Mushroom poisoning trial: Lunch survivor Ian Wilkinson gives evidence

On Tuesday, Wilkinson was called to give evidence before the Supreme Court jury.

Asked his view on Patterson, Wilkinson paused for about five seconds.

“She seemed like a normal person to me,” he said.

“When we met things were friendly, no arguments or disputes, she just seemed like an ordinary person. I don’t know how else to describe her.”

Quizzed on what his wife thought when they were invited around to Patterson’s for lunch, he said Heather Wilkinson was “excited”.

“She was fairly excited and she said that’s good news sort of thing, I really can’t remember in detail,” he said.

“I remember wondering why the sudden invitation… I was very excited, it seemed like maybe our relationship with Erin was going to improve.”

Beef Wellington served on differently coloured plates – Pastor

Giving evidence about the lunch, Wilkinson said Patterson had declined offers of help plating up the food from her mother-in-law Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson.

“Each person had an individual serve, it was very much like a pasty,” he said.

“It was a pastry case, when we cut into it there was steak and mushrooms.

“The only preparation I saw was potatoes being mashed, food plating up, that’s all I saw.”

The meal, he said, consisted of beef Wellington, mashed potatoes and green beans, with Don Patterson eating half his wife’s lunch.

“There was talk about husbands helping their wives out… She [Gail Patterson] thought the meal was a bit on the large side for her, that’s the reason I remember who ate what.”

Wilkinson said the five meals appeared the same, with four served for the lunch guests on “large grey dinner plates”.

Patterson, he said, carried her own smaller plate to the table.

“It was a sort of orangey-tan colour,” he said.

Dehydrator sold for $229 on April 23

The owner of a small goods store has also told the trial one of his employees sold Patterson a dehydrator.

Hartley Wells Betta Home Living operator Darren Fox gave evidence he was approached in November 2023 by a staff member who advised him she believed she sold Patterson the Sun Beam Food Lab dehydrator.

An invoice, shown to the jury, contained Patterson’s name, home address, phone number and purchase details on April 23, 2023, for $229.

Jury’s note to judge

Earlier, as the jury entered about 10.50am (local time), trial judge Justice Christopher Beale said he had received a note from the jury.

The note read, “the jury is still struggling to hear when the Crown and defence are facing away”, he said.

Responding to the note, Justice Beale said it can be difficult for the lawyers when asking a witness a question but “I’m sure they’ll bear that in mind”.

Husband’s sharp response to poison question

On Monday, Patterson’s estranged husband Simon Patterson delivered a sharp reply to one question as his time in the witness box drew to a close after three days of giving evidence.

Simon, who remains married to the woman accused of murdering his parents and aunt, was the first witness called when her trial began in the country Victorian town of Morwell last week.

Over the course of Thursday, Friday and Monday, the civil engineer faced hundreds of questions about his relationships and actions around the deadly beef Wellington lunch he did not attend on July 29, 2023.

Shortly before midday on Monday, Patterson’s barrister, Colin Mandy, SC, asked a series of questions about the first time Simon saw Patterson after four of his relatives were hospitalised.

Last Thursday, Simon gave evidence he spoke to his separated wife a number of times over the course of July 31 as they arranged picking their two children up from school and meeting her at the hospital.

He told the jury the topic of mushrooms had been brought up by his daughter, prompting Patterson to share that they’d once done a “blind taste test”.

“Erin said that sometime in the past, I’m not sure when… she’d cooked some muffins and then she had dehydrated some mushrooms and then put different amounts of mushrooms in the muffins,” he said.

“They all found it interesting that [their daughter] actually preferred the muffin that did have some mushrooms in it; I can’t remember if it was 1 or 2g, but she didn’t prefer the non-mushroom muffin.”

Returning to the topic on Monday, Simon confirmed he was in and out of Patterson’s room at Monash Hospital in Melbourne – wandering the halls and taking calls from family.

Mandy followed up with a question about whether he and Patterson were ever alone.

Initially, Simon said he “couldn’t be sure”, but when prodded on if there was a time the children went to a vending machine, he conceded it was likely.

“It’s quite possible that that did happen, yeah. They did go to the vending machine, I remember that,” he said.

Mandy then questioned if Simon had quizzed his wife while they were alone – drawing a sharp rebuke.

“And that was just after, let me suggest, just after the conversation about the dehydrator and you said to Erin, ‘Is that what you used to poison them?’” Mandy asked.

Simon responded: “I did not say that to Erin.”

Prosecutors alleged Patterson deliberately poisoned the individually portioned beef Wellington meals after inviting Simon, his parents and his aunt and uncle around for lunch.

It’s alleged she did not consume death cap mushrooms and feigned her illness.

Simon’s parents Don and Gail Patterson, both 70, and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson, 66, died in hospital in the week after the gathering.

Wilkinson’s husband, Korumburra Baptist Church pastor Ian Wilkinson, fell gravely ill but recovered.

Patterson, who has pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and one count of manslaughter, maintains she did not deliberately or intentionally serve the poisoned meal.

“The defence case is that what happened was a tragedy, a terrible accident,” Mandy said.

“The defence case is that she was not feigning illness, she wasn’t pretending to be sick. The defence case is that she was sick too, just not as sick.”

The trial, before Justice Beale, continues.