Footage released of moment Erin Patterson dumps dehydrator | WATCH
Two new videos have been released of the convicted mushroom killer in the days after she hosted a deadly beef Wellington lunch to murder three of her estranged husband’s relatives.
New security footage has revealed the moment convicted mushroom murderer Erin Patterson ditched a dehydrator she used to prepare a deadly beef Wellington lunch that killed three of her estranged husband’s relatives.
The Victorian Supreme Court on Monday released two videos of Patterson in the days after the fatal meal, which were shown to the jury during the trial but have not been aired publicly until now.
The first video showed Patterson dumping a large black Sunbeam dehydrator into a corrugated iron shed at the Koonwarra Transfer Station south-east of Melbourne on August 2, 2023 – four days after she hosted the fatal meal.
A second video, taken on August 5, 2023, captured Patterson handing a mobile phone to police while a raid was conducted on her Leongatha house.
Patterson last month was found guilty by a jury of 12 of the murders of her in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, and the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson, after deliberately feeding them a toxic beef Wellington laced with death cap mushrooms at a lunch at her home on July 29, 2023.
She is in prison awaiting sentencing.
During the trial, the jury was shown a video of Patterson, wearing a grey jumper and white pants, arriving at the Koonwarra tip around 11.29am on August 2, 2023. She exited the driver’s seat and opened the boot of the car, where she retrieved a large black box – known to be the dehydrator – and took it into a green shed.
She then got back into the driver’s seat.
Patterson, during her evidence, admitted to dumping the dehydrator, but said she did so in a panic after her guests fell critically ill.
DASMA Group operations manager Darren Canty – who manages the Koonwarra facility – told the court in his evidence that he was contacted on August 4, 2023, by police who were “making inquiries regarding a person attending” the transfer station.
After reviewing the footage, he sent an employee to take a photo of the dehydrator sitting in an e-waste bin in the shed. Death cap mushroom debris was detected on the trays inside the device once it was collected by police and forensically tested.
Police executed a search warrant on Patterson’s home on August 5, 2023, where they located a manual for the dehydrator and seized her devices.
As part of the raid, Detective Sergeant Luke Farrell took Patterson’s mobile directly from her. In a video of the interaction, Patterson was seen sitting opposite Mr Farrell at her dining table. She was wearing a grey-coloured turtleneck sweater.
For most of the one-minute 52-second video she kept her right hand on her face with her elbow resting on the table.
Mr Farrell informed her that he needed to take the phone from her.
Mr Farrell asked: “Is there a PIN code on the phone?”
Patterson replied: “Yeah, um it’s either 1315 or 131528 – I can’t remember which one.”
Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC alleged in her closing argument that Patterson gave a “dummy” phone to Detective Sergeant Farrell when asked to hand over her device. Patterson, giving evidence at the trial, admitted to performing multiple factory resets on the phone, including when it was in the police lockup.
It is expected that Patterson will appeal her convictions but will face a lengthy prison term because of the scale of her offending.
Unless her appeal is successful, she may not see freedom until she is well into her 80s. Women in Australia live to an average age of 85.
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