Speaker 1: Can I ask you what's the biology of the death
Speaker 1: cap mushroom? So the death cap mushroom are the growing
Speaker 1: part of this kind of fungus is fine threads that
Speaker 1: grow in the soil. They are there whether or not
Speaker 1: the sporing body, which is the mushroom is present, so
Speaker 1: that growing part in the soil. The technical term is
Speaker 1: marcellium that is connected to the roots of living trees,
Speaker 1: in particular members of the Oak family.
Speaker 2: Today, in the trial of Aaron Pattison, a different type
Speaker 2: of witness took to the stand. Tom May is a mycologist,
Speaker 2: a mushroom expert, and he explained to the jury in
Speaker 2: extensive detail the inner workings of death gaps, the toxic
Speaker 2: fungus at the center of this case. He talked about
Speaker 2: what makes them different from other mushrooms, where they can
Speaker 2: be found, and the toxin that makes them so dangerous.
Speaker 2: I'm Brook Greebert Craig, and this is the Mushroom Cook.
Speaker 2: I'm joined as usual by my colleague reporter Laura Possella.
Speaker 3: Hi, Laura, it's great to be back here at our
Speaker 3: makeshift podcast studio in more Well.
Speaker 2: Yes it is.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 2: We're on week three, day ten of the trial. So
Speaker 2: today the jury mainly heard evidence from mushroom expert doctor
Speaker 2: Thomas May. It was his words, but not his voice.
Speaker 2: At the start of the episode. In that little clip,
Speaker 2: he was being questioned by Crown Prosecutor Nanette Rogers, Laura,
Speaker 2: can you tell the listeners a bit more about doctor May?
Speaker 3: Certainly so. He is an internationally recognized fungi specialist, so
Speaker 3: he has a lot of knowledge about mushrooms. He's been
Speaker 3: associated with the Royal Botanic Gardens for about thirty years
Speaker 3: and has written books, academic papers, the works.
Speaker 2: So at the beginning of his evidence, doctor May really
Speaker 2: educated the jury about deakcat mushrooms and a slideshow was
Speaker 2: shown to them.
Speaker 3: Yes, if I'm being honest, today probably felt a little
Speaker 3: bit like class for some of the jurors. There was
Speaker 3: a lot of information they had to take in. He
Speaker 3: began his evidence simply walking the jury through what are
Speaker 3: death cap mushrooms. He explained that their scientific name is
Speaker 3: Amanita felodes. The Amanita refers to a group of toxic
Speaker 3: mushrooms and Filoides is the specific species, and he said
Speaker 3: that they were accidentally introduced to Australia and they were
Speaker 3: first reported in Melbourne in the nineteen seventies. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3: Death cap mushrooms are not native to Australia, so they
Speaker 3: did come over here through some sort of means. And
Speaker 3: the jury were actually shown a map of the world
Speaker 3: where death cap mushrooms can be found, and in the
Speaker 3: Australian portion of the map you can see quite a
Speaker 3: cluster around Victoria.
Speaker 2: And for any of our listeners that are wondering what
Speaker 2: do death cap mushrooms actually look like.
Speaker 3: Tom May told the jurors that at least when it
Speaker 3: comes to the color of the cap of the mushroom.
Speaker 3: So that's the bit at the top. He said, death
Speaker 3: caps are usually greenish or yellowish, but they could be
Speaker 3: whitish or brownish, with or without white patches. He also
Speaker 3: spoke about their lifespan, and he spoke about how death
Speaker 3: caps have a symbiotic relationship with trees, particularly oak trees.
Speaker 3: But instead of me trying and probably failing to explain
Speaker 3: how death caps grow, I'll throw to doctor May. These
Speaker 3: are his words, it's not his voice.
Speaker 1: That mycellium sits in the soil over years, and from
Speaker 1: time to time every year, usually under suitable conditions, it
Speaker 1: produces a sporing body, which is the mushroom that we see.
Speaker 2: Doctor May also spoke about how other mushrooms can look
Speaker 2: like death caps. Like Laura, I'm going to leave it
Speaker 2: to the expert as.
Speaker 1: Well, but there are certainly some mushrooms that occur in
Speaker 1: Victoria that are quite similar in appearance to the death cap.
Speaker 1: For example, the stubble rosegill. This shares the cup at
Speaker 1: the base of the stem, but it differs from the
Speaker 1: death cap because it grows in mulch and doesn't have
Speaker 1: a ring on the stem, and it doesn't have the
Speaker 1: yellow or green tones that are often present in the
Speaker 1: death cap, and it has a pinkish brown spore print
Speaker 1: in comparison to a white spore print.
Speaker 3: Under cross examination by defense barrister Sophie Stafford, doctor May
Speaker 3: spoke quite a bit about how challenging it can be
Speaker 3: to identify mushrooms. The court heard that it was possible
Speaker 3: for people to consume poisonous mushrooms having foraged them, believing
Speaker 3: they were safe to eat. Doctor May also spoke about
Speaker 3: how toxic mushrooms can sometimes grow alongside non toxic mushrooms,
Speaker 3: making the identification process really difficult. He even went as
Speaker 3: far to say that people who forage for mushrooms should
Speaker 3: take part in some sort of apprenticeship so they can
Speaker 3: be really across how to identify toxic mushrooms from non
Speaker 3: toxic mushrooms.
