Erin Patterson is accused of murdering her parents-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, by serving them poisonous mushrooms in a beef Wellington lunch she cooked at her Leongatha home on July 29, 2023.
The Pattersons and Heather Wilkinson died in the days after the meal from the effects of mushroom poisoning.
Heather’s husband, Ian, also ate the lunch but survived after weeks in hospital.
Erin Patterson has pleaded not guilty to three charges of murder and one of attempted murder.
Erin Patterson.Credit: Jason South
Cespon said she was present when Dr Christopher Webster spoke to Erin Patterson, which included a discussion about the need for Patterson’s children to be examined.
“At that point Erin became emotional. She was crying. She said was it necessary as her kids did not eat the mushrooms, the kids did not have any symptoms. She did not want them stressed or panicked getting pulled out of school … to be assessed.”
Over the following hour or so, Cespon said, she examined the toilet after Erin Patterson emerged from the cubicle, and agreed that what she had found there appeared consistent with bowel movements.
The nurse recalled Patterson telling her that she had become nauseous on the evening of July 29, 2023, before her diarrhoea began.
“[She was] saying she feels unwell, she’s got this pain, having these loose bowel motions.”
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Cespon said she was also present when police were called to perform a welfare check on Patterson after she left following her initial presentation to hospital.
During the call, she said she passed the phone to Patterson, who told the officers they could find food scraps in a paper bag in the bin at her home.
“She mentioned that the food scraps was the meal that she scraped from the kids because the kids don’t eat mushrooms,” the witness said.
When police dropped the scraps off at the hospital, she said she looked inside the bag, alongside Erin Patterson, before placing them under a desk in the nursing station.
The leftovers, she said, were later handed to paramedics.
The trial continues.
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