Don Patterson and Gail Patterson, Erin Patterson's former parents-in-law, died after a suspected mushroom poisoning. Photo / Supplied
Don Patterson and Gail Patterson, Erin Patterson's former parents-in-law, died after a suspected mushroom poisoning. Photo / Supplied
Erin Patterson is accused of poisoning a beef wellington intending to kill four family members.
Three people died and one was critically ill after the lunch on July 29, 2023.
Patterson pleaded not guilty, claiming she did not intentionally serve the poisoned meal.
A call to triple zero from a doctor treating two of the guests who fell gravely ill after having lunch at Erin Patterson’s home has been aired in an Australian court.
Leongatha Hospital’s Dr Chris Webster told the jury that shortly after he had arranged for Ian and Heather Wilkinson to be urgently transferred to Dandenong Hospital, Patterson walked into his waiting room.
Patterson, 50, is accused of deliberately poisoning a beef wellington dish intending to kill four members of her estranged husband Simon Patterson’s family on July 29, 2023.
She is accused of murdering Simon’s parents, Don and Gail Patterson, his aunt Heather Wilkinson, and attempting to murder Ian Wilkinson, who is Simon’s uncle and Heather’s husband.
Taking the witness stand on Wednesday in the Latrobe Valley Law Courts, in the Victorian town of Morwell, Webster said he told Patterson there was a concern about death cap mushroom poisoning and questioned where she had acquired the mushrooms for the lunch.
Erin Patterson maintains she did not deliberately or intentionally serve the poisoned meal.
Webster said he impressed upon Patterson the need for immediate treatment but, after leaving her with a nurse for triage, she checked out against medical advice.
“I was surprised,” he said.
“I had just informed her she’d been potentially exposed to a deadly death cap mushroom poisoning, and I would have thought being in hospital was the best place to be.”
Webster said he rang the phone number Patterson supplied three times, before contacting police.
The jury was played a recording of the triple-0 phone call which began at 9.25am on Monday, July 31.
“This is Dr Chris Webster calling from Leongatha Hospital. I have a concern regarding a patient that presented here earlier that has left the building and is potentially exposed to a fatal toxin,” he said.
“There were five people who ate a meal, two of them are in intensive care at Dandenong Hospital, two have been transferred to Dandenong Hospital.”
Webster said he gave police Patterson’s home address, but she returned to hospital at 9.48am.
He told the court Patterson had told him her children ate leftovers with the mushroom and pastry scraped off, and he urged her to get them assessed.
“She expressed reluctance … she was concerned they would be frightened,” he said.
Webster said he received a call from police at 10.04am when they were outside her home, and he received permission from Patterson for them to enter and collect remnants of the meal from the bin.
Couple ‘raved’ about fatal mushroom meal
A woman killed and a man left in critical condition after a poisoned mushroom lunch had “raved” about the meal to friends before falling ill, the court heard.
Ian and Heather Wilkinson hosted a meeting with the Korumburra Baptist Church’s management committee, where Ian Wilkinson serves as the pastor, shortly after the pair returned from lunch at Erin Patterson’s home.
Statements prepared by church treasurer Angela Child and secretary Jennifer McPhee were read to the jury by prosecutor Jane Warren on Wednesday.
They both described visiting Ian and Heather’s home about 3pm on July 29 for a church meeting and watching the pair arrive in Don and Gail’s car a short time later.
Heather Wilkinson and pastor Ian Wilkinson. Photo / Supplied
“I waved at Don and Gail, they waved back and looked happy, but I didn’t speak to them,” McPhee said.
Child wrote that Heather told her they’d had a “lovely lunch” of beef Wellington and described it as “delicious and beautiful”.
“She continued to rave about the meal,” Child said.
Both women said neither Heather nor Ian appeared ill when they left soon after 4pm.
Doctor suspected meat behind illnesses
Webster gave evidence that he initially suspected dodgy meat after learning of the four sick people.
“That meal, the ingredients that had been consumed, typically the most likely cause for food poisoning would be the meat, not the other ingredients,” he said.
He told the jury his attention had turned to the beef wellington as the source, because both Ian and Heather reported they hadn’t eaten anything since the lunch.
Brother’s 1 minute 13 second call to Erin Patterson
The younger brother of Patterson’s estranged husband Simon, Matthew Patterson, was also called to give evidence at his sister-in-law’s trial on Wednesday.
He told the court that over the 20 years he’d known Patterson, it appeared her relationship with his older brother was always “amicable and seemed like they communicated well together”.
But he gave evidence that he had observed a shift in recent years.
“I would say their conversations were slightly more mechanical, less casual than they were previously.”
Matthew told the court he was at Don Patterson’s bedside at Dandenong Hospital when toxicologists quizzed his father about the lunch.
