Mushroom murder trial: Prosecution outlines Erin Patterson’s four major deceptions
Senior crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC said the alleged mushroom murderer told ‘bald-faced lies’ to lure her lunch guests into her home and kill them with a poisoned beef Wellington.
Triple-murder accused Erin Patterson told elaborate lies to fake a convincing cancer diagnosis she used as an excuse to lure her estranged husband’s relatives into her home and feed them a “nourishing meal” tainted with the lethal dose of poisoned mushrooms, the Crown alleges, in a calculated and sinister attempt to take their lives.
Senior Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC on Monday said Ms Patterson pretended to fall sick after the meal despite serving herself an uncontaminated portion, and engaged in a consistent cover-up to ensure her crimes were never discovered.
“It is inexplicable that four of five people who ostensibly ate the same meal fell fatally ill and only one person – the person who prepared the meal – did not,” Dr Rogers said in her closing address to the jury on Monday.
Ms Patterson has spent 32 days on trial for the alleged murder of her in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, after feeding them the poisonous Wellington 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, who survived and has watched from the gallery for much of the trial.
She has pleaded not guilty. While Ms Patterson accepts death cap mushrooms were served in the meal, she says it was a terrible accident and she never meant to harm anyone.
Dr Rogers categorised the key pillars of the prosecution case on Monday as “four calculated deceptions”.
Firstly, she said Ms Patterson lied about having cancer as an excuse to invite her guests for an “unusual” lunch at her home. Next, Dr Rogers said, she disguised lethal doses of poisonous mushrooms as home-cooked beef Wellington parcels. Then Ms Patterson pretended to fall ill despite serving herself a non-poisonous portion, Dr Rogers said, and, lastly, she engaged in a “sustained cover-up” to ensure her crimes remained undiscovered.
Dr Rogers said Ms Patterson told “bald-faced lies” to Don and Gail Patterson about requiring a needle biopsy on a lump in her elbow in the weeks leading up to the lunch in order to “plant the seed” of a fake cancer diagnosis she used to invite her guests.
“You will be satisfied, we suggest, she fabricated a cancer claim to provide a reason for her otherwise unusual lunch invitation,” Dr Rogers said, adding the guests “had not eaten a meal together with the accused recently, if at all”.
Ms Patterson, giving evidence earlier, said she invited Don and Gail Patterson to lunch because she had enjoyed gathering with them at a lunch one month prior, and thought she would invite Ian and Heather Wilkinson to thank them for being kind to her at their shared church.
Dr Rogers told the court Ms Patterson had complete control over individual beef Wellington portions she served to her guests, and exercised that control with “devastating effect”.
She said Ms Patterson deviated from the RecipeTin Eats beef Wellington method and made individual portions instead of one large meal to “ensure she herself would not accidentally consume any death cap mushrooms”.
“The sinister deception was to use a nourishing meal as the vehicle to deliver a deadly poison,” she said. “It was the accused who chose what meal to serve her guests … and she was the one solely responsible for obtaining and preparing each of the ingredients that went into that meal.”
Ms Patterson claims she used dried mushrooms stored in her pantry in the meal, which she believed at the time she had bought from an Asian grocer in Melbourne. However, after the lunch she realised mushrooms she had foraged may have been stored in the same Tupperware container as the Asian grocer mushrooms.
Dr Rogers pointed to Woolworths receipts showing Ms Patterson bought 1.75kg of mushrooms in the days leading up to the lunch – despite the recipe requiring only 700g – and questioned why Ms Patterson would have needed to add dried mushrooms she bought from an Asian grocer to the meal.
“Why would she resort to dry or foraged mushrooms? She had more than enough,” she said.
It is “inexplicable” that Ms Patterson did not fall deathly ill like her elderly lunch guests, Dr Rogers said, and the only possible explanation is that she did not eat the poisoned meal.
Ms Patterson pretended to the sick so “suspicion would not fall on her”, Dr Rogers said, giving various examples of contrasting experiences of the cook and her lunch guests after the meal.
While Mr Wilkinson was observed as being grey, stooped and visibly unwell the morning after the lunch, Dr Rogers said, Ms Patterson was seen by her son drinking coffee at her dining table.
While Ms Patterson’s father-in-law Donald Patterson was hunched over, in pain, and speaking with a strained voice on the day after the lunch, Dr Rogers said, Ms Patterson was driving her son to his flying lesson more than one hour away from her home.
While he was suffering multiple organ failure and had a tube shoved down his windpipe at the Austin Hospital two days after the lunch, Dr Rogers said, Ms Patterson was “calm and chatty” while being transferred by ambulance to the Monash Medical Centre.
Dr Rogers anticipated the defence would argue Ms Patterson made herself vomit after the beef Wellington meal and therefore did not fall as sick as the guests. But she called on the jury to reject this version of events. “You simply have no evidence that the accused’s claim that she vomited could, or even might, have prevented her from falling seriously ill,” she said, and Ms Patterson was “vague on when she vomited and what she vomited up”.
Dr Rogers also said it was “notable” Ms Patterson “did not tell a single medical person over the course of her time in hospital … she had vomited some time after the lunch”.
Ms Patterson lied about feeding her “beloved children” the beef Wellington leftovers the day after the meal, Dr Rogers said, to help her “cover her tracks” and “deflect any suspicion” she deliberately poisoned her guests.
Ms Patterson also sent the Department of Health on a “frolic” after the meal, telling consistent lies about buying dried mushrooms from an Asian grocer, the Crown alleges.
“Nobody else got sick – you would expect if the death cap mushrooms in the beef Wellington had been store-bought there would be other cases of poisoning,” Dr Rogers said.
She reminded the jury of an expert witness who testified to finding remnants of death cap mushrooms in Ms Patterson’s Sunbeam dehydrator after she dumped it at the tip in the days following the lunch.
Ms Patterson, under cross-examination, said she dehydrated the Asian grocer mushrooms despite them already being dried in order to make them crispier.
Dr Rogers invited the jury to “readily reject this as a ridiculous and obvious lie she came up with under cross examination” in order to “keep alive the possibility the Asian grocer mushrooms might still be the source of the death cap mushrooms”.
The prosecution will continue its closing on Tuesday.
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