Erin Patterson faced cross-examination Thursday as prosecutors questioned her about weighing deadly mushrooms that were included in a dish served to her guests. File Photo by James Ross/EPA-EFE
The jury in the Erin Patterson mushroom meal murder trial was told Thursday it will likely be weeks before it ends as Patterson spent her fourth straight day on the witness stand.
The judge told jurors that the trial will probably continue for at least two more weeks after the prosecution began its cross-examination.
Patterson was first shown photos of mushrooms on scales that she agreed were taken in her home, and was then advised a mushroom expert identified the mushrooms were death cap mushrooms.
Patterson is alleged to have intentionally mixed the poisonous mushrooms into a meal of beef Wellington that she served to her estranged husband Simon Patterson’s parents, Don and Gail Patterson, his aunt Heather Wilkinson and his uncle Ian Wilkinson for lunch in July of 2023.
Of the victims, only Ian Wilkinson survived.
The prosecution then told Patterson that a photo of sliced mushrooms on scales was an image of death caps she picked in April of 2023, after she learned from an app where to find them. Prosecutors then proposed she weighed the mushrooms to calculate how much she would need to poison one, and then five people.
Patterson denied all of it, then further denied she had told her victims during that lunch she had started a chemotherapy regimen for cancer, despite prosecutors reminding her Ian Wilkinson already testified she did tell them she had cancer. The prosecution alleged Patterson told that particular lie, having thought her victims wouldn’t survive to catch her in the lie.
She denied that as well, but did admit she had lied to police about her food dehydrator, which was found in a local dump with her fingerprints and traces of death caps.
“I had disposed of it a few days earlier, in the context of thinking that maybe mushrooms that I’d foraged or the meal I’d prepared was responsible for making people sick,” Patterson said.
She sustained that her lies to police continued out of fear even after two of the victims had died.
“I was just scared. But I shouldn’t have done it,” Patterson further said.
The prosecution finished by naming the four people she allegedly poisoned, then asked if she meant to kill or harm them. She said no to each, then cried as she was asked about Ian Wilkinson, who was present in the courtroom.
Patterson faces three charges of murder and one charge of attempted murder and is slated to return to the witness stand for a fifth day Friday.
