It was the moment Erin Patterson had been dreading for years in the lead up to her epic murder trial. 

Her interview record with detectives was so incriminating that, after jurors viewed it, Patterson’s defense team decided to have her testify as a last effort to defend her.

The gamble failed – and she now faces life in jail after she was convicted of murdering three of her husband’s family and a further attempted murder.

A 20-minute, heavily edited segment of that interview was presented to the jury during Patterson’s extensive ten-week trial and has been released to the public after a legal challenge by the Daily Mail and other media organizations.

The interview had taken place on Saturday, August 5, 2023, at Wonthaggi police station in Victoria’s east. 

It was the first time police had taken Patterson into custody to interview her over the deadly lunch. 

Wearing a grey sweater and sitting opposite Homicide Squad’s Detective Senior Constable Stephen Eppingstall in the interview room, Patterson was caught off guard by the intense questioning she was about to face.

‘Do you own a dehydrator?’ the detective asked her. 

‘No,’ Patterson replied.

Just moments before, she had been informed by police that an instruction manual for a Sunbeam Food Lab electronic dehydrator was discovered at her property in Leongatha.

Detectives had searched the property earlier that day and seized all matter of items. 

‘What’s that in relation to? Do you know anything about a dehydrator in your house or…’

‘No,’ Patterson replied.

‘I’ve got manuals for lots of stuff I’ve collected over the years. I’ve had all sorts of appliances and I just keep them all.’

‘All right. When did you own a dehydrator?’ Senior Constable Eppingstall asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Patterson replied. ‘I don’t know. I might’ve had one years ago.’

By the time the jury viewed the interview record, they had already seen CCTV footage showing Patterson discarding the dehydrator at the local landfill on August 1, 2023.

Weeks earlier, when the trial opened, the jury had been told by Patterson’s barrister Colin Mandy, SC, that she had repeatedly lied to police. 

Mr Mandy told the jury Patterson had lied about having cancer and had, in fact, dumped a dehydrator later found to have traces of death cap mushrooms. 

‘She panicked because she was overwhelmed, because there were four people that had become so ill because of the food she served them,’ he said. 

But until the interview was shown to the jury, the lies had been just words.

Now the evidence was right before them, raw and ultimately damning. 

‘Obviously, we’ve got concerns in relation to these mushrooms and where they’ve come from,” Senior-Constable Eppingstall told Patterson.

‘Is that something you’ve done in the past, foraging for mushrooms?’

 

‘Never,’ Patterson replied.

‘All right. Do you preserve foods or anything like that?’

‘No,’ came the answer. 

‘Have you ever dehydrated food or anything like that?’

‘No,’ Patterson said.

Senior Constable Eppingstall had made it clear to Patterson that she was in serious trouble.  

‘So, do you understand why we’re interviewing you today?’ he asked Patterson.

‘Yep, I do,’ she replied.

‘But I’m sure you understand too, that, like, I’ve never been in a situation like this before.

‘And I’ve been very, very helpful with the Health Department through the week because I wanted to help that side of things, as much as possible. 

‘Because I do want to know what happened.’

Eppingstall thanked Patterson for being ‘helpful’ in pointing out a few items of interest during the search that morning despite his belief he was talking to a cold-blooded killer. 

In reality, Patterson had not helped health officials trying to find the non-existent Asian grocer where she claimed to have purchased the deadly mushrooms. 

Instead, she had led them on a wild goose chase that delayed doctors from working out how best to treat her sick in-laws in the desperate hours after the lunch. 

The veteran detective spelled out to Patterson exactly what had happened after she served those poisoned beef Wellingtons. 

‘Following eating at your house, Donald, Ian, Gail and Heather all become so ill that they ultimately ended up in the intensive care unit at both the Dandenong Hospital and moved to the Austin Hospital, all right,’ he told her. 

‘Following that, (Heather and Gail) had a deterioration in their condition and that they become so ill that their livers have failed, all right.

‘Donald underwent a transplant last night and…his condition is still extremely critical as of last report.’

By that stage, Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson were both dead.

Don Patterson would become the third to die, later that same day. 

The jury heard Patterson was questioned about the reason for the lunch and why she had invited her in-laws over.

‘Because I’ve got no other family,’ she said.

‘I want to maintain those relationships in spite of what’s happening with Simon. I love them a lot.’

Patterson told the detective she had tried to maintain her relationship with Simon’s parents for the good of her children despite their separation.

‘Nothing that’s ever happened between us, nothing he’s ever done to me, will change the fact that they’re good, decent people that have never done anything wrong by me, ever,’ she said.

Senior Constable Eppingstall had been the last prosecution witness to be put before the jury. 

When he was done, there were few who had observed the trial from the beginning and who still held any reasonable doubt about Patterson’s guilt.

With their case in dire trouble, the defence made the monumental decision to put Patterson in the witness box to try to talk her way out of the diabolical situation she was in. 

Again, the jury saw through her lies. 

On July 7, the jury found that Patterson, 50, had murdered her in-laws Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson in cold blood. 

She was also convicted of the attempted murder of Heather’s husband Ian, after a month-long trial in the Supreme Court of Victoria in the Latrobe Valley, in the state’s east.

Patterson will return to court on August 25 for a pre-sentence hearing. 

She faces life behind bars without parole.