Mushroom Cook trial: Erin Patterson’s police interview reveals tragic lunch incident

For the first time, Erin Patterson was being asked about the dead and dying. A detective wanted to understand why other people were dying from the lunch, while she was “not that ill”.

It was late in the afternoon of August 5, 2023.

Two people were dead because of a meal served by Erin Patterson, the defendant in the so-called Mushroom Cook trial. Another two people fought for life in intensive care.

Patterson sat in a small room at Wonthaggi Police Station. Her house had been searched, in front of her two children and the family dog, earlier in the day.

She was about to be besieged.

Questions were multiplying.

For the first time, Ms Patterson was being asked about the dead and dying.

She was composed as she described them as “good, decent people that have never done anything wrong by me”.

“I loved them a lot,” she said of her husband’s parents, Don and Gail Patterson.

“They’ve always been really good to me and they always said to me they’d support me with love and emotional support …

“They’re the only family I’ve got …”

Detective Leading Senior Constable Stephen Eppingstall wanted to understand why other people were dying from the lunch, while Ms Patterson was “not that ill”.

Detective Leading Senior Constable Stephen Eppingstall departs from the Latrobe Valley Court in Morwell. Picture: NewsWire / Diego Fedele

Ms Patterson explained that she, too, wanted to know what had happened.

“I’ve never been in a situation like this before,” she said.

Few have.

The video of this police interview was the first time the jury, in the fifth week of the Mushroom Cook trial, have heard Ms Patterson’s account of the lunch she served which killed three of her in-laws and almost killed another.

In the courtroom, Ms Patterson herself watched on, at times visibly emotional.

Phones, plates and the person of interest were key features of the week’s evidence. A protester arrived, said something no one understood, then left.

Photos of Ms Patterson’s house were displayed.

Of plates in her kitchen, a point of interest given earlier testimony that Ms Patterson’s four guests that day were served on plates a different colour to her own.

Of a Sunbeam food dehydrator manual in a drawer. (“I’ve got manuals of lots of stuff,” she told police.)

Of the RecipeTin Eats Dinner cookbook apparently used to cook what was meant to be a “fancy” beef wellington.

Erin Patterson, who is on trial. Picture: Brooke Grebert-Craig.

This book sat on the kitchen bench. The first recipe page of six, 252, was said to be spattered with remnants of food.

Ms Patterson was told by the detectives executing the search of her home that it was in “connection with the death of two people”, prompting her to ask: “Who died?”.

At the time, Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson had died.

Gail’s husband, Don, would die that day.

A text exchange between Ms Patterson and her mother-in-law Gail on June 28, 2023 – a month before the fatal lunch – was shown to the court.

It seemed to support Ms Patterson’s police interview line about “good, decent people”.

“Love Gail and Don,” Gail wrote, inquiring about Ms Patterson’s medical appointment which police believe never happened.

“Praying you’ll know god’s peace.”

Throughout the police search Ms Patterson held onto a phone. She made a call concerning her daughter’s ballet, and another to a lawyer, before handing it over to police.

Police allowed her to make calls in a room unsupervised for about 20 minutes.

Ian Wilkinson and Ruth Dubios arrive at the Latrobe Valley Court in Morwell. Picture: NewsWire / Diego Fedele

While one phone was seized, the court heard that there were two phones that were not found.

The seized phone was locked in Mr Eppingstall’s police locker. Early the next day, records show, the phone was factory reset remotely.

The court has heard, from her own defence team, that Ms Patterson lied in that first police interview.

“Never,” she replied when asked if she had foraged for mushrooms.

Since, Ms Patterson has admitted she did own a food dehydrator, found dumped at the tip, and foraged.

The defence say she panicked in the aftermath of the lunch that made her guests sick.

And that the three deaths were “a tragedy and a terrible accident”.

Until now, as the trial enters its latter stages, this line has served as the only explanation for a set of events that Ms Patterson has been asked to explain since she sat in a little room in Wonthaggi Police Station.

Originally published as Mushroom Cook trial: Erin Patterson’s police interview reveals tragic lunch incident