Erin Patterson has pleaded not guilty to murder and attempted murder. Photo / News.com.au
Erin Patterson has pleaded not guilty to murder and attempted murder. Photo / News.com.au
Prosecutors in the trial of alleged death cap mushroom poisoner Erin Patterson have pointed to the moment they claim she first learnt her plan was unravelling.
Delivering her closing address to the jury on Monday, Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC suggested Patterson panicked after attending hospital two days following thelunch when a doctor raised death cap concerns.
“This is the moment, we suggest, she realised what she had done had not gone undetected,” she said.
“Her reaction? She wanted to leave.”
Patterson, 50, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder relating to a lunch she hosted for members of her estranged husband Simon Patterson’s family members on July 29, 2023.
Rogers began her closing address on Monday morning by telling the jury Patterson alone orchestrated the July 29, 2023 lunch to “devastating effect”.
“What other reasonable possibility can explain why all the lunch guests became so ill … while the accused did not,” she said.
Rogers pointed to four deceptions she alleged were enacted by Patterson.
“At the heart of this case are four calculated deceptions made by the accused,” she said.
The first was a cancer claim allegedly used to explain the purpose of the invitation, the second was the lethal dose of poison “secreted” in the meal, the third was Patterson allegedly faking illness herself, and the last was a sustained cover-up to “conceal the truth”.
Nanette Rogers is leading the Crown’s case. Photo / NewsWire
Crown alleges children were not served poisoned meal
On Monday afternoon, Rogers turned to the fourth deception she raised – the alleged cover-up by Patterson.
The prosecutor said this section would cover four topics, namely alleged lies about feeding her children leftovers, allegedly lying about all the mushrooms coming from Woolworths and an Asian grocer, disposing of the dehydrator and allegedly concealing her usual mobile phone from police.
Starting with Patterson’s children, Rogers said Patterson told multiple people over multiple days she’d fed leftovers of the lunch to her children for dinner on July 30.
She told the jury it was the crown’s case Patterson did not feed her children the leftovers because she knew they were poisoned but told people this to defer suspicion.
She said on Patterson’s own evidence, she herself was feeling sick and was told by Simon his parents were “crook” well before dinner time.
“Why then would the accused feed the leftovers of a meal to her children knowing it had, or even believing it might have, led to illness?” Rogers questioned.
Rogers then took jurors to evidence Patterson was reluctant to have her children medically assessed on July 31 after telling doctors they’d had the food.
She argued one might expect the “doting mother” to be galvanised by the knowledge her children faced a life-threatening illness, but instead Patterson was telling medical staff she didn’t want to worry or scare the children.
“She knew they had not eaten death cap mushrooms at all,” Rogers said.
“Her reluctance, we say, is incriminating conduct.”
‘She knew’: Crown claims Erin refused care
Rogers moved on to what she called the “third deception”, being Patterson allegedly feigning illness following the lunch.
She suggested the evidence demonstrated the accused woman was not suffering from mushroom poisoning and “deliberately tried to make it seem like she was so suffering”.
“The only reason she would do something like that … is because she knew she had not been poisoned,” she said.
The prosecutor told the jury that Patterson’s account of when she first began feeling unwell varied, but Simon gave evidence she told him in a phone call it was about 4 or 4.30pm on July 29.
Rogers said this would be about two hours after the lunch and compared this with the four guests who first experienced symptoms 12 hours post the meal.
She took the jury to Patterson’s first hospital presentation at 8.05am on July 31, explaining she had discharged herself against medical advice five minutes later.
Rogers said Leongatha Hospital’s Dr Chris Webster identified Patterson in the waiting room as the meal’s cook and warned her that she’d been exposed to a potentially deadly toxin.
“This was the first time the accused knew death cap mushrooms were suspected,” Rogers said.
“This is the moment, we suggest, she realised what she had done had not gone undetected. Her reaction? She wanted to leave.”
