Court Revelations: Erin Patterson's Own Words from the Mushroom Murder Trial

This bonus episode features Erin Patterson's own testimony from the Supreme Court of Victoria, offering her version of events from the  lunch at the center of the Mushroom trial.

• Erin describes cooking six beef Wellingtons and plating five portions
• Detailed account of the kitchen scene, plating process, and conversations before the meal
• Gail and Heather took plates to the table while Erin prepared gravy
• Family conversations during lunch included discussion about relatives, politics, and a new baby
• Erin admits lying about possibly needing cancer treatment when actually planning gastric bypass surgery
• Description of who ate what portions - Ian and Don finished entirely, Gail ate most, Erin claims partial consumption
• The meal ended with Ian suggesting they pray for Erin's fabricated health issues

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to the Mushroom Murder Trial
podcast.
My name is Lisa.
This is a bonus edition.
It's Erin Patterson, in her ownwords, from the transcript of
yesterday's proceedings inMorwell in the Supreme Court of
Victoria.
I thank you for joining metoday.
I'm very appreciative of thetime that you are giving to me.

(00:21):
Let me know via my socials orthe website.
Time that you were giving to me, let me know via my socials or
the website,mushroommurdertrialcom.
Now I know that most of you aresigning up, so just a reminder
for the newsletter.
Thank you.
Now what we're doing today isI'm reading straight from the
transcript from yesterday andthere are two people here, so

(00:42):
obviously Ms Patterson, who haspled not guilty to all charges,
and her barrister, colin Mandy,sc.
So I'll be reading and if Imake a mistake I want to get
this out as soon as possibleI'll just move on.
There'll be no fancy editingtoday, but let me know if you
want more of these, because myfriend Louise and I are going to

(01:03):
be doing some on the weekend.
So let's go from there.
And we're starting on the dayof the lunch in Erin's kitchen.
What were you talking about?
So after they finished that,they came back out and they
stood on the other side of thekitchen bench to where I was
plating up the food.

(01:24):
So I had the wellingtons on anoven tray, resting on the bench
next to the stove, and I hadmashed the potato in a pot, and
then I put out the plates andstarted serving the mash, then
the wellingtons and finally thebeans.
And what plates did you use toserve up the food?
Just the dinner plates that Ihad.

(01:46):
So I think there's a couple ofblack, a couple of white and one
that's red on top and blackunderneath, and then I've got
that one one of her childrenmade at kindergarten.
Do you own any other plates?
Any other dinner plates?
No, I didn't.
Did you own any grey plates?
No, so go on describing theplating up process.

(02:09):
Yep, the plates are on thebench.
Yep, the island bench, that'sright.
Yes, there's a ladle full ofmashed potato on each plate, a
wellington on each plate, ascoop of beans on each plate.
But I remember, while I wasdoing this, heather and Gail
were talking to me and Gail saidto me, like quote, are you

(02:33):
coming to the birthday thingnext Saturday?
And I said I didn't know aboutit.
And she said oh well, we'd loveyou to come.
And I said, yes, I'll come.
And what was the birthday thingnext Saturday?
It would have been like thePatterson had this sort of a
gathering of everybody roughlyevery quarter of all the

(02:56):
birthdays that happen aroundthere.
So, being early August, itwould have been whoever had a
birthday in the month or twobefore and after.
You were talking about platingup.
How many plates did you plateup?
I plated up five.
You said you cooked sixwellingtons.
Yes, what happened to the otherone?
So it either.

(03:17):
I think I just put the oventray straight in the fridge with
it to worry about later.
In that conversation with Gailand Heather, you talked about
the gathering the following week.
Yep, was there any other familynews that was conveyed to you?
Yes, she told me that Nathanand Maren had had their baby,
which was really exciting tohear.

(03:39):
I didn't know that, so it wasreally good news.
And did you do anything aboutthat news later on in the day?
Yes, I did.
Later in the evening I messagedMaren to tell her
congratulations on the baby andyou know I look forward to
meeting him next Saturday andshe sent me a lot of photos of
baby's name and also of herchildren, and I think I

(04:01):
exchanged some of her childrenas well.
All right, so you're at theisland bench, five plates
sitting there, heather and Gailon the other side of the bench.
Yep, everything plated up.
Yep, what happens then?
So I said, you grab a plate,guys, and I'm going to finish
off the gravy.
I turned around and I think Iused one of those ready-made

(04:25):
gravy sachets.
I didn't want to risk a gravyproblem, so I heat that up in
there, maybe.
I used two sachets.
I heated it in the saucepan,went into the pantry to get a
serving picture and put thegravy into the pitcher, grabbed
the last plate off the bench andwent and sat at the table.

