3 days ago
Erin Patterson tells court she accepts fateful meal contained death cap mushrooms
Barrister Colin Mandy SC asks Erin Patterson about the meal she cooked for the fateful beef wellington lunch.
“Do you accept there must have been death cap mushrooms in there?”
“Yes, I do,” Patterson replies.
Mandy asks where the mushrooms in the beef wellington came from.
“The vast majority came from the local Woolworths in Leongatha. There were some from the grocer in Melbourne,” she says.
Mandy says the jury has previously heard evidence she reported buying dried mushrooms from an Asian grocer in Melbourne.
Patterson says she cannot remember the exact purchasing of the dried mushrooms from an Asian grocer.
She says she knew it was in the April school holidays.
Patterson says she has previously purchased dried mushrooms from Asian grocery stores.
“Sometimes the bag might say something like wild mushroom mix,” she says.
She says these had previously included shiitake or porcini mushrooms.
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Patterson tells court she stored foraged and shop-bought mushrooms in same container
Erin Patterson says she planned to immediately use the dried mushrooms she bought from an Asian grocer in April 2023.
She says when she opened them they had a “pungent” smell. She put them in a plastic container which she then used to store them at her Leongatha home, the court hears.
Patterson says mushrooms she foraged in May and June of 2023 were dehydrated and stored at home.
Under questioning by barrister Colin Mandy SC, Patterson said mushrooms she foraged during this period were placed in a container that contained store-bought dried mushrooms.
Barrister Colin Mandy SC asks Erin Patterson if anyone accompanied her when she foraged for mushrooms.
Patterson said her children were with her when she foraged during the Covid period.
Mandy asks if they were engaged in the mushroom picking process. She replies:
Yes and no.
Generally they ran around and did their own thing.
They definitely saw what I was doing.
Barrister Colin Mandy SC asks Erin Patterson if she dehydrated mushrooms she had foraged.
“I did,” she says.
He takes Patterson to a photo, previously shown to the jury, she sent to her Facebook friends. The photo shows mushrooms inside a dehydrator.
Mandy asks what type of mushrooms are shown in the photo.
“I’m pretty sure they were Woolies mushrooms. Just your basic button,” she says.
Mandy shows Patterson another photo of what appears to be the caps of mushrooms on a tray. Underneath is a digital scale.
Mandy asks why the mushrooms are on scales.
“I was doing some experimenting around trying to find out what temperature to use, how long to put them in for,” Patterson says.
Patterson said she had a “proposition in her mind” that to properly dehydrate mushrooms, she needed to extract all the water.
Mandy turns to May and June of 2023 and asks if there were other wild mushrooms she picked in this time.
Erin Patterson tells court she accepts fateful meal contained death cap mushrooms
Barrister Colin Mandy SC asks Erin Patterson about the meal she cooked for the fateful beef wellington lunch.
“Do you accept there must have been death cap mushrooms in there?”
“Yes, I do,” Patterson replies.
Mandy asks where the mushrooms in the beef wellington came from.
“The vast majority came from the local Woolworths in Leongatha. There were some from the grocer in Melbourne,” she says.
Mandy says the jury has previously heard evidence she reported buying dried mushrooms from an Asian grocer in Melbourne.
Patterson says she cannot remember the exact purchasing of the dried mushrooms from an Asian grocer.
She says she knew it was in the April school holidays.
Patterson says she has previously purchased dried mushrooms from Asian grocery stores.
“Sometimes the bag might say something like wild mushroom mix,” she says.
She says these had previously included shiitake or porcini mushrooms.
The jury has returned to the court room in Morwell.
Erin Patterson’s evidence is continuing.
The jury have not yet returned to the court room
Here’s a reminder of what the jury heard from Erin Patterson’s evidence earlier today:
1. Patterson said she developed an interest in wild mushrooms during Covid walks in early 2020 when she noticed them in the Korumburra Botanical Gardens.
2. The accused said she wished she had never messaged her online friends in a private Facebook group chat “this family I swear to fucking god” in relation to her in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson. She said she felt “ashamed” for saying it.
3. Patterson told the court she had never been diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She said she was worried about potentially having ovarian cancer and described her history of consulting Google to research her symptoms.
4. Patterson detailed her daughter’s health history, including being diagnosed with an ovarian mass as a baby in 2014. She says from her birth daughter’s birth she thought something was wrong but doctors told her she was an overly anxious mother. Patterson said she lost faith in the medical system.
5. Patterson told the court she never had a healthy relationship with food and from her 20s had experienced binge eating before being sick.
In Australia, the Butterfly Foundation is at 1800 33 4673. In the UK, Beat can be contacted on 0808-801-0677. In the US, help is available at nationaleatingdisorders.org or by calling ANAD’s eating disorders hotline at 800-375-7767. Other international helplines can be found at Eating Disorder Hope.
We’re waiting for the jury to return to the court room in Morwell
Prior to the lunch break, the prosecution asked to raise an issue in the absence of the jury.
We’ll bring you more updates once the Erin Patterson trial resumes.
The court has adjourned until 2.15pm.
Catch up on the morning’s proceedings thanks to our justice and courts reporter, Nino Bucci.
Erin Patterson details her first time eating a foraged mushroom
She says the lead-up to it was a “process over several months”.
She says she was confident she knew what the field and horse mushrooms she had picked were.
I cut a bit of one of the mushrooms, fried it up with some butter and ate it.
They tasted good and I didn’t get sick.
Patterson said sometimes she would put foraged mushrooms in meals she ate with her children.
I chopped them up very, very small so they couldn’t pick them out.
Patterson recalls a time walking in the Korumburra area when her dog ate some mushrooms.
I picked all the mushrooms that I could see because I wanted to try to figure out what they were.
She says she wanted to work out if the mushrooms would be a “problem” for her dog.
She says she discovered some were edible but she had concerns about one fungi species – inocybe.
Erin Patterson says she developed an interest in wild mushrooms during Covid
Barrister Colin Mandy SC turns to question his client about mushrooms.
Mandy shows Patterson photos she sent to her Facebook friends of mushrooms laid on a dehydrator shelf.
Patterson remarks about one photo: “looks like they’re at the end of the cycle.”
Asked if she developed an interest in wild mushrooms, she replies: “yes, I did.”
Patterson says her interest in mushrooms began during Covid in early 2020 when she would go for walks in the Korumburra Botanic Gardens with her children and noticed them.
Mandy asks Patterson why she has enjoyed eating mushrooms.
They taste good and they’re very healthy.
Asked about wild mushrooms, Patterson says they “just taste more interesting.”
It’s more flavour.
Patterson says she would purchase mushrooms at Woolworths and at markets.
She says she would sometimes purchase dried mushrooms from Asian grocers while staying at her Mount Waverley home with her children.
She says she would use store-bought dried mushrooms in curries, pasta dishes and soups.
