June 26, 2025
The Dehydrator, the Dummy Phone, and the Judge’s Warning: Inside Week 9 of the Erin Patterson Trial
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📝 Show Notes — The Mushroom Murder Trial Podcast Episode: Week Nine – Jury Locked In, Phones Missing, and the Dehydrator Dumped Host: Lisa This week we reach a critical juncture in the Erin Patterson trial, now into its ninth week inside the Supreme Court in Morwell, Victoria. 🔍 In this episode: Justice Christopher Beale continues his final instructions to the jury.The jury is now sequestered, an unusual move in Australia — signalling just how high-profile this case is.A key prosecution...
📝 Show Notes — The Mushroom Murder Trial Podcast
Episode: Week Nine – Jury Locked In, Phones Missing, and the Dehydrator Dumped
Host: Lisa
This week we reach a critical juncture in the Erin Patterson trial, now into its ninth week inside the Supreme Court in Morwell, Victoria.
🔍 In this episode:
- Justice Christopher Beale continues his final instructions to the jury.
- The jury is now sequestered, an unusual move in Australia — signalling just how high-profile this case is.
- A key prosecution claim about leftovers fed to Erin’s children is thrown out by the judge, who warns the jury not to speculate without expert evidence.
- The court revisits the now-infamous dehydrator — allegedly used in a blind mushroom taste test, later dumped by Erin before a child protection visit. Was it panic? Or part of a cover-up?
- Erin’s digital trail is under scrutiny, with allegations she used multiple phones, factory reset one four times, and never handed over her “main” device. But the defence says there’s no proof she expected a search.
- The judge warns the jury about the complexity of the prosecution’s case, urging them not to overlook the simple explanations.
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Until next time — stay tuned.
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Erin Patterson Mushrooms
Here it is in summary.
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This is the Mushroom Murder Trial Podcast and my name is Lisa.
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Welcome to the podcast.
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We're now in week nine of one of the most closely watched criminal trials in recent memory the case of Erin Trudy Patterson.
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Yesterday, inside the Supreme Court sitting in Morwell, a regional town in Victoria's Latrobe Valley, justice Christopher Beale continued delivering his instructions to the jury.
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But firstly I need to just do a quick apology for not delivering on an episode yesterday.
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I was stuck in a four-hour meeting and by the time it was over the court was no longer sitting.
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But I have the transcript so I'll make sure I read that in part to you at some point this week.
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Now for the background.
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Erin Patterson she's age 50 and she's standing trial for the alleged murders of her former parents-in-law, don and Gail Patterson, both age 70, and Gail's sister, 66-year-old Heather Wilkinson.
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She's also accused of attempting to murder Heather's husband, ian Wilkinson, a 68-year-old Baptist pastor.
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On Thursday, justice Beale told the jurors his directions would continue through today and conclude on Monday.
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So, as you know, while you've been engaged with your deliberations, at the end of each day you will be sequestered.
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He said deliberations At the end of each day, you will be sequestered.
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He said Now in Australia, sequestering a jury means keeping them together in a hotel or a similar venue with restricted contact with the outside world.
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It's not that common and mostly happens in high-profile trials just like this one.
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As Justice Bill worked his way through a list of alleged incriminating conduct, he instructed jurors to disregard one key argument raised by the prosecution During the trial.
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The court heard that Ms Patterson had told police she had fed leftover meat from the Beef Wellington to her children the day after the lunch after scraping off the mushrooms and the pastry.
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At that point she already knew some of her guests were unwell.
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The prosecution asked the jury to consider quote why would she feed the kids leftovers if she thought this was the case?
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The children did not become ill and the prosecution suggested they would have if they had eaten contaminated food.
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But Justice Beale told the jury to set that aside.
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You have no expert evidence as to if that would be the case, he said.
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You would be speculating if you were going to go down that path as well.
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Justice Beale then turned to another alleged piece of conduct the disposal of the dehydrator.
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The court heard that Ms Patterson's ex-husband, simon Patterson, told police that while at Monash Hospital on the 1st of August 2023, erin claimed to have done a blind taste test with their daughter using dehydrated mushrooms.
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Now I need to just mention it wasn't done at Monash Hospital.
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Obviously the test had been done previously, before the lunch.
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Simon said this was the first time he'd even heard she'd owned a dehydrator.
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Ms Patterson claimed Simon accused her of using the dehydrator to poison his parents.
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Simon denied this.
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Under cross-examination the court also heard from the chief toxicologist at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine who said death cap mushroom toxins were detected in samples from that dehydrator.
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Erin said she dumped the appliance on the 2nd of August 2023 because child protection was coming that day and she feared she'd be blamed that her children might be taken from her.
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But Prosecutor Nanette Rogers, sc argued that disposal was part of a sustained cover-up and that throwing away the dehydrator just months after buying it was incriminating conduct.
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The dehydrator just months after buying it was incriminating conduct.
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Defence barrister Colin Mandy, sc, counted that Erin had openly posted about dehydrating mushrooms in a true crime Facebook group long before the lunch.
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He said Ms Patterson disposed of the appliance after the incident not to cover her tracks but because she feared people would think she poisoned her guests on purpose.
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The court also heard that when police searched her Lee and Gather home on the 5th of August 2023, they didn't find one of her mobiles referred to as phone A.
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Ms Patterson also mentioned a Nokia, which was never seized.
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Mr Mandy argued police didn't collect all visible tech devices during the search.
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He pointed to a photo taken during the raid showing a black case he suggested could have contained phone A.
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Detective leading senior constable Stephen Eppingstall, the officer in charge of the investigation, said that was a matter for the jury.
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The prosecution alleged Ms Patterson's phone was the one ending in 783 and that she used at least four different phones during the relevant period.
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They said she handed over phone B, a so-called dummy phone, to police.
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It had been factory reset four times during 2023.
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They argued this was a deliberate attempt to conceal evidence that phone A was the one Miss Patterson used to take photos of the death cat mushrooms.
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But the defence responded that Miss Patterson had no reason to expect a police search and if she had something to hide it would have been far easier to wipe the phone and dispose of it entirely.
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Justice Beale acknowledged the complexity of the prosecution, saying it relied on convoluted arguments, and reminded the jury that sometimes the best explanation is the simplest explanation.
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You've been listening to the Mushroom Murder Trial podcast.
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Thank you so much for your time today.
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We really appreciate it.
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Now, as we are heading into the final days of this trial, we'll continue to bring you coverage straight from the court, but after Monday we'll all have to sit and wait for a verdict, like the rest of Australia.
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Thanks for listening today.
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For more information, go to my website, mushroommurdertrialcom.
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Make sure you sign up for my newsletter and please message me via the website's Contact Us tab, because I have your mushroom stickers to commemorate the journey we've taken here together and I'm sending out the first batch very, very soon.
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So make sure you send them to me.
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I'd love to do it Now.
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My social media contacts they're all in the show notes.
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And if you feel like rewarding me for all of this and thank you, so many of you have that's lovely Thank you you can buy me a coffee which allows you to pay $5 as a thank you, and I get a coffee and I can pay some of my bills.
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Isn't that fabulous?
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And there's also exclusive membership material for you on the site and you are going to be getting my ebook first for free.
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How exciting.
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I'm like Santa Claus, aren't?
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I Now make sure you subscribe or follow for more updates and if you're finding this podcast useful, please leave a review.
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It helps us reach more listeners who care about this story.
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So until next time, have a fabulous day, and I shall speak to you very, very soon.
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Thank you, bye.
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