He said Don couldn’t tell them where the mushrooms in the meal came from, so he offered to call Patterson.
In a call lasting 1 minute and 13 seconds, he told the court he greeted her, asked how she was doing and where the mushrooms were sourced.
“She mentioned fresh mushrooms from Woolies and dried mushrooms from a Chinese grocer or shop, I’m not sure the exact words, from the Oakleigh area,” he said.
Under cross-examination from defence barrister Sophie Stafford, he agreed it was a “friendly interaction” and it seemed like “she was trying to recall” the answers during the conversation.
The topic also turned to a lunch he had had with Patterson in 2021, when she had said she wanted to reconcile with Simon but only if he attended counselling.
He agreed she had asked his advice on how to approach this.
‘Never happened before’: Daughter recounts surprise at lunch invite
Ian and Heather Wilkinson’s daughter, Ruth Dubois, gave evidence that her mother had expressed surprise at being invited to Patterson’s home for lunch.
She said Heather had told her Patterson approached her and Gail after a church service, remarking, “Just the two I was looking for.”
Dubois told the jury she expressed surprise at the invitation, which Heather Wilkinson shared.
“We were surprised also, that had never happened before,” her mum said.
After Simon Patterson drove her parents to hospital the morning after the lunch, Dubois said she “packed up the car” and went to be by their side.
In hospital, Ian and Heather expressed concern about Patterson’s health, knowing Don and Gail were also ill.
“They talked about their concern for Erin, maybe coming to hospital as a precaution; she had seemingly eaten the same meal as they had.”
Daughter breaks down in mushroom trial
The youngest daughter of Don and Gail Patterson broke down in the witness box as she gave evidence at the triple-murder trial of her sister-in-law.
Taking the stand on Wednesday, Anna Tarrington’s voice began to falter and she began to tear up as she detailed a phone call with her mother following the lunch.
“I phoned mum on Saturday afternoon after the lunch. It was approximately 5pm,” the youngest Patterson child said.
“She said it went well, they had beef wellington and it was too much for mum, so dad finished hers.”
Tarrington told the jury she was notified the next day by her older brother, Simon Patterson, that their parents were in hospital.
Simon Patterson, she said, told her Don, Gail, Ian, and Heather were in hospital after spending the night with vomiting and diarrhoea, while Erin was also sick but “soldiering on” at home.
She told the jury she stayed in Gail’s hospital room that night, where they discussed that Patterson had brought up a “medical issue” over the lunch.
“I took her to the bathroom many times,” she said.
Under cross-examination, Tarrington confirmed she had grown close with Patterson when they both were pregnant at the same time.
She agreed Patterson and her parents remained supportive and on good terms after the separation, and that Simon and Erin had loaned her about $400,000 for her home.
A toxicologist involved in treating Patterson’s lunch guests has detailed when hospital staff first began to suspect death cap mushroom poisoning.
Called to give evidence on Wednesday, emergency registrar Dr Mark Douglas was called to give evidence about his involvement in treating the lunch guests on July 30.
Douglas was working as the on-call toxicologist when he received a call from Dr Beth Morgan at Dandenong Hospital for advice after Don Patterson presented with “abnormalities in both the liver and blood tests”.
He told the court it was suspected that death cap mushroom poisoning could be the cause, but the presentations of the other three lunch guests and clinical guidelines did not indicate that the antidote Silibinin should be given.
He said he advised Morgan to continue treating Don with liver-protecting medicines, to monitor Gail’s condition and check in with the medical teams looking after Ian and Heather.
By the following morning, after Gail’s condition began to worsen, Douglas said they decided to begin treating with Silibinin.
“At that stage, there were several other potential causes,” he said.
“The feeling was that we should start the treatment for amanita phalloides (poisoning).”
On Tuesday, Dandenong Hospital’s Morgan told the jury that Don and Gail Patterson were transported from Korumburra Hospital the day after the lunch, when Don’s condition worsened.
After reportedly eating half of his wife’s beef wellington,
he began experiencing gastrointestinal symptoms about midnight. Gail fell ill about an hour later.
Morgan said she first began treating Don about 10pm, with earlier staff initially believing his illness was “most likely due to food poisoning”.
But she said after treatment did not deliver any improvement in his condition, the hospital’s toxicologist, Douglas, suggested amanita phalloides mushroom poisoning could be a concern.
Don was administered medication, including N-acetylcysteine, which Morgan said is used to protect the liver during paracetamol overdose.
Don and Gail Patterson, both 70, and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson, 66, died in hospital in the week after the gathering.
Ian Wilkinson fell gravely ill but recovered.
“The defence case is that what happened was a tragedy, a terrible accident,” said Erin Patterson’s barrister. Colin Mandy, SC.
The trial, before Justice Christopher Beale, continues.
