Health official recounts investigating deadly lunch to mushroom trial — as it happened

Thank you for joining us on today's coverage of the Erin Patterson murder trial.

For a recap of today's events, check out this wrap from the ABC's Joseph Dunstan:

Want a deeper dive into the trial?

The ABC's Mushroom Case Daily has been providing a comprehensive review of what has been presented inside Courtroom 4 in Morwell.

You can listen to all the episodes here:

Today, Victoria Police digital forensic officer Shamen Fox-Henry resumed giving evidence, giving the court details about how data, including photos, is extracted from devices and protected for investigations.

We then heard from the supervising pathologist about the autopsies on Don and Gail Patterson, and Heather Wilkinson.

A forensic biologist was briefly questioned about taking samples from the food dehydrator before the Department of Health’s Sally Ann Atkinson told the court about her investigations into the mushroom poisoning.

And we also had a brief interruption from a protester who yelled at the judge mid-morning, but he was swiftly removed from court.

Here are five things we heard:

1. 1.The autopsies on Don Patterson, Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson revealed they all had extensive liver damage and multi-organ failure, consistent with death cap poisoning. Dr Brian Beer described Heather Wilkinson as having necrosis of the liver, saying all her liver cells had died. He said Don Patterson’s liver transplant had failed.
2. 2.In the case of Don Patterson, the amanita phalloides toxin was detected before he died and was listed among the causes of death.
3. 3.The Health Department’s Sally Ann Atkinson’s job was to respond to community outbreaks. She described mushroom poisoning as “quite unusual", adding it was her first case of amatoxin poisoning.
4. 4.Ms Atkinson says she immediately contacted her manager because of the seriousness of the situation, and the department’s Food Safety Unit because if there were poisonous mushrooms being sold, they needed to be pulled from supermarket shelves.
5. 5.Ms Atkinson had a series of text and phone conversations with Erin Patterson over the following days. She says some of the information Erin gave her changed, including first giving Ms Atkinson the impression that she may have used some of the dried mushrooms in an earlier dish to then saying that she hadn’t used them before making the beef Wellingtons, telling Ms Atkinson she had bought all the ingredients in one day to then saying she bought them over several days, and changing one of the suburbs where she may have shopped from Mount Waverley to Glen Waverley.

Ms Atkinson says she contacted Erin again to ask what type of pastry she'd used.

She says Erin responded that she used a combination of Pampas puffed pastry - leftovers in her freezer and a new package purchased from Woolworths.

She then followed up with a text saying she also used filo pastry.

Justice Beale then interrupted the questioning and said court would break for the day. The jury has now been shown out.

She says on August 3 she spoke to Erin about how she cooked the beef Wellingtons, including using a mushroom paste to cover the steaks.

Ms Atkinson says Erin said she used up all the paste and only cooked the lunch in one batch.

She says Erin described the mushrooms as sliced and of a similar colour to the button mushrooms she bought at Woolworths.

Ms Atkinson says Erin tried to narrow down where she may have gone in Oakleigh, Clayton and Glen Waverley, nominating areas of the suburbs where she'd likely visit.

Ms Atkinson says this is the first time Erin had mentioned Glen Waverley, that all previous discussions were about Mount Waverley.

Ms Atkinson says she sent Erin some photos of a storefront and from inside a store taken by a council officer.

She asked Erin if they were familar.

She reads a text where Erin says the store wasn't familar and answered some questions about what the mushrooms looked like.

"They weren't whole like those shitake mushies in the photos, they were sliced. And yes the packaging was about half the size of that," Ms Atkinson said Erin wrote.

Ms Atkinson says Erin told her she made individual beef Wellingtons and that the only way people could have had the same portion was if they'd shared some of the food from their own plate.

Ms Atkinson says she relayed the information she received from Erin to the department's Food Safety Unit, which got in contact with Woolworths, while the council was contacted to visit Asian grocery stores in Clayton, Oakleigh and Mount Waverley.

More text messages about Erin's shopping trips are then read to the court, including about she bought discounted eye fillet for the meal and made other trips over several days.

Ms Atkinson says that was different information than what Erin previously told her because she'd said she got all the ingredients on the Friday evening.

Ms Atkinson says Erin again could not tell her any information about where the Asian grocery store may be other than it was "strip shopping" in either Oakleigh or Clayton.

She said Erin described the packaging as though it had been repackaged by the store, rather than commercial packaging, with handwriting on a white label.

Ms Atkinson asked if she went to a fast food drive-through or a coffee shop as she again tried to locate the store, and Erin said no.

She says she directly asked Erin if she foraged for the mushrooms and Erin said no.

Ms Atkinson says she then heard from child protective services who said they had an appointment to visit Erin.

She says she asked the officer to call her when she was with Erin because she was having trouble getting back in contact with her.

She says the officer Katrina Cripps (who we heard from earlier in the trial) did call and handed over the phone to Erin. She says Erin told her they had water, tea and coffee.

She says Erin told her the mushrooms had not been used in any previous meal because they "smelt funny" and she thought they'd overpower the pasta type dish she was making.

Ms Atkinson says this information was different than what Erin had previously said.

