Australia mushroom trial: Lunch cook tells trial meal was 'special'
Australia mushroom trial: Lunch cook tells trial meal was 'special'

Australia mushroom trial: Lunch cook tells trial meal was ‘special’

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Erin Patterson, 50, is accused of poisoning three of her in-laws. She has pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder relating to the lunch with her estranged husband’s family. Her husband’s parents, Don and Gail, and aunt Heather Wilkinson died in the week after the lunch due to death cap mushroom poisoning. Ms Patterson told the court that she accepted there had to have been poisonous mushrooms in the beef wellington she served, and dried mushrooms used in its creation had sat in her pantry for months due to their “pungent” aroma. She admitted in the days following she did not tell anyone about her foraging suspicion and maintained she used mushrooms from Woolworths and an Asian grocer in Melbourne. She told the jury about a conversation she had with childcare worker Katrina Cripps on August 2 after she was discharged from hospital. She claims she was ‘scared’ of her husband, changed her phone number and reset her son’s phone.

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The Victorian mother accused of murdering three of her in-laws has detailed the moment she began to fear she foraged the death cap mushrooms used in a beef wellington lunch.

Erin Patterson, 50, returned to court on Wednesday morning for her third day in the witness box, becoming tearful and wiping her eyes with a tissue at points.

She told the court that on August 1, she was in a Melbourne hospital explaining to her children they would need to be checked out by doctors after eating leftovers of the lunch.

Ms Patterson said the conversation prompted a discussion with her daughter about hiding dehydrated mushrooms in muffins.

When her children weren’t in the room, she said her husband Simon Patterson turned to her.

“He said to me ‘is that how you poisoned my parents, using that dehydrator’?” she recalled.

“I said ‘of course not’.”

Erin Patterson will return to the witness box on Wednesday. Picture: Brooke Grebert-Craig.

Ms Patterson said the exchange caused her to begin to reflect on the mushrooms used, and that she may have stored dried, wild mushrooms with store-bought mushrooms.

“So it got me thinking about all the times I’d used it (the dehydrator) … and how I had dried both mushrooms in it weeks earlier and I was starting to think what if they had gone into the container with the Chinese mushrooms, maybe that had happened,” she said.

“I was scared of the conversation that might flow about the meal and the dehydrator and I was just scared that they would blame me for it.”

Ms Patterson said after she was released from hospital, on August 2, she took the dehydrator to the tip.

She admitted in the days following she did not tell anyone about her foraging suspicion and maintained she used mushrooms from Woolworths and an Asian grocer in Melbourne.

“I still thought it was a possibility, but I knew it wasn’t the only possibility,” she said.

Her husband, Simon Patterson, gave evidence early in the trial. Picture: NewsWire/Ian Currie

Ms Patterson has pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder relating to the lunch with her estranged husband’s family.

Simon’s parents, Don and Gail, and aunt Heather Wilkinson died in the week after the lunch due to death cap mushroom poisoning, while Ms Wilkinson’s husband Ian survived.

Prosecutors allege Ms Patterson deliberately spiked the meal while her defence argues the case is a tragic accident.

For the last two days, Ms Patterson has been giving her own version of events as to what happened on July 29, 2023.

This week, she told the court that she accepted there had to have been poisonous mushrooms in the beef wellington she served, and dried mushrooms used in its creation had sat in her pantry for months due to their “pungent” aroma.

Describing the process of making the dish on Wednesday, Ms Patterson said she primarily used mushrooms from Woolworths but the duxelles tasted a bit bland.

“I tasted it a few times and it seemed bland to me, so I decided to put the dried mushrooms in the pantry,” she said.

“At the time I believe it was just the mushrooms I got from the grocer in Melbourne … now I think there was the possibility there were foraged ones in there as well.”

The queue to sit in the public gallery for Ms Patterson’s trial. Picture: NewsWire/ David Crosling

Erin claims she was ‘scared’ of husband, changed phone number

Giving evidence, Ms Patterson was asked by Mr Mandy about a conversation she had with childcare worker Katrina Cripps on August 2 after she was discharged from hospital.

She told the jury she talked to Ms Cripps about changing her phone number.

