Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, June twenty four to twenty twenty five. Almost
Speaker 1: three million low paid workers are getting a pay rise.
Speaker 1: The wage bump announced by the Fair Work Commission works
Speaker 1: out to be about thirty two dollars a week for
Speaker 1: those on the minimum wage. A controversial so called supertax
Speaker 1: is potentially up for negotiation. The Prime Minister says he
Speaker 1: wants to work with the Coalition on real tax reform,
Speaker 1: and that means potential changes to the unrealized capital gains tax,
Speaker 1: which would hit Australians with superbalances over three million dollars.
Speaker 1: Those stories alive right now at the Australian dot com
Speaker 1: dot a U. A weeping Aaron Patterson says she regrets
Speaker 1: expletive ridden text messages she sent about her former in
Speaker 1: laws who died after eating a beef Wellington she prepared
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three. She's pleading not guilty to three
Speaker 1: counts of murder and a single count of attempted murder,
Speaker 1: and she's giving evidence in her own defense in the
Speaker 1: Victorian Supreme Court today. What happened when Aaron Patterson was
Speaker 1: asked about the mushroom lunch for the first time in court.
Speaker 1: Aaron Patterson returned to the witness box in the Victorian
Speaker 1: Supreme Court in Morewell on Tuesday, the juries hearing evidence
Speaker 1: on three murder charges and one of attempted murder relating
Speaker 1: to a twenty twenty three lunch where guests consumed beef
Speaker 1: Wellington allegedly laced with deathcap mushrooms. Aaron Patterson has pleaded
Speaker 1: not guilty. We've used voice actors throughout this episode to
Speaker 1: bring you the words spoken in court. Patterson said after
Speaker 1: her grandmother died in two thousand and six, she was
Speaker 1: one of a number of beneficiaries of the estate. The
Speaker 1: money enabled her to travel around the world with her
Speaker 1: then husband, Simon Patterson, and to buy a home in
Speaker 1: Quinnenup in country Western Australia without a mortgage. Patterson told
Speaker 1: her senior council Colin Mandy Casey. She gave loans of
Speaker 1: approximately four hundred thousand dollars apiece to three of Simon
Speaker 1: Patterson's siblings, with repayments only to cover inflation, and the
Speaker 1: money enabled her to start a secondhand bookstore in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1: She and Simon moved back to Victoria.
Speaker 2: Our son was a very extroverted child, and he seemed
Speaker 2: to struggle with the lack of siblings and contact with
Speaker 2: cousins and living in the middle of nowhere with no
Speaker 2: friends to play with. We'd gone back to Victoria once
Speaker 2: or twice, and he just loved being with his cousins
Speaker 2: and Nana and Papa, and we wanted to come back
Speaker 2: for him. And secondly, I was trying and ended up
Speaker 2: being pregnant with our daughter. I wanted to be near
Speaker 2: Don and Gail when we had her.
Speaker 1: Don and Gale Patterson were Simon Patterson's parents, who would
Speaker 1: both die in twenty twenty three after eating Aaron Patterson's
Speaker 1: beef Wellington.
Speaker 3: And during that time after twenty fifteen, how was your
Speaker 3: relationship with Donna and Gail?
Speaker 2: It never changed. I was just their daughter in Lauren.
Speaker 2: They continued to love me.
Speaker 3: So does that mean that in terms of Don and Gail,
Speaker 3: you and the children continued to see them often?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we did. We went to their house often for
Speaker 2: lunch with Simon. Without Simon. They would drop in and
Speaker 2: knock on my door, sometimes drop things off. They'd have
Speaker 2: my son over to play and have sleepovers. They were
Speaker 2: very involved.
Speaker 1: Mandy asked Patterson about Heather and Ian Wilkinson, who was
Speaker 1: the pastor at Cornborough Baptist Church.
Speaker 2: So I'd always have a chat with them after church
Speaker 2: if I could. Ian was very popular as the pastor
Speaker 2: and always had a lot of people wanting to talk
Speaker 2: to them. But Heather would always make a point of
Speaker 2: coming to talk to me, and I saw them sometimes
Speaker 2: at Christmas gatherings outside of the family, and I probably
Speaker 2: didn't get to chat to Ian so much, but Heather
Speaker 2: would always go out of her way to come and
Speaker 2: sit with me and make sure that I had company.
Speaker 1: She was asked about Facebook chats the jury has previously
Speaker 1: been shown. Mandy wanted to know what was her attitude
Speaker 1: to religion during those years or to God.
