Mushroom poisoning: What was Erin Patterson doing at the dump in the hours after poisoning four people?

Stunning footage – not shown to the jury – shows Erin Patterson at a local tip disposing of something directly after she served poisoned beef Wellington to her husband’s relatives.

Mushroom killer Erin Patterson visited the local tip minutes after she hosted a deadly lunch to kill her estranged husband’s relatives with a poisoned beef Wellington.

Footage taken from the Koonwarra Transfer Station around 3.30pm on July 29, 2023 shows Patterson driving in her red MG, and disposing of flattened cardboard in a large yellow skip bin.

She is also seen carrying a separate, well-constructed cardboard box.

The trip was the first of two Patterson made to the tip after the deadly lunch.

The jury was told about a second visit she made on August 2, 2023, where she ditched a Sunbeam dehydrator she used to dry out death cap mushrooms she blitzed and baked into the beef Wellington which she had served to her lunch guests four days earlier.

But the jury was never told about Patterson’s first visit.

During pre-trial, the crown argued the purpose of making the trip to the tip was to ditch items from the lunch. However, Patterson’s defence barrister Colin Mandy SC argued there was no way of knowing what was dumped on the day of the lunch.

Victorian Supreme Court judge Christopher Beale ruled the evidence inadmissable.

The court heard during trial the lunch guests left Patterson’s house just before 3pm to ensure Ian Wilkinson could attend a meeting with staff from the Baptist church he ministered.

Patterson was spotted at the tip about 45 minutes later.

Speculation has arisen over whether Patterson dumped the plates used at the lunch at the tip.

Wilkinson, the sole survivor of the lunch, told the court during his evidence he remembered the guests ate of large, grey plates while Patterson ate off a smaller, tan coloured plate. His wife, Heather Wilkinson, in her dying hours also recalled Patterson had a different plate to the rest of her guests.

Patterson’s son – who was not present for the meal but helped clean up afterwards – gave a different version of events, describing the plates as “white plates that were about 15cm in diameter”.

But when police searched the house on August 5, 2023, the plates located did not match Mr Wilkinson’s description. Police photographs from the raid showed two grey plates, one white plate, five burgundy plates, four very dark coloured plates and one multi-coloured plate.

During the trial, the jury was shown a video of Patterson’s tip visit on August 2, 2025, around 11.29am. 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.

Patterson, during her evidence, admitted to dumping the dehydrator, but said she did so in a panic after her guests fell critically ill.