“I was becoming concerned about Simon’s behaviour and his allegations,” she said.

“I was concerned for my security, so I wanted him not to be able to contact me anymore.”

Ms Patterson was then taken to evidence the phone she handed to police on August 5 was factory reset four times.

Dubbed Phone B in the trial, it’s alleged this was not Ms Patterson’s primary phone in the lead up to the lunch.

She told the court the first reset, on February 12, was done by her son after she gave him the phone because his was damaged.

The second, on August 2, she explains, was to wipe her son’s data from the device so she could begin using it.

Ms Patterson agreed she reset the phone a third time on August 5 because she “panicked” and did not want police to find photos of mushrooms and the dehydrator.

The fourth factory reset, which occured on August 6 while the phone was in custody, Ms Patterson said was because she wondered if police were “silly enough” to leave the device connected to the internet.

“So I hit factory reset to see what happened, and it did,” she said.

Ms Pattersons said what is called Phone A in the trial was damaged so she decided to swap it out at the same time as she changed SIM.

She told the court it was sitting on a window sill and missed by police but she threw it in a skip bin in September.

Mushroom cook vomited after lunch: court

After the lunch, Ms Patterson told the court that she cleaned up and then ate some leftover orange cake her mother-in-law Gail Patterson had brought.

Her voice faltering, Ms Patterson said there was about two-thirds of the cake left after her guests left.

“And then I ate a piece of cake, then another piece of cake and then another,” she said.

Asked by her barrister Colin Mandy SC how much she ate, Ms Patterson said “all of it”.

“I felt sick, I felt overfull, so I went to the toilets and brought it back up again,” she said.

Giving evidence on Tuesday, Ms Patterson told the jury that she had struggled with her diet all her life and had been binge eating and purging since her 20s.

“In some intense periods it could have been daily, then it could be weekly or monthly. It varied in intensity,” she said.

Ms Patterson claimed no one knew.

‘Not proud’: Erin lied to in-laws about cancer concern

Asked by Mr Mandy what the lunch guests discussed, Ms Patterson told the court that she’d “let them believe” that she was concerned about ovarian cancer.

‘Right at the end of the meal and I mentioned that I’d had, I had an issue a year or two earlier where I thought I had ovary cancer,” she said.

“I’m not proud about this, but I let them to believe I might be needing some treatment in regards to that in the next weeks and months.”

Earlier in the day, she told the court that she’d lied to Don and Gail in late June about receiving various testing for a lump on her elbow.

She claimed that she was planning to get a gastric bypass to deal with her weight concerns and saw the opportunity to receive support from her in-laws by pretending she was receiving medical care for the lump.

“Letting them believe I had some serious issue that needed treatment … I wouldn’t have to tell them the real reason,” she said.

Asked why she lied, Ms Patterson said she was “really embarrassed”.

“I was ashamed of the fact I didn’t have control over my body and what I ate,” she said.

“I was ashamed about that, I was embarrassed, I didn’t want to tell anybody but I shouldn’t have lied to them.”

Don and Gail Patterson died a day apart in early August. Picture: Supplied

Erin describes shock at mushroom question

The alleged poisoner told the court she began feeling ill the afternoon following the meal on July 29.

The following day, Ms Patterson said, the illness continued but wasn’t as bad as the night.

“I still had nausea I still had diarrhoea, it wasn’t as bad as the early hours of the morning,” she said.

She said the afternoon of July 30, she and her two children jumped in the car for the hour and a half drive to Tyabb where her son was scheduled for a flying lesson.

About half an hour into the trip, Ms Patterson said she pulled over on the South Gippsland Hwy and ran into the bushland to relieve herself.

“I cleaned myself up with tissues, put them in a dog poo bag and put them into the handbag,” she said.

Earlier in the trial, the jury saw CCTV footage from a BP service station in Caldermeade, where Ms Patterson stopped and visited the bathroom for 9 seconds before buying items and leaving.

“I put the dog poo bag with the soiled tissues in the bin,” she said.

Ms Patterson in her red MG SUV. Picture: NewsWire / Valeriu Campan

Ms Patterson said the lesson was cancelled, so she returned home where she served her children the leftovers from the meal, with the pastry and mushrooms scrapped off.

