Erin Patterson will continue giving evidence in her high-profile murder trial, having described her state of mind after serving a deadly mushroom meal.
The 50-year-old has pleaded not guilty to three murders and one attempted murder charge over the July 2023 lunch.
Her former in-laws Don and Gail Patterson, 70, and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson, 66 died after eating beef Wellingtons which contained death cap mushrooms, while Heather’s husband Ian was the sole survivor.
Patterson, who will give evidence for a fourth day before a Supreme Court jury in regional Victoria on Thursday, maintains the poisonings were not deliberate.
The jury has heard Patterson’s account of how she felt after being told three of her ex-husband’s family members were very ill in hospital.
She recalled feeling “frantic” after returning from hospital and said she took a mushroom dehydrator to the rubbish tip fearing it might incriminate her given she had used it to dry foraged mushrooms weeks earlier.
Patterson had earlier conceded she may have unintentionally added foraged wild mushrooms into the beef Wellingtons she made for the lunch.
The jury was taken through text messages sent between Patterson and her former in-laws, in response to Simon’s earlier evidence of “extremely aggressive” messages she had sent to a group chat after he questioned her parenting.
Defence barrister Colin Mandy SC asked the accused about her relationship with her in-laws in the months prior to that exchange.
She denied any exchanges were rude or had upset or hurt anyone.
“Apart from that time in December 2022 (were there) any other times (where there was) any difficulty in your relationship with them?” Mandy asked.
“No there wasn’t,” Patterson said.
