source : the age
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Upon arrival at Erin Patterson’s house, Wilkinson says the guests were led into the open-plan kitchen, dining and lounge area.
“There was general conversation. How are you, and that sort of thing,” he says. “Then we started conversing about the house.”
During the conversation, Patterson mentioned there was a pantry behind the wall in the kitchen area.
“Heather was very interested in pantries at that time, because we’d just built one at home.
“Whenever we went to somebody’s house where they said we have a pantry, she wanted to look at it because she wanted to get ideas for setting up her pantry.
“So on hearing about the pantry, she just immediately started walking towards it, calling out: ‘Can I have a look at your pantry?’” Ian says.
“I’d noticed that Erin was very reluctant about the visit to the pantry, and had not yet started following [Heather and Gail]. And so I thought, maybe the pantry is a mess. It’s going to be an embarrassment. So I won’t add to the embarrassment by joining the party.”
Wilkinson says he and Heather had breakfast at home the morning of the fateful lunch. He cannot recall specifically what they ate.
“I have porridge basically every morning for breakfast, so I probably had a nice bowl of porridge,” he says. Wilkinson says Heather probably had toast.
The couple then bought a newspaper down the street and went to a cafe where they had plans to meet neighbours for coffee.
“I’ve got a vague memory of a pastry. I definitely had a coffee, but I couldn’t say for sure anything else,” he says.
Wilkinson says he and Heather were picked up by Don and Gail Patterson a little after 12pm and travelled to Erin’s house in Leongatha. They arrived about 12.30pm.
Wilkinson says Heather remarked about Simon’s car not being there, when they pulled up at the house.
“Don or Gail – I can’t remember which one – said Simon won’t be coming to the lunch,” he said.
The jury is being shown a photo of Heather’s diary. Inside pages show handwritten entries for the week commencing July 24, 2023. Wilkinson helps the prosecution decipher his late wife’s handwriting.
Warren is now going through the commitments Heather had jotted down for the weekend of the lunch in her diary. Among them are a 67th birthday and a meeting scheduled for 3pm on July 29.
Below the meeting entry was “Erin’s for lunch”.
The entry noted the couple could be picked up by Don and Gail Patterson at 12pm and that they would be taking a fruit platter.
The day before the lunch, July 28, Ian and Heather attended a 67th birthday meal at a pub in Korumburra.
“I know that we all ordered the same meal, and I think it was a schnitzel,” Wilkinson said.
That night, the jury heard, the Wilkinsons went to their daughter Ruth’s house to celebrate her husband Brad’s birthday. Brad smoked some meat, which was served with roasted vegetables.
Wilkinson said he was not present when Erin invited Heather to the beef Wellington lunch scheduled for July 29, 2023.
“We were all at church, but I wasn’t present with Heather and Erin when the invitation was made,” he said.
He said Heather was “fairly excited” about the lunch when she told Wilkinson they had been invited.
“There was no reason given for the lunch, and I remember talking to Heather, wondering why suddenly [there had been an] invitation,” he said.
Wilkinson said they were excited about being invited and thought their relationship with Erin might improve as a result.
“I think Heather had some conversation with either Don or Gail, and we became aware that they had also been invited. And that Simon too was invited,” he said.
Wilkinson’s right hand shakes as he takes sips from a water bottle he has brought into court.
Wilkinson said he had a couple of conversations with Simon Patterson, Erin Patterson’s estranged husband, about the difficulties in his relationship with Erin.
Warren asks Wilkinson about any visits he and Heather had made to Erin and Simon Patterson. Wilkinson said that when the couple moved to Bena after returning to Victoria from WA, he visited the house with Heather, but did not enter the home.
After Erin and Simon separated in 2015, Heather and Ian also visited the home Erin was living in on Shellcott Road, but again did not go inside.
Warren asks Ian Wilkinson about Don and Gail Patterson, who lived about a kilometre from the Wilkinsons’ home in Korumburra.
Wilkinson said the two couples were close and would see each other about three times a week.
He described his relationship with Erin Patterson as friendly and amicable.
“It didn’t have much depth. We were more like acquaintances. We didn’t see a great deal of each other,” Wilkinson said.
He said Patterson attended Korumburra Baptist Church, where he has been a pastor for 26 years. He said there would be periods when she wouldn’t attend for a while, and others when she would attend services more frequently.
“Maybe monthly or something like that, on the average,” he said.
“We would have some casual conversation. We would talk about the family, how you’re going, or that sort of conversation.”
When the pandemic hit, Wilkinson said Patterson helped set up a YouTube broadcast of the services.
He said Heather’s relationship with Patterson was fairly similar. Heather would see her more than Ian, but she didn’t consider their relationship as close, the jury heard.
Wilkinson said Patterson “seemed like a normal person”.
“As I said, when we met, things were friendly,” he said.
Wilkinson said they never had any arguments or disputes.
“Seemed like an ordinary person. I don’t know how to describe it,” he said.
Prosecutor Jane Warren has now started her examination of Wilkinson.
He describes meeting Heather in 1976 and marrying her in 1979. They had four children together: David, Luke, Ruth and Elizabeth.
“I lived in Korumburra 41 years. So together [with Heather], it must be about 39,” he said.
Wilkinson says Heather was initially a stay-at-home mother who also worked as a teacher’s aide. Eventually, she started tutoring students in a special program, before pivoting to teaching English to migrants.
Ian Wilkinson, the lone survivor of the four who fell ill during the fatal lunch, is swearing an oath in the witness box. He is standing with his hands crossed, slightly shaky, wearing a black vest and glasses.
He is all smiles as he speaks of the year he met his wife, Heather, and later married her.
Erin Patterson is crying in the dock, looking around the room and at Wilkinson as he begins his evidence.
Prosecutor Jane Warren has started her examination of Darren Fox, whose store Hartley Wells Betta Home Living in Leongatha sells appliances, bedding and other household goods.
He has told the jury that in November 2023, an employee told him she had sold a dehydrator to Erin Patterson.
Fox then searched his records and found the tax invoice from that sale on April 28, 2023, which was for a Sunbeam dehydrator.
The invoice shown to the jury contains Patterson’s name and a Gibson Street address for delivery, but Fox told the jury the appliance was picked up at the time of purchase.
Fox has been excused without any cross-examination.
As regular readers of the blog will know, the mushroom case involves several members of the Wilkinson and Patterson families.
There are many names being thrown around, so here’s a family tree to remind you of the connections between Erin Patterson and the deceased:
