Erin Patterson mushroom murder trial LIVE updates: Accused killer chef faces her sixth day on the witness stand

Dr Rogers suggested Patterson (pictured) lied about how much she ate and that she vomited after the lunch to give a reason as to why she wasn’t as sick as the other guests.

Patterson claimed ‘she didn’t have a tape measure’ about how much she ate.

Dr Rogers said ‘it was all lies’.

Dr Rogers suggested to Patterson there were no leftovers from the lunch.

‘Incorrect,’ Patterson said.

Dr Rogers reminded Patterson in her evidence she said she only ate a ‘quarter to a third’ of her beef Wellington and ‘sometime that afternoon’ she ’caused herself to vomit’.

‘I had no idea what was in the vomit,’ Patterson said.

‘At all?’ Dr Rogers asked.

‘Well, it’s vomit, how can you tell what is in it, unless it’s a piece of bean or corn?’ Patterson said.

Patterson agreed she didn’t tell anyone between July 29 and August 1 she vomited.

Patterson said she couldn’t remember what time she vomited but agreed it was in the ‘afternoon sometime’.

Dr Rogers suggested she ate all her beef Wellington but lied to Dr Rhonda Stuart and said she had only eaten half to try and explain why she wasn’t as sick as her guests.

Patterson denied the suggestion and claimed she couldn’t remember any conversation with Dr Stuart.

Patterson also denied she told child services officer Katrina Cripps she only ate part of her Wellington to mislead medical staff.

‘My memory is I only ate about half,’ Patterson said.

Dr Rogers then took Patterson to Ms Cripps’ evidence.

The court heard Ms Cripps recalled Patterson indicated ‘didn’t eat it all’.

Patterson has denied she served herself a beef Wellington which did not contain death cap mushrooms.

Dr Rogers told Patterson Ian Wilkinson’s (pictured left) offer to plate food was ‘firmly rejected’ but withdrew the question after defence barrister Colin Mandy SC objected.

Patterson then agreed she plated the food and people sat where they liked.

Dr Rogers suggested Patterson deliberately served death cap mushrooms to her guests.

‘I disagree,’ Patterson responded.

Patterson denied she served herself a beef Wellington on a smaller plate.

The accused killer also denied her beef Wellington did not contain death caps.

Patterson said she may have eaten from her daughter’s kindergarten plate but couldn’t be sure and that plate didn’t match the description Mr Wilkinson gave in his evidence.

Dr Rogers (pictured left) was about to change topics when Patterson interrupted and told her she wanted to go back to a previous line of questioning.

An irate Dr Rogers didn’t accept Patterson’s proposal.

‘Before you do [move on], Dr Rogers, within this record is that second visit to Bricker Reserve that I was talking about…,’ Patterson said.

‘I’m the person who asks the questions,’ Dr Rogers fired back.

‘If there’s something that needs to be clarified in re-examination then your barrister will do so.’

Patterson told the jury she was interested in the ‘toxicity’ of death caps.

‘My only interest ever was to see if they lived in South Gippsland or not,’ Patterson said.

Patterson again said she couldn’t remember using the iNaturalist site.

‘Somebody did and that somebody could have been me,’ she said.

Patterson was asked if she looked up the Korumburra pub website not long after the iNaturalist search was detected.

‘It looks like somebody did yes,’ Patterson.

‘Three minutes after somebody did.’

Dr Rogers asked Patterson if she suggested her son may have looked up the pub page.

‘I’m not suggesting anything,’ Patterson said.

Patterson (Patterson’s legal team pictured) agreed a visit was made on her computer to a death cap mushroom poisoning sighting post on plant identification website iNaturalist in May 28, 2022.

However, Patterson denied she remembers ever going on iNaturalist.

Dr Rogers noted the post about the death cap mushroom was that they were sighted in Moorabbin which is not in Gippsland.

‘I suggest you had an interest in death caps generally which was not limited to growing in Gippsland,’ Dr Rogers said.

‘Incorrect,’ Patterson responded.

‘You say you remember asking if death caps grew in South Gippsland?’ Dr Rogers asked.

Patterson, who is today wearing a paisley top, was asked if she had a pre-surgery appointment for a gastric bypass at a clinic in Melbourne on September 13, 2023.

‘I thought it was different suburb… [the date] sounds about right,’ Patterson said.

Patterson said she later cancelled her appointment.

Dr Rogers asked if Patterson was aware the centre didn’t provide gastric bypass or gastric sleeve surgeries.

‘It was related to weight-loss surgery… I was also looking at liposuction,’ Patterson said.

Dr Rogers suggested Patterson was lying about the appointment.

‘No it wasn’t a lie, that’s what my memory was,’ Patterson said.

On Friday, Patterson claimed she talked to Simon about how Don and Gail were.

