By Mikaela Ortolan and Joseph Dunstan
Erin Patterson has given evidence in her murder trial in Morwell. Photo: ABC News: Anita Lester
Accused triple-murderer Erin Patterson has given her account of how she made a beef Wellington dish that resulted in the deaths of three relatives and made another seriously ill.
Patterson, 50, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of her parents-in-law Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson.
Heather's husband, Ian Wilkinson, was the sole surviving guest of the lunch.
On Wednesday, Patterson's defence lawyer Colin Mandy SC continued to question her as her evidence entered a third day.
Patterson told the court that at the time of the lunch, she had been concerned that her relationship with the wider Patterson family, including her in-laws, was becoming more distant after her separation from her husband Simon.
She said for her, the meal on 29 July, 2023, represented an opportunity to be more "proactive" about maintaining that relationship.
Patterson said she chose to prepare beef Wellingtons for the lunch because she wanted to make something special and her mother had made it for "really important occasions" in the past.
She told the court she found the recipe in her RecipeTin Eats cookbook, but she said she made some "deviations" to the recipe.
"The primary one was, I couldn't find, you know, the big log that the recipe called for ... so I had to use individual steaks so I had to adapt to that," she said.
She said by making individual servings she used a larger quantity of mushrooms and pastry to cover the cuts of meat.
Patterson also chose not to put prosciutto in the dish because she said Don Patterson did not eat pork and she removed a crepe layer the recipe called for because it "looked a little bit complicated".
Foraged mushrooms may have been added to meal, court hears
While outlining the ingredients she used to the jury, Patterson said she had started preparing six individual beef Wellingtons early in the morning on the day of the lunch, using mushrooms purchased from Woolworths.
"As I was cooking it down, I tasted it a few times and it seemed a little bland, to me," she said.
"So I decided to put in the dried mushrooms that I'd bought from the grocer that I still had in the pantry."
She said at the time she believed they were dried mushrooms purchased from Melbourne but then conceded they may have been foraged.
"Now I think that there was a possibility that there were foraged ones in there as well," she said.
She told the jury she was aware of poisonous mushrooms growing in the Gippsland area but denied ever foraging for mushrooms in Loch and Outtrim, where the court previously heard death cap mushrooms were flagged on a website.
Family showed compassion when she raised medical issues
The court has previously heard that Patterson organised the lunch to discuss a cancer diagnosis but it has been revealed in court that she has never had cancer and she agreed she misled them.
Patterson became emotional on Wednesday when she told the jury she had lied to her mother-in-law about a number of medical issues.
The court was shown messages previously seen by the jury where Gail asked Patterson about a medical appointment she had told her about regarding a lump on her arm.
In the message exchange, Patterson told Gail she had a needle biopsy and an MRI but she admitted to the court both were lies.
"Some weeks prior, I had been having an issue with my elbow with pain and I thought there was a lump there and I had told Don and Gail about that," she said.
"They had shown quite a lot of care about that, which felt really nice."
She said she maintained the lies even though the issue had started to resolve because she felt embarrassed.
"I shouldn't have done it."
Accused says cancer lie hid gastric bypass surgery plans
Patterson said at the lunch, she led her guests to believe she required treatment for ovarian cancer and they prayed for her health.
"I led them to believe that I might be needing some treatment ... in the next few weeks, or months," she said.
Erin agreed she misled her lunch guests, who had all showed "a lot of compassion" for the health issue she had told them about.
She told the court that in reality, she was making plans to have gastric bypass surgery in a bid to take control over concerns she had about her weight.
"I was ashamed of the fact that I didn't have control over my body or what I ate, I was ashamed of that … I didn't want to tell anybody, but I shouldn't have lied to them," she said, sniffing.
"Primarily in my mind was thinking I might need help getting the kids to and from the bus and other activities, might need to explain why I'm going up to hospital for a day or two … so that was really the focus of what I was talking about."
Frequent diarrhoea and a visit to hospital
After her guests left the lunch, Patterson said she ate several pieces of a cake Gail Patterson had brought to the lunch.
After eating the cake, Patterson said: "I felt sick, I felt overfull, so I went to the toilets and brought it back up again."
On Tuesday, the court heard she had struggled with binge eating and bulimia throughout her life.
She said later that night she remembered feeling "really nauseous" and had diarrhoea.
"It felt pretty frequent to me, every 20 minutes at some times, maybe further apart at other times," she said.
The following day Patterson said she drove her son to Tyabb for a flying lesson and had to pull over near some bushland to go to the toilet.
"I went off into the bush and went to the toilet ... I had diarrhoea," she said.
"I cleaned myself up a bit with tissues and put them in a dog poo bag ... and we hit the road again."
In a police interview previously shown to the jury, Patterson's son said she did not stop to use the toilet during that trip.
She then detailed a visit to the hospital the following day because she believed she might need some fluids to assist with the diarrhoea she was experiencing.
"Every time I drank water it went straight through me, couldn't seem to retain it, so I thought … I should go in, for a little bit," she said.
- ABC
