KallMeKris

And prosecutor Rogers pressed her and she suggested Erin had never planned to account for the cancer story because she had never expected to need to.

Quote, because you thought that the lunch guests would die, unquote.

And quote unquote, that's not true, Erin would answer.

but it is.

You felt like you didn't have to account for any of this because you thought all of your victims would die, but luckily one did not, and thank goodness he didn't.

And the prosecution also called Simon Patterson to the stand, and he walked the jury through the crumbling marriage, the private hostility, and the night he had turned down the lunch invitation.

And then Ian Wilkinson testified as well, the only person who had eaten the mushrooms at that table and survived.

And he recounted the gray plates, the odd colored plate Erin had carried to her own seat, and the offer to help serve that she had turned away.

And he described Erin as someone who, quote, just seemed like a normal person, unquote.

And the relationship had been, quote, unquote, friendly and amicable, but without, quote, much depth, more like acquaintances, unquote.

And he told the court what he had told the police.

He had been happy about the lunch invitation,

hopeful it might improve the relationship with Erin.

Defense counsel Colin Mandy SC offered a simpler story.

What happened was a tragedy, a terrible accident.

Erin's lies, he argued, had been born from shock, not planning.

She panicked because she was overwhelmed by the fact that these four people had become so ill because of the food that she'd served them.

Not buying it, but keep going.

And on motive, he pointed to its absence.

She had no money issues, lived in a big house and had almost full-time custody of her two young children.