“I thought I’d chance some food so I made myself a bowel of cereal but it didn’t go down well,” she said.

The following day she told the court she dropped her children off at the bus stop before deciding to head to hospital.

In the waiting room, about 8am on July 31, she told the court Dr Chris Webster popped his head in and apologised for the delay.

“We’ve got two critically ill people in here,” she recalled him saying.

Ms Patterson said after she mentioned her name, Dr Webster said “we’ve been expecting you”.

She told the court he began questioning her about the ingredients in the meal and revealed it was suspected Don and Gail had death cap mushroom poisoning.

“I was shocked but confused as well, I was just expecting to come in for saline for gastro,” she said.

“I didn’t see how death cap mushroom could be in the meal.”

Why mushroom cook made beef dish: court

Ms Patterson told the court that she chose to make beef wellington because her mother did it for “important occasions”.

Quizzed on why she decided to make a beef wellington, Ms Patterson said she “went through a process” but decided to follow a Recipetin Eats recipe.

She said it was the first time she made the dish.

“I remember on really important occasions my mum would make a beef wellington, so I thought I’d give it a go too,” she said

Ms Patterson told the court that she followed the recipe roughly but made changes, such as making individual portions rather than a log because she couldn’t find a large enough cut of meat.

Erin describes serving meal to guests

After taking the jury through the process of how she prepared the beef wellington, Ms Patterson was taken to how the dish was served.

She told the court she used “just the dinner plates I had”, including two white plates, two black plates, a plate that’s red on top and black underneath, and a multi-coloured plate.

Asked if she owned any other plates, such as grey plates, Ms Patterson said “no I didn’t”.

Earlier in the trial, lunch survivor Mr Wilkinson described the four lunch guests eating off large grey plates, while Ms Patterson had her meal off an orange or tan smaller plate.

Lunch survivor Ian Wilkinson sat through the evidence. Picture: NewsWire/ David Crosling

She told the court that she plated up five beef wellingtons with mashed potato and green beans on her kitchen bench.

She turned around and began heating up packet gravy, she said.

“I think I used one of those premade sachets, I didn’t want to risk a gravy problem,” she told the jury.

“I grabbed the last plate off the bench and sat at the table.

“Ian said Gail and Heather grabbed two plates each, I accept that happened.”

Mushroom photos in cook’s murder trial

Returning to the witness box on Wednesday, Ms Patterson was shown dozens of digital photos found in her home.

The images depict a variety of wild mushroom, some growing, others picked and sitting on newspaper or paper towel in a kitchen.

She was questioned by Mr Mandy if she remembered taking the images.

“Yes, I did, it was early in 2020,” she said.

“I couldn’t be specific about the date, but it was in the first Covid lockdown.”

Ms Patterson identified other photos of her children out walking and her driveway in Korumburra.

A court sketch of Ms Patterson in the witness box on Monday. Picture: NewsWire / Anita Lester

Alleged poisoner became interested in foraging during Covid

After prosecutors concluded their case earlier this week, Mr Mandy called his client as a witness and Ms Patterson began giving evidence.

Over two days she answered extensive questions about her relationships with Simon Patterson and his family, health concerns, financial situation and her love of mushrooms.

Shortly before the jury was sent home on Tuesday, Ms Patterson agreed that her lunch “must” have contained the poisonous mushrooms.

She told the court when preparing the dish, she used fresh mushrooms purchased from the local Leongatha Woolworths and dried mushrooms purchased months earlier in April from an Asian grocer in Melbourne.

Ms Patterson said the dried mushrooms had been initially bought for a pasta dish but she did not use them at the time because they has a “very pungent” aroma.

Instead, she told the jury, she brought them home and stored them in a Tupperware container in the pantry.

The trial is being held in the country Victorian town of Morwell. Picture: NewsWire / Josie Hayden

She also confirmed she’d begun foraging for wild mushrooms in 2020 and had purchased a dehydrator to preserve mushrooms in early 2023.

“I liked eating wild mushrooms, but it’s a very small season and you can’t keep them in the fridge,” she said.

Ms Patterson told the jury she would store dried mushrooms in her pantry.

