Mushroom cook Erin Patterson on why ‘sarcastic’ husband was wrong

Published Jun 10, 2025, 5:00 PM

Erin Patterson is cross-examined in the Victorian Supreme Court, where she’s pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and one of attempted murder. She denies Crown suggestions she was ‘shocked’ when doctors worked out her lunch guests had eaten death cap mushrooms. 

Find out more about The Front podcast here. You can read about this story and more on The Australian's website or on The Australian’s app.

This episode of The Front is presented by Claire Harvey, produced by Kristen Amiet and edited by Jasper Leak. Our team includes Kristen Amiet, Lia Tsamoglou, Tiffany Dimmack, Joshua Burton, Stephanie Coombes and Jasper Leak, who also composed our music.

From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Wednesday, June eleven, twenty twenty five. Tasmanians are off to the voting booths just over a year after the last election. That's after Premier Jeremy Rockliffe lost the confidence of Parliament to other members of the governing Liberal Party were willing to step up as premier to avoid an election, but the party room decided to send voters back to the ballot box. That story's live now at the Australian dot com dot You accused mushroom murderer Aaron Patterson says her husband Simon was sarcastic and wrong about his recollections of the days after the fatal lunch which killed his parents and aunt. Today we take you inside the Victorian Supreme Court to hear voice actors re enact Patterson's cross examination. Prosecutor Nanette Rogers sc Did Aaron Patterson have bolimia? Did she have diarrhea? The mushroom trial has taken a distinctly forensic tone, as the cross examination of Aaron Patterson sees Crown Prosecutor Nanette Rodgers sc grilling Patterson, a fifty year old mother of two, about exactly how she managed to survive a lunch that resulted in the deaths of three elderly relatives and another spending weeks in hospital. Patterson has pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and one of attempted murder over the lunch in July twenty twenty three. In her examination in chief, led by her senior barrister, Colin Mandy sc Aaron, Patterson last week told the jury that after consuming beef Wellington, she vomited. She said at the time this was because she had bolimia. Here's what Patterson told the court last Wednesday. We've used voice actors throughout this episode to bring you the words spoken in court. Patterson said that after her lunch guests left, she got stuck into the orange cake Gail Patterson, one of the guests, had brought.

I had a piece of cake, and then another piece of cake, and then another. How many pieces of cake did you have?

All of it? How much had been left?

Probably a good two thirds.

Of it was left. And what happened after you ate the cake?

I felt sick, I felt overfull, So I went to the toilets and brought it back up again.

Here's how that went. On Tuesday, ten June, in cross examination by Nanette Rogers.

Your evidence to this jury is that sometime that afternoon, on the twenty ninth of July, that you cause yourself to vomit. Correct?

Correct?

Is it your evidence that the vomit was partly constituted by the beef Wellington? Correct?

I have no idea what was in the vomit at all? Well, it's how could I it's vomit unless you can see a bean or a piece of corn.

Well, you didn't have corn at the lunch.

That was an example.

I suggest that you did not tell a single medical person that you had vomited after the lunch on the afternoon of twenty nine July.

That's true.

I did not do that.

I suggest that that is something you would have told them if it were true. Correct or incorrect?

Incorrect?

Do you say it's incorrect because of your embarrassment?

I say it's incorrect because it's what happened.

Roger's probed Patterson's accounts around the time of the lunch that she had eaten about half of her portion, as opposed to in her evidence in chief when she said she'd eaten a small amount, maybe a quarter or a third.

I also suggest that for the first time, you've told the jury that you vomited after the lunch.

Correct, That is the first time I told the jury.

I suggest you're trying to minimize how much you ate.

No.

I suggest that what you've told the jury about only eating a quarter or a third and about vomiting are all lies. No, you're trying to make it sound like the lunch guests say more than you did. Correct or incorrect. No, And you're lying about throwing up or vomiting to try and account for why you didn't get seriously ill. Correct.

I wish that was true, but it's not.

Patterson attended the Lean Gather Hospital on the Monday after the lunch, telling them she had gastro and needed some fluids. She wasn't as seriously ill as her lunch guests, and when the medical staff told her she'd need to go to Melbourne for treatment, Patterson left the hospital saying she had to pack her daughter's ballet bag and feed her animals.

I want to suggest to you that you were stressed when you're at the hospit all on this first presentation correct or incorrect.

I probably was very stressed, Yes.

And I suggest that the reason you were stressed was because doctors suspected death cap mushroom poisoning for the lunch guests correct or incorrect.

That definitely was a cause of anxiety.

Yeah.

I suggest that you were shocked that the doctors were onto death cap mushrooms so quickly.

I wouldn't put it like that.

How would you put it?

I was anxious at the idea that we might have eaten those things.

I'm suggesting that you were shocked that the doctors were on to death cap mushrooms so quickly correct or incorrect, incorrect, and you were worried that you're going to get caught correct or incorrect, incorrect, And further that you weren't prepared to answer questions about why death cap mushrooms are in the meal correct or incorrect.

I don't think anyone ever tried to ask me that question, so I'm not sure what you're referring to.

When you left the hospital, you did not make any attempt to collect your children correct or incorrect.

Correct.

They had no efforts to have them collected after you left the hospital shortly after eight o five am. Correct or incorrect?

I did eventually, That's why they went to the hospital.

