Erin Patterson murder trial day 39 LIVE: Judge instructs jury on prosecution argument that accused mushroom cook lied about being unwell; ‘don’t let anyone get in your ear this weekend’

Supreme Court Justice Christopher Beale has finished instructing the jury for the day and will resume his charge next week.

He told the jury he expects to finish his charge before lunchtime on Monday.

“Don’t let anyone get in your ear this weekend,” Beale told the jurors before sending them home.

“Only discuss this case with your fellow jurors in the jury room. You’ve been doing a great job, keep going. See you on Monday.”

From left: Don Patterson, Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson died after ingesting poisonous mushrooms. Ian Wilkinson (right) survived after spending months in hospital.

The jury will begin deliberating once Beale finishes his charge.

Erin Patterson has pleaded not guilty to murdering her in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, by serving them death cap mushrooms in a beef Wellington lunch at her Leongatha home on Saturday, July 29, 2023.

Her in-laws and Wilkinson died in the days after the meal from the effects of mushroom poisoning. Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson, survived after weeks in hospital.

Patterson has also pleaded not guilty to one charge of attempted murder. She says the deaths were a terrible accident.

Our live coverage of the trial will resume on Monday.

Supreme Court Justice Christopher Beale is instructing the jury about incriminating conduct, relating to the prosecution’s allegation that accused killer Erin Patterson lied about being unwell and faked having death cap mushroom poisoning.

Beale summarised the evidence of Patterson’s son, in which the boy recalled his mother telling him she was unwell on the Sunday morning after the beef Wellington lunch on Saturday, July 29, 2023, and that they might be unable to go to church because of her diarrhoea.

Erin Patterson (left) and prosecutor Nanette Rogers, SC.Credit: The Age

The accused, Beale said, told the jury her diarrhoea was regular and she had to “poo on the side of the road” while driving back to her Leongatha home from her son’s flying lesson in Tyabb, after it was cancelled on the Sunday.

In her evidence, Patterson said she put soiled tissues in a dog bag and later dropped them in the bathroom at the BP service station in Caldermeade on her way home from Tyabb.

When Patterson arrived at Leongatha Hospital for the second time on Monday, July 31 and was admitted, nurse Mairim Cespon, in her evidence, told the jury about four apparent “poos” the accused did there between 10am and 10.15am.

Nurse Mairim Cespon outside court on May 22.Credit: Jason South

Cespon told the jury that Patterson commented that the first one looked like urine but was a bowel motion, and the others were described as medium or liquid, as the accused appeared distressed and emotional with a cramping pain that she scored seven out of 10.

Beale told the jury the prosecution argued Patterson was never sick and faked her illness “otherwise it’d give her away”, and that her accounts of illness varied when speaking to others.

The lunch guests were also in advanced organ failure by August 4, 2023, prosecutor Nanette Rogers, SC, told the jury in her closing address last week.

Patterson’s defence team argued that she was unwell, that her medical test results supported her account, and that her account of her symptoms was consistent throughout.

Beale, in his charge to the jury, said incriminating conduct included alleged lies and deliberate untruths.

He said there were two ways the jury could use these, and that the law says they can use lies to help assess an accused person’s credibility.

Defence barristers Sophie Stafford (left) and Colin Mandy, SC, outside court last week.Credit: Jason South

“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,” the judge told the jury.

“But you can use the fact that she did, if you find that you did, to help you determine the truthfulness of the other things that she has said.

“It’s one factor to take into account. It’s for you to decide what significance to give those suggested lies.”

Beale said another way this topic could be used by the jurors was as admissions of guilt.

“You may only use evidence that Erin Patterson lied in this way if you find that she did tell a deliberate untruth, and the only reasonable explanation for doing so is that she believed that she had committed the charged offences,” Beale said.

“However, I must warn you that even if you find that the accused believed that she committed the offences charged, you must consider all the evidence when deciding whether the prosecution has proved the accused’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt.”

Welcome to our coverage of day 39 of the triple-murder trial of accused mushroom cook Erin Patterson in Morwell, where Supreme Court Justice Christopher Beale is continuing his directions to the jury.

