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Critical evidence used to prosecute mushroom cook killer Erin Patterson has been made public for the first time.
The two video clips, released on Monday by the Supreme Court of Victoria, show Patterson disposing of a food dehydrator and an interaction she had with police as they raided her Leongatha home in their hunt for clues about the beef Wellington lunch that killed three people.
The release of exhibits comes a month after a jury, sitting at Morwell, found her guilty of murdering her in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, and the attempted murder of Heather’s husband, pastor Ian Wilkinson, after feeding them a lunch laced with death cap mushrooms on July 29, 2023.
Both videos were played to the jury during the marathon trial, which heard almost three months of evidence and closing addresses, and a week of jury deliberations.
In the first video, Patterson is captured on CCTV footage visiting the Koonwarra Transfer Station on August 2, 2023.
It was the day after she was released from a Melbourne hospital claiming she too was suffering from gastrointestinal symptoms in the aftermath of the lunch that left her four guests critically ill.
Erin Patterson arrives at court in a prison van during her trial in May.Credit: Agence France-Presse
Patterson is seen in the footage driving her red SUV to the facility and parking it outside the e-waste section of the tip.
In less than a minute, she exits the driver’s side door and calmly removes a food dehydrator from the rear of the vehicle.
She then walks into a green shed where, the trial heard, she dumped the dehydrator. Dressed in a grey top and white pants, she then returns to the car and drives away.
The dehydrator was later recovered by police and tested, and found to be containing traces of death cap mushrooms.
In the second video released on Monday, Patterson sits at the same dining room table where she served her guests the lunch, this time opposite Detective Sergeant Luke Farrell from the homicide squad.
The discussion followed an hours-long raid of her home on August 5, 2023, where electronic items, including a computer, were seized.
Patterson wears a beige jumper and rests her face on her right hand while the pair discuss the search.
“Thanks for your patience today, Erin. We’re completing our search,” Farrell says in the recording.
A still from CCTV footage of Patterson dumping a food dehydrator at Koonwarra Transfer Station on August 2, 2023.Credit: Supreme Court of Victoria
“The only outstanding item is that mobile phone that you’ve got there. So I’ll seize that now from you.”
Farrell points to the Samsung mobile phone next to Patterson on the table.
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After Patterson hands it over, Farrell removes the device from an orange phone case containing cards, which he hands back to the killer.
Patterson is then asked to provide her access code to the phone.
During the trial, prosecutors argued Patterson dumped the dehydrator as soon as she was released from hospital as part of a plan to cover her tracks, while the defence argued she did so in a state of panic.
The trip to the tip was uncovered by an eagle-eyed policewoman who was tasked with searching through Patterson’s banking records in the days after the lunch.
At the tip, the jury heard, the officer found an eftpos transaction for an e-waste deposit.
As part of the case against Patterson, the prosecution revealed she used a number of mobile phones before the murders, and accused her of handing police a “dummy phone” instead of her usual phone during a raid on her home.
Patterson’s phone was in a pink case when she was in hospital in early August 2023
That “dummy phone” was later remotely factory reset by Patterson while it was in the possession of police.
During the trial, the colour of the phone case handed to Farrell also became an issue, with other footage of Patterson at the hospital – days before her interaction with police – showing her mobile phone in a pink case.
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Prosecutors told the jury her usual phone was never found.
Patterson will face a brief court hearing on Friday to set dates for her pre-sentence hearing, which is expected to take place later this year.
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