Erin Patterson mushroom murder trial LIVE updates: Patterson’s texts to health officer revealed

Health officer Sally Ann Atkinson previously told the jury she thought a death cap mushroom poisoning outbreak was ‘quite unusual’.

‘I then initiated an investigation and immediately notified my manager,’ she said.

The health officer said she wanted to get the death cap mushrooms off the shelves if they ‘existed’.

Ms Atkinson also notified the Food Safety Unit which co-ordinates food recalls among other actions.

Ms Atkinson said she quickly put together a Problem Assessment Group (PAG) which was set up on August 1.

She later told the jury she mentioned to the PAG what she had discussed with Patterson the day prior.

Ms Atkinson said she attempted to call Patterson again on August 1.

Text messages sent between Ms Atkinson and Patterson were shown to the court.

Ms Atkinson texted Patterson at 3.50pm on August 1.

‘Hi Erin, Sally from the Department of Health here,’ the message started.

Ms Atkinson asked in the text for specific information including other ingredients and what drinks were served.

‘I need to know what drinks were served, I need to know what shallots were used.’

Ms Atkinson also told Patterson that she needed ‘more precise information about the packaging’ and ‘any roads you were parked on or (were) near those stores’ and other landmarks.

‘Just things to think about when I need to speak to you again,’ Ms Atkinson ended her message.

Patterson responded at 4.08pm on August 2:

‘Hi Sally I will try to get that information all to you as soon as possible,’ she wrote.

‘I’m just dealing with trying to manage and look after the kids in hospital here and a bit snowed under trying to manage that.

‘I’ll get this info to you as soon as I can but I’ve just been in a couple of meetings with people at the hospital when you’ve been trying to call.’

Ms Atkinson texted Patterson back barely a minute later and asked about the kids

‘Yeah they’re fine thank you,’ Patterson responded at 4.11pm.

‘Very glad to hear that,’ Ms Atkinson immediately replied.

Ms Atkinson said she also attempted to ring Patterson back later that evening but got no answer, left a voicemail and received no return call.

Ms Atkinson said she attempted to contact Patterson again the next morning.

She said she called at 8.57am on August 2 and left a voicemail which said: ‘I have further questions for you.’

Ms Atkinson said she texted Patterson later at about 9.29am.

The health officer asked Patterson questions including if she used her bankcard to buy the mushrooms and if she could check when and where she bought them.

‘That would be amazingly helpful,’ Ms Atkinson texted.

The health officer also asked Patterson why she chose to buy those particular mushrooms.

‘What made you pick that brand over the others,’ Ms Atkinson asked in her text.

Patterson responded at about 2.44pm on August 2.

‘Hi Sally I’m not sure exactly what time of day,’ Patterson wrote.

‘I went a few times last week and I know I got some of the ingredients on maybe Wednesday or Thursday.

‘I know I bought some discounted eye fillet steaks one time on one of these two days and then I went back on either Thursday or Friday and bought a couple more but they weren’t discounted, just normal price.

‘And I bought the rest of the ingredients at one of those shopping trips.

‘I often go daily or every second day to pick up a bag or two and get what I need as I go so it’s hard to pinpoint an exact day I bought this or that.

‘But I know I bought all of it at some stage last week or Wednesday, Thursday or Friday.’

Health official Sally Ann Atkinson said she contacted Simon Patterson (pictured) who was initially ‘unhappy to speak to me’.

‘So I sent him an email, he then confirmed he was happy to speak to me,’ she said.

Ms Atkinson said Simon told her his children had no symptoms but were receiving blood tests.

Simon also told the health officer he had no key access to Patterson’s Leongatha home.

Ms Atkinson then said Simon told her ‘Erin Patterson’ was the chef of the lunch.

Ms Atkinson also asked Simon if it was possible Patterson picked the mushrooms for the lunch.

‘(Simon told me) that was not something he had ever heard her to do,’ she said.

‘(Simon told me) “they did not eat a meal recently together at all, the last time would’ve been at a family function years ago”.’

Ms Atkinson said she then contacted Patterson who told her she had experienced some explosive diarrhea but otherwise felt fine.

Patterson told Ms Atkinson said she started to feel worse after eating a bowl of cereal on the Sunday evening (July 30).

Patterson also confirmed the lunch consisted of beef Wellington with mashed potato and beans, and reheatable gravy from a packet.

‘It was a meal she’d never done before, she wanted to do something fancy, she said her mother-in-law brought a cake and (Heather) brought a fruit platter,’ Ms Atkinson said.

The jury heard Patterson told Ms Atkinson she wasn’t sure where she bought the dry mushrooms but she ‘drove around a lot’ in the Glen Waverley area.

‘She would drop her kids for holiday activities (in the Glen Waverley area) then drive around before picking them up,’ Ms Atkinson said.

Patterson also denied the mushrooms had been frozen but had been stored dry in a Tupperware container.

‘She said the label “didn’t look very professional”,’ Ms Atkinson said.

Ms Atkinson said Patterson purchased the dry mushrooms for a pasta dish but they smelt ‘funny’.

