Erin Patterson is facing trial. Photo / Brooke Grebert-Craig
Erin Patterson is facing trial. Photo / Brooke Grebert-Craig
Erin Patterson is accused of poisoning four family members with a mushroom-laced beef Wellington.
Her son described a negative shift in his parents’ relationship before the fatal lunch.
Patterson has pleaded not guilty, arguing the poisonings were accidental; the trial continues.
The teenage son of alleged mushroom poisoner Erin Patterson made a tragic claim about his parents to police, a jury has been told.
Patterson’s son has detailed a “very negative” shift in his parents’ relationship before the fatal lunch, in evidence to police played in an Australian court on Friday.
Patterson is accused of deliberately poisoning four family members, three of whom died, with a beef Wellington lunch spiked with death cap mushrooms on July 29, 2023, at her home in a small Victorian dairy town.
She has pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder, arguing the poisonings were an accident.
As her son’s police interview was played in court, the mother of two appeared glassy-eyed and trying to hold back tears.
The 14-year-old boy said he knew his dad didn’t like Patterson changing the boy’s school, and wanted to be on the paperwork for his new school.
“Dad wouldn’t talk to mum about that,” he said.
He told the interviewer he and his sister had previously been staying with Simon Patterson after school Friday through to Monday and with Erin Patterson from Monday evening through to Friday morning.
But in the past year they had only stayed at Erin Patterson’s home, by choice.
“For the past year we’ve been living at mum’s, sleeping at mum’s, for the last year he’s trying to get me and [sister] to stay at his... but I didn’t really want to,” he said.
“I told him I really didn’t want to because he never did anything with us over the weekend.”
Lego: Mushroom cook‘s after-lunch activity
Patterson’s son also told police in the interview played to the jury that he saw his mother building Lego hours after serving a deadly meal to four in-laws.
Video of her son’s interview with a police officer at Morwell Police Station weeks after the lunch was played to the jury on Friday.
Seated in the same blue chair his younger sister was interviewed in, the 14-year-old boy said he wasn’t present during the lunch, instead watching the movie Elemental in nearby Korumburra.
After returning home about 3pm, he said he spoke with his grandfather Don about flying lessons he was taking before going to play video games with a friend.
Later that evening, he said he approached his mother about giving his friend a lift home and she was upstairs “building Lego”.
Son helped clean up after lunch
The boy told police he arrived home about 30 minutes before relatives Don and Gail Patterson, and Ian and Heather Wilkinson left, and they were chatting around the dining table.
He agreed it appeared the group had a good time and he spoke with his grandfather, Don, about his flying lessons.
“Mum said she was feeling a bit sick and, um, had diarrhoea.... she said she woke a few times through the night to go to the toilet,” he said.
“She wasn’t feeling well she said she was feeling dizzy.”
He said she was quieter than normal and he felt she was “playing it down”.
He told the police officer they skipped church that morning because Patterson didn’t want to spread it to parishioners, but she was adamant he could go to his flying lesson that afternoon.
“About 11.30am I came out to mum ask if she’s still okay for the flying lesson, just assure her it was okay if we didn’t go,” he said.
That afternoon, the teenager told police they drove about an hour to Tyabb for his flying lesson, but it was cancelled because of the weather a short time before they arrived.
He said they didn’t stop to use a bathroom on the way there or back, but Patterson “raced” to the front door when they arrived home.
Children pulled out of school
On the Monday after the lunch, Patterson’s son told police he and his younger sister were pulled out of school by their father and taken to the Monash Children’s Hospital in Melbourne.
He said he visited Patterson in hospital and had three blood tests over Monday and Tuesday before being sent home.
He told the interviewer he did not feel sick.
“In the end it was nothing,” he said.
“Then we just stayed with mum and went back to school on Wednesday.”
On Friday, the court also got to watch further evidence from Patterson’s daughter, who told her interviewer she was served “leftovers” for dinner the following night of the alleged poisoning.
“How did you know it was leftovers?” the interviewer asked.
“Mum told me,” the girl responded.
“I remember I was asking what we were having that night. She said she was making leftovers from yesterday’s lunch.”
Prosecutors allege the children’s meal was not contaminated with death cap mushrooms.
The girl told police Patterson loved to cook and she would often help to bake sweet treats.
About 30 minutes of the video, showing the child seated on a blue couch across from an interviewer, was displayed in the Latrobe Valley courthouse on Thursday afternoon.
In the video, the girl is asked by a male police officer if she knows what they’re going to discuss.
“The lunch,” she replies.
“I wasn’t there so I don‘t know what happened.”
As the video played in court, Patterson appeared emotional, her face appearing to quiver and she could be seen to wipe her nose with a tissue at one point.
The 9-year-old told her interviewer her mum told her she would be going to see a movie with her older brother and another boy the morning of the lunch.
She said she saw “meat” in the oven and Patterson was making a coffee as she explained she wanted to have lunch with her in-laws to discuss “adult stuff”.
“I don‘t exactly know what they had but I know [brother] and me had leftovers the next day,” she said.
The young girl said she went to the cinema around midday on July 29, had McDonald‘s for lunch and was picked up by her dad Simon Patterson, whom she spent the evening with.
The following morning the girl said Erin Patterson told her she had diarrhoea and her “tummy felt sore”.
“She just needed to go to the toilet a lot and she felt sick,” she said.
“We were going to go to church but mum was too sick.”
Later that night, the girl said Patterson told them they were having “leftovers” with meat, mashed potato and green beans.
“She wasn’t really hungry so [brother] ate the rest of hers,” she said.
Patterson’s parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and his aunt and uncle, Heather and Ian Wilkinson, fell ill after Patterson served a beef Wellington dish at lunch on July 29, 2023.
Heather Wilkinson and pastor Ian Wilkinson. Photo / Supplied
Don, Gail and Wilkinson died in hospital within a week, while Ian recovered after more than a month and a half in hospital.
At the start of the trial, Patterson’s lawyer Colin Mandy, SC ,said it was not disputed the meal contained death cap mushrooms but asserted his client did not intentionally nor deliberately poison the dish.
“The defence case is that what happened was a tragedy, a terrible accident,” he said.