“Generally, I would put them into a container that I already sort of had going with Woolies mushrooms and whatnot in there,” she said.

The final question Ms Patterson was asked of the day was if she had a memory of putting wild mushrooms in May or June 2023 into a container that already contained mushrooms

“Yes, I did do that,” she said.

The trial continues.

Source: News.com.au | View original article

Woman on trial for ‘mushroom murders’ claims she was trying to cook up ‘something special’

Woman on trial for ‘mushroom murders’ claims she was trying to cook up ‘something special’Erin Patterson has admitted feeding poison mushrooms to her relatives. She continues to deny three counts of murder and one of attempted murder, after serving up a beef Wellington meal to her parents-in-law and her estranged husband’s aunt and uncle at her home in July 2023. Patterson had previously admitted to serving the dish, which contained the death cap mushrooms, at what proved to be the fatal lunch. If convicted, she faces a sentence of life imprisonment on the murder charges and 25 years in jail for attempted murder for the attempted murder of her in-laws. She admitted to consuming the mushroom meal before vomiting it up shortly after the guests left her home – something she says saved her from the worst effects of the poison. The accused told the court that the self-induced vomiting came after eating nearly a whole cake, with the accused stating she had faced a decade-long battle with bulimia.

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Woman on trial for ‘mushroom murders’ claims she was trying to cook up ‘something special’

Erin Patterson has admitted feeding poison mushrooms to her relatives. Picture: Alamy

By Danielle de Wolfe

An Australian woman accused of murdering three of her estranged in-laws using poisonous mushrooms has said she added the deadly fungi in a bid to improve a ‘bland’ meal.

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Appearing in court on Wednesday, Erin Patterson, 50, admitted to researching recipe ideas and mushroom varieties in a bid to cook up “something special”.

She continues to deny three counts of murder and one of attempted murder, after serving up a beef Wellington meal to her parents-in-law and her estranged husband’s aunt and uncle at her home in July 2023.

Patterson had previously admitted to serving the dish, which contained the death cap mushrooms, at what proved to be the fatal lunch.

She admitted to splurging on the expensive ingredients – ultimately deviating from the proposed recipe in a bid to improve what she described as a “bland” meal.

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Patterson explained to the court that the “vast majority” of the fungi came from local stores.

Don Patterson, Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson were taken to hospital and died after the lunch in the rural town of Leongatha in the Australian state of Victoria.

Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson, was gravely ill but survived.

A court sketch drawn from a video link shows Erin Patterson giving evidence in her own homicide trial at the Latrobe Valley Magistrates Court in Morwell, Victoria. Picture: Alamy

The family had been invited over on the premise she wished to discuss her health issues – namely cancer, with Patterson this week admitting she had never actually been diagnosed with the disease.

In reality, Patterson planned to undergo weight loss surgery, admitting she was too embarrassed to tell relatives the truth, so instead planned to tell them she was undergoing cancer treatment.

“I was ashamed of the fact that I didn’t have control over my body or what I ate,” Patterson said on Wednesday.

“I didn’t want to tell anybody, but I shouldn’t have lied to them.”

Read More: Woman accused of using poison mushrooms to murder in-laws opens up about broken marriage

Read More: Mushroom poison murder suspect pleads not guilty as she makes huge decision over trial

During the court appearance, Patterson admitted to consuming the mushroom meal before vomiting it up shortly after the guests left her home – something she says saved her from the worst effects of the poison.

She told the court that the self-induced vomiting came after eating nearly a whole cake, with the accused stating she had faced a decade-long battle with bulimia.

Patterson’s lawyer earlier told the Supreme Court trial that the poisoning was a tragic accident but prosecutors said it was deliberate.

If convicted, she faces a sentence of life imprisonment on the murder charges and 25 years in jail for attempted murder.

Long queues formed outside the Latrobe Valley Courthouse on Tuesday after Patterson took the stand, which was the first time she had spoken publicly since the deaths.

During several hours of evidence on Tuesday, Patterson, 50, told the court she began foraging fungi during the Covid-19 lockdown of March 2020, witnessed only by her children.

“I cut a bit of one of the mushrooms, fried it up with some butter and ate it,” she said. “They tasted good and I didn’t get sick.”

