Erin Patterson mushroom murder trial LIVE updates: Teenage son’s heartbreaking seven-word claim is played to jury – as his mum gulps and sobs while he speaks

Follow Daily Mail Australia’s live coverage of accused mushroom chef Erin Patterson‘s murder trial at Latrobe Valley Magistrates’ Court in Morwell, Victoria.

Teenage son’s heartbreaking seven-word claim about his father is played to jury – as Patterson gulps and sobs while he speaks

Erin Patterson’s then 14-year-old son said his dad had done ‘a lot of things to hurt mum’ in recorded video evidence played to the jury.

Patterson cried again while the video which showed her son dressed in a green hoodie and tan pants.

Patterson closed her eyes and gulped when her son, now 16, explained who attended the lunch.

The son confirmed he was aware his dad Simon (pictured below) did not accept the invite but he did not know why his father didn’t attend.

He explained that he and his sitter stayed with their dad on weekends and with their mum through the week.

The son said that for a while, his mum would go around to her estranged husband’s house for a family dinner but that stopped.

The jury heard the son explain how the relation had been developing in the months before the lunch.

‘It’s just all very negative, dad does a lot of things to hurt mum, like mess around with school,’ he said.

‘Mum didn’t put his name of the billing for the school (dad wanted to be involved in what activities the kids did at school and receive reports etc).

‘Dad wouldn’t talk to mum about that, he would just call the school.’

The son also told police that during the 12 months he and his sister stayed with their mum full-time, his father was trying to get them to stay with him.

He added: ‘He kept trying to get me and sister to come back [and live with him] and I didn’t want to, he never did anything with us over the weekends.’

Patterson’s son’s final words to his grandfather are revealed in court

Erin Patterson’s son told police he and his friend were dropped at the Leongatha home where his mum served a deadly mushroom meal to her four lunch guests.

The son said he spoke with his grandparents Don and Gail Patterson and the other guests Ian and Heather Wilkinson who ‘seemed very happy sitting and picking at the fruit platter’.

‘We all went inside and said hello,’ he said.

The jury heard the boy spoke with his now-deceased grandfather Don about flying.

The son said he and his grandfather shared a love of flying and the boy showed Don his aviation textbook.

‘Papa Don asked me about my flying lessons,’ he said.

Patterson wiped her nose with a scrunched-up tissue and tilted her head slightly while gazing at the screen in which the video of her son’s interview played.

The boy repeated his sitter’s story of them and the son’s friend being dropped at Leongatha McDonald’s before seeing the movie Elemental.

He said his mum told them they weren’t invited to lunch and he believed she was ‘worried about something’.

‘She just wanted it to be the five,’ he said.

He said his dad picked them all up and took them back to Leongatha where the deadly meal had been consumed.

He said the guests were eating a fruit platter and his friend had eaten a grape.

The boy said he couldn’t remember anything about his mum’s demeanour at the gathering.

Patterson’s son said his mum was in the kitchen after the lunch but he wasn’t sure what she was doing.

He told police he placed some plates in the dishwasher.

‘They were lunch plates,’ he said.

The jury heard the boy couldn’t recall if there were any leftovers.

He said he and his mate played video games for what he believed to be about two to two-and-a-half hours before Erin drove the friend home.

Patterson fights back tears as her young daughter’s video evidence is played to the jury

Patterson, wearing a long brown cardigan and green top, watched a screen in the dock intently as her then 9-year-old daughter told the jury how her mum was a ‘good cook’.

The daughter, now 11, told police in the recorded interview that she only knew she ate the leftovers from the lunch because her mum had told her.

Patterson chuckled when her daughter said ice-cream was her favourite food.

The jury heard the daughter, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said her mum is a ‘good cook’ who has ‘made lots of stuff before’ and enjoys cooking.

She said she and her mum had cooked muffins and cupcakes together but never any savoury dinner-type foods.

When police asked her how she knew she ate leftovers from the deadly meal, the daughter said: ‘Because mum told me’.

The daughter she and her brother had been kept in hospital overnight.

She said she had tests but saw her mum at the hospital, and she had been happy to see her, giving her a hug.

Patterson choked back tears when her daughter recalled how they once stayed in their Glen Waverley home in Melbourne’s outer-east when she had been performing on stage in a school holiday play drama.

The daughter also told police she doesn’t like mushrooms, has never been picking wild mushrooms, never seen mushrooms while out with her mum and her brother, but that she had once seen a wild mushroom at school.

She said she bought mushrooms with mum at IGA Korumburra but can’t remember the last time she bought mushrooms with her mum.

The daughter also said she has never been to an Asian grocers with her mum.

Patterson to be shown new video interviews with her children on final day of week two of murder trial

Accused mushroom murderer Erin Patterson, 50, will today witness both her children’s recorded video evidence.

Late yesterday, 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 daughter.

Patterson is also accused of attempting to murder Heather’s husband pastor Ian Wilkinson (pictured below right with supporters) 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, the court heard.

The jury was also told Patterson had been in two Gippsland areas where lethal death cap mushrooms had been spotted and identified in an alert on the iNatural app.

Patterson told authorities she bought dried mushrooms from an unnamed Asian store in the Monash area of metropolitan 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.



Source link

Share.
Exit mobile version