Key events
What the jury heard last time
Here’s a recap of what the jury heard when court last sat on Thursday:
1. A clinic where Patterson said she had a pre-surgery appointment for a gastric-bypass procedure offered liposuction until mid-2024, the court heard. Patterson previously told the court she was also looking into liposuction. She said she lied to her lunch guests about having cancer treatment because she was embarrassed about planned weight-loss surgery.
2. Patterson denied lying about her estranged husband, Simon, accusing her of poisoning his parents with a food dehydrator in the days after the lunch.
3. Patterson rejected the prosecution’s suggestion she performed three factory resets in August 2023 on a phone she handed to police to “conceal” its “true contents”.
4. In her final moments of cross-examination, Patterson denied she deliberately sourced death cap mushrooms in 2022, included the toxic fungi in beef wellingtons she served and intended to kill her lunch guests.
5. The defence closed its case. Justice Christopher Beale tells the jury the evidence in the trial has concluded.
Welcome to day 32 of Erin Patterson’s triple-murder trial.
The evidence in Patterson’s trial concluded last week. In the coming days, the prosecution and defence will deliver their closing arguments to the jury. Justice Christopher Beale will then issue instructions to the jurors ahead of their deliberations.
Patterson, 50, faces three charges of murder and one charge of attempted murder relating to a beef wellington lunch she served at her house in Leongatha in regional Victoria on 29 July 2023.
She is accused of murdering her in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, and her estranged husband’s aunt, Heather Wilkinson. The attempted murder charge relates to Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson.
She has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The prosecution alleges Patterson deliberately poisoned her lunch guests with “murderous intent”, but her lawyers say the poisoning was a tragic accident.
