydrator at the Koonawarra Transfer Station on August 2, 2023.
The court was shown CCTV vision of her at the tip, where she is seen driving a red 4WD and dumping a large black device into an e-waste bin.
DASMA Group operations manager Darren Canty – who manages the tip – told the court he was contacted by police on August 4, 2023. He instructed an employee to find the dehydrator in the bin, which was later photographed and collected by the police.
Patterson claimed she dumped the dehydrator after her estranged husband, Simon Patterson, had accused her of using it to kill his parents, and she had feared investigators would blame her for cooking the deadly meal and strip her children from her care.
The court was also shown images of sliced mushrooms laying flat on a metal tray taken from the dehydrator. The images were taken by Patterson, and extracted from her mobile device.
Royal Botanic Gardens of Victoria mycologist Tom May was shown the images when giving evidence at trial, and told the jury he could not “exclude the possibility these are death cap mushrooms”.
On August 5, 2023, police executed a search warrant on Patterson’s Leongatha home, seizing various electronic devices and photographing the scene of the crime.
Images taken throughout the search showed an instruction manual for a Sunbeam dehydrator located in the bottom kitchen drawer.
The images also showed the RecipeTin Eats ‘Dinner’ cookbook on a chrome kitchen bench top.
Patterson was present for the search, as were her two children. Prosecutors alleged that while police were searching Patterson’s home, she performed a factory reset to wipe data from her mobile phone, and swapped the SIM card out of one of her phones and into another.
Patterson was interviewed by police after the raid was conducted. She told the officers she had never foraged for death cap mushrooms and did not own a dehydrator, despite officers finding a manual for the Sunbeam device in her kitchen drawer.
She also explained why she had discharged herself from Leongatha Hospital five days earlier.
“You can’t just be told to drop everything and you’re off to Melbourne overnight,” she said. “I had to go home and feed the animals and pack my daughter’s ballet bag so I did that and I went back.”
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