Erin Patterson’s son describes leftovers from fatal lunch as ‘best meat I’ve ever had’
Erin Patterson’s teen son described the leftovers of a meal that killed three elderly relatives as ‘some of the best meat’, as part of a police interview shown to his mother’s murder trial.
The teenage son of Erin and Simon Patterson described the leftovers of a meal that killed his three elderly relatives as “some of the best meat” he had ever eaten, as part of a police interview evidenced in his mother’s murder trial.
The 14-year-old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the interviewer he recalled his mother having two coffees the day after serving the poisonous meal at a lunch in her home, despite complaining of diarrhoea.
In the 2023 interview, he also detailed the “very negative” relationship of his estranged parents, and claimed Mr Patterson had tried to hurt Ms Patterson by “messing around” with the children’s school fees.
Ms Patterson is on trial for the murder of estranged husband Mr Patterson’s parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, after serving them death-cap mushrooms in a beef Wellington on July 29, 2023.
She has also been charged with the attempted murder of Ms Wilkinson’s husband, Ian, who ate the meal but survived after a long hospital stay.
Ms Patterson has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
The Victorian Supreme Court, sitting in Morwell, 155km east of Melbourne, on Friday was shown a police interview with the Pattersons’ eldest child recorded on August 16, 2023.
He was sitting in a blue armchair next to a small brown table holding coloured pencils, and wearing a grey hoodie, brown pants and hiking boots.
The high school-aged boy told the officer interviewing him that his parents had split when he was about seven years old, and their relationship had become “very negative” by 2023.
The court has previously heard a rift developed between the Pattersons in 2022 when Ms Patterson learned that Mr Patterson had listed himself as “separated” on his tax return, and she had asked him to start paying her child support.
Mr Patterson agreed to pay the child support, but refused to continue directly paying any of the children’s school fees or medical bills.
The son said “Dad does a lot of things to try and hurt Mum”, such as “messing around” with the school fees.
“Mum didn’t put his name on the billing for the school,” he told the interviewer.
“Dad really wanted to be on that so he could have access to all the events (my sister) and me are doing and seeing our reports and stuff.
“Dad wouldn’t talk to Mum about that. He would just ring the school and tell the school to put his name on the billing … but the school said we can’t have that unless Mum says that can happen.”
The boy said his father was also “really trying to get” him and his sister “to come back and stay at his” once he started sleeping at his mother’s house. “I told him I didn’t want to because he never did anything with us over the weekend,” he said.
On the morning of the beef Wellington lunch, the boy recalled his mother making a salad. That day he went to McDonald’s and the movies with his sister and a friend while the adults dined.
Once the movie finished, he said, Mr Patterson collected the three of them and they went back to Ms Patterson’s house.
The child recalled having a conversation with his grandfather, Donald, about flying planes, and then helped clear the table from the meal.
Asked to describe the plates, he said they were white.
This evidence put the child at odds with Mr Wilkinson, who earlier in the week said the four guests ate their meals off large grey plates, while Ms Patterson ate off a smaller, tan plate.
The court has also previously heard Heather Wilkinson recalled in her dying hours that Ms Patterson ate her meal off a different plate to her guests.
But the child said “they were white plates that were about 15cm in diameter”. “They had a raised bit on the edge that was about 5cm,” he said.
The following day, he said, his mother was feeling unwell. He came downstairs in the morning and saw her drinking coffee.
“She said she was feeling a bit sick, and she had diarrhoea,” he said, adding that she told him she had to get out of bed a couple of times during the night.
The family did not go to church that day because of his mother’s illness, he said.
However, he said she was adamant that she drive him to his flying lesson that afternoon. “I don’t know why Mum drove to that because she said she was feeling sick in the morning,” he said.
On the drive to the airport, he said, Ms Patterson did not need to use the bathroom. When they were about five minutes away, the flying instructor called to say the lesson had been cancelled due to poor weather.
They turned the car around, he said, and stopped at a food van to pick up some dim sims, a hot dog and another coffee for Ms Patterson. He could not recall who ate what, but said Ms Patterson drank the coffee.
That night Ms Patterson served the boy and his sister leftovers from the lunch, which he described as “some of the best meat I’ve ever had”.
He said the meat was “very soft” and a “very good cut”.
The children ate “potato, beans and some leftover meat” he said, explaining the meat was “a block, and I cut it up into cubes and ate it”.
“It was probably 10cm by 5cm,” he said.
Asked how he knew it was the same meal as the day prior, he said: “Mum said it was leftovers.”
The boy said Ms Patterson enjoys cooking. “She likes cooking brownies, she loves her roast,” he said, also adding that she likes making sausages.
He also said she liked eating mushrooms, while he found them a bit “squishy and mushy”.
He could not recall a time Ms Patterson ever foraged for mushrooms, but said she had taken a photo of one in the Korumburra Botanic Gardens during the 2020 Covid-19 lockdowns.
She thought it “looked nice”, he said.
The trial continues on Tuesday.
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