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An Australian woman accused of murdering relatives with beef Wellington documented herself using kitchen scales to calculate a lethal dose of toxic mushrooms, prosecutors allege.
Erin Patterson, 50, has pleaded not guilty to killing three people and attempting to murder another at her home in regional Victoria in July 2023, saying it was a tragic accident.
Prosecutors on Thursday suggested photos found on her phone showing wild fungi being weighed depict her measuring the amount required to kill her guests.
Ms Patterson told the court she had likely taken photos in question but said she didn’t believe the mushrooms in them were death caps.
Ms Patterson’s in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, both 70, along with Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson, 66, all fell ill and died days after the lunch.
Heather’s husband, local pastor Ian Wilkinson, was also hospitalised but recovered after coming out of a weeks-long induced coma.
The high-profile trial, which started six weeks ago, has already heard from more than 50 prosecution witnesses. Ms Patterson became the first defence witness to take the stand on Monday afternoon.
Under cross-examination from the lead prosecutor, Ms Patterson admitted she had foraged for wild mushrooms in the three months before the July lunch, despite telling police and a health official that she hadn’t.
The court was also shown images, taken in late April 2023 and recovered from Ms Patterson’s phone, which depicted mushrooms being measured.
Ms Patterson previously admitted she had repeatedly wiped the device in the days following the lunch because she feared that if officers found such pictures they would blame her for the guests’ deaths.
Pointing to earlier evidence from a fungi expert who said the mushrooms in the images were “highly consistent” with death caps, Dr Rogers alleged Ms Patterson had knowingly foraged them days before.
She had seen a post on iNaturalist – a website for logging plant and animal sightings – and travelled to the Loch area ten days later on 28 April to pick the toxic fungi, Dr Rogers alleged.
Ms Patterson said she couldn’t recall if she went to the town that day, but denied she went there to find death cap mushrooms or that she had seen the iNaturalist post.
“I suggest that you were weighing these mushrooms so that you could calculate the weight required for… a fatal dose,” Dr Rogers put to her.
“Disagree,” Ms Patterson replied.
Earlier on Thursday, Ms Patterson’s barrister asked her why she repeatedly lied to police about foraging mushrooms and having a food dehydrator – which prosecutors say was used to prepare the toxic mushrooms for the meal.
“It was this stupid knee-jerk reaction to dig deeper and keep lying,” she told the court. “I was just scared, but I shouldn’t have done it.”
Ms Patterson also repeated her claim that she never intentionally put the poisonous mushrooms in the meal.
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Source link:BBC