The jury members in the triple-murder trial of Erin Patterson have returned court to hear the judge deliver his charge at the Latrobe Valley Law Courts in Morwell, Victoria.
Justice Christopher Beale is expected to commence his final directions to the fourteen jurors, which is anticipated to last for roughly two days.
Last Thursday, Justice Beale dismissed the jurors early, telling them to “have a good weekend” and that he would begin his closing address on Tuesday morning, where he would summarise the evidence and arguments, explain relevant legal framework and highlight the issues for the jurors to determine.
“I really want you to come back refreshed on Tuesday,” Justice Beale said, adding that his summary of the evidence given in the trial and his explanation of the relevant legal principles would take two or three days to deliver.
The jurors will be balloted down to twelve. These remaining jurors will then be sequestered until they decide whether Patterson is guilty or not guilty of three murders and one attempted murder.
For the past eight weeks, Patterson has been facing the trial after pleading not guilty to murdering three of her estranged husband’s relatives and the attempted murder of another. Prosecutors alleged the 50-year-old mother deliberately poisoned her victims by serving them a beef wellington meal that contained death cap mushrooms on July 29, 2023.
Simon Patterson’s parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and aunt, Heather Wilkinson, died of multiple organ failure linked to death cap mushroom poisoning a week after having lunch at the home of Erin Patterson in Leongatha in Victoria’s southeast.
Wilkinson’s husband, Ian Wilkinson, was in critical condition but recovered following six weeks in hospital.
During the trial, prosecutors argued that Patterson deliberately spiked the meal with the poisonous mushrooms intending to kill, or at least seriously injure, her guests.
Her defence maintained it was a tragic accident, arguing that their client denies she intentionally poisoned four members of her estranged husband’s family when she served them the toxic beef wellingtons.
Entering its ninth week, the trial has heard from more than 50 prosecution witnesses before the accused entered the witness box. Over the subsequent eight days, Patterson herself described the nature of her relationship and separation with her former husband, the genesis of their relationship, and becoming distant from her estranged husband’s family.
Patterson revealed that her relationship problems with Simon originated from communication issues.
“We could never communicate in a way that made each of us feel heard or understood, so we would just feel hurt,” she said.
During the trial, a mycologist (fungi expert) admitted there were “many challenges” in trying to identify a mushroom and determine its toxicity unless it is ingested.
Dr Tom May told the court “That is generally a way that we determine the mushroom is toxic, after an ingestion and connecting symptoms.”
“It is possible to analyse mushrooms for known toxins, so that would be another way,” he said. “In general, the way that we have determined that native Australian fungi are toxic is through symptoms after ingestion.”
Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC relied on what she described as Patterson’s “four calculated deceptions”. These included her “fabricated” cancer claims to lure her guests to the lunch [“The accused planted the seed of this lie far in advance”], her deliberate pursuit of the death cap mushrooms which she then added to the servings of beef wellingtons to her guests, her attempt to feign illness from also consuming the death cap mushrooms and several other ways she had “acted deceptively” to deflect blame and suspicion regarding her actions.
“The sinister deception was to use a nourishing meal as the vehicle to deliver the deadly poison,” Rogers said. Commenting on Patterson’s decision to serve individually parcelled beef Wellingtons, she said “It allowed her to give the appearance of sharing in the same meal while ensuring she did not consume … [a beef Wellington] laced with death cap mushrooms.”
In her closing arguments delivered last week, Rogers argued the evidence put forward over the past seven weeks could allow the jury to “safely reject” the defence’s theory that the lunch was “a terrible accident”.
“We say there is no reasonable alternative explanation for what happened to the lunch guests other than the accused deliberately sourced death cap mushrooms and deliberately included them in the meal she served them, with an intention to kill them,” Rogers said.
“There are some inconsistencies that she just cannot account for so she ignores them, says she can’t remember those conversations, or says other people are just wrong, even her own children.”
“She has told too many lies and you should reject her evidence.”
Patterson’s barrister, Colin Mandy SC, called the crown’s case one that was based on “ridiculous” and “convoluted” propositions. He accused the prosecution’s case of being built on cherrypicked facts and urged the jury to reject them.
“There’s no possible prospect that Erin wanted in those circumstances to destroy her whole world, her whole life. Surely, it’s more likely that her account is true,” he said, urging the jurors to accept his client’s account of an accidental poisoning.
“When you consider the actual evidence and consider it properly … your verdicts on these charges should be not guilty,” Mandy said.
The defence barrister insisted there were all sorts of reasons why an innocent person might tell lies.
“Erin got into the witness box and told you she did those things because she panicked when confronted by the terrible realisation that her actions had caused the illnesses of the people that she loved,” he said, closing his arguments by imploring the jury: “If you think there’s a possibility this was an accident, a reasonable possibility, you must find her not guilty. And if you think there’s a reasonable possibility that her evidence was true, you must find her not guilty. The standard is proof beyond reasonable doubt.”
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