‘The way she explained it, it indicated she may have used some (at the time of purchase) in that dish,’ she said.

Patterson told Ms Atkinson she rehydrated the dried mushrooms and chopped them up and she bought the eye-fillet beef on Friday and cooked the meal Saturday.

Victoria Health Department senior public health advisor Sally Ann Atkinson (pictured) told the jury she was managing the Enteric Prevention and Control Communicable Diseases team when the health alarm was raised following Patterson’s beef Wellington lunch.

Ms Atkinson said she was informed of an alleged death cap mushroom poisoning outbreak on July 31, 2023.

She said her team was informed by Dr Conor McDermott who said she was from the Austin Hospital.

Ms Atkinson said she was advised by email there was possibly six people with suspected death cap mushroom poisoning which she believed may have consumed the same meal.

The doctor informed Ms Atkinson the diagnosis was unclear but it was suspected the family members had consumed death cap mushrooms.

Ms Atkinson said the doctor told her that he thought that some of the mushrooms had been bought dried from an Asian grocery store in either Oakleigh or Mount Waverley in April and had been frozen until they were prepared for the meal.

The jury saw images of the specimen samples which were photographed alongside a scale ruler.

An image of the dehydrator vent which contained debris was also shown to the jury.

Officer Goodwin also explained terms which included W/D for wet/dry and O/S for outside.

The forensic biologist explained how each sample was collected and labelled.

Officer Goodwin also explained his team discovered a tray insert on one of the dehydrator trays.

‘There was a tray and this was sitting inside the tray,’ he said.

‘We removed the insert and took samples from the insert, then we took samples from the tray itself.’

Officer Goodwin also explained how he removed the front of the dehydrator and collected samples.

The witness said powder discovered on the dehydrator was from the fingerprint expert Sonia Geremia who had also analysed the appliance.

Victoria Police Forensic Service Department Forensic officer Ben Goodwin, who appeared via videolink, told the jury he is attached to the biological sciences investigation team.

Officer Goodwin said he examined the black Sunbeam hydrator which contained six trays with the help of other forensic investigators.

He said he was tasked with collecting vegetable matter from the dehydrator.

‘A number of samples were collected,’ he said.

The jury was then shown a chart and photographs of the dehydrator investigation.

Officer Goodwin said he prepared the chart which depicted seven areas where he collected possible vegetable matter.

‘We lifted the dehydrator out of its packaging and placed it onto a drape,’ Officer Goodwin said.

The areas included various trays, the lid and inside the dehydrator.

Officer Goodwin said he collected samples using gloves and tweezers and placed them into a jar which was labelled.

Forensic medicine pathologist Dr Brian Beer said he personally performed autopsies on Don and Gail Patterson (pictured below).

Dr Beer said both died of multi-organ failure caused by death cap mushrooms.

The expert said Gail had no death cap mushroom toxins in any of the toxicology specimens but her causes of death were consistent with death cap mushroom poisoning.

Dr Beer said Gail had no serious underlying health issues except mentation which affected her ability to understand some things, and encephalitis, but neither condition contributed to her death.

Dr Beer said Don had a failed liver transplant and hypertension heart disease or high blood pressure, but he added said many people suffered from that condition and ‘they are walking around fine’.

Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine Forensic Pathologist Dr Brian Beer (pictured) told the jury he supervised his colleague Dr Michael Duffy who performed an autopsy on Heather Wilkinson just before 4pm August 4.

Dr Beer said Dr Duffy considered medical records from Leongatha Hospital and the Austin Intensive Care Unit.

The expert also said police requested an autopsy on her death.

Dr Beer read excerpts from the autopsy report which detailed Ms Wilkinson’s height, weight and BMI at the time of her death.

Lone lunch survivor pastor Ian Wilkinson sat in court and listened as details about his 66-year-old wife’s death from death cap mushroom poisoning were read out.

‘All the liver cells were dead,’ Dr Beer said.

Dr Beer also listed how Ms Wilkinson’s bowel lining cells were dead and she suffered severe kidney failure.

The expert witness said Dr Duffy concluded Ms Wilkinson’s death was consistent with amanita phalloides poisoning.

Dr Beer said Ms Wilkinson suffered from no underlying serious medical conditions.

A protester has ambushed the Erin Patterson trial asking Justice Christopher Beale how he could be a judge.

The man (pictured below) wearing a yellow T-shirt with the slogan ‘All we are saying is give truth a chance’ went on a rant just after the jury re-entered the courtroom.

‘Mr Beale how could you be a judge when you rig court cases,’ the man yelled out.

Detective Leading Senior Constable Stephen Eppingstall, the police informant in the Patterson trial, approached the man and walked him out of the courtroom.

The trial resumed without further interruption.

Lead defence barrister Colin Mandy SC has pressed Mr Fox-Henry on an image of a dehydrator allegedly found on a Samsung tablet seized from Patterson’s home.

Mr Fox-Henry agreed it wasn’t possible to say when the image was taken by the device, or if the sender interacted with the images on the device.

