Mushroom murders trial jury warned to stay away from media
The mushrooms murder trial jury in Victoria is set to go out on Monday with the judge almost finished his charge to jurors. For much of Friday, accused Erin Trudi Patterson stared straight ahead.
For much of Friday, Erin Trudi Patterson stared straight ahead, her eyes narrowed and blinking constantly as the mushroom murders trial again ventured into the entrails of her stressful life after the fatal lunch.
Some of the morning’s re-run of the evidence focused once again, one way or another, on her bowel movements, but it is so close to the jury going out, no one blinked, let alone sniggered, in the Victorian Supreme Court.
The unbearable heaviness of the trial lifted a little on Friday as judge Christopher Beale waded through evidence as seen through the eyes of the prosecution and the defence.
Most of what was said had been heard before; some might say the jury was given a ChatGPT rundown of sorts of key parts of the trial.
But the difference was that Justice Beale has expertly synthesised a lot of the key prosecution and defence arguments in order to deliver his charge, which leads to the judge’s instructions about the relevant law and how it should be applied by the jury.
At 12.43pm, Justice Beale wiped his eyes, declared something like thank God it’s Friday and ploughed on with the next topic before telling the jury the end is nigh.
Justice Beale issued the jury members a caution of what should happen for them over the weekend.
“Don’t let anyone get in your ear,” he said. “Only discuss this case with your fellow jurors in the privacy of the jury room. Have a media blackout as far as you’re concerned.”
The jury is expected to begin deliberations on Monday after the charge is finished, signalling the beginning of the end of what has been one of the most significant criminal trials in modern times.
Did Ms Patterson, 50, of Leongatha, Victoria, murder three elderly, highly regarded people known to her, and try to knock-off her fourth lunch guest as well?
The fourth guest, pastor Ian Wilkinson, was in court again on Friday, sitting metres away from Ms Patterson with his family.
The court has previously heard that Ms Patterson has lied on several occasions. Justice Beale, however, warned that just because she might have told lies after a deadly beef Wellington lunch she hosted, it did not mean she should be found guilty.
The comment was made as he continued his charge to 14 jurors by giving them instructions on how to handle the alleged incriminating conduct of Ms Patterson, which included allegations that she lied about foraging for mushrooms or owning a dehydrator.
“I give you this warning,” Justice Beale said. “Do not reason that just because a person is shown to have told a lie about something, that she must be guilty.”
Ms Patterson has spent more than two months on trial for the alleged murders of her in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, both 70, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66, after allegedly knowingly feeding them a toxic beef Wellington laced with death cap mushrooms at a lunch in her home on July 29, 2023.
She has also been charged with the attempted murder of Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson.
Ms Patterson has pleaded not guilty. While she accepts death cap mushrooms were contained in the meal, she denies putting them there intentionally.
Reporting Ms Patterson’s dress has become something of a cliche; regardless, she was wearing a white top with black stripes and a brown jacket.
The top has rarely been seen throughout the trial, matching the air of lightness that came with another weekend ahead and the light at the end of the judicial tunnel.
Tired and bored might be two other words to capture the feel of the courtroom, where members of the public have voted with their feet; only 19 of the 40-odd seats in the gallery were used on Friday.
For much of the week, Justice Beale had read his charge from a computer screen tilted at 70 degrees, the tempo lifting as the week advanced.
At one point on Thursday it was like the judge was a year 12 biology teacher reading from the old school text The Web of Life, talking about Agaricus bisporus (white button mushrooms) and the like.
There were also porcinis (Boletus edulis) and, of course, death caps (Amanita phalloides).
Justice Beale said that allegedly incriminating conduct included alleged lies and deliberate untruths, and that the jurors could use the alleged conduct to assess Ms Patterson’s credibility.
“That is not to say just because you find that the accused lied about one matter, you must also find that she’s been lying about everything else. But you can use the fact that she lied ... to help you determine the truthfulness of the other things that she has said,” Justice Beale said.
“It’s one factor to take into account. It’s for you to decide what significance to give those suggested lies. But I give you this warning: do not reason that just because a person is shown to have told a lie about something, that she must be guilty.”
For any jury, there is a lot to think about.
The complexities of the law, the weight of evidence over a long trial and the contesting visions presented by the defence and the prosecution.
Morwell, the town of 14,000-odd people in the Latrobe Valley, has never seen anything like it.
There is more to come.
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