Rogers explained this was what lawyers called incriminating conduct evidence, claiming it demonstrated Patterson knew she had not consumed death cap mushrooms.
She told the court the evidence was that Patterson returned to hospital 1 hour and 48 minutes later after claiming she needed to feed her animals, pack her daughter’s ballet bag and prepare to be admitted.
After this, the prosecutor said, Patterson showed an unwillingness to receive medical care.
“Why would she be resistant to treatment if she was genuinely sick?.
“Her reluctance to receive medical treatment is inexplicable unless she knew she had not eaten what her guests had eaten.”
Death caps ‘blitzed’ into powder for lunch
Rogers turned to the evidence she said showed Patterson located and picked death cap mushrooms for the lunch.
She told the jury that jump lists of web searches taken from a Cooler Master computer located in Patterson’s home allegedly captured the accused navigating to the citizen science website iNaturalist, looking up death cap mushrooms before ordering a family dinner from the local pub.
“You can safely infer it was the accused undertaking these searches,” Rogers said.
“By at least May 2022 she had the knowledge to locate with precision death cap mushrooms in Victoria.”
Rogers told the jury the cell tower evidence, analysed by an expert, Professor Matthew Sorrell, showed possible visits to Outtrim and Loch where death cap sightings were posted in April and May 2023.
She then took the court to images located in the cache data of the Google Photos app on a Samsung tablet that showed a dehydrator and dehydrating mushrooms.
Rogers suggested one photo, last modified on May 4, captured regular field mushrooms, while another, on the same date, was identified by mycologist Tom May as being consistent with death caps “at a high level of confidence”.
She told the court it was the Crown’s case that showed the accused conducting a “test run” before drying the death caps.
Rogers said Patterson’s messages to her online friends about blitzing mushrooms into powder to hide in food and mycologist Camille Truong’s evidence of not identifying pieces of death caps in the leftovers point to one conclusion.
“At some stage the accused blitzed them into powder and in that form hid them into the lunch guests’ beef wellingtons,” she said.
Erin ‘planted the seed’ of cancer lie: Crown
Rogers took the jury to evidence given by Wilkinson and Simon Patterson about Patterson’s cancer lie.
She said Wilkinson recounted she told the guests she had cancer, and Simon was told by his parents the invitation was after Patterson had received testing for a lump on her elbow.
Rogers said the lie was “calculated to manufacture” a reason for the lunch and not just an example of the accused being paranoid, as she suggests Patterson’s defence would argue.
“The accused planted the seed of this lie far in advance,” she said.
“She did not think her lunch guests would live to reveal it. Her lie would die with them.”
‘Sinister’: Crown points to recipe changes made
Rogers moved on to the second deception the prosecution alleges, that she sought out death cap mushrooms and hid lethal doses inside the beef wellingtons.
This, she said, was a “sinister deception” because Patterson used a nourishing meal to deliver the poison.
Rogers pointed to evidence Patterson was not familiar with the dish and modified a RecipeTin Eats recipe to prepare individual portions of the meal.
“This was not a shared dish… the prosecution submits this is an important detail; why deviate so significantly for an unfamiliar recipe for a special lunch?” she said.
“It enabled the accused to control what individual ingredients went into each parcel.”
Rogers said it was the prosecution’s case Patterson did not consume the same meal as her guests.
Patterson’s parents-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson, died a day apart in early August 2023. Photo / News.com.au
What’s next in mushroom murder trial
Jurors in the trial were sent home early for the week last Thursday, when Patterson’s time in the witness box drew to a close after eight days of evidence.
At the time, trial judge Justice Christopher Beale said he was required to have legal discussions with prosecution and defence counsel in their absence.
The judge earlier outlined to the jury how he expected the rest of the trial would play out.
He told jurors that after Patterson’s evidence concluded and the legal discussions were had, the trial would proceed to closing addresses from the prosecution and defence.
