Erin Patterson mushroom murder trial LIVE updates: Key evidence linking Erin Patterson to dehydrator dumped at tip is revealed to murder trial jury

The Dasma Group operations manager Darren Canty (pictured below) told the jury he was running the Koonwarra Transfer Station And Landfill tip in August 2023 when he received a call from police.

Mr Canty said he reviewed CCTV footage taken at the tip on August 2, 2023, which was played to the jury.

The vision depicted Patterson drive in to the tip in her red car and pull up near two large green sheds.

Patterson, who appears similar to how she looked after leaving hospital, is seen opening her car boot, removing an item and entering the shed.

She is then depicted walking back to her car.

Stills of the CCTV were also shown to Mr Canty and the jury.

Mr Canty pointed out which bins were for specific trash, including electricals and another one for mattresses.

He asked an employee on August 4 to check in the bin where he believed the item he saw on the CCTV was disposed, the jury heard.

The manager said he told the employee the description of the item he believed he saw being carried into the shed.

Mr Canty said the employee took a photo of the item and the employee said it looked ‘kind of like a microwave/dehydrator’.

The employee didn’t remove the item, but an image of the dehydrator was shown to Mr Canty and the jury, and he agreed that was the item he saw being carried into the shed.

The image depicted the dehydrator had white trays inside and was positioned next to an old desktop PC and monitor.

Mr Canty said they were able to gather information on when the vehicle was driven to the tip via an EFTPOS transaction.

Police later collected the dehydrator from the tip.

Detective Leading Senior Constable Paul Burns confirmed he collected the dehydrator at about 4.19pm on August 4.

Intensive care specialist Professor Andrew Bersten told the jury he reviewed all of Patterson’s medical files from several facilities and found no evidence she had cancer.

‘I could not find evidence to affirm that statement (that Patterson had cancer),’ he said.

Professor Bersten confirmed a cancer screening test was normal and no further testing was required for a further five years.

The highly credentialled medical expert also analysed Patterson’s medical tests and results when she presented at hospital after the deadly lunch.

Professor Bersten said of a specific test result that Patterson’s kidney function might be impaired but ‘I don’t think you can make much of that result’.

He said another test result was ‘not consistent with dehydration’.

The jury heard Patterson stayed at Monash Medical Centre for more than 21 hours, but her vital signs were in the normal to ‘very-good’ range.

Professor Bersten said Patterson’s temperature of 37.3C may be ‘mildly elevated’ but ‘we would look at that result and think not much’.

The professor said no pathogens consistent with gastro were detected after a specialised test.

Professor Bersten said Patterson’s liver function was in the ‘reference range’ – or a normal result.

Patterson’s protein in her blood result was also in the normal range, the jury was told.

Professor Bersten said Patterson’s electrolytes were all in the ‘reference range’.

‘I thought there was some evidence she had a diarrheal illness. She was somewhat dehydrated, a mild level of dehydration,’ he said.

‘If you get significant dehydration, you may see symptoms of shock.’

Professor Bersten agreed Patterson showed no other signs of a sudden illness and she had no bio-chemical evidence of liver damage.

Royal Botanical Garden research scientist Dr Camille Truong (pictured below) told the jury she was on-call when Monash Medical Centre’s Dr Laura Muldoon asked for help to identify mushrooms after Patterson’s four lunch guests were ailing in hospital.

Dr Truong, a mushroom expert and colleague of Dr Tom May, said she was emailed photos of the leftovers on July 31.

She also told the jury Dr Muldoon said the patients were suffering from suspected mushroom poisoning.

Dr Truong said she asked where the mushrooms came from and was a ‘supermarket and a Chinese shop’.

The fungi expert said, based on her information at that stage, it was unlikely the patients had ingested death cap mushrooms because they had to be picked in the wild and could not be cultivated.

In the meantime, the jury heard the leftovers had been sent to the Royal Botanical Gardens for testing, but due to a communication error Dr Truong had already left work for the day when they arrived.

A receptionist rang Dr Truong to tell her the package had arrived so she asked a colleague who was still at work even after the centre had closed for the day if she could bring the package to her house.

Dr Truong said she carefully examined the food items, which were delivered in two large blue zip-lock bags, using a home microscope.

The doctor said she found no trace of death cap mushrooms in the test.

Dr Truong refrigerated the food items then brought them back to work where she examined them again and still found no evidence of death caps.

She told the jury she only detected common mushrooms found in supermarkets.

Dr Truong said a department of health employee collected the food items later that day.

Under cross-examination, Dr Truong agreed the samples were difficult to identify because they were chopped up and cooked and conceded she couldn’t exclude death caps.

The doctor said supermarket mushrooms are unlikely to make people ill because they are highly regulated and cultivated.

She also said ‘even a small shop wouldn’t likely sell death caps’ because the deadly fungi couldn’t be found in ‘significant quantities’.

Lead defence barrister Colin Mandy KC suggested samples of mushroom pieces found in the tested food items were possibly ghost mushrooms or oyster mushrooms.

Dr Truong disagreed, but then later admitted she discussed with Dandenong Hospital staff the possibility of what mushrooms could’ve been in the food items, including ghost and oyster mushrooms.

The jury has been told of another woman who died from death cap mushroom poisoning in May last year.

The woman had picked some mushrooms from her garden in the front yard of her home in April.

She prepared and used the mushrooms in a dish that was then consumed by her and her son.

The woman had previously informed her son about the mushrooms and asked if they were safe and could be used in a meal.

The son recalled the mushrooms were white in colour.

She and her son ate the meal, but were not sick.

In May, the woman again picked mushrooms and cooked them in a meal for herself and her son.

At about 2am the woman went to the toilet.

Her son checked on her at about ‘3 or 4am’ and she said she’d been vomiting.