Speaker 2: It remained how it had been since two thousand and five.
Speaker 2: I was and am a Christian.
Speaker 3: Did you ever tell Christine Hunt that you were an atheist?
Speaker 1: No, I didn't know, Patterson said she would have only
Speaker 1: said that she was previously an atheist. Patterson described the
Speaker 1: sale of various properties and the purchase of a family
Speaker 1: home in Lee and Gatha, which was put into both
Speaker 1: her and Simon Patterson's names.
Speaker 2: Well, from my perspective, it was I always I thought
Speaker 2: we would bring the family back together. That was what
Speaker 2: I wanted, and I did that because I wanted some
Speaker 2: way to demonstrate to Simon that that's what I really
Speaker 2: believed and wanted. It was something tangible to say I
Speaker 2: see a future for us.
Speaker 1: Mandy asked about Patterson's health records over the years, including
Speaker 1: a GP visit in twenty twenty one when she feared
Speaker 1: she had ovarian cancer.
Speaker 2: I'd been having for a few months by then, a
Speaker 2: multitude of symptoms. I felt very fatigued. I had ongoing
Speaker 2: abdominal pain. I had chronic headaches. I put on a
Speaker 2: lot of weight in quite a short period of time,
Speaker 2: and had like my feet and my hands seemed to
Speaker 2: retain a lot of fluid.
Speaker 3: Now the notes indicate this, Aaron worried about ovarian cancer,
Speaker 3: has been googling her symptoms. That's right, yep, is that
Speaker 3: what you'd been doing? I had yeap, I consulted doctor Google.
Speaker 1: Patterson said she'd struggled to get any health professional to
Speaker 1: listen to her. Her concerns about her baby daughter too, So.
Speaker 2: Right from when she was born, I thought there was
Speaker 2: something wrong. She cried a lot, but not normal crying.
Speaker 2: I'd already had one baby by then, and I knew
Speaker 2: what to expect. She cried a lot for long durations
Speaker 2: that I thought demonstrated pain, and I took her to
Speaker 2: a lot of doctors and even the hospital, and what
Speaker 2: they communicated to me was I was an over anxious
Speaker 2: mother and she would just relax and she's just a
Speaker 2: normal baby.
Speaker 1: She said. With both her daughter and son, they turned
Speaker 1: out to have medical issues that doctors hadn't been able
Speaker 1: to diagnose. Patterson said it all undermined her faith in medicos.
Speaker 1: She requested a brain MRI, and when that came back negative,
Speaker 1: asked for a spinal MRI. She googled ovarian cancer, brain tumors,
Speaker 1: ovarian cancer that metastasized to the brain and lungs, heart conditions, lupus,
Speaker 1: and multiple sclerosis.
Speaker 2: The train just kept going. I think I wasted a
Speaker 2: lot of time, not just my time, but medical people's
Speaker 2: time through all my doctor googling. It's hard to justify it,
Speaker 2: but with the benefit of hindsight, I can see that, like,
Speaker 2: I just lost so much faith in the medical system
Speaker 2: that I decided that anything to do with my health
Speaker 2: or the children's health. I'm going to have to solve
Speaker 2: that problem myself. But there's a reason why doctors have
Speaker 2: medical training to enable them to navigate their way through
Speaker 2: it so that every headache is not a brain tumor.
Speaker 1: Mandy turned to Patterson's relationship with her husband, Simon and
Speaker 1: how it deteriorated in twenty twenty two during a dispute
Speaker 1: about child support payments.
Speaker 2: I'd been preparing to do my tax return, and as
Speaker 2: we always did, I asked Simon for his income to
Speaker 2: put down on my tax return and wanted to give
Speaker 2: him mine. It arose out of the discussions that he'd
Speaker 2: put himself down as single on the tax return, so
Speaker 2: that wasn't necessary anymore. She said.
Speaker 1: She wanted to claim the family tax bear, and to
Speaker 1: do that had to put in a child support application
Speaker 1: to cent a link. She said Simon Patterson seemed agreeable
Speaker 1: to that. In October of twenty twenty two, Patterson became
Speaker 1: upset about finding out on a Friday that the following
Speaker 1: day would be a seventieth birthday lunch for her mother
Speaker 1: in law, Gail Patterson.
Speaker 2: I felt hurt because I thought I'd been left off
Speaker 2: the invite list, and I was also annoyed with myself
Speaker 2: because I'd forgotten that it was a big birthday coming
Speaker 2: up for Gail. But yeah, I was hurt.