Patterson said she also fed foraged mushrooms to her children, chopped up “very, very small” so they could not pick them out of curries, pasta and soups.

She developed a taste for exotic varieties, joined a “mushroom lovers” Facebook group, and bought a dehydrator to preserve her finds, Patterson said.

Erin Patterson “Mushroom Murders” Trial Continues In Morwell. Picture: Getty

Her lawyer, Colin Mandy SC, asked if she accepted that the beef Wellington pastries she had served to her lunch guests in 2023 contained death caps.

“Yes, I do,” said Patterson.

The accused told her lawyer most of the mushrooms she used that day came from local supermarkets. She agreed she might have put them in the same container as dehydrated wild mushrooms she had foraged weeks earlier and others from an Asian food store.

Mr Mandy in April told the court his client had lied when she initially told investigators that she had never foraged before. But he denied that she had deliberately sought out death cap mushrooms and said she disposed of her dehydrator in a panic about the accidental deaths.

Earlier Tuesday, Patterson became tearful when she was asked about expletive-filled messages she had sent about her in-laws in December 2022 in a Facebook group chat that she described as a “safe venting space” for a group of women.

“I wish I’d never said it. I feel very ashamed for saying it and I wish that the family didn’t have to hear that I said it,” said Patterson. “They didn’t deserve it.”

Patterson, who said she had tried to have her parents-in-law mediate a dispute with her estranged husband, Simon, about school fees, said she was feeling hurt, frustrated and “a little bit desperate”.

The couple formally separated in 2015 after earlier temporary splits, the court has heard. Simon Patterson was invited to the July 2023 lunch but did not attend.

Source: Lbc.co.uk | View original article

Australia mushroom trial: Lunch cook tells trial meal was ‘special’

Australian woman accused of poisoning her family with mushrooms tells court she wanted it to be ‘special’ She says she didn’t know her guests were ill until they were already in hospital. Her husband and two of her in-laws died after eating the meal at her home in Victoria. The trial is expected to continue for at least another two weeks, with more witnesses expected to give evidence. The prosecution says she was trying to cover up a health issue when she cooked the meal for her family. She has pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder. She denies the charges against her and says she did not mean to hurt anyone. She is accused of killing her husband’s brother-in-law and his wife, who died in a car crash in 2011. She also denies killing her own son, who was in hospital with a heart condition at the time of the meal. The case has been adjourned until next week for more than a month.

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Australian mushroom lunch cook tells trial meal was ‘special’

On Friday, the court heard it was “unusual” for Ms Patterson to host such an event at her house, and she was quizzed about her relationships with her guests.

The 50-year-old says it was a tragic accident, and that she never intended to hurt family members she loved. But prosecutors argue Ms Patterson put poisonous fungi into their food in a carefully crafted plot to kill them.

Erin Patterson has pleaded not guilty to murdering three people and attempting to kill another at her home in regional Victoria in July 2023.

An Australian woman accused of intentionally cooking a fatal mushroom lunch has told her trial she had wanted the beef Wellington meal to be “special”.

Ms Patterson’s in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, both 70, along with Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson, 66, all fell ill and died days after the lunch.

Heather’s husband, local pastor Ian Wilkinson, was also hospitalised but recovered after coming out of a weeks-long induced coma. Simon Patterson, the accused’s estranged spouse, had been invited too, but pulled out the day before.

More than 50 prosecution witnesses have given evidence at the trial, which began six weeks ago, but Ms Patterson became the first for the defence when she took to the stand on Monday.

On her second day of cross-examination on Friday, Ms Patterson told the court she accepted that invites to her house were rare, but said she’d arranged the occasion to discuss a health issue and wanted to make a nice meal for her relatives to thank them for their support.

“I wanted it to be special,” Ms Patterson said.

She has previously admitted she misled her guests into believing she may need cancer treatment, telling the jury she did so as a cover for weight-loss surgery she was planning to have but was too embarrassed to disclose.

Prosecutor Nanette Rogers, however, put to her that there was no health issue to discuss, and that she had invited Simon and his relatives over to kill them. She had even prepared a spare toxic meal in case Mr Patterson changed his mind and came over, Dr Rogers suggested.