‘I suggest you did not ask him… you did not ask how Don was,’ Dr Rogers (pictured) suggested.

‘We discussed how Don and Gail were, that’s how I found out they were in hospital,’ Patterson said.

Patterson claimed this occurred during a phone conversation.

Dr Rogers suggested ‘there was no discussion about Don and Gail being in hospital’.

‘There was a conversation, yes,’ Patterson said.

Dr Rogers suggested Patterson never asked how Don was doing.

‘Disagree,’ Patterson replied.

‘And never asked about Gail,’ Dr Rogers said.

‘Disagree,’ Patterson replied.

‘Do you maintain you asked Simon at this point how Don was?’ Dr Rogers asked.

‘I can’t remember the exact words of that conversation,’ Patterson replied.

‘We had a discussion about their health … we were discussing how Don was.’

‘Did you ask or not ask how Don was?’ Dr Rogers said.

‘Yeah I would have,’ she said

‘And did you ask how Gail was?’ Dr Rogers asked.

‘Correct,’ Patterson replied.

Dr Rogers suggested Patterson never asked Simon how Don and Gail were.

‘I disagree,’ Patterson said.

Dr Rogers suggested to Patterson (pictured) that she didn’t love Don and Gail.

‘Correct or incorrect,’ Dr Rogers asked during court proceedings on Friday.

‘Incorrect,’ Patterson said tearfully.

‘I love them a lot, they’ve always been really good to me, I think Simon hates that I still had a relationship with his parents.’

Dr Rogers pressed further.

‘That’s what you told police that you “loved his parents”, that’s not true, I suggest you were angry that they took Simon’s side,’ Dr Rogers said.

‘That’s not true,’ Patterson replied.

‘In fact you had two faces,’ Dr Rogers suggested.

Dr Rogers accused Patterson of having a ‘public face’ of how she presented herself as loving of Don, Gail and to other family but her ‘private face’ of how she really felt was contained within her Facebook messages.

‘I suggest your private face is the one you show in a private message group,’ Dr Rogers asked.

‘Incorrect,’ Patterson replied.

‘And that’s how you felt about Simon,’ Dr Rogers suggested.

‘Incorrect,’ Patterson said.

‘And (Simon) wasn’t a decent human being,’ Dr Rogers suggested.

‘Actually, I still believe that,’ Patterson said.

Patterson was last week reminded about the conversation she had with Simon (pictured) at the Monash Medical Centre where he said, ‘is that how you poisoned my parents using that dehydrator’.

The conversation took place after Patterson learned people had been getting treatment for death cap posioning.

Dr Rogers took Patterson to her previous answers.

Patterson was reminded that she said she dried foraged mushrooms in the dehydrator weeks earlier and put them into a jar.

‘And I just got really scared,’ she said at the time.

‘Frantic,’ Patterson said upon arriving home.

Patterson agreed that was her evidence.

Dr Rogers suggested Patterson lied to Simon about her medical issues because she wanted him at the lunch to ‘poison him’.

‘No, that’s not true,’ Patterson said.

Dr Rogers suggested Patterson made a poisonous beef Wellington for Simon ‘in case he turned up’.

‘No, that’s not true,’ Patterson said.

Dr Rogers suggested when Simon didn’t show at the lunch she dumped his beef Wellington.

Patterson told the jury she put the pastry and mushrooms in the bin

On Friday, Patterson was shown a message she wrote to her Facebook friends on December 7, 2022, where she discussed that if Simon wanted to walk away from his responsibilities, then it’s ‘a blessing in disguise’.

Patterson is also reminded of the ‘this family I swear to f***ing God’ message.

Crown prosecutor Dr Nanette Rogers suggested to Patterson this ‘expressed your true feelings’.

Patterson was also reminded of the ‘f*** them’ message.

‘That’s what you thought about Don, “f*** them”,’ Dr Rogers said.

‘I regret writing that,’ Patterson said.

Dr Rogers also suggested Patterson was angry at Don and Gail (pictured) for not taking her side over Simon’s.

‘I wasn’t angry but I was frustrated and hurt,’ she said.

Patterson said she wasn’t angry when she wrote the ‘f*** them’ message.

Patterson also denied she was angry when she wrote those messages to her Facebook friends.

The court also heard another message where Patterson described Simon as a ‘deadbeat’.

Another large audience has arrived at the Morwell courthouse where accused killer Erin Patterson will face her sixth day in the witness box.

Patterson has been a big drawcard with people queuing up outside (pictured) the courthouse very early each morning to get a front row seat in the murder trial.

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 made with 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 from a smaller, differently-coloured plate than those of her guests, who ate off 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.

Last week, Justice Christopher Beale told the jury it was possible the trial may go on for another couple of weeks.

Justice Beale said once evidence is completed, he will have legal discussions with the parties while the jury is out, before closing addresses can commence.