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A juror in the Erin Patterson murder trial has been discharged over concerns he could have discussed the case with family and friends.
Supreme Court Justice Christopher Beale told the remaining members of the jury panel on Thursday morning that he had received information that the juror may have breached his directions not to discuss the case outside of the jury room.
Erin Patterson.Credit: Jason South
“A few minutes ago, I discharged juror number 84.
“I did so… because I received information that he had been discussing the case with family and friends contrary to my instructions,” Beale said.
“There was a reasonable possibility that the information I received was credible.”
Beale stressed that he had not made a positive finding that the juror had discussed the case with family or friends but he could not dismiss the possibility that he had.
“I’ve directed him not to contact any of you directly or indirectly and I give you similar direction. You are not to contact him directly or indirectly,” he said.
Erin Patterson is accused of murdering her parents-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, by serving them poisonous mushrooms in a beef Wellington she cooked at her Leongatha home on July 29, 2023.
The Pattersons and Heather Wilkinson died in the days after the meal from the effects of mushroom poisoning. Heather’s husband, Ian, survived after weeks in hospital.
Erin has pleaded not guilty to three charges of murder and one of attempted murder. Her lawyers have said the deaths were a terrible accident.
Death cap toxins found in samples from lunch leftovers: expert
Earlier on Thursday, a leading Victorian forensic toxicologist told the court that meat and mushroom samples collected from beef Wellington leftovers found in a bin at Erin Patterson’s home had returned positive results for death cap mushroom toxins.
Associate professor Dimitri Gerostamoulos.Credit: Justin McManus
Associate professor Dimitri Gerostamoulos, head of forensic sciences and chief toxicologist at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine, said he had also received more than 100 biological samples from the lunch attendees, collected during their time in hospital and after their deaths, including from their blood, urine, hair, stomach contents, liver and eye fluid.
He said death cap mushroom toxins had been detected in a urine sample from deceased lunch guest Don Patterson and in urine and serum samples from lunch survivor Ian Wilkinson.
Samples taken from fellow lunch guests Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson, as well as Erin Patterson and her two children, had not returned positive results for detectable concentrations of the toxins.
Left to right: Don Patterson, Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson died after ingesting poisonous mushrooms. Ian Wilkinson survived after spending months in hospital.
Gerostamoulos said it could be challenging to detect the toxins associated with death cap mushrooms in blood samples, due to how rapidly they are cleared by the body. The toxins remain in liver tissue and urine for longer, but are also eventually cleared, he said.
The jury heard the toxins – alpha amanitin, beta amanitin and gamma amanitin – cause cells to stop replicating, and affect kidney and liver function.
“They are quite toxic in terms of their potency. They can lead to someone experiencing symptoms of diarrhoea, vomiting and feeling quite unwell,” he said.
Gerostamoulos said the toxins, which are only found in small amounts in the mushrooms, can also cause tissue necrosis, organ failure, and eventually lead to the patient’s death if they are not treated appropriately in hospital.
“They are not processed by the body. The liver is not able to metabolise or process these as let’s say a normal drug may be. Once a foreign substance is ingested the body will look to remove it,” Gerostamoulos said.
“They are usually excreted as the toxins themselves.”
Gerostamoulos said the lethal dose of death cap mushroom toxin for a 70 kilogram adult was about 50 grams, or three tablespoons.
During the hearing, the jury was shown several images of pastry, meat and a mushroom paste that were collected from the bin at Erin Patterson’s home and later transported to the lab from Monash Medical Centre inside two zip-lock bags labelled with Erin’s name.
They were also shown images of several vials containing small amounts of vegetable debris found in the dehydrator and of a white jug filled with a brown liquid that were tested for mushroom toxins.
“The only real way of identifying poisons that have been put in food or in other preparations is analytically and that is usually done by laboratories such as ours,” Gerostamoulos said.
“We are looking for the chemical components for the death cap mushrooms, which include the alpha and beta amanitin, which are not visible. It’s not possible to detect the toxins under a microscope.”
Gerostamoulos said the lab had separated the contents of the bags and analysed subsamples from each.
The jury heard that of those subsamples, one vial containing mushroom paste and one containing a meat sample had returned positive results for beta amanitin, one of the toxins found in death cap mushrooms.
Of the seven samples obtained from the dehydrator, alpha and beta amanitin toxins found in death cap mushrooms were found in three exhibits. The jug of brown liquid did not return any positive results for death cap toxins.
Erin Patterson described her husband as emotionally abusive, court hears
A child protection worker who visited Erin Patterson in hospital three days after Patterson served a fatal beef Wellington lunch has told a court the accused killer described her estranged husband as controlling and emotionally abusive.
Katrina Cripps told the jury in Patterson’s murder trial that she visited her at Monash Medical Centre on August 1, 2023, as police were still in the early stages of gathering background information about the circumstances of the deadly meal that had been eaten on July 29.
Child protection worker Katrina Cripps outside the Latrobe Valley Law Courts in Morwell on Thursday.Credit: Justin McManus
During that meeting, Cripps said Patterson had described how her relationship with her estranged husband, Simon Patterson, had changed after she had applied for child support in September 2022.
She said Erin Patterson told her Simon had started being “nasty” to her around that time and her children had told her they did not want to spend time with their father on the weekends.
“She talked about feeling that he was at times controlling and emotionally abusive,” Cripps told the Supreme Court hearing in the Gippsland town of Morwell on Thursday. “They didn’t have a good relationship”.
Cripps said Erin had told her she had stopped attending or being invited to family events and felt that her relationship with her in-laws, Simon’s parents Don and Gail Patterson, had also deteriorated.
Erin Patterson’s parents-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson.
She said Erin told her she had invited the couple over for a meal with her children several weeks before the deadly lunch in an attempt to reconnect with them.
“She felt isolated from them,” Cripps said.
The jury heard Erin told Cripps she had found the beef Wellington recipe she used to prepare the deadly meal in a cookbook, and that she wanted to do something “new and special”.
“She said that she had dished up all the plates. That everyone was able to choose their own,” Cripps said.
In her evidence, the child protection worker said Erin had told her she had begun feeling unwell the evening after the meal and was experiencing loose bowel movements when she drove a friend of her son’s home.
She said Erin had described how she stopped with her son to buy something but decided to stay in the car. “She felt like it would provide a cork so that she wouldn’t have an accident”, Cripps said.
Cripps also described visiting Erin at her home in Leongatha on August 2, 2023, after she was discharged from hospital.
She told the court that Erin showed her around the house before Cripps arranged a conversation between Erin and Sally Ann Atkinson, from Victoria’s Department of Health, about the source of the mushrooms used in the beef Wellington meal.
During that conversation, Cripps said, Erin told Atkinson she could not recall where exactly she had bought the dried mushrooms, which had come in a non-resealable bag with a white label.
The jury heard Erin described having previously opened the packet to use in a carbonara, but because the mushrooms had a strong smell, she had decided to put them in a container.
Cripps said Erin told her she had no family support and felt like she had “lost all the support” from Simon’s family.
During cross-examination, Cripps said Patterson had become upset when she spoke about losing her support network.
Cripps said that when Patterson was asked directly whether she had picked the mushrooms for the lunch she did not answer.
The child support worker said she had another conversation with the mother-of-two over the phone two days later, on August 4, 2023, where she asked her if she had any updates about the other lunch guests.
Cripps said Patterson told her she hadn’t been told anything, which she found distressing. In that conversation, Erin also said she was worried about her security and privacy and that she was considering changing her phone number.
The trial continues.
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