Over and over this week, Ms Patterson has denied these allegations, often becoming emotional as she told the court she loved the lunch guests like her own family.

She has also repeatedly told the court that she realised, in the days after the lunch, that the beef Wellington may have accidentally included dried mushrooms she had foraged, which were kept in a container with store-bought ones.

Lies to the police and health authorities about the source of the mushrooms and her decision to dispose of a food dehydrator were both because she was scared of being blamed for the guests’ dire illnesses, she said.

“Surely if you had loved them, then you would have immediately notified the medical authorities?” Dr Rogers asked.

Ms Patterson said she didn’t tell doctors about the possibility that wild mushrooms had been unintentionally included because the lunch guests were already getting treatment for death cap mushroom poisoning.

“Even after you were discharged from hospital you did not tell a single person that there may have been foraged mushroom used in the meal,” Dr Rogers said.

“Instead you got up, you drove your children to school… and drove home. And then you got rid of the dehydrator.”

“Correct,” Ms Patterson said.

The court heard there’d been conflict between Ms Patterson and her husband, and Dr Rogers suggested the accused was still angry at her in-laws for taking their son’s side.

“You had two faces,” Dr Rogers said, after making Ms Patterson read aloud messages in which she is critical of both Simon Patterson and his parents.

There was her “public face” of appearing to have a good relationship with Don and Gail, Dr Rogers said, and a “private face” which she showed in the messages.

“How you truly felt about Don and Gail was how you expressed it [there],” she said.

“And that is how you really felt about Simon Patterson… you did not regard him as being a decent human being at his core, correct or incorrect?”

That was “incorrect”, Ms Patterson replied, her head shaking and voice faltering.

Ms Patterson’s use of the iNaturalist website – which listed locations of death cap mushrooms in areas close to her home – was also scrutinised, with the accused repeatedly saying she couldn’t clearly recall ever using the site.

She will resume being cross examined next week. The trial, initially expected to take six weeks, is now expected to run for at least another fortnight, the judge has told the court.

Source: Bbc.com | View original article

Mushroom trial: Accused weighed fatal dose on kitchen scales, prosecutors say

Deadly mushroom cook weighed fatal dose on kitchen scales, says prosecutor.Erin Patterson, 50, says she didn’t intentionally put death cap mushrooms in the meal. The court was also shown images, taken in late April 2023, which depicted mushrooms being weighed. Ms Patterson has pleaded not guilty to killing three people and attempting to murder another at her home in regional Victoria in July 2023. The high-profile trial, which started almost six weeks ago, has already heard from more than 50 prosecution witnesses. The trial, initially expected to take six weeks, is now expected to run for at least another fortnight, the judge has told the court. The mother-of-two became the first defence witness to take the stand on Monday afternoon. She said she never intended to hurt them and it was a tragic accident. She admitted she had foraged for wild mushrooms in three months before the July lunch, despite telling police and a health official that she hadn’t. She also spoke about putting powdered dried mushrooms into a range of foods like spaghetti, brownies and stew, which prosecutors allege was practice.

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Deadly mushroom cook weighed fatal dose on kitchen scales, says prosecutor

Erin Patterson, 50, says she didn’t intentionally put death cap mushrooms in the meal

Ms Patterson told the court she had likely taken the photos in question but said she didn’t believe the mushrooms in them were death caps.

Prosecutors on Thursday suggested photos found on her phone showing wild fungi being weighed depict her measuring the amount required to kill her guests.

Erin Patterson has pleaded not guilty to killing three people and attempting to murder another at her home in regional Victoria in July 2023. The 50-year-old says she never intended to hurt them and it was a tragic accident.

An Australian woman accused of murdering relatives with beef Wellington documented herself using kitchen scales to calculate a lethal dose of toxic mushrooms, prosecutors allege.

Ms Patterson’s in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, both 70, along with Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson, 66, all fell ill and died days after the lunch.

Heather’s husband, local pastor Ian Wilkinson, was also hospitalised but recovered after coming out of a weeks-long induced coma.

The high-profile trial, which started almost six weeks ago, has already heard from more than 50 prosecution witnesses. Ms Patterson became the first defence witness to take the stand on Monday afternoon.

Under cross-examination from the lead prosecutor, Ms Patterson admitted she had foraged for wild mushrooms in the three months before the July lunch, despite telling police and a health official that she hadn’t.

The court was also shown images, taken in late April 2023 and recovered from Ms Patterson’s phone, which depicted mushrooms being weighed.

Ms Patterson previously admitted she had repeatedly deleted electronic data in the days following the lunch because she feared that if officers found such pictures they would blame her for the guests’ deaths.

Pointing to earlier evidence from a fungi expert who said the mushrooms in the images were “highly consistent” with death caps, crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers alleged Ms Patterson had knowingly foraged them days before.

She had seen a post on iNaturalist – a website for logging plant and animal sightings – and travelled to the Loch area ten days later on 28 April to pick the toxic fungi, Dr Rogers alleged.

Ms Patterson said she couldn’t recall if she went to the town that day, but denied she went there to find death cap mushrooms or that she had seen the iNaturalist post.

“I suggest that you were weighing these mushrooms so that you could calculate the weight required for… a fatal dose,” Dr Rogers put to her.

“Disagree,” Ms Patterson replied.

The mother-of-two also spoke about putting powdered dried mushrooms into a range of foods like spaghetti, brownies and stew, which prosecutors allege was practice for the fatal lunch.

Ms Patterson said this was not true, but rather an attempt to get “extra vegetables into my kids’ bodies”.

Prosecutors repeatedly asked her, with different wording each time, whether she had knowingly used the same food dehydrator to prepare death cap mushrooms for the lunch.

CCTV played at the trial shows Ms Patterson disposing of the appliance at a local dump.

“That’s why you rushed out, the day after your release from [hospital], to get rid of the evidence,” Dr Rogers said.

“No,” replied Ms Patterson.

Earlier, Ms Patterson’s barrister asked her why she repeatedly lied to police about foraging mushrooms and having a food dehydrator.

“It was this stupid knee-jerk reaction to dig deeper and keep lying,” she told the court. “I was just scared, but I shouldn’t have done it.”

Ms Patterson also repeated her claim that she never intentionally put the poisonous fungi in the meal.

She said the mushrooms used in the beef Wellington may have accidentally included dried, foraged varieties that were kept in a container with store-bought ones.

Ms Patterson was also quizzed on evidence given by other witnesses that she had asked her guests to come to the lunch to discuss health issues, namely a cancer diagnosis.

She said she didn’t outright say she had cancer, but still shouldn’t have misled her relatives, saying she’d done so partly because their concern made her feel loved.

“I suggest that you never thought you would have to account for this lie about having cancer because you thought the lunch guests would die,” Dr Rogers said. “Your lie would never be found out.”

“That’s not true,” Ms Patterson said.

She will resume being cross examined on Friday. The trial, initially expected to take six weeks, is now expected to run for at least another fortnight, the judge has told the court.

Source: Bbc.com | View original article

Australia mushroom trial: Erin Patterson tells court she threw up toxic meal

Erin Patterson has pleaded not guilty to four charges – three of murder and one of attempted murder – over the beef Wellington lunch at her regional Victorian house in July 2023. Prosecutors allege Ms Patterson deliberately served toxic death cap mushrooms, but only to her guests. Her defence team say the contaminated meal was a tragic accident, and argue it had made their client sick too. Three people died in hospital in the days after the meal, including Ms Patterson’s former in-laws and Gail Patterson, 70, as well as Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66. Ms Patterson also admitted she had lied about a cancer diagnosis – which prosecutors say she used to coax the guests to her house – instead of revealing she was actually planning to undergo weight-loss surgery. She said she had dumped a food dehydrator and wiped her phone out of fear of being blamed for her relatives’ deaths, telling the court her estranged husband had accused her of poisoning them. The Victorian Supreme Court trial has heard from more than 50 witnesses, and attracted huge global attention.

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Deadly mushroom lunch cook tells court she threw up toxic meal

Ms Patterson told the court she had only eaten a small part of lunch but later consumed two-thirds of a cake, before becoming “over-full” and vomiting.

Prosecutors allege Ms Patterson deliberately served toxic death cap mushrooms, but only to her guests. Her defence team say the contaminated meal was a tragic accident, and argue it had made their client sick too.

