Erin Patterson mushroom murder trial LIVE updates: Text messages reveal what Erin Patterson told health official about her deadly lunch – and the claim she says ‘conflicted’ with what the mushroom chef told her earlier

The Victorian Department of Health’s Sally Ann Atkinson (pictured below) told the jury she believed the death cap mushroom poisoning outbreak was ‘quite unusual’ before messages between her and Erin Patterson were revealed in court.

The health officer also said she wanted to get the deadly mushrooms off the shelves of stores if they ‘existed’.

Patterson has claimed she had purchased button mushrooms from a local Woolworths as well as dried muhsrooms from an unamed Asian store in Melbourne.

Ms Atkinson said she attempted to call Patterson on August 1 before texting her at 3.50pm that same day.

She asked for specific information about the lunch she served her guests including any drinks and ingredients used.

‘I need to know what drinks were served, I need to know what shallots were used,’ the health officer wrote.

Ms Atkinson told Patterson she needed ‘more precise information about the packaging’ of the mushrooms as well as ‘any roads you were parked on or (were) near those stores’.

‘Just things to think about when I need to speak to you again,’ Ms Atkinson ended her message.

Patterson responded at 4.08pm on August 2.

‘Hi Sally I will try to get that information all to you as soon as possible,’ she wrote.

‘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.

‘I’ll get this info to you as soon as I can but I’ve just been in a couple of meetings with people at the hospital when you’ve been trying to call.’

Ms Atkinson sent a return message to Patterson barely a minute later and asked about the children.

‘Yeah they’re fine thank you,’ Patterson responded at 4.11pm.

‘Very glad to hear that,’ Ms Atkinson immediately replied.

Ms Atkinson said she also attempted to call Patterson later that evening but there was no answer. She said she left a voicemail and received no return call.

Ms Atkinson said Patterson sent a text message again later on August 2.

‘She’d told me she’d bought everything on the Friday evening, (the) texts conflicted with earlier assertions,’ Ms Atkinson told the court.

Ms Atkinson sent Patterson a message back: ‘Hi Erin, I have taken a couple of photos of zip-lock type bags with just white labels on them.’

The jury heard Ms Atkinson then sent Patterson photos of mushrooms in zip-lock bags.

‘Can you tell me please if either of those sizes looks about right and whether the label size seems about right to you,’ she wrote.

The jury heard Patterson circled one of the zip-lock mushroom bag images and responded.

‘Looking at the size and volume of things in the supermarket I realise there’s no way it can have been 100g worth,’ Patterson wrote.

‘I was thinking about the weight of that amount of fresh I think, but dry (mushrooms) weigh a lot less.

‘Yes that store doesn’t look familiar but that style of packaging and labelling is exactly what I meant.

‘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 then asked Patterson to speak to her on the phone.

Patterson responded: ‘Sure.’

The pair spoke again at about 11.20am on August 3.

The jury heard the pair discussed the cooking process surrounding the lunch she served her guests.

Ms Atkinson and Patterson also communicated about the mushrooms she used in the beef Wellington.

The court heard Patterson said the mushrooms were sliced but not dark.

She said they had a similar colour to button mushrooms.

Patterson also sent two texts to Ms Atkinson describing the pastry she used for the beef Wellington.

‘Hi Sally I used a combination,’ Patterson wrote.

‘It was all Pampas puff pastry from Woolworths. I had some already in the freezer and used that up and I also bought some more from Woolies that week I believe.

‘It was either just the basic Pampas puff pastry or the Pampas butter puff pastry.’

A second text read: ‘Oh I also used filo pastry, it comes as a roll in a blue box from the freezer section of Woolies. I bought that new.’

Lead defence barrister Colin Mandy SC (pictured) is cross-examining Ms Atkinson about her role in the mushroom investigation.

Mr Mandy is testing the notes the Department of Health officer took while communicating with Patterson.

Ms Atkinson told the jury she took ‘scribble’ notes which she transcribed to an ‘active, live Word document’ about an ‘hour or two’ later.

Mr Mandy questioned Ms Atkinson about exactly when Patterson claimed she bought the lunch ingredients.