In a criminal trial, the judge’s directions to a jury – known as a charge – are their final instructions about what jurors need to consider when deliberating their verdict. The judge will also summarise the main arguments of the defence and prosecution teams, and highlight key evidence from the trial.

Patterson has pleaded not guilty to murdering her in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, by serving them death cap mushrooms in a beef Wellington lunch at her Leongatha home on Saturday, July 29, 2023.

Clockwise from left: accused killer Erin Patterson and her guests who died after the 2023 lunch, Heather Wilkinson and Gail and Don Patterson.Credit: Matthew Absalom-Wong

Her in-laws and Wilkinson died in the days after the meal from the effects of mushroom poisoning. Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson, survived after weeks in hospital.

Erin Patterson has also pleaded not guilty to one charge of attempted murder. She says the deaths were a terrible accident.

Beale began instructing the jury on Tuesday, when he said his charge would comprise three parts: directions regarding the principles of law; the evidence and arguments made by the prosecution and defence; and directions regarding the requirement that the jury’s verdict must be unanimous.

There are 14 jurors listening to Beale’s charge, so at the end of his instructions, the number of jurors will be reduced to 12 using a ballot system. The panel of 12 will then deliberate their verdict.

The final incriminating conduct topic Beale covered on Thursday was Erin Patterson’s alleged conduct regarding her phones and her alleged lies to police in her record of interview.

Beale took the jury through the evidence from child protection worker Katrina Cripps who recalled the accused telling her on August 4, 2023, that she intended to change her phone because she was worried about her security and privacy after Simon Patterson allegedly accused her of killing his parents, something he denies saying to her at Monash Medical Centre.

After police seized items from her home on August 5, 2023, Erin Patterson handed over what the prosecution allege was a “dummy phone” known as phone B instead of her usual phone.

The prosecution says her usual phone, phone A, has never been found. The accused told the jury she threw that phone in a skip bin during a house clean in September 2023.

Patterson told the jury she panicked and reset phone B because she knew there were pictures of mushrooms in her dehydrator on it and she did not want police to see them.

She said she gave police phone B, and not phone A, because that was the phone she was holding when police searched her home.

Crown Prosecutor Nanette Rogers, SC.Credit: Justin McManus

Beale said the prosecution allege Erin Patterson wanted to conceal the contents of her phone, as they may implicate her in a deliberate poisoning, and couldn’t truthfully claim phone B was her usual phone, with evidence she again began using phone A after the police raid.

Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers, SC, had also told the jury, Beale said, that the prosecution believed there may have been evidence of visits to known death cap mushroom growing areas of Loch and Outtrim in April and May 2023.

The defence has argued that it made no sense for their client to go to all this trouble and if she wanted to conceal a murder, why not simply factory reset phone A.

Defence barrister Colin Mandy, SC, labelled the prosecution case in this regard as “convoluted”, with no evidence the accused accessed the iNaturalist website on her phone. But there was evidence police missed devices during their search of the Leongatha home, he said.“They said the stupidest thing [she did] was factory reset phone B,” Beale said.

The judge said he would cover the final incriminating conduct topic on Friday.

“The overarching one: lying about being unwell and faking death cap mushroom poisoning. That’s what we’ll get stuck into tomorrow,” Beale said.

This concludes our coverage of court proceedings for the day.

The trial continues.

Justice Christopher Beale has moved on to another point of alleged incriminating conduct: the disposal of the dehydrator by accused mushroom cook Erin Patterson.

Patterson told the jury she disposed of the dehydrator because she was scared people would think she was intentionally responsible for the deaths of her lunch guests, and feared her children would be taken away.

She said after being released from hospital, she dropped her kids off at the bus stop on August 1, 2023, before returning home to get the dehydrator and dump it at the local tip.

Erin Patterson and Simon PattersonCredit: Jason South

Beale noted that Simon Patterson, Erin’s estranged husband, told the jury he’d never known her to own a dehydrator.

