Accused triple-murderer Erin Patterson has taken the stand in her Supreme Court trial, telling the jury about her relationship with her estranged husband and his family.
Ms Patterson, 50, is accused of deliberately poisoning her in-laws Don and Gail Patterson, Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson and Heather’s husband Ian with a beef Wellington meal containing death cap mushrooms.
Ian Wilkinson was the sole survivor of the lunch held at Ms Patterson’s regional Victorian home in 2023.
On Monday afternoon, defence barrister Colin Mandy SC called Ms Patterson as a witness and asked her about her relationship with her in-laws in 2023.
Mr Mandy’s early questioning focused on Ms Patterson’s life in 2023.
“I had felt for some months that my relationship with the wider Patterson family, particularly Don and Gail … a bit more distance or space between us,” Ms Patterson said.
She said she began to have “concerns” that her estranged husband Simon didn’t want her involved with his family anymore.
“Perhaps I wasn’t being invited to so many things,” she said, adding that her relationship with Simon was “functional”.
Erin Patterson is charged with murdering three of her relatives. (AAP: James Ross)
Ms Patterson’s testimony also canvassed the ups and downs of her relationship with Simon Patterson, including several separations after the birth of their son.
“Obviously our relationship was struggling to cause a separation, it was really important to both of us to cooperate about [our son] and make it as easy on him as possible,” she said.
“Primarily what we struggled with over the entire course of our relationship … it was, we just couldn’t communicate well when we disagreed about something.
“We could never communicate in a way that would make each of us feel heard and understood.”
Mother-in-law was ‘gentle and patient’ during crisis, accused says
Ms Patterson also appeared distressed as she described the “very traumatic” birth of her son in 2009, while the couple were living in Perth, WA.
“It went for a very long time and they tried to get him out with forceps and he wouldn’t come out and he started to go into distress and they lost his heartbeat, so they did an emergency caesarean and they got him out quickly,” she said.
Erin Patterson’s defence lawyer Colin Mandy SC (front right) dominated questioning in court on Monday. (ABC News)
Ms Patterson said her parents-in-law came over from Victoria to support her afterwards.
“I remember being really relieved that Gail was there, because I felt really out of my depth,” she said.
“I had no idea what to do with a baby and I was not confident and she was really supportive and gentle and patient with me.”
Erin converted to Christianity after ‘religious experience’
The court heard Ms Patterson met her husband while they were both working at Monash council in Melbourne’s south-east in 2004 and they initially struck up a friendship which later developed into a romantic relationship.
Ms Patterson told the court they went on camping trips, including one visit to Gippsland where they stayed with Simon Patterson’s parents and attended a church service at Korumburra Baptist Church.
She said in the early stages of the relationship, she was a “fundamentalist atheist” and she had been trying to convert Mr Patterson, who followed the Christian faith.
Pastor Ian Wilkinson (left) survived but his wife Heather and in-laws Don and Gail Patterson died after the Leongatha lunch. (Supplied)
But Ms Patterson said the Korumburra service, which was led by Mr Patterson’s uncle Ian Wilkinson and focused on “faith, hope and love” had a powerful impact on her.
“I had what can be best described as like a spiritual experience,” she said.
“I’d been approaching religion as an intellectual exercise up until that. Does it make sense? Is it rational? But I had what I would call a religious experience there and it quite overwhelmed me.”
She said she and Simon Patterson later became married, choosing to hold the service at an Anglican church in Korumburra so the Wilkinsons could attend the celebration as guests.
Ms Patterson said at the time of the wedding, her own parents were not present, but were instead “in Russia, on a train” on holidays.
Erin Patterson had hoped Leongatha home would be ‘final house’ for family
During the defence questioning, Ms Patterson was asked about the Leongatha home she had moved into only a year before she hosted her in-laws for the lunch at the centre of the trial.
She said she and her estranged husband had been heavily involved in the design of the home.
“I drew a design first myself in Microsoft Paint and gave that to the building designer and he said ‘that will never work engineering-wise, let’s move that around a bit’,” she said.
“I saw it as the final house, meaning I wanted it to be a house where the children would grow up … and I’d grow old there. That’s what I hoped.”
Ian Wilkinson arrives at court on Monday morning. (ABC News)
The court also heard that in 2023, Ms Patterson was planning to start studying a bachelor’s degree in nursing and midwifery the following year.
Ms Patterson told the court she was also battling with “low self-esteem”, an issue she said she had grappled with for “most of my adult life”.
“And the further inroads I made into being middle aged, the less I felt good about myself, I suppose,” she said.
Detective’s phone evidence probed again
Earlier on Monday, the court heard a SIM card linked to Ms Patterson moved between at least seven devices in the years before the lunch at the centre of the trial.
Ms Patterson’s defence barrister Colin Mandy SC continued cross-examining Police Detective Senior Leading Constable Stephen Eppingstall.
During cross-examination, a diagram was shown to the jury, which displayed some of the movements of SIM cards between devices detailed at different stages of the trial.
One SIM card, ending in 783, appeared to move between at least seven devices between January 2019 and August 2023.
Mr Mandy told the court some of the phone data put before the jury had some “limitation” in precisely pinpointing the time at which a SIM card may have been swapped between devices.
In his re-examination, Mr Mandy also took the police officer through still images taken from footage filmed while police searched Ms Patterson’s Leongatha home a week after the lunch.
Mr Mandy told the court the plates filmed in Ms Patterson’s kitchen included a range of colours such as red and black, black and white.
The trial has previously heard from the sole surviving lunch guest Ian Wilkinson, who said the guests were served on grey plates, while Ms Patterson ate from an orange-tan coloured plate.
The prosecution concluded its case on Monday afternoon.
The trial continues.
