Summary
Here’s a recap of what the jury heard today:
1. Prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC told the jury Erin Patterson “targeted her search” for death cap mushrooms to poison the beef wellingtons she served her lunch guests on 29 July 2023.
2. Patterson cannot be accepted as a truthful and trustworthy witness, Rogers said. In the final moments of her closing address, she said if the jury combines all the evidence in the trial they will be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Patterson deliberately sourced death cap mushrooms and deliberately included them in the beef wellingtons she served her guests.
3. Patterson’s defence lawyer, Colin Mandy SC, said the prosecution had a “flawed approach” in analysing the evidence and “discarded inconvenient truths”. He told the jury to consider whether there is a reasonable possibility that death cap mushrooms were put into the beef wellingtons accidentally. He said jurors should also consider whether there is a reasonable possibility that Patterson did not intend to kill or cause serious injury to her guests.
4. Mandy said his client had no motive and “very good reasons” not to harm her lunch guests. “If you do embark on this plan … you’ll lose the only people in the world who are any support to you and your children, you will lose your children and you will lose everything that’s important to you,” he said.
5. Mandy said that while Patterson had a right to silence and was under no obligation to testify in the trial she chose to give evidence in the trial. In doing so, he said, she opened herself up to days of cross-examination by an experienced barrister and the “scrutiny of the whole world”.
Updated
The court has adjourned a little earlier than usual for the day.
Mandy’s closing address will resume from 10.30am tomorrow.
Mandy says Patterson spoke to many people after the lunch. He says it’s “likely” Patterson was “being consistent” when she gave accounts to people including child protection workers and medical staff.
He says witnesses had different “emphases” in questions they were asking her.
Mandy says at one point after the lunch his client had conversations with more than 21 people in 24 hours and it was difficult to remember what she told each person.
Updated
Patterson opened herself to 'scrutiny of the whole world', defence says
Mandy reminds the jury Patterson had a right to silence and did not have to testify in the trial.
“She doesn’t have to provide anything and yet she decided to give evidence and subject herself to several days of cross-examination by a very experienced barrister.”
He says in doing so Patterson opened herself up to juror’s scrutiny and the “scrutiny of the whole world.”
Mandy tells the jury the prosecution’s theory of Patterson making individual beef wellingtons fails if they cannot prove a non-poisoned pasty exists.
He says the prosecution’s case means Patterson would have eaten all of her beef wellington otherwise there would have been non-poisoned beef wellingtons in her bin.
Patterson previously told the court that she did not eat all of her beef wellington and the remnants were in the bin outside her home.
“If her portions were in the bin then her portions were poisoned,” Mandy says.
Mandy says Patterson only disposed of the dehydrator after the meal. He says if she planned to murder her lunch guests she would have disposed of the dehydrator well before the lunch.
He says it is unlikely Patterson would have posted photos of the dehydrator, which the prosecution alleges is the murder weapon, in a group chat with Facebook friends she met in an online true crime group.
He says Patterson driving to the tip to dispose of the dehydrator in her own car and paying for this with her own bank card highlight what “can only be panic”.
'Not only is there no motive, there are very good reasons not to harm these people,' defence says
Mandy says if Patterson was a murderer she would have known the “spotlight” would be on her when her guests were hospitalised.
He says it was “inevitable the focus will be on the cook”.
Mandy says it was not a secret that Patterson had invited the lunch guests to her house.
“It’s all out in the open,” he says.
“She decided to cook a lavish and complicated dish … Not just a simple bolognese. But something much more impressive.”
He says if Patterson was planning to murder her lunch guests she would not have bought a dehydrator from a local store under her own name, take photos of the dehydrator and mushrooms in the appliance and post these images in a Facebook group chat.
“Erin Patterson did the opposite of all those things because she didn’t plan it,” he says.
He says Patterson panicked after the meal because she knew the spotlight would be on her.
“Not only is there no motive, there are very good reasons not to harm these people,” he says.
“And if you do embark on this plan … you’ll lose the only people in the world who are any support to you and your children, you will lose your children and you will lose everything that’s important to you.”
“It’s very unlikely that anyone in those circumstances would make that choice.”