Once the dehydrator was seized, testing found traces of death cap mushrooms, Beale said.

The judge said the prosecution argued that dumping the dehydrator was one of the accused woman’s four deceptions, part of a sustained cover-up of her alleged crimes.

The defence argued this made no sense as their client did not dispose of the dehydrator when she dehydrated the mushrooms – instead, she broadcast the fact that she had one to her Facebook friends.

Defence barrister Colin Mandy, SC, said that according to the prosecution’s theory, if true, this meant the accused killer posted the method of her crime and murder weapon to her online friends – who were not just any Facebook friends, but part of a true crime group.

“She panicked,” Mandy said during the trial, regarding the disposal of the dehydrator.

Justice Christopher Beale has moved on to another point of alleged incriminating conduct: accused mushroom cook Erin Patterson’s alleged reluctance to receive medical treatment herself upon first presenting at Leongatha Hospital.

The court heard she first arrived about 8.05am on July 31, 2023, then left a few minutes later, after telling staff she wasn’t adequately prepared to be admitted to hospital at that time.

Beale reminds the jury that Patterson gave evidence that she returned at 9.48am that day, ready to be admitted, with her phone, toothbrush and toothpaste packed. Patterson said she was reluctant to be treated on her first presentation, but not on her second.

The prosecution says witness Cindy Munro, a nurse, was truthful when she said that Patterson did not want interventions, including IV fluids, when she attempted to cannulate her.

The defence argued this did not make sense and that their client willingly returned for treatment and was both sick and anxious about being in hospital.

Justice Christopher Beale has moved on to another point of alleged incriminating conduct: accused mushroom cook Erin Patterson’s alleged reluctance to have her children medically assessed.

Beale said the prosecution’s case is that witnesses stressed the importance of getting the children to a medical facility, with Leongatha Hospital doctor Chris Webster telling Patterson the children could be “alive and scared, or dead”.

The judge said Patterson gave evidence that her daughter’s health issues as a baby left her mistrustful of the health system. She agreed that Webster said there was a concern she’d been exposed to death cap mushrooms, but maintains she was confused and felt puzzled by this, especially when she was told she needed to go to a Melbourne hospital.

A court sketch of Erin Patterson during her trial.Credit: Anita Lester

“I was trying to make sense of what was going on … he was yelling at me … I have since learned that was his inside voice,” the accused told the jury earlier in the trial. “Yes, initially, I was reluctant to have the children medically assessed, but before too long, I was willing.”

Beale said the prosecution’s argument was that Patterson was reluctant to have her children medically assessed because she knew they had never been exposed to death cap mushrooms.

“If your children had come within cooee of a poisoned meal, you move mountains to get them to hospital as quickly as possible,” Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers, SC, said during the trial.

Beale said the defence said the jury needed to look at all the evidence, and not just the bits the prosecution had invited them to consider.

Justice Christopher Beale moves on to his charge relating to the third piece of alleged incriminating conduct: the prosecution’s claim that accused mushroom cook Erin Patterson lied when she said she’d served beef Wellington leftovers to her children the evening after the poisonous lunch.

Beale noted that during Patterson’s evidence, she told the jury she didn’t want to cook on the Sunday evening, so she scraped the pastry and mushroom paste off the meat in the beef Wellington leftovers, and gave her two children the reheated steak, mashed potatoes and green beans for dinner.

Beale said Patterson agreed, while under cross-examination, that she knew from about 2.30pm on Sunday that Saturday lunch guests Don and Gail Patterson were unwell.

“I suggest that you certainly did not feed that steak to your children, but we’ve been over that, and you no doubt disagree with me,” Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers said during the trial.

“Correct,” Patterson replied at the time.

Beale said the prosecution argued that people would more readily believe this was all a shocking accident if Patterson had given the same food to her beloved children.

“There is no other reasonable explanation for why she could tell such a lie about something as important as the health of her children. This was a lie to help cover her tracks,” Rogers said during the trial.

The prosecution also argued that scientific evidence indicated the toxins would have penetrated the leftover meat and could not have been entirely separated, but the defence argued there was no evidence to back up this claim.