Speaker 2: So now moving on to more of doctor May's evidence.
Speaker 2: The jury heard about a publicly accessible website called Eye Naturalist.
Speaker 3: And our listeners may actually remember this website from one
Speaker 3: of our first episodes where the prosecution set out their
Speaker 3: case against Erin. They mentioned the eye Naturalist website and
Speaker 3: how it was a place for members of the public
Speaker 3: to post photos and observations of plants, animal and fungi.
Speaker 2: The jury was shown photos of the website and doctor
Speaker 2: May said there were more than four hundred and forty
Speaker 2: thousand posts about mushrooms from Australia.
Speaker 3: The jury was then shown a map of Victoria, which
Speaker 3: we mentioned earlier in the episode. Across the map you
Speaker 3: could see red dots which specified the areas where death
Speaker 3: caps had been logged. Doctor May was then specifically brought
Speaker 3: to the Gippsland region and he was asked how many
Speaker 3: observations had been made in this area for death caps.
Speaker 3: He said there were two, one in lock and one
Speaker 3: in Outram and These posts were made in April and
Speaker 3: May twenty twenty three, so about two months before the
Speaker 3: fatal lunch.
Speaker 2: And Lock and Outram are both small townships in South Gippsland,
Speaker 2: which are both close to Aaron's house and lean gather.
Speaker 3: Doctor May was then asked specifically about the log in
Speaker 3: Outram and he told the jury that he was the
Speaker 3: one who actually posted about those deathcap mushrooms. He explained
Speaker 3: he was in Outram in May twenty twenty three to
Speaker 3: make a presentation to a local community group about fungi,
Speaker 3: but then during the day he went for a walk
Speaker 3: and stumbled across these death caps along a street. He
Speaker 3: pulled out his phone and as he's done previously, he
Speaker 3: made a log about them. The jury were actually shown
Speaker 3: a screenshot of his post and you could see that
Speaker 3: his username on the website is Funky Tom and I'll
Speaker 3: just make it clear, it's not fungi Tom. It is
Speaker 3: Funky Tom with an ey. And on the website you
Speaker 3: can see a map, some photos of the deathcap mushrooms
Speaker 3: that doctor May took and a little description.
Speaker 1: He told the.
Speaker 3: Jury he provided a very precise pin for the location
Speaker 3: of these mushrooms, including the latitude and the longitude. Now
Speaker 3: our listeners may actually remember that during the prosecution opening,
Speaker 3: Nenett Rodgers explained to the jury that it was the
Speaker 3: prosecution case that Erin had traveled to both Locke and
Speaker 3: Outram after these iron naturalist posts were logged. Nenett Rodgers
Speaker 3: told the jury that the phone record suggests Erin was
Speaker 3: herself in Lock on April twenty eight, so that's ten
Speaker 3: days later. As for doctor May's post, which was made
Speaker 3: on May twenty one, the prosecution case is that Erin
Speaker 3: traveled to the same area that very next day, on
Speaker 3: May twenty two, and stayed there for a period of time.
Speaker 3: The jury is expected to later hear from an expert
Speaker 3: in phone records who will further explain this evidence.
Speaker 2: And doctor May's evidence will continue tomorrow. But before we
Speaker 2: finish the episode, Laura, let's just touch upon other witnesses
Speaker 2: that took the stand today, in particular more medical witnesses.
Speaker 3: So this morning the jury heard from Laura Muldoon. She
Speaker 3: was an emergency registrar at Monash Health in July twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three and she treated Erin after she was transported
Speaker 3: there from Leamngatha Hospital. Now this was on July thirty one,
Speaker 3: so two days after the lunch, and doctor Muldoon told
Speaker 3: the court that when she examined Erin, she noticed she
Speaker 3: had chapped lips but otherwise looked very well. She said
Speaker 3: she took her vital signs and took some blood that
Speaker 3: was sent off for testing. The court heard that the
Speaker 3: next day, on August one, those test results had come back,
Speaker 3: but there was no signs of amanita poisoning, which is
Speaker 3: the medical term for toxic mushroom poisoning, and by one
Speaker 3: pm Erin was told that she was good to go home.
Speaker 2: The jury also heard from Professor Ronda Stewart. She was
Speaker 2: the Director of Infection Prevention and Public Health at Monash Health.
Speaker 2: In July twenty twenty three. She told the court that
Speaker 2: Aaron said that she used by the mushrooms from a
Speaker 2: supermarket and dried mushrooms from an Asian food shop from
Speaker 2: either Oakley or glen Waverley in her beef Wellington mill.
Speaker 2: Professor Stewart asked Erin whether she had been foraging, and
Speaker 2: Aaron replied no.
Speaker 3: And doctor Muldoon also gave evidence about this. She said
Speaker 3: she asked Erin the same question whether she had foraged
Speaker 3: for wild mushrooms, and Erin also denied doing.
Speaker 2: This without a doubt. It's been a dense day of evidence.
Speaker 2: I'm sure there'll be watercum all.
Speaker 3: Stay tuned. Thanks Laura, see you tomorrow.