‘The eye-fillet tenderloins were on sale because they were at end of the use-by date,’ Ms Atkinson said Patterson told her.

‘The way the conversation went, everything was bought on Friday,’ Ms Atkinson said.

Ms Atkinson also produced a copy of the statement she made to homicide detectives on August 29.

‘Erin stated that the majority of the mushrooms came from Leongatha Woolworths,’ Ms Atkinson said in her police statement.

Mr Mandy highlighted there was no date given by Ms Atkinson in her notes on when Patterson bought her mushrooms.

‘My memory was, and is, that the majority of the ingredients were purchased on the Friday,’ Ms Atkinson said.

‘She may have bought the mushrooms on a different day.’

The health department’s Sally Ann Atkinson told the court she had no further contact with Patterson after August 4.

Patterson, who is today wearing a green top with a brown cardigan, listened as Ms Atkinson said the health department investigation, which kicked off on July 31, 2023, concluded on August 1.

The jury heard a formal report was prepared.

‘From an outbreak like this (it is normal to prepare a report),’ Ms Atkinson said.

Ms Atkinson read from the report.

She said the investigation deemed the outbreak was an ‘isolated incident’.

‘It’s highly unlikely the commercial mushroom supply chain was contaminated with amanita (poisons),’ Ms Atkinson said was written in the report.

Ms Atkinson also said there were no ‘issues’ found with the other foods served in the lunch and the risk to the public was deemed ‘low’.

The officer also noted ‘no food recalls were deemed warranted’.

Erin Patterson, 50, is accused of murdering her in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, after allegedly serving them a beef Wellington lunch which included death cap mushrooms.

Patterson is also accused of attempting to murder Heather’s husband, pastor Ian Wilkinson, who survived the lunch after spending several weeks in an intensive care unit.

The court heard Patterson’s estranged husband, Simon, was also invited to the gathering at her home in Leongatha, in Victoria’s Gippsland region, but didn’t attend.

Witnesses told the jury Patterson ate her serving of the lunch from a smaller and differently coloured plate than those of her guests, who ate from four grey plates.

Patterson told authorities she bought dried mushrooms from an unnamed Asian store in the Monash area of Melbourne, but health inspectors could find no evidence of this.

Victoria’s health department declared the death cap mushroom poisoning was ‘isolated’ to Patterson’s deadly lunch.

Multiple witnesses, including Simon Patterson, Ian Wilkinson and other family members, have given emotion-charged evidence to the jury.

Medical staff have told the jury of the painful symptoms the dying lunch guests and Mr Wilkinson suffered.

An expert witness told the court death cap mushrooms were detected in debris taken from a dehydrator Patterson had dumped at a local tip.

Telecommunications expert Dr Matthew Sorell also told the jury that Patterson’s phone was detected near areas in Outtrim and Loch where death cap mushrooms had been spotted.

Victoria Police Cybercrime Squad senior digital forensics officer Shamen Fox-Henry said he found evidence of a death cap mushroom on data from a computer seized from Patterson’s Leongatha home on August 5, 2023.

On Friday, Austin Hospital intensive care director Professor Stephen Warrillow told the jury he was at the Melbourne health facility in July 2023 when the poisoned lunch guests were transferred to his care.

Professor Warrillow said all patients received intense treatment and Don received a liver transplant.

On Monday, a protester ambushed the trial demanding to know how Justice Christopher Beale ‘could be a judge’.

The man (pictured below) wearing a yellow T-shirt with the slogan, ‘All we are saying is give truth a chance’ went on a rant just after the jury re-entered the courtroom.

‘Mr Beale how could you be a judge when you rig court cases,’ the man yelled.

Detective Leading Senior Constable Stephen Eppingstall, the police informant in the Patterson trial, approached the man and walked him out of the courtroom.

The trial resumed without further interruption.

After lunch Wilkinson sat in court and listened as details of his wife died from death cap poisoning were aired in court.

The jury also heard the text exchanges between health department officer Sally Anne Atkinson and Patterson in the days after the deadly lunch as authorities rushed to solve the cause of the outbreak.