Erin Patterson has pleaded not guilty to four charges – three of murder and one of attempted murder – over the beef Wellington lunch at her regional Victorian house in July 2023.

An Australian woman on trial for murder says she threw up the toxic mushroom meal which killed her relatives, after binge eating dessert.

Three people died in hospital in the days after the meal, including Ms Patterson’s former in-laws, Don Patterson, 70, and Gail Patterson, 70, as well as Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66.

She said she had dumped a food dehydrator and wiped her phone in the days after the incident out of fear of being blamed for her relative’s deaths, telling the court her estranged husband had accused her of poisoning them.

On her third day of wide-ranging testimony, Ms Patterson also admitted she had lied about a cancer diagnosis – which prosecutors say she used to coax the guests to her house – instead of revealing she was actually planning to undergo weight-loss surgery.

Doctors have previously told the trial Ms Patterson did not have the same intense symptoms as the other people who’d eaten at her house.

The Victorian Supreme Court trial – which started almost six weeks ago – has heard from more than 50 witnesses, and attracted huge global attention.

In the Morwell courthouse, Ms Patterson gave a detailed account of the fatal lunch, saying she had invited her guests under the premise she wanted to talk about health issues.

The 14-member jury heard that Ms Patterson went through “quite a long process of trying to decide what to cook” for the lunch before choosing to make beef Wellington.

The dish – usually prepared with a long strip of fillet steak, wrapped in pastry and mushrooms – was something Ms Patterson’s mother made when she was a child, to mark special occasions, she said.

After deciding the mushrooms she’d prepared tasted “bland”, she said she’d added some dried ones – bought from an Asian grocer in Melbourne months earlier – from a container in her pantry.

Asked if that container may have had other types of mushrooms in it, Ms Patterson, choking up, said: “Now I think there was a possibility that there were foraged ones in there as well.”

Yesterday, the court heard that Ms Patterson had started hunting for mushrooms in locations close to her Leongatha home in 2020, and her long-standing love for fungi had expanded to include wild varieties as they had “more flavour”.

Ms Patterson told the jury she had served up the food when it was ready, and instructed her guests to grab a plate themselves as she finished preparing gravy.

There were no assigned seats or plates, she said.

Mr Wilkinson previously told the trial the guests had each been given grey plates while Ms Patterson had eaten off an orange one. Ms Patterson on Wednesday said she didn’t have any grey plates.

During the lunch, Ms Patterson recalled that she didn’t eat much of her food – “a quarter, a third, somewhere around there” – because she was busy talking.

She conceded she had told her guests she had cancer, but in court explained she told this lie to make sure she had help with childcare when she underwent gastric bypass surgery.

“I remember thinking I didn’t want to tell anybody what I was going to have done. I was really embarrassed by it,” she said.

After the guests left, she cleaned up the kitchen and ate a slice of orange cake Gail had brought.

“[I ate] another piece of cake, and then another piece,” she said, before finishing the rest of the dessert.

“I felt sick… over-full so I went to the toilets and brought it back up again.”

“After I’d done that, I felt better.”

Yesterday, the court heard that Ms Patterson had secretly struggled with bulimia since her teens and was prone to regularly binge eating and vomiting after meals.

Ms Patterson told the court that she started to develop gastro-like symptoms hours after the lunch and took herself to hospital to “get some fluids” two days later. She was “shocked but confused” when medical staff asked if she could have eaten death cap mushrooms.

While in hospital for observation overnight, Ms Patterson said her former husband Simon asked her about a dehydrator she owned.

“Is that how you poisoned my parents?” she told the trial he’d said to her – something Mr Patterson denies.

After this encounter, she’d been “frantic”, Ms Patterson said, and upon being sent home had disposed of her food dehydrator at the local tip.

“I had made the meal and served it and people had got sick.”

“I was scared that they would blame me for it.”

The court also heard that Ms Patterson erased the data on one of her phones several times – including while police were searching her house – because she did not want detectives to see her photos of mushrooms and the dehydrator.

Ms Patterson will continue giving evidence on Thursday, before prosecutors will have the opportunity to cross-examine her.

Source: Bbc.com | View original article

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