Erin Patterson has told a Victorian court that her estranged husband once directly asked if she poisoned his parents, a moment she says sent her into a spiral of fear and doubt.
The 50-year-old is on trial for the alleged murder of three family members and the attempted murder of a fourth, accused of serving a beef wellington laced with death cap mushrooms in July last year.
Taking the stand for a third day in her own defence, Patterson shared details of a private conversation with Simon, whose parents Don and Gail were among the victims of the fatal lunch.
"He said to me, ‘Is that how you poisoned my parents, using that dehydrator'?"
"I said of course not."
Simon has denied making the accusation, but Patterson told the court the moment shook her and led her to reflect more deeply on what had happened.
The 50-year-old accused says she misled family about medical tests and she served the fateful meal on mismatched plates. (Source: 1News)
'I was scared': Patterson feared she'd be blamed
Patterson said the conversation triggered mounting anxiety about the meal and the ingredients used.
"It caused me to do a lot of thinking about a lot of things," she said. "I was starting to think: 'what if they’d gone in the container with the Chinese mushrooms'?"
Fearing she’d be blamed and knowing child protection services were coming to visit, she admitted she disposed of the food dehydrator at the Koonwarra tip.
Emotional testimony about family breakdown
In her testimony, Patterson also reflected on her rocky marriage with Simon, saying their ability to communicate had collapsed in recent years.
"We just couldn’t communicate well when we disagreed… we could never make each of us feel heard and understood."
She described a growing distance from Simon’s family, claiming her husband no longer wanted her involved in family matters.
Earlier in the week, Patterson described the traumatic birth of her first child and the support she received from her now-deceased mother-in-law, Gail Patterson.
"I had no idea what to do with a baby… Gail was really supportive and gentle and patient with me."
She also recalled converting to Christianity after attending a church service led by Pastor Ian Wilkinson, the sole survivor of the fatal lunch.
Patterson admits leaving out key details to health officials
The court also heard that Patterson left out certain information during early communication with health authorities, including her doubts about the supermarket-sourced ingredients.
At the time, Victorian health official Sally Ann Atkinson was tasked with asking Patterson about the potential food poisoning outbreak and the origins of the ingredients from the fatal meal.
She said she was overwhelmed and scared at the time and didn’t know what to believe.
"Very anxious, yeah. Very anxious," she told the court.
When pressed she said she "thought it was a possibility" the mushrooms sourced from the Asian grocer were responsible for the poisoning.
'I panicked': Patterson explains wiping phone data
The jury was also shown evidence that one of Patterson’s phones was reset multiple times – something she admitted doing herself on three occasions – while saying her son had performed the first.
She told the court the phone originally belonged to her but was handed over to her son after he damaged his own device earlier in the year. After retrieving it in August, Patterson said she cleaned the phone and eventually set it up again for her personal use.
Patterson said the third reset, on August 5, was a direct result of panic. She told the jury she had reloaded her apps and logged into her Google account, which included photos of mushrooms and her food dehydrator.
Winter's here, supermarket spying, and TikTok's new feature. (Source: 1News)
"I just panicked and didn’t want [the detectives] to see them," she said.
The following day, Patterson said she remotely triggered another factory reset after police had searched her home.
"After the search of my house and the interview and the detectives had brought me home, I remember thinking 'I wonder if I can log into my Google account and see where all my devices are'. So I did that, and I could see my phone, and [my children's devices], and it was really stupid, but I thought, 'I wonder if they've been silly enough to leave it connected to the internet', so I hit factory reset to see what happened and it did."
SHARE ME