Juror discharged from mushroom lunch trial as child protection worker reveals what Erin Patterson told her

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/may/15/child-protection-worker-erin-patterson-mushroom-lunch-murder-trial-ntwntfb

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Victorian supreme court judge says he received information the juror had been discussing Patterson’s case with family and friends

A juror has been discharged from the triple murder trial of Erin Patterson, after Justice Christopher Beale said he had received information the person had been discussing the case with family and friends.

Beale told the jury he had received information the juror had been discussing the case with family and friends contrary to his directions.

He said he had not made a positive finding that the juror discussed the case with family and friends, but “neither could I discount the possibility that he had”.

Fifteen jurors were empanelled in the case on 29 April, with the discharge coming on the 12th day of the trial.

Only 12 jurors will rule on the verdict, with the other three to be reserve jurors, a common practice in Victorian trials since the pandemic.

On the afternoon they were empanelled, Beale told the jury:

“I direct you that you must not discuss the case with anybody else other than your fellow jury members in the privacy of the jury room; don’t discuss the case with anybody else.

“We don’t want to risk your opinion, which is the only opinion that counts, being influenced by other people who are not members of the jury. You don’t search for information about the case, whether in hard copy or online.

“If you did that, you would cease being jurors and you will have turned yourself into investigators and that’s not your role … were you to discuss the case with others who aren’t members of the jury or to do your own research, you would be committing a criminal offence, and jurors have even been sent to jail for breaching those directions.”

Beale said the jurors could tell their families they had been selected for the Patterson trial but should not discuss it further.

“Shut down any attempt to draw you into conversation about it, alright? Please.”

Earlier on Thursday, a child protection worker told the court that Erin Patterson described her estranged husband, Simon, as “nasty”, “controlling” and “emotionally abusive”, and believed he was isolating her from his parents.

The worker also said Patterson did not answer her the following day when she asked whether she had picked the mushrooms used in the lunch.

Patterson, 50, has pleaded not guilty to three charges of murder and one charge of attempted murder relating to the lunch she served at her house in Leongatha, Victoria on 29 July 2023.

Patterson is accused of murdering Simon’s parents, Don and Gail Patterson, his aunt Heather Wilkinson, and attempting to murder Ian Wilkinson, Simon’s uncle and Heather’s husband.

The Victorian supreme court sitting in Morwell has previously heard the guests died after being poisoned with death cap mushrooms that were in a paste used by Patterson to make individual beef wellingtons.

The prosecution alleges Patterson deliberately poisoned her lunch guests with “murderous intent”, but her lawyers say the poisoning was a tragedy and terrible accident.

Katrina Cripps told the court on Thursday that she received a notification on 1 August 2023 regarding a referral to child protection about Erin and Simon Patterson’s two children.

She said she and a colleague spoke with Simon, Patterson and the children while the group were at the Monash medical centre.

Cripps said her colleague took notes of their conversation with Patterson. She told the court that the conversation touched upon an application Patterson had filed for child support the previous year, and her relationship with Simon and his parents.

Of the period when Patterson applied for child support, Cripps told the court Patterson had said to the child protection workers that “as a husband he’d been mean but he’d never been nasty, and she felt that was the time that he’d become nasty”.

Patterson had said “Don and Gail had been like the parents she never had, her parents had died some time ago … but that relationship had changed recently as well”, as “she felt that he was isolating her from his family”, Cripps told the court.

Cripps said Patterson had told her “about feeling like [Simon] was controlling and emotionally abusive, in that he would say things to her that would make her doubt herself as a parent and as a mother, and it would impact her self-esteem”.

Patterson also told Cripps about hosting her parents-in-law for lunch with her children earlier in 2023, and that she had invited them because “she just wanted to reconnect with them and see them”.

Erin Patterson hosts lunch for estranged husband Simon’s parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and his aunt and uncle Heather and Ian Wilkinson. Patterson serves beef wellington.