Speaker 1: In November twenty twenty two, another dispute, Patterson asked Simon
Speaker 1: to pay for an anesthetist bill for their son. The
Speaker 1: jury was shown a text message exchange between Simon and
Speaker 1: Aaron Patterson.
Speaker 2: The Department of Human Services instructed me not to pay
Speaker 2: you anything for the kids from now on, So I
Speaker 2: cannot pay that. I'm afraid it's not paying me'sying he's anthetist.
Speaker 1: On December five, it flared up again during a discussion
Speaker 1: about their son's pocket money.
Speaker 2: You can cancel your pocket money transfers into the Department
Speaker 2: of Human Services told you not to pay for anything
Speaker 2: for the kids anymore.
Speaker 1: In court, Aaron Patterson said.
Speaker 2: It looks like I was being a little bit petty
Speaker 2: in that response. By the last sentence, I was clearly
Speaker 2: using his words back to him. I was being a
Speaker 2: bit petty.
Speaker 1: She tried to involve Don and Gail Patterson in mediation
Speaker 1: about how the children's school fees would be paid.
Speaker 2: Overwritingly, they thought that Simon and I should set all
Speaker 2: the issue together, but they didn't want to become like
Speaker 2: official mediators.
Speaker 1: Patterson said she vented in frustration on a Facebook group
Speaker 1: with women she'd been speaking to online since twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: This family, I swear to fucking God, I'm sick of
Speaker 2: this shit, so fuck it. Nobody listens to me at
Speaker 2: least so I know they're a lost cause.
Speaker 1: In court, Patterson said she was stressed and believed this
Speaker 1: was a private chat.
Speaker 2: I wish I'd never said it. I feel very I
Speaker 2: feel ashamed for saying it, and I wish the family
Speaker 2: didn't have to hear that I said that. They didn't
Speaker 2: deserve it.
Speaker 3: Why did you write that to your Facebook friends?
Speaker 2: I needed to vent. I needed to get my frustration
Speaker 2: off my chest. And the choice was either to go
Speaker 2: into the paddic and tell it to the sheep or
Speaker 2: vent to these women. But I regret the language that
Speaker 2: I used, but I knew that they would rally around me.
Speaker 2: I probably played up the emotion a little bit to
Speaker 2: get that support.
Speaker 3: And did you mean those things?
Speaker 2: No? I didn't. I was really frustrated with Simon, but
Speaker 2: it wasn't don in Gale's fault. It wasn't the family's fault.
Speaker 2: It wasn't even entirely Simon's fault. I played a part
Speaker 2: in the issue too.
Speaker 3: Did you understand that then?
Speaker 2: I think at the time I thought I was right
Speaker 2: and he was wrong. But I reflected on it a
Speaker 2: lot in New Zealand and I realized that I was
Speaker 2: wrong to try and involve Donn Gale and I should
Speaker 2: have approached it differently with Simon.
Speaker 1: Aaron Patterson told the jury she'd battled her weight and
Speaker 1: self esteem since adolescence.
Speaker 2: When I was a kid, my mum would weigh us
Speaker 2: every week to make sure we weren't putting on too
Speaker 2: much weight, and so I went to the extreme of
Speaker 2: barely eating. Then through my adulthood going the other way
Speaker 2: and binging. I suppose, for one of a better word.
Speaker 2: I never had a good relationship with food, a healthy relationship.
Speaker 1: She said she would throw up after binge eating something
Speaker 1: she did in secret while the children were.
Speaker 3: At school, and who knew about it?
Speaker 2: Nobody? Nobody, everybody now, but nobody knew then.
Speaker 1: Patterson said she'd picked and cooked mushrooms since first noticing
Speaker 1: their proliferation in the local area on family walks during
Speaker 1: twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: Had you always liked eating mushrooms. Yeah, I had why.
Speaker 2: They taste good and they're very healthy.
Speaker 3: In terms of varieties of mushrooms, did you eat different varieties?
Speaker 2: I did. I'd buy all the different types that woolies
Speaker 2: would sell. We'd have local farmers markets and I'd get
Speaker 2: different sorts there from grocers up in Melbourne. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: tried all of them. I'd use them in curries or
Speaker 2: pasta dishes or soup, spaghetti.
Speaker 3: And what did you like about the more exotic mushrooms?
Speaker 2: They just taste more interesting, more flavor.