(04:47):
How did the other plates get onthe table, did you see?
Well, I didn't see it happen.
I assume everyone grabbed aplate.
But Ian said that Gail andHeather took two plates each,
and I accept that's probablywhat happened.
And do you remember which plateyou had?
No, his honour, it's at aconvenient time, mr Mandy.

(05:07):
Yes, okay, so there's a bit ofa break at 11 44 am and then we
go forward to.
We jump to and, having plated.
I just want to clarify thiswith you what's your
recollection about the lastthing that you did before you
went to the table.
The last thing I did was putthe gravy from the saucepan into

(05:29):
the gravy boat.
And where did you?
How long before you making thegravy?
It was from a ready pack, so itwould have only taken a minute
or two to heat up, so it wasprobably all contained in that
one activity.
And in order to make the gravy,where did you go?
In your kitchen, in relation tothe image that we see now?

(05:50):
So it's a photo of her kitchen.
So you've got the table andthen you've got to the left is
the island bench, and then yougo to the left again is a bench
with the stove on it and there'slike two areas on either side
of the stove where you can putthings.
All right.
And where were you making thegravy?

(06:10):
At the stove.
And the stove bench is parallelto the island bench, isn't it?
Yes, that's right.
Okay, so now they're going intoan exhibit that we can't see,
so we'll jump ahead All right.
Now, during the course of themeal, what was the discussion,
as best as you can remember,from the beginning, sitting down
, what did you talk about?

(06:30):
Oh, we talked about what we'dbeen up to, what had been
happening in the family,probably a bit of politics and
current affairs about what thekids were doing.
They all asked lots ofquestions about the kids, or at
least Heather and Gail did.
At one point I remember Dontalking about his brother that
was battling throat cancer Ithink it was his brother, bobby

(06:54):
and what happened with thatconversation about cancer?
Did it move on to other topics?
It stayed at that topic at thatpoint.
What did you say about yourhealth?
So it was right at the end ofthe meal and I mentioned that
I'd had maybe not a scare is theright word, but I had last year
, a year or two earlier, where Ithought I had ovarian cancer

(07:18):
and had various scans related tothat, and then I'm not proud of
this, but I led them to believeI might be needing some
treatment in regards to that inthe next few weeks or months.
Can you remember what you saidabout that in any more detail?
Not specifically, I do rememberI referred to upcoming
treatment because primarily inmy mind I think sorry, because

(07:44):
primarily in my mind wasthinking I might need help with
getting the kids to and from thebus or activities and I might
need to explain why I was goingto the hospital for a day or two
.
So that was really the focus ofwhat I was talking about.
Did you mislead them?
I did.
How did the conversationconclude?

(08:04):
They showed a lot of compassionabout that, and then we saw
Simon's car driving into thedriveway, coming back with the
kids, and so Ian said why don'twe pray for Erin?
And so we did.
I asked you, did you misleadthem?
Did you lie to them?
I did lie to them, and whydidn't you tell them the truth

(08:24):
about what you were intending?
I was really embarrassed.
I was ashamed of the fact thatI didn't have control over my
body or what I ate.
I was ashamed of that.
So Erin's talking here aboutplanned gastric bypass surgery.
I didn't have control over mybody or what I ate.

(08:46):
I was ashamed of that andembarrassed.
I didn't want to tell anyoneand, in turn, but I shouldn't
have lied to them.
In terms of what people ate atthe meal.
Can you remember much of theportions of what people ate?
So Ian and Gail ate all oftheirs.
Don ate all of his and Gail atequite a lot of hers not all of

(09:09):
it.
Don finished off what shehadn't eaten.
I'd eaten a quarter.
A third somewhere around thereof mine, I ate some of mine.
You'd eaten half, yep.
Third, somewhere around thereof mine, I ate some of mine.
You'd eaten half Yep.
What do you say about theevidence?
I mean, it was about that Iwasn't measuring, I couldn't be
precise, but it was some of.
It is the best way I can reallysay.
And why was it that you don'trecall eating all of your

(09:33):
portion?
Well, I was talking a lot, Iwas eating slowly and that's all
I can say.
So that's all we have for today.
Excuse that dog in thebackground.
Um, I'm now going to follow thetrial and um, I'll be back
later to report.
Thank you so much for joiningme today.

(09:53):
Make sure you join up on thenewsletter
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So thank you, and I shall speakto you very, very soon.

(10:14):
Bye.