Defence urges jury to guard against desire to punish Erin Patterson for causing mushroom lunch deaths
Triple murder accused had no reason to harm in-laws, barrister tells court, as closing address continues
Erin Patterson’s barrister has warned the jury to “fiercely guard” against the instinctive desire to punish her for causing the deaths of her lunch guests, saying she would not have acted as she did if she murdered them.
Colin Mandy SC started his closing address in Patterson’s triple murder trial at the Latrobe Valley law courts in Morwell on Tuesday.
Patterson, 50, is charged with three counts of murder and one of attempted murder over the alleged poisoning of four lunch guests with beef wellingtons served at her house in Leongatha on 29 July 2023.
Patterson has pleaded not guilty to murdering the relatives of her estranged husband, Simon Patterson – his parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and aunt, Heather Wilkinson – and attempting to murder his uncle, Ian Wilkinson, Heather’s husband.
She has told the jury she accepts death cap mushrooms were in the meal, but says they were included accidentally.
The prosecution finished its closing address earlier on Tuesday.
Just as Nanette Rogers SC outlined four themes that would underline the prosecution’s closing address, Mandy told the court that he would also touch on four points: the “flawed approach” taken by the prosecution to the evidence, the honestly mistaken memory of witnesses, the burden of proof, and the duty of fairness incumbent on the prosecution.
Mandy started his address by framing the choice before the jury in simple terms: was there a reasonable possibility that death cap mushrooms were put into the lunch accidentally, and was there a reasonable possibility that Patterson did not intend to kill or cause serious injury to her guests?
“If either of those things are reasonable possibilities, on all of the evidence, then you find her not guilty.”
Mandy said it was clear that Ian Wilkinson, who gave evidence earlier in the trial, was “a kind and good person”.
“And there’s every reason to believe Don and Gail and Heather were as well,” Mandy said.
“When the family members were giving evidence, there was sadness in this court room.
“It’s a natural response to be moved by that.”
He said it was important for the jury to acknowledge that they felt a “deep empathy” for the family and their “terrible” suffering but said they must discount the instinctive reaction to punish Patterson.
“We know that the actions of Erin Patterson caused the deaths of these three people and the serious illness of another and, as ordinary people in the course of our lives outside of the courtroom when we’re not behaving like judges, we might bring that desire for retribution or revenge or anger or punishment into our consideration of the issues,” Mandy said.
“But a jury has to fiercely guard against that kind of reasoning, that type of reaction. Because you’re judges.
“You have to put your natural human emotions, when confronted with this kind of situation, to one side.”
Mandy said it was true that motive did not have to be considered in order for the jury to reach their verdict, but said it should be considered in order to consider the question of intention.
He said there was no doubt that Gail and Don had a strong relationship with Patterson and her children.
“Why would she take wonderful, active, loving grandparents away from her children?” he asked.
Mandy said not only was there no motive, but there were good reasons for Patterson not to harm her lunch guests.
“And if you do embark on this plan to harm them in this way, inevitably whatever happens, you will lose the only people in the world who are any support to you and your children.
“You will lose your children and you will lose everything that’s important to you, and that’s even before you’re on trial – if it gets that far. It is very unlikely that anyone in those circumstances would make that choice.”
Mandy said the evidence about Patterson’s dehydrator – the alleged “murder weapon” – and how she disposed of it, and also the leftovers of the meal, underlined that the deaths were an accident.
The purchase and the use of the dehydrator were shared with Patterson’s Facebook friends who she met through a true-crime group, Mandy said.
The court has heard Patterson dumped the dehydrator at a local tip on 2 August, the day after she was discharged from hospital, where it was later found by police, and her fingerprints and traces of death cap mushrooms were discovered.
“These [friends] who thought they were investigators of crimes and on the prosecution theory, Erin is posting pictures of the murder weapon and the murder method on social media to a true crime group, at a time when the prosecution says she was planning this crime,” Mandy said.
“If you are planning a murder, what is the one thing you really should plan to dispose of? That’s the murder weapon and she would have … disposed of it months before and never told anyone she had one, surely. She drives to the tip in her own car, pays for disposal of the dehydrator with her own bank card, doesn’t attempt to disguise those actions in any way.
“It could only have been panic. Not because she was guilty … It was a deep shock to her how these four people became so seriously unwell. It was a deep shock to her because she never intended it to happen and if that’s a reasonable possibility, then she must be found not guilty.”
Of the leftovers, which the court has previously heard police found in a wheelie bin outside Patterson’s home after she directed them where to go, Mandy said: “She told the police where to find them because she didn’t know it had poison in them.
“It is straightforward, it is not convoluted, it’s not elaborate. It’s not tortured.
“An innocent person would say, ‘Go grab them, help yourselves.’ That’s what she did say.”
Mandy said that the jury also needed to consider Patterson deciding to give evidence, opening herself up to their scrutiny but also the scrutiny of the “whole world”.
He said the jury should find of her evidence that it was “very likely that she was being consistent and giving the same account” to people involved in medical investigations, health department investigations, child protection investigations, and the police investigation, but “those people had different emphases in terms of the questions they were asking”.
Rogers finished her address earlier on Tuesday afternoon, urging jurors to dismiss Patterson’s account that she regularly foraged and ate mushrooms between 2020 and 2023, and that she accidentally added them to the beef wellingtons.
“She had to come up with something new. You should simply disregard this new claim that this was a horrible foraging accident as nothing more than an attempt by the accused to get her story to fit the evidence compiled by the police.
“You can reject that there is any possibility that the accused accidentally picked death cap mushrooms to put in the beef wellingtons … she knew exactly what she was looking for, and she targeted her search accordingly.”
On motive, Rogers said the evidence did not demonstrate that Patterson had one, but that the jury should not be concerned about this question.
“She hardly knew Ian and Heather, so she could hardly have an axe to grind against them, and even if she wanted to poison Simon, why would she go through with it after he pulled out of the lunch? It is only natural that you are going to wonder about these things.
“However, don’t let this distract you from determining the question that you must answer as the jury. The question is not why she did this. The question you have to determine is: has the prosecution proved beyond reasonable doubt that the accused did this deliberately?”
Rogers said that while she told the jury about the four calculated deceptions at the heart of the case, there was one more: “The deception she has tried to play on you, the jury, with her untruthful evidence.”
“When she knew her lies had been uncovered, she came up with a carefully constructed narrative to fit with the evidence – almost.
“There are some inconsistencies that she just cannot account for so she ignores them, says she can’t remember those conversations, or says other people are just wrong, even her own children.”
Justice Christopher Beale told the jury in the case that he did not expect to complete his charge, or directions to them, until Tuesday afternoon at the earliest. The charge occurs before the jury retires to consider its verdict.
The trial continues.