Speaker 1: She said she found field and horse mushrooms in the
Speaker 1: paddocks on her own property, and also foraged in places
Speaker 1: like the local botanic gardens and rail trail. She said
Speaker 1: there was one type of mushroom growing in her back
Speaker 1: paddock that she wasn't able to identify, so she didn't
Speaker 1: eat those. And she said her children sometimes helped her
Speaker 1: to pick mushrooms when they.
Speaker 3: Were out and about.
Speaker 2: When I got to a point where I was confident
Speaker 2: about what I thought they were, I cut a bit
Speaker 2: off one of the mushrooms, fried it up with some
Speaker 2: butter ate it and then saw what happened. And what
Speaker 2: happened they tasted good and I didn't get sick.
Speaker 3: And thereafter? What did you do with the mushrooms that
Speaker 3: you found on that property?
Speaker 2: So? If I saw mushrooms, the same mushrooms growing, I
Speaker 2: would usually pick them and eat them and sometimes put
Speaker 2: them in meals. We all ate.
Speaker 3: You said you put them in meals? We all ate?
Speaker 3: Does that mean you and the children?
Speaker 2: Yep?
Speaker 3: How did you put them in the children's meals? What
Speaker 3: did you do?
Speaker 2: I chopped them up very very small so they couldn't
Speaker 2: pick them out.
Speaker 1: Coming up, Pattison is asked for the first time in
Speaker 1: court about the fatal lunch. For the first time in
Speaker 1: this trial, Aaron Patterson was asked directly on Tuesday afternoon
Speaker 1: about the fatal mushroom lunch.
Speaker 3: In terms of the meal that you cooked for the lunch,
Speaker 3: which is the subject of this trial. Do you accept
Speaker 3: that there must have been deathcap mushrooms in that meal? Yes?
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 3: And speaking globally, do you remember where the mushrooms that
Speaker 3: went into that meal came from? So all of the
Speaker 3: mushrooms that went into that meal.
Speaker 2: Right, So the vast majority came from the local Woolworths
Speaker 2: in Leongatha, and there were some from the grocer in Melbourne.
Speaker 3: So there's been evidence that you told people that you
Speaker 3: bought some mushrooms from an Asian groser in April. That's right.
Speaker 3: Do you remember that event? Is that an event clear
Speaker 3: in your mind.
Speaker 2: Not the specific purchase of them. No, it's not clear.
Speaker 1: Patterson said she remembered going to an Asian grocer in
Speaker 1: the April school holidays when she and the children were
Speaker 1: staying at Mount Waverley, but that she had also done
Speaker 1: so on previous occasions.
Speaker 2: There was Shitaki Poccini. I think an Oki was one
Speaker 2: of them. Sometimes the bags might say something like wild
Speaker 2: mushroom mix or forest mushroom like they wouldn't be specific
Speaker 2: about the types of them.
Speaker 1: Patterson said she bought a dehydrator in twenty twenty three
Speaker 1: to better preserve mushrooms, and would dehydrate specimens, including button
Speaker 1: mushrooms she brought from Woolworths, then store them in a
Speaker 1: plastic container in her pantry. The jury heard she made
Speaker 1: a social media post that said.
Speaker 2: So fun fact, dehydrator reduces mushroom mass by ninety percent.
Speaker 1: Colin Mandy took her back to the mushrooms she bought
Speaker 1: from an Asian grocer in April twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: I remember that I was going to use them the
Speaker 2: day that I bought them, but they were very pungent.
Speaker 2: I didn't think that would be a great smell for
Speaker 2: what I was making, so I just put them in
Speaker 2: a container and put them in the pantry at that point.
Speaker 3: And what happened to that container in the pantry?
Speaker 2: So I took the container back home to Gibson Street
Speaker 2: when we went home.
Speaker 1: Gibson Street is Aaron Padda since home in LeeAnne Gatha,
Speaker 1: where the fatal lunch would be held. Three months later.
Speaker 1: She said those mushrooms were still in the container in
Speaker 1: the pantry when she later dehydrated mushrooms in May and June.
Speaker 3: Do you have a memory of putting wild mushrooms that
Speaker 3: you dehydrated in May or June of twenty twenty three
Speaker 3: into a container which already contained other dried mushrooms.
Speaker 2: Yes, I did do that.
Speaker 1: At that point, Justice Christopher Beale called an end to
Speaker 1: the day. Aaron Patterson will return to the witness box
Speaker 1: on Wednesday, June four at ten thirty am. You can
Speaker 1: follow proceedings live reported by our colleagues Ellie Dudley and
Speaker 1: John Ferguson from the courtroom. By joining our subscribers at
Speaker 1: Theaustralian dot com dot au