He also couldn’t say whether the images had been received by anyone else.

Mr Fox-Henry said the history of the dehydrator ‘thumbnail’ image found on the Samsung tablet was ‘very limited’.

The jury has previously heard evidence a food debris samples taken from a dehydrator Patterson dumped at a tip tested positive for death cap mushrooms.

Mr Fox-Henry said he accepted the records he detected were from activity on the computer which was generated in a three-minute period.

This included a visit to the iNaturalist site and a visit to The Korumburra Middle Hotel website.

Mr Mandy SC (pictured) highlighted the jury had heard evidence the Korumburra pub search included a Google Chrome autofill purchase.

Mr Fox-Henry said he didn’t check the records to ascertain whether or not the autofill settings were available to multiple users who had access to the computer.

The jury heard investigators can tag artefacts of interest generated in an Axiom report with the term ‘evidence’.

Mr Fox-Henry also agreed he could have performed a more precise analysis of the seized Cooler Master PC to find information about autocomplete internet searches.

He said digital forensics officers such as himself are sometimes asked to track ‘user activity’.

Mr Fox-Henry told the jury he used a write-blocker to analyse a computer seized from Erin Patterson’s home.

The jury heard a write-blocker is a hardware device which stops forensic officers from ‘writing or changing data’ on a hard drive.

Mr Fox-Henry confirmed he also used a Magnet Axiom digital forensics tool to analyse the device which ‘spat out a report’.

However, he said he didn’t analyse the contents of the ‘Axiom report’ once it was generated.

The jury has previously heard evidence that a search of the iNaturalist website where death cap mushroom sightings had been highlighted were found on the computer.

Mr Fox-Henry also admitted he was ‘unable to say’ the extractions from the computer were performed correctly.

Victoria Police Cybercrime Squad senior digital forensics officer Shamen Fox-Henry (pictured) has had his credentials tested in court.

Erin Patterson, who is wearing a sage green jumper, listened as her barrister Colin Mandy SC put it to Mr Fox-Henry he only had limited qualifications at the time he analysed devices seized from the accused killer’s Leongatha home in August 2023.

Mr Fox-Henry, who the jury heard prior has analysed devices including a computer and Samsung mobile phone linked to the case, agreed he had gained more qualifications since he was first handed the devices.

Mr Fox-Henry agreed he was ‘following instructions from peers on how to do it (analyse the computer)’.

Erin Patterson, 50, is accused of murdering her in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, after allegedly serving them a beef Wellington lunch with death cap mushrooms.

Patterson is also accused of attempting to murder Heather’s husband, pastor Ian Wilkinson (pictured below), who survived the lunch after spending several weeks in an intensive care unit.

The court heard Patterson’s estranged husband, Simon, was also invited, but didn’t attend.

Witnesses told the jury Patterson ate her serving from a smaller and different coloured plate than those of her guests, who ate from four grey plates.

Patterson told authorities she bought dried mushrooms from an unnamed Asian store in the Monash area of Melbourne, but health inspectors could find no evidence of this.

The health department declared the death cap poisoning was ‘isolated’ to Patterson’s deadly lunch.

Multiple witnesses, including Simon Patterson, Ian Wilkinson and other family members, have given emotion-charged evidence to the jury.

Medical staff have told the jury of the painful symptoms the dying lunch guests and Mr Wilkinson suffered.

An expert witness told the court death cap mushrooms were detected in debris taken from a dehydrater Patterson had dumped at a local tip.

Telecommunications expert Dr Matthew Sorell also told the jury Patterson’s phone was detected near areas in Outtrim and Loch where death cap mushrooms had been spotted.

Victoria Police Cybercrime Squad senior digital forensics officer Shamen Fox-Henry said he found evidence of a death cap mushroom on data from a computer seized from Patterson’s Leongatha home on August 5, 2023.

On Friday, Austin Health Intensive Care Director Professor Stephen Warrillow told the jury he was at the hospital in July 2023 when the death cap poisoned lunch guests were transferred to his care.

Professor Warrillow said all patients received intense treatment and Don and Ian received liver transplants.

Erin Patterson vented about her in-laws to online friends in the months leading up to the fateful lunch on July 29, 2023 that claimed their lives.

In the messages, Patterson described her in-laws as a ‘lost cause’ and exclaimed ‘f**k them’.

Patterson showed no emotion at the back of courtroom four of the Latrobe Valley Magistrates’ Court in Victoria’s east, where her Supreme Court hearing is being held.

Mr Fox-Henry (pictured below) was able to recover the Facebook messages from a Samsung phone seized by police upon Patterson’s arrest in August 2023.

Some of the messages to her online friends read:

‘Simon’s dad contacted me this morning to say that he and Gail had tried to talk to Simon about the matters I raised and to get ‘his side’ but he refused to talk about it other than to signal he disagreed with what I said.

‘Beyond that he wont talk about it. So Don said they cant adjudicate if they don’t know both sides and Simon wont give his side. So he said all he can ask is that Simon and I get together to pray for the children.

‘This family I swear to f**king God.’