Beale told the jury to disregard the question of evidence with regards to toxins and leftovers, saying that no expert had been asked if the children would have experienced some symptoms if the mushroom paste and pastry had been scraped off the meat.

“You have no expert evidence as to whether that would be the case. So I instruct you to disregard that argument,” Beale said.

“You would be speculating if you would go down that path.”

Justice Christopher Beale has begun his charge regarding the second piece of alleged incriminating conduct: the dried mushrooms that accused killer Erin Patterson says she bought from an Asian grocery store in Melbourne and used in the beef Wellington.

Beale summarised the prosecution’s arguments on this topic:

• The prosecution said medical staff were desperate to know the source of the mushrooms so they could properly treat the sick lunch guests, but Patterson was not forthcoming with that information – including to the Department of Health.
• The prosecution alleges that on July 31, 2023, Leongatha Hospital doctor Chris Webster asked Patterson where the mushrooms came from, but the accused maintains he asked her where the meal ingredients came from – not the mushrooms specifically – and that’s why she told him Woolworths only.
• The prosecution alleges Patterson also gave differing accounts of the suburb where the store may have been located to various people between July 31 and August 3, 2023. She allegedly told Matthew Patterson, the brother of her estranged husband, that they were from a shop in Oakleigh; Dr Connor McDermott that they were from Glen Waverley; and Health Department official Sally Ann Atkinson that they were from Mount Waverley.
• The prosecution pointed out that Patterson once worked for Monash City Council (which includes those suburbs) and lived in Oakleigh East, before later buying a home in Mount Waverley, so it was “difficult to see how she could not recall the store”.
• The prosecution alleges Patterson sat on her hands and was slow to respond to questions. She appeared to have a remarkable memory about certain days in 2023, but not the shop, which “beggars belief”.
• Beale said the prosecution argued that “the story about the Asian grocer just couldn’t be true”.

The judge then summarised the defence’s arguments on this topic:

• The defence alleged the prosecution cherry-picked its evidence and ignored nuances of human behaviour.
• The defence maintained Patterson was consistent about the source of the mushrooms, and that she had many conversations with many people – and when people tell stories multiple times, there will be variations. “People have imperfect, mistaken memories,” defence barrister Colin Mandy, SC, said during the trial.
• The defence said there was evidence that their client bought a dehydrator for a long-term project, not to kill her lunch guests, and that the prosecution failed to investigate Asian groceries in Glen Waverley.

Justice Christopher Beale begins to take the jury through a list of the alleged incriminating conduct relating to accused mushroom cook Erin Patterson, which the prosecution is relying on.

Patterson’s alleged incriminating conduct

1. Lied about being unwell
2. Lied about using dried mushrooms from an Asian grocery in the beef Wellingtons served at the fatal lunch on Saturday, July 29, 2023
3. Refused treatment on her first presentation at Leongatha Hospital and left against medical advice
4. Reluctant to receive treatment on her second presentation at the hospital
5. Reluctant to obtain medical treatment for her children
6. Lied that she fed her children leftovers from the beef Wellingtons – with the mushroom paste scraped off – on the evening of Sunday, July 30, 2023
7. Reset phone B multiple times from August 2, 2023
8. Disposed of a dehydrator at the local tip on August 2, 2023
9. Gave police phone B on August 5 instead of her usual phone, phone A, which has never been recovered
10. Lied in a police interview on August 5, 2023 that her phone number ended in 835 when it ended with three different digits; lied that she had never foraged for mushrooms; lied that she had never dehydrated food; and lied about not ever owning a dehydrator, including years ago

“The prosecution argues the only reasonable explanation for her unwillingness to receive emergency treatment … is that she knew she hadn’t consumed death cap mushrooms because she had deliberately poisoned her guests … making sure she also did not consume toxins,” Beale said.

“Defence says … she found it difficult to accept she may have suffered death cap mushroom poisoning. She had not come prepared to be admitted overnight. She needed to make arrangements for the children and the animals … and was intending to return [to hospital].”