‘The jury must be relieved’: Why we are now hearing evidence banned from mushroom murder trial
By Erin Pearson
True-crime enthusiast and book reviewer Tammy Egglestone attended nearly every day of the mushroom murder trial, and heard much of the evidence for the first time alongside the jurors.
Egglestone said it must be a relief for the seven men and five women to have since learnt of the previously secret information about Erin Patterson’s poisoned past, that they made the right decision in finding her guilty of murder.
Tammy Egglestone (left) and Kelly Phelan outside court in May.Credit: Jason South
“When everyone said, ‘I think she’s guilty’, I focused on the evidence and from what I saw I would have found her not guilty,” Egglestone said. “It took the jury six days to come up with a decision, so there were likely ones that had their hands up for a while thinking not guilty.
“Now all this points to the fact she is guilty.”
Egglestone said that if she had been in the jury, she would be angry so much was kept from her.
“To me, [that’s] where the legal system is a game. Colin Mandy [Patterson’s defence barrister] did a good job of getting all that thrown out,” Egglestone said.
Erin Patterson was found guilty of three counts of murder and one of attempted murder.Credit: Artwork: Monique Westermann Photo: Chris Hopkins
“But these people [jury] could have found her not guilty and then learnt of all of this, thinking, ‘Holy f---, we’ve let a murderer out onto the streets.’
“In this case, I feel like they’re going to feel relieved.”
Australian law prohibits media interviewing jurors.
The Patterson case has prompted questions about how and why evidence the Supreme Court released to the media on Friday wasn’t disclosed to the jury during the marathon 10-week trial.
Barrister Nick Papas, KC, who had no connection to the case, told this masthead judges were tasked with ensuring a trial was run in accordance with well-established legal rules around fairness. It is commonplace for judges to make rulings on what a jury can and can’t hear before trials begin.
“It’s all about balancing ... how much [a piece of evidence] proves versus how much is damaging to a fair trial,” Papas said.
“There’s got to be a nexus or connection … to the offence. Merely looking up death cap mushrooms 10 years earlier doesn’t mean a person used them in their crime.”
Papas said that if evidence showed bad character or a propensity to commit an offence, generally it couldn’t be led by the prosecution, and for good reason.
“It gives the jury reasons to think this person must have done it because they were bad before,” he said.
“It can get to a threshold where it becomes admissible … so long as the evidence does have the effect of proving a person has a tendency to think or act a certain way.
“But arguments permit courts to exclude it if it’s so prejudicial it outweighs the probative value.”
The bottom line though, Papas said, remained that a jury must always be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt.
Patterson is awaiting sentence.Credit: Jason South
Patterson was found guilty of three counts of murder over the deaths of her in-laws, Gail and Don Patterson, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, and the attempted murder of Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson. The four were poisoned by death cap mushrooms concealed in a beef Wellington lunch Erin Patterson served them at her Leongatha home on July 29, 2023.
Justice Christopher Beale made 18 rulings before the trial started, including that charges that alleged Patterson had on four occasions attempted to kill estranged husband Simon couldn’t be heard at the same time as the beef Wellington case.
In details released on Friday, it was revealed police had alleged – in charges since withdrawn – that Erin Patterson poisoned a bolognese, a curry and a wrap between November 2021 and September 2022. On one occasion, Simon Patterson was in a coma for 16 days before three parts of his bowel were removed in emergency surgery.
Another point of contention before the trial was a trip Patterson made to the tip on the day of the lethal lunch, less than an hour after her guests left.
Erin Patterson at the tip on August 2, 2023.
She was seen in CCTV footage dumping cardboard and unknown items, despite her bins at home being relatively empty, at a cost of $9.50.
The defence argued that evidence was irrelevant because the items she disposed of were largely unknown.
Beale found the evidence invited speculation and therefore failed the test of relevance. Footage showing Patterson dumping a food dehydrator at the tip on August 2, 2023 was shown to the jury.
When it came to the various poison-related documents and internet searches found on Patterson’s devices, prosecutors argued they showed Patterson had an interest in the topic and a tendency to access information online about death caps.
These included an appendix from the book 2007 Criminal Poisonings titled “Common homicidal poisons”.
The legal argument centred on whether Patterson had deliberately downloaded and accessed the files, but her defence team argued there was no evidence she ever interacted with the material and there was a possibility someone else in her house might have.
Beale found most of the poison-related evidence failed the “test of relevance”, and it was not put to the jury in the trial.
Patterson is awaiting sentencing and her case will return to court this month.
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