Footage of Erin Patterson's police interview has been released after a court ruling in Australia. Photo / Supreme Court of Victoria
Footage of Erin Patterson's police interview has been released after a court ruling in Australia. Photo / Supreme Court of Victoria
Footage of mushroom killer Erin Patterson’s police interview in the days after four members of her husband’s family fell deathly ill has been made public following an Australian court ruling.
The 21 minutes of footage, released by the Victorian Supreme Court on Friday, contains the edited version of Patterson’s interviewthat jurors in her trial were shown.
Patterson was found guilty last month of murdering her in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson by serving them a poisoned beef wellington lunch in July 2023. Ian Wilkinson, Heather’s husband, recovered after weeks in hospital.
Wearing a brown jumper, Patterson sat slightly hunched over the table across from two detectives as the left-hand side of her face is captured on tape.
After Patterson is explained her rights, Detective Senior Constable Stephen Eppingstall tells her Heather and Gail died a day earlier, while Don had undergone a liver transplant but was “extremely critical” and the prognosis “isn’t great” for Heather’s husband Ian Wilkinson.
“We’re trying to understand what has made them so ill,” Eppingstall says.
“Conversely, we’re trying to understand why you’re not that ill.”
Patterson explained she had “never been in a situation like this before” and had been “very, very helpful” with an investigation from the Department of Health.
“I wanted to help that side of things as much as possible because I do want to know what happened,” she said.
Turning to the topic of her relationship with her in-laws, and why she invited them to the lunch, Patterson said they were the “only family that I’ve got”.
“Because I’ve got no other family so they’re the only support I’ve got left and they’ve always been really good to me and I want to maintain those relationships with them in spite of what’s happened with [my husband] Simon,” she said.
During the trial, Justice Christopher Beale said “irrelevant material” had been cut – a standard process in criminal cases.
The interview was recorded at the Wonthaggi Police Station in the afternoon of August 5 after police had searched Patterson’s home for electronic devices.
Through her lawyers, Patterson opposed the public release of the interview, arguing, among other things, the footage could be sensationalised by media and may deter other suspects from participating in police interviews in the future.
But, on Friday, Justice Beale ruled the interview should be released, citing a legal principle that justice should be seen to be done in public and that the footage would allow people to make their own judgments.
The formal questioning by Eppingstall came hours after Patterson was informed Gail and Heather Wilkinson had died in hospital. Don died later that night.
In the interview, Patterson goes on to say it was important to her that her children’s grandparents be in their lives and she thought her husband “hated that I still had a relationship with his parents”.
Patterson’s in-laws Don and Gail Patterson died a day apart in early August 2023. Photo / Supplied
“Nothing that’s ever happened between us, nothing he’s ever done to me will change the fact that they’re good, decent people that have never done anything wrong by me, ever,” she said.
At trial, Patterson admitted she told several lies in the interview and to others in the days after the poisonings, including that she’d never foraged for mushrooms and did not own a dehydrator.
Prosecutors alleged she told other lies in the interview, which Patterson denied, such as feeding leftovers from the lunch to her children the following day and being “very helpful” to the health department probe.
Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers, SC, argued these lies were part of the accused woman’s attempt at a “sustained cover-up” for murder.
Through her lawyers, Patterson argued she acted poorly out of a panic she would be wrongly blamed for the deaths, while barrister Colin Mandy, SC, said she was “not on trial for being a liar”.
Patterson was found guilty of three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder on July 7 after an 11-week trial.
She is due to return to court on August 25 for a two-day pre-sentence hearing.
