Erin Patterson's mushroom murder trial jury soon to put the puzzle pieces together
For seven weeks, jigsaw pieces have been shaken out before the jury in Erin Patterson's triple-murder trial.
Dozens of witnesses were called and exhibits ranged from photos allegedly showing death cap mushrooms being dehydrated in the lead-up to the murders, to reams of data extracted from seized electronic devices.
The trial of Erin Patterson, who stands accused of using a poisoned meal to murder three relatives, continues.
Look back at how Thursday's hearing unfolded in our live blog.
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In the trial's eighth week, the prosecution and defence used those pieces to assemble and present two contrasting pictures to the jury.
The prosecution told the jury the pieces clicked into place to reveal Ms Patterson as a murderer, who had deliberately killed three relatives and attempted to murder a fourth.
The lunch she had hosted at her regional Victorian home in 2023 was built on a series of deceptions, the prosecution alleged.
The lethal one, lead prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC said, was Ms Patterson's lacing of the beef Wellington meals she served to her relatives.
"The sinister deception was to use a nourishing meal as the vehicle to deliver a deadly poison," Dr Rogers told the Supreme Court jury.
She invited the jury to consider the pieces of evidence around the "deviations" Ms Patterson made to the original beef Wellington recipe.
While the method in the mother of two's cookbook called for a log of meat, individual eye fillets were used.
Ms Patterson told the court that was because individual eye fillets were the only ones she could find.
The prosecutor suggested that was a lie and the truth was far more calculated.
"That choice to make individual portions allowed her complete control over the ingredients in each individual parcel," Dr Rogers said.
"It is a control … that she exercised with devastating effect.
"It allowed her to give the appearance of sharing in the same meal, whilst ensuring that she did not consume a beef Wellington parcel that she had laced with death cap mushrooms."
Ms Patterson's decision to dump her food dehydrator (later found to contain death cap mushroom residue) at the tip and then lie to police about it was behaviour the prosecution said could be slotted together to form incriminating conduct.
"If there was nothing incriminating about the dehydrator, why hide it?" Dr Rogers rhetorically asked the jury.
"There is only one reasonable explanation: she knew it would incriminate her.
"She knew that she had dehydrated death cap mushrooms in that appliance and that she had done deliberately done so, and she knew that keeping it was going to be far too risky."
The prosecutor told the jury the evidence laid before them did not point to any "particular motive" for the crime, but this was not a requirement of the murder charges.
"The question is not why she did this," she said.
"The question you have to determine is: has the prosecution proved beyond reasonable doubt that the accused did this deliberately?"
While not alleging a particular motive, the prosecution placed more pieces of trial evidence before the jury to fill out its puzzle.
Facebook messages with friends showed Ms Patterson's animosity towards her Patterson in-laws and mockery of their deeply held religious beliefs, Dr Rogers said.
"She presented one side while expressing contrary beliefs to others."
In concluding her address, the prosecutor told the jury the legal bar for proving murder beyond reasonable doubt had been "well and truly met".
When all of the evidence was combined, Dr Rogers suggested the jury would be satisfied the accused had deliberately sought out death caps and served them to her relatives with malicious intent.
"One piece on its own or by itself might tell you not very much at all about what the picture is," she said.
"But as you start putting more and more pieces together and looking at it as a whole, the picture starts to become clear."
She said while jurors may feel the alleged murders were "too horrible, too cold and beyond your comprehension", they needed to remain focused on the evidence.
"Don't let your emotional reaction dictate your verdict, one way or the other," Dr Rogers said.
When Ms Patterson's defence barrister Colin Mandy SC rose to his feet, he told the jury the absence of an alleged motive meant the prosecution's jigsaw was incomplete.
"Without a motive, you're left guessing about the most important element of the offence in this trial and that's intention," Mr Mandy said.
He walked through some of the tense communications between the accused and her estranged husband Simon Patterson several months before the lunch.
But he said the picture they painted was a fairly ordinary one of two separated people managing the joint care of their young children.
"There is nothing unusual about it. In fact, quite the opposite," Mr Mandy said.
"It would be in some cases unusual if there wasn't that kind of spat or disagreement or frustration.
He accused the prosecution of putting before the jury a series of "ridiculous, convoluted propositions" that were not supported by the evidence.
He said Ms Patterson's simpler explanation of a dreadful "accident" was a truthful one that had emerged "unscathed" after days of cross-examination.
"Her account remained coherent and consistent, day after day after day, even when challenged, rapid fire, from multiple angles, repeatedly," he said.
Under that explanation, a Tupperware container in Ms Patterson's Leongatha pantry contained a mix of dried mushrooms from an Asian grocer and ones she had foraged from the Gippsland region.
In that mix, Mr Mandy suggested, were the death cap mushrooms later added to the lunch.
"The prosecution says she had them deliberately, the defence says she had them accidentally," he said.
He told them Ms Patterson's actions after the lunch were the panic of an innocent woman in the aftermath of a ghastly accident.
"Erin got into the witness box and told you, she did those things because she panicked when confronted with the terrible possibility, terrible realisation, that her actions had caused the illnesses of people that she loved," he said.
In closing, Mr Mandy told jurors the prosecution had tried to "force the evidence to fit their theory in a way that does not apply to jigsaw puzzle pieces".
"Stretching interpretations, ignoring alternative explanations because they don't align perfectly with the narrative," he said.
"Missing puzzle pieces in a jigsaw puzzle can make the picture incomplete, but missing evidence is much more significant."
He reminded the jury that if they did not accept all of Ms Patterson's evidence as truthful, they needed to set it to the side and consider whether the evidence actually existed to prove murder and attempted murder beyond reasonable doubt.
After both sides in a trial that has astounded observers around the world had finished their address, the judge indicated the most important part lay ahead.
Justice Christopher Beale will begin delivering his final instructions to the jury on Tuesday, which he said would break down the legal principles at stake in the case.
After that, it will fall to the jury to begin piecing the puzzle together themselves.
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