Footage of Erin Patterson dumping a food dehydrator at a tip and handing a mobile phone to police has been released by the Victorian supreme court, almost a month after she was found guilty of murdering and attempting to murder her estranged husband’s family.
Both sets of footage were tendered as exhibits during Patterson’s trial, but only were released to the media on Monday.
The footage was taken from the Koonwarra Transfer Station CCTV and from a police officer filming the execution of a search warrant at Patterson’s Leongatha home.
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Both events happened in August 2023, the week immediately after Patterson served a lunch of beef wellington laced with death cap mushrooms that fatally poisoned Don and Gail Patterson, the parents of her estranged husband Simon, and Heather Wilkinson, Gail’s sister.
Ian Wilkinson, Gail’s husband, survived.
Patterson can be seen on the footage taking the Sunbeam food dehydrator, which is in its box and placing it in an area for electronic waste disposal.
The dehydrator – described during the trial as “the murder weapon” – was later recovered by police, and found to contain traces of death cap mushrooms and Patterson’s fingerprints.
The footage taken from inside her home shows Patterson sitting at her dining room table and handing over a mobile phone to a detective at the conclusion of an almost four-hour search of the property.
It was later alleged that Patterson did not hand police her main mobile phone at this time, but another device which she had recently factory reset and would reset again in the coming hours. It was alleged her main phone was never recovered by police.