Patterson said she'd be back shortly, but the jury has heard she returned more than nineteen minutes later. Rogers wanted to know why she would leave, even though doctors had told her they suspected the other patients had suffered death cap mushroom poisoning.

Now, I suggest that you knew that your life was not threatened at this point. Agree or disagree.

I wouldn't say I knew. I didn't think it was.

I suggest that your behavior at leaving Lee and Gatha Hospital a few minutes after you'd presented there was because you knew that you had not consumed death cap mushrooms. Agree or disagree.

I didn't think any of us had, But it wasn't why I was leaving.

No, I suggest that you also left when confronted by the fact that medical staff had identified death cap mushrooms as a reason for the illnesses.

No, that's not why I left.

I said, Yes, you panicked and absconded because you knew that your use of death cat mushrooms in the meal had been uncovered. Agree or disagree?

Disagree?

Patterson recalled Dr Chris Webster telling her her two children needed to be taken to a medical facility, but she was reluctant to worry the children.

Did he make it clear that your children's lives were at risk?

He said, they can be scared and alive or dead. That's what he said.

Did he make it clear that your children's lives were at risk?

I guess he made it clear that he thought they might be at risk.

In the face of that on your evidence, you were reluctant to tell the children.

I was trying to make sense of what was going on and what doctor Webster was saying to me, and I thought they can be scared and alive or dead. I thought that was a pretty bizarre thing to say. And it wasn't just what he said, but he was yelling it at me as what I thought. I've since discovered that's his inside voice, but at the time I thought he was yelling at me. So yeah, it was all making me quite anxious.

You were reluctant I suggest to have your children medically assessed. Correct or incorrect?

Incorrect? I wanted to understand what the concerns were and why he thought they might be at risk. I wanted to understand it first.

Coming up, Patterson says her sarcastic husband is wrong. On Wednesday, Aaron Patterson took issue with some of the evidence given by her husband, Simon Patterson. Nanette Rogers asked if she recalled Simon Patterson's evidence that his wife told him that when she went home to feed the animals, she'd laid down on the floor and fallen as sleep.

Do you deny saying that you fell asleep for about forty five minutes? To Simon Patterson, yeah, I do. Is your evidence that you lay down for a bit when you got home for a while? What time did you lie down?

No idea?

How long did you lie down for?

I don't know.

That's untrue, isn't it. No, it's untrue that you lay down. No, surely that's the last thing you would do in these circumstances.

Might be the last thing you'd do. But it was something I did.

After you'd been told by medical staff that you had potentially ingested a life threatening poison. Isn't the last thing that you would do is to lie down in those circumstances.

They didn't tell me it was life threatening.

Patterson agreed she was away from the hospital for an hour and forty minutes.

I suggest that in this period of time, you were trying to work out how to manage the situation that you now found yourself in correct or incorrect, incorrect. You had not expected doctors to detect the death cap mushroom poisoning so quickly correct or incorrect incorrect. You thought it would be treated, I suggest as just a case of food poisoning correct or incorrect, incorrect. Once you were told that the medical staff had detected death cap mushrooms or suspected it, you had to think quickly correct or incorrect, incorrect to try and explain why you were not sick correct incorrect, to try and cover your tracks correct or incorrect, incorrect. And that's what you spent the one hour and forty minutes doing while you're away from the hospital. Agree or disagree?

What are you saying I was doing.

Thinking about ways to cover your tracks.

Oh okay, you're saying I spent an hour and a half thinking. Is that what you're suggesting. I'm sure I did some thinking at that time, but it was not about covering my tracks.

Patterson was asked about Simon Patterson's evidence earlier in the trial. He said that when they spoke on the phone that morning, Aaron said she was in ten to pick up the children from their school on Philip Island, ninety minutes drive away, to bring them to hospital. Simon Patterson told the jury, but when he said he was glad Erin was feeling healthy enough to make the drive to pick up the kids, Aaron Patterson had paused before agreeing Simon should go and get them instead.

I suggest that you pause because you realize that if you insisted on going to pick up the children, that that would undermine your being unwell. No, disagree.

Well, I don't know if I paused or not, so I can't really agree with what you're saying. But the only thing I remember out of that interaction was when he said, you know, I'm glad to hear you well enough to drive to the school. I remember he said it in a really sarcastic tone that put me off a bit.

So it might be that you paused. It may be because of his supposed sarcasm. Is that your evidence?

I do remember the sarcasm. It was really off putting to me.

Yeah, are you making this up as you go along? Miss Patterson?

Nolsone was asked about why her blood tests when she was at Monash Medical Center seemed within or close to the normal range.

I suggest that you were not seriously unwell because you did not consume even a minute amount of deathcap mushrooms at the lunch. What do you say?

I have no idea.

If I did or I didn't, you were not suffering from deathcap mushroom poisoning. Correct or incorrect.

I have no idea.

You deliberately tried to make it seem like you were correct or incorrect incorrect. You did that because you knew you had not eaten deathcap mushrooms correct or incorrect incorrect, and you knew how suspicious it would look if you did not seem sick like your guests correct or incorrect, incorrect.

The trial continues and you can follow our coverage live at the Australian dot com dot au and right here on the front

In 1 playlist(s)

  1. The Front

    917 clip(s)

The Front

The Front brings the unrivalled journalism of Australia’s national broadsheet to audio, featuring ea 
Social links
Follow podcast
Recent clips
Browse 911 clip(s)