Justice Christopher Beale tells the jury he will begin instructing them ahead of their deliberations on Monday.
He says this may “spill over into Wednesday”.
“With a wind in my back I may finish by Tuesday afternoon,” he says.
Mandy says Simon told the jury Patterson sent an “aggressive” message about child support to a group chat with his parents on the app Signal in December 2022.
He says the next day the defence, during cross-examination, showed Simon these messages. Simon then said these were not the messages he was referring to, the court hears.
“Then his memory became it was at some other time. Still in this group chat.”
Mandy says the disagreement between Patterson and Simon did not provide “any kind of motive to murder someone’s parents and their aunt and uncle”, he says.
Mandy says the tone of the messages in the group chat from early December to when Patterson travelled to New Zealand with her children later that month are “on an even keel”.
“They might be functional, they might be mechanical, but these two people were not warring,” he says.
“There is not anger or aggression.”
He points to a message Patterson sent Simon on 18 December 2022 asking for help because a tree had fallen across a fence at her property and one of her goats was in a neighbour’s yard. Simon replied that he was interstate but was happy to help when he returned, the court hears.
Defence claims prosecution has been ‘scratching around’
Mandy says without a motive the jury is “left guessing about the most important element of this trial and that’s intention”, he says.
He says the prosecution has spent a lot of time “scratching around” to find evidence about animosity in Patterson’s family dynamics.
He points to evidence the prosecution led about Patterson and Simon having a dispute about child support and other financial arrangements in December 2022.
“They want to show there was some kind of difficulty … and that might provide a reason to murder his parents and his aunt and uncle six months later,” he says.
“Even saying it aloud … shows how unpersuasive that argument is.”
Mandy says the disputes over finances for their children occurred over a few days in December 2022.
“It was a brief spat, we say, about child support, which the evidence says was resolved amicably.”
“Obviously Erin was upset. She freely acknowledged that. She was venting to her Facebook friends … even months before the lunch.”
Updated
Mandy says another reason to consider that the lunch guests were good and kind people is because Patterson had no reason to harm them.
He says he will touch on the absence of a motive, as the prosecution predicted in their closing address.
Mandy reminds the jury that the prosecution does not have to prove motive. But he says one element of the offence of murder is intention to kill or cause serious injury.
“They have to prove that’s what Erin Patterson meant to do,” he says.
“Proof of a motive or the fact of a motive can be very important to intention.”
Jurors must put ‘natural human emotions’ aside and judge case on facts alone, Mandy says
Mandy says it is clear to everyone in the court room that Ian Wilkinson is a “kind and good person”. He says this also applies to the three lunch guests who died.
Human beings naturally feel deep empathy when confronted with events of loss, Mandy says.
He says humans may have an instinctive reaction to seek retribution for someone whose actions have caused the death of others.
“We know these actions of Erin Patterson caused the deaths of these three people and the serious illness of another” he says.
Mandy says jurors are judges and must guard against this type of thinking.
“You have to put your natural human emotions … to one side.”
He says the case is about a criminal offence with elements that the prosecution must prove beyond reasonable doubt.
“As a judge, what’s in your hearts, has no relevance at all,” he says.
Mandy says jurors must make a judgment on the facts alone.
Updated
Mandy says an important issue in this case is whether it is possible for people to share the same meal, containing death cap mushrooms, and have “very different health outcomes”.
“The answer to that question is a fundamental part of the case,” he says.
Mandy says the prosecution “seems to say ‘not possible’”.
Mandy says the prosecution should have called evidence if there was a medical reason Patterson did not become as unwell as her lunch guests.
Updated
The jurors have returned to the court room in Morwell
Updated
The court has adjourned for a lunch break
Mandy’s closing address will continue from 2.15pm.
Updated
Mandy points to the “imperfect” evidence of nurse Kylie Ashton who told the trial the Patterson’s children eating the beef wellington leftovers was first discussed at her initial presentation at Leongatha hospital.
Mandy says this evidence was not supported by other medical witnesses and it was inconceivable doctors knew about the children at the initial presentation as they would have taken urgent action.
He says the nurse may have found out about the children later and made a mistake when she testified.
