The whole truth and nothing but the truth. Or was it?
By Erin Pearson
When police took to the witness stand before a Gippsland jury in Erin Patterson’s mushroom murder trial, they took an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
So too did the accused killer’s grieving estranged husband, Simon Patterson, who lost both parents and his aunt to a murderous plan.
Erin and Simon Patterson.
But, in the case of Patterson, not all the evidence collected by investigations could be disclosed during their time on the witness stand.
Partially silenced by judge’s orders, the suspicions of Patterson’s guilt were diluted for many following the jury trial.
Why? The rule of law.
On Friday, those judge’s orders were lifted and a pandora’s box of information was able to be publicly revealed for the first time, more than one year after it was first traversed in an unassuming Supreme Court room.
That information had been put before a judge with some media watching on during a pretrial hearing, but without a jury.
The difference in Simon Patterson’s demeanour as he climbed into the witness box during that pretrial, compared to his later appearance before the jury during the murder trial, was stark. Free to speak about his fears his ex had attempted to kill him multiple times before the deadly lunch, Simon Patterson spoke about the meals Patterson had served him and the excruciating illnesses he’d suffered hours later.
He spoke freely of a 2022 incident where he was hospitalised and later placed into intensive care before three sections of his bowel were operated on and removed.
At pretrial Simon Patterson was frustrated, angry and, at times, emotional. His answers came quick and fast as he gripped the wooden balustrade surrounding him.
When the jury gathered in Morwell, Simon Patterson spoke in front of them with a forced delicacy. Stopping and thinking before answering questions, he appeared to think deeply about what he could legally divulge, and what had to remain a secret, for now.
Only weeks earlier multiple counts of attempted murder laid against Erin Patterson were axed after the Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge’s decision to sever the allegations into two separate trials. Police had alleged she repeatedly tried to kill her ex-husband using undisclosed poisoned meals in 2022 and 2021; however, those allegations could not be discussed during the high-profile murder trail, and its jury had to remain in the dark.
The jury didn’t know Simon Patterson had long suspected his wife was trying to kill him, or that he’d changed his power of attorney and medical directives in secret so that his father and brother were in charge.
When his family fell sick about 12 hours after the fateful lunch, such were his fears of what may have occurred that he arrived at Ian and Heather Wilkinson’s front door early the next morning, demanding they let him drive them to hospital. While they suspected food poisoning, Simon Patterson feared much worse.
During the car ride to Leongatha hospital Heather Wilkinson made a point of raising her observation that Erin Patterson had served her beef Wellington on different coloured plates to the lunch guests.
Erin Patterson and her guests who died after the 2023 lunch, Heather Wilkinson and Gail and Don Patterson.Credit: Matthew Absalom-Wong
Simon Patterson had earlier told his personal poisoning fears to his father Don and, when his parents Don and Gail Patterson went to hospital in an ambulance, Don arrived with a sample of his vomit in a plastic jug.
Following the lifting of a suppression order, this masthead and others can now reveal what the jury never heard, including the full extent of Simon Patterson’s fears and how, as his parents fought for their lives, he gathered other family members in the Austin Hospital chapel to share his suspicions about Erin Patterson.
Now his truth can also be publicly revealed.
Detective Senior Constable Stephen Eppingstall and prosecutor Nanette Rogers, SC, outside court in July.Credit: Jason South
During the pretrial hearings Simon Patterson told how his ex had cooked him penne bolognese, a chicken curry, a wrap and beef stew during 2021 and 2022, which all saw him hospitalised with gastro-like symptoms, and no conclusive evidence about what had caused his illnesses.
One meal, he told the jury-less court, placed him in a coma for 16 days before three parts of his bowel were removed during emergency surgery.
During the much-publicised murder trial, Detective Leading Senior Constable Stephen Eppingstall and his colleagues also swore to tell the whole truth while in the witness box, though they were legally bound not to speak about documents and online searches on poisons they found on the killer’s electronic devices.
Officers were also unable to reveal everything they found, including a trip Erin Patterson made to her local tip soon after the lunch, in addition to the one the jury did hear about which occurred days later when she returned to dump a dehydrator.
With fewer restriction, the pretrial hearing was told the killer had accessed a 2007 book titled Criminal Poisonings, and an article about 50 cases of red kidney bean poisoning in the UK from 1976 to 1989. It was also told of a string of Google searches for words including “poison” and “hemlock”, a highly poisonous flowering plant, and a paper about extracting toxic material from seeds.
Patterson’s devices had also accessed the iNaturalist website and a post made in September 2022 that pinpointed the location of a suspected sighting of hemlock at Loch in Gippsland, though orders prevented the later jury trial hearing these details.
The truth the jury heard from these witnesses was a condensed version of what Simon Patterson and police had to say, posing the question: did trial witnesses really tell the whole truth? Or did the justice system silence them. Until now.
The matter will return to court in late August.
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