Mushroom lunch guest’s daughter gives emotional evidence, says mother told her meal ‘went well’ prior to death

The children of lunch guests who died after being served beef wellington by Erin Patterson have given evidence at her triple murder trial.

Anna Terrington and Matthew Patterson, the children of Don and Gail Patterson, and Ruth Dubois, the daughter of Heather and Ian Wilkinson, were called as witnesses on Wednesday in Victoria’s supreme court, sitting at the Latrobe Valley law courts in Morwell.

Patterson, 50, faces three charges of murder and one charge of attempted murder relating to the lunch she served at her house in Leongatha on 29 July 2023.

She has pleaded not guilty to murdering or attempting to murder the relatives of her estranged husband, Simon Patterson.

She is accused of murdering Simon’s parents, Don and Gail Patterson, his aunt Heather Wilkinson, and attempting to murder Ian Wilkinson, Simon’s uncle and Heather’s husband.

Terrington, Don and Gail’s youngest child, told the court she had known Patterson since the accused and Simon started a relationship in about 2005.

She agreed that her parents had maintained a good relationship with Patterson despite her separating from Simon in 2015.

Terrington also agreed, under cross-examination from Sophie Stafford, for Patterson, that they had been supportive of her and there was no animosity between them.

About 5pm on the day of the lunch, about two hours after her parents returned home, Terrington spoke to her mother.

“Mum said it went well,” Terrington, who became emotional during her evidence, told the court.

“She said that they had beef wellington and that it was too much for mum, so dad finished hers.”

Terrington agreed that Patterson and Simon had loaned her and her husband about $400,000, and that she had been close with Patterson during one of their pregnancies.

These pregnancies resulted in them having children three days apart who became known in the family as “the twins”, the court heard.

Matthew Patterson, a church pastor, also agreed that his parents had a positive relationship with Patterson, which remained the “status quo” even after her separation from Simon.

He told the court about a lunch in 2021 when Patterson told him she was sad the relationship was “unable to move forward”, and she asked him for advice about how to get Simon to take part in counselling relating to the marriage.

Matthew said it appeared that the communication between Simon and Patterson had become more “mechanical” in later years, and that she had attended fewer family events, but acknowledged that may have been because Covid-19 made such events less frequent.

Dubois, who said in court that she only considered herself an acquaintance of Patterson, expressed surprise when her mother, Heather Wilkinson, told her she had been invited to lunch.

Patterson had come across Heather and Gail after a sermon at the Korumburra Baptist church, where Ian was a pastor, 13 days before the lunch.

Dubois said her mother had told her Patterson said to them after the sermon “just the two I was looking for” and invited them for lunch.

Her mother had said, after Dubois expressed surprise at the invitation, “Yes, we were surprised also, that had never happened before.”

The court also heard from medical witnesses about the treatment provided to the lunch guests, and a search of the Victorian cancer registry, which confirmed that Patterson had never been diagnosed with cancer.

The court has previously heard Patterson told her lunch guests that she had cancer but her lawyers told the court it was acknowledged she had never been diagnosed.

The trial continues.