Erin Patterson evidence recap: Accused mushroom killer’s dehydrator admission after beef Wellington lunch

The court heard a series of messages that Ms Patterson sent to Gail Patterson.

In the messages, Ms Patterson said she had “a needle biopsy” on a “lump” and was scheduled for an MRI.

Ms Patterson admitted those texts were a “lie”.

“I shouldn’t have done it,” Ms Patterson tearfully said.

In a later message, Gail Patterson asked how the accused killer went with the medical tests, which she now admits never happened.

“I might talk more about it when I see you in person, love Erin,” the accused mushroom killer said.

Speaking about a lunch invite shared in June, Ms Patterson said she reached out to be more “proactive” about staying close with the Patterson family.

“A week or so earlier, I had invited Don and Gail to come for lunch. I invited Simon to come to lunch,” she told the court.

“I had become a little worried that perhaps I was, that there might be some distance froing between me and the Patterson family.”

Ms Patterson said she wasn’t sure if there was a “Patterson gathering” she hadn’t been invited to.

She said she realised she had to be more “proactive” about staying in touch with the Patterson

She said the lunch “was great,”

“The kids really loved it,” she said.

“I found out that there were some mushrooms growing on my property that were toxic to dogs,” Ms Patterson told the court.

Ms Patterson said they were called inocybe mushroom

Asked if she knew of other toxic mushrooms, Ms Patterson said: “There were the red and white dot ones at the botanical gardens, they should not be eaten.”

“I became aware of death cap mushrooms quite early.

“I looked up to see if they grew in South Gippsland.

“I remember finding out that they didn’t essentially.”

Ms Patterson was shown another image that she said she “didn’t remember” taking.

“I don’t remember seeing mushrooms like that on my property,” she told the court.

“That is a photo of a mushroom not in great condition on my sink,” she said about another image.”

Asked why Ms Patterson took images of mushrooms, the accused said: “I was trying to see if I could figure out what was growing on my property.”

“They look like the mushrooms I saw in the garden.”

Ms Patterson was shown a series of images, which she confirmed she took.

“It looks like it might be those mushrooms (from the garden), but on paper towel now,” Ms Patterson said.

Images were also shown that Ms Patterson said showed a flooded paddock on her property.

Ms Patterson returned to the witness box on Wednesday, first asked about images on an SD card.

The accused triple murderer confirmed she took the images and videos, some of which featured her children around a “Leongatha trail”.

Ms Patterson said the images looked like: “Some mushrooms and some grass among some leaf litter.”

She said they were captured around the first COVID lockdown in 2020.

Ms Patterson said she was using a Samsung Galaxy phone at the time.

Erin Patterson, 50, has pleaded not guilty to three murders and one attempted murder over the July 2023 lunch she served to her former in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, 70, and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson, 66.

All three died in hospital days after eating the meals. Ms Patterson maintains the poisonings were not deliberate.

The sole survivor of the lunch was Heather’s husband Ian Wilkinson, who has attended court most days since giving evidence in week two of the trial.

He sat silently at the back of the courtroom on Tuesday as Patterson explained she had begun foraging for wild mushrooms during the COVID pandemic in 2020.

Accused triple murderer Erin Patterson is about to return to the witness box at the Supreme Court in Morwell, Victoria, where she is set to continue to give evidence over the fatal beef Wellington lunch that left three people dead.

Ms Patterson on Tuesday said she accepted that death cap mushrooms were in the fatal lunch that she prepared, claiming that the mushrooms came from the local Woolworths in Leongatha and an Asian grocer in Melbourne.

The accused killer couldn’t recall where the Asian grocer in Melbourne was.