Admitted lies, emojis and a dehydrator: Erin Patterson spars with prosecutor as fatal mushroom lunch deconstructed

There were times in Erin Patterson’s fourth day in the witness box where it seemed as if her lies she has admitted in her testimony, like the mushrooms she prepared for the beef wellington, were being cooked down as much as possible.

Had she pretended to have cancer at the fateful lunch or had she not? What, exactly, were the reasons for her repeated lies to Gail Patterson about a lump in her elbow? How about the lies she told to police?

As her lawyer, Colin Mandy SC, gave way for prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC, the tone changed, but the content was similar.

Rogers started asking her about the dehydrator, reeling off three questions in a row, within a minute of the cross-examination starting, which started “it was a lie”. “Correct”, Patterson answered to each one.

The Sunbeam dehydrator in question, has, in a perverse way, been identified by the prosecution as the murder weapon: the device they say Patterson used to deliberately dry death cap mushrooms she foraged, before they were added to beef wellingtons to poison her lunch guests.

The questions were not all about matters that weighty. Patterson was asked by Rogers about whether the use of emojis in messages to her Facebook friends about Don and Gail indicated a dismissiveness about their religion.

Patterson disputed that they did. She also said that some of them were not rolling eyes emojis, but emojis “with a line for a mouth”. Several members of the jury wore the same expression.

Rogers, reading from a blue double-ringed binder in front of her, continued. About two hours in, she appeared only a fifth of the way through the pages of typed questions inside.

She clutched a grey lead pencil, worked down to half its size, in her right hand, ticking off questions as she went.

Prosecutor Nanette Rogers leaves Latrobe Valley law courts in Morwell, Australia. Photograph: Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images

Occasionally, to emphasise the point of her question, she thrust the tip of the pencil towards Patterson, as if marking an ellipsis in mid air.

Patterson shifted occasionally in her chair, sometimes swivelling it slightly from side to side. She has a habit of moving her head before she speaks: sometimes to cock it slightly, to indicate she is trying to find the right words, other times shaking it, from side to side, showing she plans to answer in the negative, before the words actually come.

She showed moments of assertiveness, with answers such as “I can’t reject something that didn’t happen, correct”, “can you say that again please, I got confused by the double negative”, and repeatedly asking for questions to be repeated.

Patterson did not say others had lied, but made clear she disagreed with their evidence. This included the evidence given by Ian Wilkinson about the lunch.

Ian watched on in the final row of seats behind Rogers, seated next to Det Insp Dean Thomas, the head of the homicide squad.

Patterson’s evidence will continue on Friday.