The son felt sick at about 6am and they called an ambulance and were taken to hospital where the court heard the woman later died of death cap poisoning.

The Coroner made several findings and Dr May was contacted by the Department of Health to ask how they ought to respond to those recommendations.

They included a finding that there needed to be more public health messaging about the dangers of consuming wild mushrooms.

Dr May agreed ‘additional public awareness’ was required.

The doctor also advised an annual warning to the public was recommended.

Dr May told the jury he’s identified more than 30,000 images on iNaturalist but only when he has ‘enough data’.

The defence showed a series of images of different mushrooms posted on iNaturalist which the doctor agreed most were known to grow in Gippsland towns including Moe and Traralgon.

The mushrooms included the rosegill mushroom, which he said he doesn’t know if it’s edible. He said he didn’t believe it was toxic, but wasn’t certain.

Dr May said the rosegill mushroom looked similar to the death cap.

The defence also showed him an image of a mushroom from the honey mushroom family, which he said wasn’t toxic but had a bitter taste and generally wasn’t used in cooking in Australia.

Dr May also identified an image of a shaggy parasol mushroom, which he said was toxic for humans and caused gastro-related symptoms.

The defence suggested the mushrooms shown to Dr May exhibited similar characteristics to the death cap and the expert agreed.

Dr May was also shown an image of a mushroom in the same group as the death cap.

He said this mushroom ‘being in the genus Amanita’ is a ‘red flag’ for being potentially toxic but he doesn’t know if it’s edible or toxic.

The defence also presented the doctor with an image of the spring fieldcap mushroom.

Dr May said the spring fieldcap grew in Gippsland and kids were known to eat them as they can grow in private home gardens.

Dr Tom May admitted to the jury the ‘general public has a poor ability to identify wild mushrooms’.

Patterson, wearing all black and glasses, stared ahead and listened intently to her legal team undertake cross-examination of the fungi expert.

Dr May also agreed with a defence suggestion that ‘it takes a long time to accurately learn how to identify mushrooms in the bush’.

The world-renowned mushroom expert agreed death caps varied in appearance and had characteristics including smooth caps which can be greenish, yellowish, white or brown in colour.

He said death caps may or may not have spots, a white or light-coloured stem, white gills, and a cup at the base which is not always visible.

Dr May said the ring stem is not always visible.

‘I would be looking for all of those features to be present (to identify a death cap),’ he said.

Dr May said to be certain the mushroom was a death cap, he would need a specimen or a sample to do spore print and DNA testing.

He also agreed with a defence suggestion that ‘on sight alone, it’s not possible to identify a death cap mushroom’.

Dr May said if he was out walking with naturalists, he said he could informally spot a mushroom and say ‘that’s a death cap’.

The expert said he needs more thorough findings and evidence when formally identifying a death cap to The Victorian Poisons Information Centre.

Dr May said he can also rule out a mushroom being a death cap by only seeing a partial number of characteristics.

‘Sometimes if I can see only some of the features, I can rule out it being a death cap,’ he said.

Dr May said he has identified about 30,000 mushrooms including the death cap pictured below that he has posted to iNaturalist.

Accused mushroom murderer Erin Patterson, 50, last week witnessed both her children’s recorded video evidence.

Patterson, who is accused of murdering her in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, after serving them a deadly meal laden with death cap mushrooms, became emotional after seeing video evidence from her son and daughter.

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 but didn’t attend.

Witnesses told the jury Patterson ate her serving 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.

The health department declared the death cap 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 horrifying symptoms the dying lunch guests and Ian Wilkinson suffered.

Patterson’s movements at hospital and her abrupt departure have also been aired in court as the trial continues this morning.

Mycologist Tom May (pictured below), who is an internationally recognised fungi expert, yesterday told the jury death cap mushrooms can only be found beneath or close to oak trees or trees within the oak family.

Dr May, a mushroom expert who was the principal fungi research scientist at the Royal Botanical Gardens, said death caps had a ‘symbiotic’ relationship with oak trees.

The mushroom expert, who will continue answering questions under cross-examination this morning, described death caps as mostly orangey in colour, but could be whiteish or brownish.

He said they change their appearance as they matured.

Dr May told the jury death cap mushrooms – known scientifically as amanita phalloides – were believed to have been accidentally introduced into Australia from Europe and were first detected in Victoria in the 1970s.

He said the mushrooms were ‘relatively short lived’ in the wild due to wet conditions and insects.

Dr May said death caps wouldn’t last much longer in a refrigerator due to the fungi being infested with insects that ‘keep working away’ at the mushrooms.

Dr May said there were many publicly available online databases that contained information regarding death cap mushrooms.

He said iNaturalist is Australia’s largest publicly accessible citizen scientist app for uploading information about fungi.

Dr May told the jury you need an account to post information about wild mushroom, but don’t need an account to view ‘precise location information’.

‘You can readily find the location of certain species,’ he said.

The jury heard a death cap was detected in Loch on April 18, 2023.

The doctor said death cap mushrooms have been found in the ACT, NSW and parts of Victoria, including Gippsland towns Outtrim, Loch and Morwell.

In Victoria, death caps grow throughout metro Melbourne to the east into the Dandenong Ranges and in the west to Gisborne and Bendigo, the jury was told.

Dr May said cases involving death cap mushrooms occured when people ingested the deadly fungi by mistake.

Dr May, who published a book in 2021, told the jury toxins found in death caps can be in found other mushrooms.

In 2023, one poisoning involved a Chinese tourist who ate a mushroom, became sick, went to hospital, showed early signs of organ failure, but left hospital a week later.

In 24 other cases of reported wild mushroom poisonings, patients experienced gastro symptoms, but none involved organ damage.