Source : Perth Now news
Tensions were high in a small, regional courtroom as the only guest to survive a deadly mushroom lunch at Erin Patterson’s home walked the few steps to the witness box.
Ian Wilkinson locked eyes with the woman accused of murdering his wife and trying to kill him.
But the church pastor smiled after he took his seat opposite the jury as he fondly remembered his late wife.
“Heather, the baby of the family,” he told the packed court in Morwell, in Victoria’s southeast, with a laugh.
His laughter continued as he was asked to describe his relationship with Patterson.
“When we met things were friendly, we never had arguments or disputes, she just seemed like an ordinary person,” he said.
Mr Wilkinson also giggled as he discussed how he and his wife bantered with her sister Gail and husband Don Patterson at the dining table while eating the individual beef Wellingtons their in-law Erin Patterson had cooked them.
“There was talk about husbands helping their wives out by eating extra food,” he said of the fateful July 2023 meal.
“That’s the reason I remember who ate what, because of that little exchange,” he added, in reference to Don eating his full serve and half of Gail’s.
A day after testifying, Mr Wilkinson was back at the triple-murder trial as an observer, watching his niece cry about seeing her mother Gail days before she died.
Gail died in hospital on August 4, the same day as her sister Heather. Don died the following day.
All of them were diagnosed with death-cap mushroom poisoning, including Mr Wilkinson – the only lunch guest to survive.
Jurors were taken on an emotional rollercoaster for the second week of the closely watched trial as several family members of Patterson’s four alleged victims were called to give evidence.
The prosecution moved through more than two dozen witnesses, including video recordings of Patterson’s two children, live evidence from family, doctors, nurses, toxicologists and police.
The jury must decide whether the deadly mushroom-laced dish Patterson served was a terrible accident or if she intended to murder three members of her estranged husband Simon’s family.
Prosecutors do not allege Patterson, who has pleaded not guilty to all offences, had any motive to commit the murders.
She sometimes became teary-eyed in the week, particularly when Mr Wilkinson and several female family members spoke about their memories of Don, Gail and Heather.
When her children’s police interviews were played on Thursday, she was visibly emotional and covered her mouth with a tissue.
Her daughter, who was nine at the time of the deaths, spoke nervously as a police officer gently asked her questions.
“(Mum) said (she) wanted to have lunch with Don and Gail, Heather and Ian, she wanted to talk to them about adult stuff and we were going to go to the movies together,” the girl said in the interview.
Neither of Patterson’s children were at the lunch as she had arranged for them to go to the cinema that day, but the girl said she ate steak and mashed potato leftovers the next day.
Patterson’s son said the meal, which led to doctors asking for the kids to be assessed in hospital, was “some of the best meat he’s had” and he finished off his mother’s food too.
The children were taken to a Melbourne hospital for testing but they did not become sick and were released.
Anna Terrington, Don and Gail’s only daughter, began crying as she discussed a phone call with her mother hours after the lunch.
“She said that they had beef Wellington and … that was too much for mum and dad finished hers,” she told the jury, between tears.
More tears flowed as she was pressed on her visit to Gail’s bedside in hospital a day after the meal: “I took her to the bathroom many times”.
Ms Terrington had known Patterson for 20 years and they became pregnant at the same time, delivering a son and daughter born just three days apart – with the babies referred to as “the twins”.
“You had a close relationship with Erin during that time?” defence barrister Sophie Stafford asked her.
“During the pregnancy, yes,” Ms Terrington bluntly replied.
Her brother Matthew Patterson showed less emotion as he was asked about going to hospital to see Don, who was the most unwell of the group.
In a short call to Patterson, after seeing his father speaking to two toxicologists, she told him the mushrooms in the dish were from Woolworths and a Chinese grocer.
Chris Webster, who treated Ian and Heather before they were taken to Melbourne, also discussed his interactions with Patterson two days after the meal.
He called police after she discharged herself from Leongatha Hospital within five minutes of arriving.
“I have a concern regarding a patient who presented here earlier who left the building and is potentially exposed to fatal mushroom poisoning,” Dr Webster said in audio played to the jury.
Patterson returned to the hospital within two hours before she was transferred via ambulance to Monash Hospital, where her children were also due to be taken for assessment after eating leftovers.
But one of the nurses who assessed her said Patterson “didn’t look unwell” like other lunch guests.
Tanya, Matthew’s wife, went to visit Patterson at Monash after she told her she’d felt nauseous, dizzy and tired.
“Erin asked me how everybody was and I told them that things were going downhill quickly but I didn’t have the latest information,” she told the jury.
A toxicologist then entered the room and told Patterson she was “fine and well enough to go home”, Tanya said.
The trial continues on Tuesday.