Mandy tells the jury that people have “imperfect and honestly mistaken memories”.
He says the jurors will have experienced telling a story to a group of people and having it recounted differently.
“Details get emphasised, details get minimised,” he says.
Defence begins closing address to jury
Patterson’s defence lawyer, Colin Mandy SC, is delivering his closing address to the jury.
He says the jury’s consideration needs to come down to two issues. First, whether there is a reasonable possibility that death cap mushrooms were put into the beef wellingtons accidentally.
Second, whether there is a reasonable possibility that Patterson did not intend to kill or cause serious injury to her guests.
He says if either of these are a reasonable possibility the jury must find Patterson not guilty.
“That’s the law,” he says.
He says the prosecution has a “flawed approach” in analysing the evidence.
“The prosecution has just made an argument. That’s not evidence,” he says.
Mandy says the prosecution has selected parts of the evidence that suits their argument while “discarding inconvenient truths”.
Updated
Prosecutor concludes closing address
On Monday, Rogers told the jury that Patterson had made four calculated deceptions. She says Patterson has also played a “fifth deception” in her story she told the jury.
Rogers says there are inconsistencies Patterson cannot account for so she ignores them or says witnesses, including her children, are wrong.
“Focus on the evidence,” she says.
“Remember to combine all the evidence in this case.”
Rogers says this includes Patterson preparing and allocating the meal, that she was the only one who consumed the meal and did not fall seriously ill, familiarity with the citizen science website iNaturalist and the observation map for death cap mushrooms.
She also points to cell tower evidence consistent with her phone being in the two locations in Gippsland where death cap mushrooms were seen and reported on iNaturalist in April and May 2023, photos of the mushrooms Patterson was dehydrating months before the lunch which are consistent in appearance with death cap mushrooms and remnants of death caps found in the dehydrator.
“When you consider all of the evidence in combination, we suggest, you will be satisfied that the accused deliberately sourced death caps and deliberately served death caps,” Rogers says.
“Those conclusions, we suggest, will lead you to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the accused is guilty of each of the four charges on the indictment.”
Rogers has concluded her closing address.
Updated
Jury 'must not feel sorry for the accused', Rogers says
Rogers says the jury should not let their emotional response to the events sway their verdict.
“You must not feel sorry for the accused,” she says.
“You may not want to believe that anyone is capable of what the accused has done … you might not understand it.”
“But look at the evidence. Don’t let your emotional reaction dictate your verdict.”
Rogers says there is no reasonable alternative other than Pattrson deliberating sourcing death cap mushrooms and deliberating putting them in the beef wellingtons.
She says after the lunch Patterson told multiple lies.
“She’s told lies upon lies because she knew the truth would implicate,” she says.
'You cannot accept the accused as a truthful, trustworthy witness,' Rogers says
Rogers reminds the jury that Patterson has no legal obligation to prove anything in the trial.
She stresses that parts of Patterson’s story, including her history of foraging wild mushrooms between 2020 and 2023, are based solely on her own evidence.
She says binge eating and purging, vomiting after the fateful lunch and stopping to go to the toilet in a bush the day after the beef wellington meal, also fall in this category.
“The prosecution says you cannot accept the accused as a truthful, trustworthy witness,” Rogers says.
“You should reject her evidence.”
Updated
Rogers turns to lies Patterson has told
These include not owning a dehydrator and not foraging for mushrooms.
Rogers says there are also lies Patterson had told but not admitted to.
She says Patterson lied when she testified she invited her guests to the beef wellington meal because she had had an enjoyable lunch with Don and Gail the month prior.
The evidence shows Patterson indicated the lunch was to discuss a medical issue, Rogers says.
She tells the jury Patterson also lied when she testified that she never told the lunch guests she had a cancer diagnosis.
She says Patterson herself said she discussed cancer treatment at the lunch.
“That does not happen without a diagnosis,” Rogers says.
She says the “starkest lie” was when Patterson testified she was planning to have gastric bypass surgery in 2023. Rogers reminds the jury of evidence that the clinic where Patterson said she had a pre-surgery appointment has never offered this procedure.