"The initial conversation seemed to indicate she'd used some of them in the first dish and ... now she was saying that she had not. But she wasn't very clear," Ms Atkinson said.

She says Erin confirmed she'd used the small onion type shallots, not spring onions.

She says Erin said it would be ok to collect leftover food from her house.

Ms Atkinson says she tried to contact Erin again on Wednesday, Aug 2, leaving a voice message saying she had further questions.

She says she didn't hear back from Erin so sent another text message with the following questions at 9.29am:

1 - Can you please confirm that it was definitely only the one other time you cooked with the dried mushrooms when you first opened them? None else reported symptoms or issues when consumed then?

2. Please advise what drinks were served at lunch

3. Please confirm what kind of shallots were iused in the beef Wellington. Were they spring onions or the small individual shallot type onions please.

4. Did you possible use your card to purchase the mushrooms and cah you please check your bank statements for the shop - that would be amazingly helpful

Ms Atkinson says she tried to call Erin again but couldn't get through.

She says she then sent Erin a text, which was answered.

She says there were a number of texts exchanged between Aug 1 and 4.

The first text included Ms Atkinson asking her questions about the drinks they had at the lunch, the shallots she used, the packaging the mushrooms were in.

She also asked for the names of the roads she was parked in or landmarks when she went to the Asian grocery stores.

She says Erin responded:

"Hi Sally. Sure i will try to get that information all to you as soon as possible … 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."

Court is back from the afternoon break.

Ms Atkinson says she attended a group meeting with the Deputy Chief Health Officers, members of the Food Safety Unit and the department's media team.

She told them the information she'd gained from Erin and they decided to get the local council to start inspecting Asian stores for mushrooms.

She says they wanted more information about the shallots Erin used as well.

The court hears the department wanted to rule out that the shallots weren't daffodil bulbs that can sometimes be sold in fruit and vegetable sections.

As the public health official details the conversations she had with Erin Patterson days after the lunch, Ms Patterson watches from the back of the courtroom.

There's no visible expression or audible reaction from her to the evidence.

The jury has now been given a break.

Ms Atkinson says Erin claimed she needed a kilogram of mushrooms for the lunch recipe so she re-hydrated the dried mushrooms and added them to ones she bought from Woolworths.

Ms Atkinson says everyone had been served their meals individually.

The questioning turns to the children.

Ms Atkinson says Erin said the children were not there but that they'd eaten leftovers the next day.

But she says Erin said she scraped the mushrooms off because the children didn't like them.

Ms Atkinson says Erin told her she'd never made beef Wellingtons before but had wanted to make something "fancy" for her guests.

She says Erin told her she wasn't sure which store she'd bought the mushrooms from, saying "she'd driven around a lot" during the April school holidays when her children were at holiday activities.

Ms Atkinson says she asked Erin whether they'd been frozen and was told they hadn't been, but had been purchased dried and they'd been stored in a Tupperware container.

She says Erin described the alleged packaging the mushrooms had been bought in, but said that she didn't have the packaging any longer.

She says she bought them for a pasta meal but when she opened them she thought they had smelt funny. She says Erin said she didn't use them all so stored the rest.

When asked whether that meant she'd used some, Ms Atkinson said it sounded that way.

Ms Atkinson says she asked Simon Patterson whether Erin may have picked the mushrooms she'd used in the lunch herself and he said it wasn't something he'd ever known her to do.

Ms Atkinson says she later spoke to Erin. She says Erin told her she had started feeling sick around midnight after the lunch and then started having "explosive diarrhoea".

She says Erin said she started to feel better by Sunday afternoon so had a bowl of cereal but then felt worse.

She says Erin said she got her children ready for school on Monday and went to the hospital after dropping them off.

Ms Atkinson says she contacted Simon Patterson that afternoon as he was listed as Don and Gail's next of kin.

She says he wasn't happy to speak to her. She says that happens sometimes when people are unsure who she is or where she's calling from.

She says she emailed him with the official Department of Health account and he was then happy to talk.

Ms Atkinson says she immediately called her manager about the mushroom poisoning.

"Because this was something that was quite unusual," she says.

She clarifies that she had never had a case of amatoxin poisoning before and says it "sounded very serious".

She says she contacted the food safety team because if there were mushrooms that were potentially poisoning people out in the community, they needed to be pulled from supermarket shelves.

Ms Atkinson says Dr McDermott told her there may be six people ill from a family event on July 29.

She says the number of cases was then clarified to five.

But she says Dr McDermott thought there might also have been two children who attended the event but he was unsure whether they consumed the lunch.

She says he told her they had all consumed mushrooms and he believed some of the mushrooms had been bought from an Asian grocery store in Oakleigh or Mt Waverley in April and stored frozen until they were used in July.

She says Dr McDermott told her four of the people were very unwell.

Ms Atkinson says an outbreak was classed as two or more people being sick.

She says her team would implement any actions that may be needed to stop anyone else in the community getting sick from an outbreak.

She says on July 31, 2023, the team received a possible disease notification for death cap poisoning from Doctor Connor McDermott at the Austin Hospital.