August 20, 2026 — 12:32pm
Death cap mushroom killer Erin Patterson’s interest in picking and eating wild mushrooms was at the centre of her appeal on Thursday, after her legal team argued she was effectively forced to enter the witness box during her trial to explain why she had lied to police.
On the second day of Patterson’s appeal hearing, on Thursday, three judges were taken back to the killer’s 2023 police interview, in which she denied ever foraging for wild mushrooms, and her estranged husband’s evidence that he’d never known the 51-year-old to forage for wild fungi.
An accused person is not required to provide evidence in their own criminal trial, but Patterson spent eight days in the witness box during her 2025 trial. The jury ultimately found Patterson guilty of murdering three people and attempting to murder a fourth by serving them a lunch of beef Wellington laced with poisoned mushrooms at her Leongatha home in July 2023.
Crown prosecutor Jeremy McWilliams on Thursday rejected the suggestion Patterson was forced to give evidence, and argued there was no evidence before the trial of any “innocent interest in foraging for wild mushrooms”. He said it was Patterson’s own defence team that first raised that explanation in its opening address to the jury.