Updated
Prosecutor says Patterson thought 'she would get away with these crimes'
Rogers says the jury may wonder why Patterson shared photos of her dehydrator with her online friend if she planned to use it to dehydrate death cap mushrooms.
“It’s certainly easy to identify where she went wrong when you look back,” she says.
But she says the jury should ensure their assessment is based on the evidence of this case.
“I suggest to you, the accused did think she would get away with these crimes and she never suspected doctors would so quickly assume death cap mushrooms were involved,” Rogers says.
‘What would you do?,’ prosecutor asks jury
Rogers asks the jury to imagine what they would do if they were in Patterson’s position.
“If you were told the meal you had served and cooked your family possibly had death cap mushrooms, what would you do?” she asks.
Rogers says they would not go into self preservation mode, be reluctant to receive medical treatment or take 2.5 hours to “eventually agree” to get their children medically assessed.
“You would do everything you could to help the people you love. You would tell the treating medical practitioners every skerrick of information,” she says.
Rogers rebuffs innocent explanations
Rogers says the defence will probably argue there are innocent explanations of Patterson’s actions like discharging herself from the hospital within minutes of arriving, being reluctant to get her children medically tested and dumping the dehydrator.
Rogers plays the jury CCTV footage of medical staff trying to stop Patterson from discharging herself from Leongtha hospital on 31 July 2023.
She says Patterson told police she needed to leave the hospital to organise things for her children and animals. But Rogers says she had already dropped her children at the bus stop for school.
She says there were other ways she could have managed her children and animals given she had been warned she may have ingested a fatal toxin.
Rogers says the jury should reject suggestions by the defence that Patterson dumped the dehydrator because she panicked
“Panic does not explain the extensive and prolonged efforts that the accused went to in order to cover up what she had done,” she says.
Patterson continued to lie even when the lives of her lunch guests were at stake, Rogers says.
Rogers says what Patterson “outwardly” portrayed did not always align with her “true feelings”.
She says Simon gave evidence that when he told her his parents were in hospital the day after the lunch Patterson never asked about them.
If Patterson loved her in-laws she would have immediately asked about their welfare, Rogers says.
Relationship with in-laws not always ‘harmonious’
Rogers turns to Patterson’s relationship with her parents-in-law.
She says Patterson’s estranged husband, Simon Patterson, told the jury Patterson seemed to love his parents.
“On the surface it seemed that way, even to the family members themselves,” Rogers says.
But she says the jury has heard evidence Patterson’s relationship with her in-laws, Don and Gail, was not always “harmonious”.
She reminds the jury about evidence regarding Patterson and Simon’s dispute over child support payments. She says Simon and Patterson’s son described his parents’ relationship as negative before the lunch.
Rogers says Patterson expressed her real feelings about her parents in-law and the broader family with her online friends.
She says in messages from December 2022, seen by the jury, Patterson called her parents-in-law a “lost cause”.
Patterson deliberately sought out death caps, prosecutor says
Rogers says Patterson deliberately sought out death cap mushrooms.
“She knew exactly what she was looking for and she targeted her search accordingly,” she says.
Rogers says the defence will probably argue that Patterson had a good relationship with her lunch guests. She reminds the jury that they do not need to know why someone did something to know that they did it.
Rogers tells the jury not to become distracted by the issue of a lack of motive.
“The question is not why she did this. The question you have to determine is has the prosecution determined, beyond reasonable doubt, that the accused did this deliberately?,” she says.
Updated
'Was the accused really a mushroom forager?'
Rogers says she expects the defence will argue the jury cannot exclude the possibility that Patterson “innocently” foraged for wild mushrooms and accidentally picked death cap mushrooms.
“Was the accused really a mushroom forager between 2020 and 2023 as she claimed to you?,” Rogers asks rhetorically.
She says the only evidence about this “comes from her own evidence”.
“None of the immediate family members you heard from in this trial … knew the accused to pick or eat wild mushrooms.”
Rogers says Patterson’s two children were unaware of her foraging despite living with her during this period.
“The accused never discussed foraging for mushrooms with her online friends … even though they discussed absolutely everything.”
