The mushroom expert who came across death caps on a walk in the park just before deadly lunch
The mushroom murder trial has heard evidence from a woman who is passionate about fungi.
Christine McKenzie is a retired pharmacist and poisons information specialist who just loves mushrooms.
“I just find them, personally, beautiful,’’ she told the Erin Patterson murder trial.
McKenzie is not a forager, she doesn’t go for walks to find them to eat; she looks for them out of fascination.
On April 18, 2023, McKenzie was going for a walk at Loch, near Korumburra in the Latrobe Valley, when she was visiting her daughter, when she found herself surrounded by oak trees.
The court has previously heard that oak trees are a key source of death cap mushrooms, which are at the centre of the trial, after they were served by Patterson to her four guests on July 29, 2023.
As well as previously working at the Victorian Poisons Information Centre, McKenzie is a regular poster on the citizen science website iNaturalist, the Supreme Court was told.
The court heard she first posted on the website an image of a death cap mushroom she found in the gardens of the Victorian parliament in May, 2022.
Her second posting was of multiple death caps seen at Loch, which is about 108km southeast of Melbourne, while walking with her grandson and dog.
The mushroom fanatic was on the western side of an oval and saw the specimens, and she later removed as many of them as she could see.
“And we removed them and put them in the dog poo bag,’’ she told the jury.
She told the court that because the area was popular for people who walked their dogs and that children played in the general area, she removed the toxic mushrooms.
Later that day she posted on iNaturalist, which included a precise location that had been made possible because of a setting on her phone. McKenzie uploaded a series of images on the post.
McKenzie then talked the court through what she thought was quite a nice image of a mushroom - deadly as it happens - and how it had a white cap, olive/green tinge, white gills and a stem in a bulbous structure.
There were eight pages on the post in total and iNaturalist noted that she had had 69 posts up until this point, with the name “chrismck”.
“When I go for a walk, I’m always looking for fungi,’’ she said.
McKenzie told the jury she collected and disposed of the death caps and that she wanted to record them.
“I wanted some photos,’’ she said. “I was keen to capture the photo.’’
Defence barrister Sophie Stafford questioned McKenzie on three other posts, covering the Stubble Rosegill and two of the Buttery Collybia.
The jury has previously heard that Erin Patterson served death cap mushrooms at the meal and allegedly used a dehydrator to help prepare the food. Patterson has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
The case is continuing in the Latrobe Valley Law Courts before Justice Christopher Beale.
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