Moment Erin Patterson lied to cops is shown to murder trial jury

A video recording of Erin Patterson’s interview with police following the deadly beef Wellington lunch was aired in open court for the very first time on Tuesday afternoon.

Wearing a grey jumper and seated across a table from Homicide Squad detective leading Senior Constable Stephen Eppingstall (pictured below), Patterson was asked if she owned a dehydrator or knew anything about them.

It was a lie the jury has previously heard Patterson now admits to.

On Tuesday, the jury was shown photographs of a manual for a Sunbeam food dehydrator found in a drawer in Patterson’s Leongatha home.

‘I’ve got manuals of lots of stuff I’ve collected over the years,’ Patterson told the detective on August 5, 2023, following the search of her home.

On the opening day of the trial, Patterson’s barrister Colin Mandy SC told the jury Patterson had lied about having cancer and that she did dump a dehydrator later found to have traces of death cap mushrooms.

The video played the the jury showed Sen-Constable Eppingstall asking Patterson if she had ever dehydrated mushrooms, and Patterson shaking her head in denial.

Pressed for information, the detective – who was the last witness called by the prosecution – asked if Patterson had ever foraged for mushrooms.

The jury heard Patterson was questioned about the reason for the lunch and why she had invited her in-laws over.

‘Because I’ve got no other family,’ she said.

‘I want to maintain those relationships in spite of what’s happening with Simon, I love them a lot.

‘They always said to me that they would support me with love and emotional support even though Simon and I were separated.

‘They’re the only family I’ve got.

‘Nothing that’s ever happened between us, nothing he’s ever done to me, will change the fact that they’re good decent people that have never done anything wrong by me, ever.

‘I love them, nothing he’s (Simon) ever done to me will change that.’

Erin Patterson, 50, is accused of murdering her in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, after allegedly serving them a beef Wellington lunch which included death cap mushrooms.

Patterson is also accused of attempting to murder Heather’s husband, pastor Ian Wilkinson, who survived the lunch after spending several weeks in an intensive care unit.

The court heard Patterson’s estranged husband, Simon, was also invited to the gathering at her home in Leongatha, in Victoria’s Gippsland region, but didn’t attend.

Witnesses told the jury Patterson ate her serving of the lunch from a smaller and differently coloured plate than those of her guests, who ate from four grey plates.

Patterson told authorities she bought dried mushrooms from an unnamed Asian store in the Monash area of Melbourne, but health inspectors could find no evidence of this.

Victoria’s health department declared the death cap mushroom poisoning was ‘isolated’ to Patterson’s deadly lunch.

Multiple witnesses, including Erin’s estranged husband Simon Patterson, Heather’s husband Ian Wilkinson and other family members, have given emotion-charged evidence to the jury.

Medical staff have told the jury of the painful symptoms the dying lunch guests and Mr Wilkinson suffered.

An expert witness told the court death cap mushrooms were detected in debris taken from a dehydrator Patterson had dumped at a local tip.

Telecommunications expert Dr Matthew Sorell also told the jury that Patterson’s phone was detected near areas at Outtrim and Loch, in the Gippsland region, where death cap mushrooms had been spotted.

Victoria Police Cybercrime Squad senior digital forensics officer Shamen Fox-Henry said he found evidence of a death cap mushroom on data from a computer seized from Patterson’s Leongatha home on August 5, 2023.

On Friday, Austin Hospital intensive care director Professor Stephen Warrillow told the jury he was at the Melbourne health facility in July 2023 when the poisoned lunch guests were transferred to his care.

Professor Warrillow said all patients were given intense treatment and Don received a liver transplant.

On Monday, a protester ambushed the trial demanding to know how Justice Christopher Beale ‘could be a judge’.

The man wearing a yellow T-shirt with the slogan, ‘All we are saying is give truth a chance’ went on a rant just after the jury re-entered the courtroom.

‘Mr Beale how could you be a judge when you rig court cases,’ the man yelled.

Homicide Squad detective leading Senior Constable Stephen Eppingstall, the police informant in the Patterson trial, approached the man and walked him out of the courtroom.

The trial resumed without further interruption.

After lunch, Ian Wilkinson sat in court and listened as details of his wife died from death cap poisoning were aired in court.

The jury also heard the text exchanges between health department officer Sally Anne Atkinson (pictured below) and Patterson in the days after the deadly lunch as authorities rushed to solve the cause of the outbreak.

On Tuesday, the jury was shown the police interview Patterson took part in shortly after her home was searched on August 5.

Detectives seized a manual for a Sunbeam hydrator but Patterson denied in her interview that she ever owned such an appliance.

Patterson also told police she invited her in-laws for lunch because she loved them and they were like real family to her.