All four lunch guests are admitted to hospital with gastro-like symptoms.

Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson die in hospital.

Don Patterson dies in hospital. Victoria police search Erin Patterson’s home and interview her.

Ian Wilkinson is discharged from hospital after weeks in intensive care.

Police again search Erin Patterson’s home, and she is arrested and interviewed. She is charged with three counts of murder relating to the deaths of Don and Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson, and the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson.

Jury is sworn in.

Murder trial begins. Jury hears that charges of attempting to murder her estranged husband Simon are dropped.

Cripps said Patterson told her that she had decided to cook beef wellington for the 29 July 2023 lunch as she “wanted to do something new and special” after finding the recipe in a RecipeTin Eats cookbook.

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She said she had invited the Pattersons and Wilkinsons as she had something she wanted to discuss with them and get their advice on.

Notes from the conversation also show Patterson told Cripps she had eaten half of the beef wellington, Cripps told the court.

Patterson and her children were discharged from hospital later that day, but Cripps visited her home the following day, which she said was standard in child protection cases.

She said Patterson showed her around the home during this 2 August 2023 visit, and she believed it had been specifically set up to cater to her children and their interests.

Patterson took a call from Sallyann Atkinson, from the Department of Health, during Cripps’ visit, and Cripps said she heard the phone call as it was on speaker. Atkinson was attempting to establish which Asian grocer Patterson had purchased dried mushrooms from for the beef wellingtons. The court has heard evidence from multiple people who say they were told by Patterson she used dried mushrooms from an Asian grocer in the lunch.

Cripps said she told Patterson to check her bank statements prior to the call, and she had seen her scrolling through her phone but had not seen what was on her screen. Patterson later explained that she could find no record of the transaction, but that she may have paid cash if it was only a small amount.

Cripps said that after the phone call she had asked Patterson whether she had picked the mushrooms used in the meal, but Patterson did not answer and continued looking at her phone.

Under cross-examination from Sophie Stafford, a barrister for Patterson, Cripps agreed that after this conversation with Atkinson she also asked Patterson whether she had a support network outside Simon and his family.

Cripps also agreed that Patterson became upset and distressed at the prospect she may lose the support network of the Pattersons.

On 4 August, Cripps said she again spoke with Patterson, this time on the phone. She agreed that she had asked Patterson whether she had an update on the condition of the lunch guests, but Patterson said she hadn’t and expressed that she was finding this distressing.

Cripps agreed that she knew at the time of the call that Heather Wilkinson had died, but that she did not tell Patterson because of welfare concerns.

“Yes, and it wasn’t my place to,” Cripps told the court.

Patterson had also told her during the phone call that she was concerned about her security and privacy, and she was planning on changing her phone number, Cripps agreed.

Dr Dimitri Gerostamoulos, the head of forensic science and chief toxicologist at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine, also told the court on Thursday about tests conducted to detect death cap mushroom toxin in the lunch guests, Patterson and her children, and the beef wellingtons.

Gerostamoulos said the tests were designed to detect amatoxins produced by death cap mushrooms, specifically alpha-amanitin and beta-amanitin.

He said these examinations were different from those conducted by Dr Camille Truong, a mycologist or mushroom expert, who gave evidence on Wednesday that her microscopic examinations of leftovers from the lunch had not uncovered death caps.

“Well, microscopic examination is different from what we undertake,” he said.

“We undertake an analysis at much lower levels of what the naked eye can detect … We rely on instruments to detect very low quantities that are not visible.

“The only real way of identifying poisons that have been put in food or in other preparation is analytically, and that takes place in laboratories such as ours.”

He said he uncovered amatoxins in samples taken from Don and Ian, and in samples taken from mushroom paste and meat provided to him as leftovers of the beef wellingtons. The amatoxins were also uncovered in “matter” found on a food dehydrator dumped by Patterson at a local tip.

The trial continues.