Updated
Patterson gave police 'dummy phone' and lied about number, Rogers says
Rogers reminds the jury about the evidence about four factory resets conducted on Phone B.
She says Phone B, which Patterson handed to police, was a “dummy phone”, with the sim card only inserted into it two days before police searched her home
“This was not her usual phone number,” she says.
“We say she lied about her phone number in the police interview.”
Rogers says the multiple factory resets, handing over a “dummy” phone and claiming she had a different phone number was “designed to frustrate the police investigation of this matter”.
“It was all done so police would never see the contents of the accused’s mobile phone,” she says.
Rogers says the only reasonable explanation for this deceptive content is that Patterson knew the contents on phone A would implicate her in the deaths of the lunch guess.
“This is another example of incriminating conduct,” Rogers says.
Updated
Patterson’s mobile phones
Rogers turns to evidence about Patterson’s mobile phones.
She says Patterson had a change in handset at the beginning of February. She continued to use this phone – Phone A – until after the lunch.
“This is what the prosecution says is the accused’s usual mobile phone,” Rogers says.
She says Phone A was still in use up to and while police were searching Patterson’s house on 5 August 2023.
Rogers reminds the jury the agreed fact that at an unknown time between 12.01pm and 1.45pm on this day Patterson’s original phone number – previously used for Phone A – “lost connection with the network”.
Rogers says this could be due to:
A. The sim card being removed
B. The battery being removed without the handset being off
C. The handset being damaged
Rogers says for any of these three things to occur someone – “and we say the accused” – must have been handling the mobile phone.
She reminds the jury that to this day police have never located Phone A.
'She wanted to hide the evidence,' prosecutor says
Prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC is continuing to deliver her closing address.
She says the day after Patterson was discharged from Monash hospital in August 2023 she drove to a local tip, Koonwarra Transfer Station And Landfill, and dumped the food dehydrator because she “knew it would incriminate her”.
She says the only reason Patterson did this was to cover up the deadly meal.
“She wanted to hide the evidence,” Rogers says.
“This is another example of incriminating conduct.
“She knew that keeping it would be far too risky.”
Rogers says that if police had not discovered the transaction from the tip then Patterson’s disposal of the dehydrator would not have come to light.
“Erin Patterson certainly wasn’t telling anybody about it,” she says.
Rogers says Patterson lied to police when asked if she owned a dehydrator in the formal interview.
Updated
The jurors have returned to the court room in Morwell.
What the jury heard yesterday
Here’s a recap of the what jury heard on Monday:
Prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC told the jury Erin Patterson made “four calculated deceptions”. She said these were fabricating a cancer claim as a reason to host the lunch, secreting a lethal dose of poison in the beef wellingtons, her attempts to pretend she was also sick, and a sustained cover-up to “conceal the truth” after the lunch.
Patterson did not think she would be questioned about her cancer claim because she believed her “lie would die with them [her lunch guests]”, Rogers said.
Rogers told the jury to reject Patterson’s evidence that there were no grey plates she served the beef wellingtons on. She said Ian Wilkinson, the sole surviving lunch guest, was a “compelling witness” and recalled four grey plates. He said Patterson ate off an orange-tan coloured plate.
Not one medical professional who saw Patterson said she looked unwell, Rogers told the jury.
Patterson’s initial reluctance to have her children medically tested, after she told medical staff she fed them leftovers of the fatal meal, was because she knew they had not consumed death cap mushrooms, Rogers said.
Updated
Good morning
Welcome to day 33 of Erin Patterson’s triple murder trial.
Prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC will continue delivering her closing address to jurors this morning. Patterson’s defence lawyer, Colin Mandy SC, will then address the jury.
We’re expecting the trial to resume from 10.30am.
Patterson, 50, faces three charges of murder and one charge of attempted murder relating to a beef wellington lunch she served at her house in Leongatha, in regional Victoria, on 29 July 2023.
She is accused of murdering her in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, and her estranged husband’s aunt, Heather Wilkinson. The attempted murder charge relates to Heather’s husband, Ian.
She has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The prosecution alleges Patterson deliberately poisoned her lunch guests with “murderous intent”, but her lawyers say the poisoning was a tragic accident.
Updated
