Speaker 1: Now you'll be pleased to know. I've got three final questions.
Speaker 1: I suggest that you deliberately sourced death cap mushrooms in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. Agree or disagree, disagree. I suggest you
Speaker 1: deliberately included them in the beef wellingtons you served to
Speaker 1: Don Patterson, Gail Patterson, Ian Wilkinson and Heather Wilkinson Agree
Speaker 1: or disagree, disagree, and you did so intending to kill them.
Speaker 1: Agree or disagree, disagree? Thank you. I have no further questions.
Speaker 2: It's been a long stint on the stand for Aaron Patterson,
Speaker 2: but after another day of cross examination by Crown prosecutor
Speaker 2: Nanette Rodgers, the accused mushroom Cook murderer ended her testimony.
Speaker 2: It was a day where the Crown tried to tie
Speaker 2: up loose ends, quizzing Aaron on leftovers, phones and her
Speaker 2: actions after that deadly lunch. I'm Brook GREYB. Craig, and
Speaker 2: this is the Mushroom Cook. It's day thirty one of
Speaker 2: Aaron Patterson murder trial, and I'm here with court reporter
Speaker 2: Laura Placella. Hi, Laura, Hey, Brook.
Speaker 3: We've made it. We've made it to the end of
Speaker 3: Aaron's testimony. She has been in the witness box over
Speaker 3: eight days, and today was her fifth day of cross examination.
Speaker 3: As our listeners heard at the top of the episode,
Speaker 3: three final questions were put to Erin before doctor Rogers
Speaker 3: said she was done with her cross examination, and I
Speaker 3: think today was the last time we'll hear doctor Rogers
Speaker 3: ask the immortal question, agree or disagree?
Speaker 2: Yes, I think you're right, Laura. I think it's also
Speaker 2: going to be the last time that we hear doctor
Speaker 2: Rogers asking correct or incorrect two once again. Several topics
Speaker 2: were covered in court today, so let's start with the
Speaker 2: dehydrating of mushrooms. Doctor Rogers asked Aaron about her evidence
Speaker 2: from yesterday that she dehydrated the dried mushrooms she purchased
Speaker 2: from the Asian grosser because they appeared.
Speaker 3: Erin confirmed that she never told Senior Public Health Adviser
Speaker 3: Sally Anne Atkinson that she dehydrated the dried mushrooms, and
Speaker 3: she also agreed that she didn't mention it in her
Speaker 3: evidence in chief that was led by her defense barrister
Speaker 3: Colin Mandy. Doctor Rogers accused Erin of lying about dehydrating
Speaker 3: these dried mushrooms. Here's what was said in court. The
Speaker 3: exchange has been voiced by actors.
Speaker 1: I suggest this is another lie that you've made up
Speaker 1: on the spot. Incorrect. I suggest that you're hedging your bets,
Speaker 1: trying to make it sound like there are multiple possible
Speaker 1: sources for the deafcat mushrooms.
Speaker 3: Incorrect.
Speaker 2: Doctor Rogers then took Erin to her testimony that she
Speaker 2: was drinking herbal tea on the morning of July thirty,
Speaker 2: and this is the day after the deadly lunch.
Speaker 3: Erin's son told an investigator in his pre recorded evidence
Speaker 3: that he remembered his mum drinking coffee that morning. But
Speaker 3: Erin said her son would have seen her drinking coffee
Speaker 3: in the morning for nine twenty nine percent of his life,
Speaker 3: so she said he would assume she was doing the
Speaker 3: same on July thirty. Doctor Rogers put to Erin that
Speaker 3: she would not be drinking coffee if she was experiencing diarrhea.
Speaker 3: Erin agreed with that comment, but reiterated that she was
Speaker 3: drinking tea that morning.
Speaker 2: Yes, Aaron's bow movements were once again mentioned in court today.
Speaker 3: Told the court last week that she pulled over on
Speaker 3: the side of the South Gippsland Highway on her way
Speaker 3: to tie up with her children because she needed to
Speaker 3: go to the toilet. She said she went to the
Speaker 3: toilet in the bushes, cleaned herself up with some tissues
Speaker 3: before they hit the road again. But in his prerecorded evidence,
Speaker 3: Erin's son made no mention of them needing to pull
Speaker 3: over for her to go to the toilet. Doctor Rogers
Speaker 3: accused Erin today of lying about this, but Erin denied this.
Speaker 3: Onto the next topic, Doctor Rogers returned to the issue
Speaker 3: of the leftovers. Aaron said she fed her children on
Speaker 3: the Sunday night after the lane lunch, and this series
Speaker 3: of questions also touched upon what Aaron ate that evening.
Speaker 3: In the pre recorded evidence of Erin's daughter, she said
Speaker 3: that her mum had prepared a plate of leftovers for herself,
Speaker 3: but wasn't very hungry, so her brother ate their mum's portion.
Speaker 3: In her brother's pre recorded evidence, he also said that
Speaker 3: their mum had plated up a portion of leftovers for herself.
Speaker 3: But today Erin disputed both of her children's recollections. Here's
Speaker 3: what she was asked, and.
Speaker 1: Do you say that your daughter is wrong about what
Speaker 1: you prepared yourself for dinner on Sunday night? She is.
Speaker 3: The exchange continued, do you say.
Speaker 1: That your son is incorrect about what you prepared yourself
Speaker 1: for dinner on the Sunday night?
Speaker 3: Yes, he is.
Speaker 2: Dr Rogers then took Erin to her evidence in chief,
Speaker 2: where she told the jury she had a conversation with
Speaker 2: her estranged husband, Simon Patterson, and her children while they
Speaker 2: were all at Modash Medical Center about dehydrating mushrooms and
Speaker 2: hiding them in muffins.
Speaker 3: As our listeners may remember, Erin claimed that after the
Speaker 3: children left the room, Simon turned to her and accused
Speaker 3: her of poisoning his parents with her dehydrator. She said,
Speaker 3: he asked her, is that what you used to poison
Speaker 3: my parents? In his evidence, Simon denied ever saying this
Speaker 3: to Erin. Doctor Rogers accused Erin of lying about this
Speaker 3: question from Simon to disguise why she went to the
Speaker 3: koon Wara Tip the next day to dumb her dehydrator.
Speaker 3: She denied that she lied about this.
Speaker 2: Doctor Rogers also asked Aaron about her devices, dubbed phone A,
Speaker 2: which was never located by police, Phone B, which Aaron
Speaker 2: handed to police during the search warrant of her home
Speaker 2: on August five, and phone C which is a nochia.
Speaker 2: She continued to use after the search. Laura, let's start
Speaker 2: with Phone A. What did the jury hear about it today?
Speaker 3: So we're going to try and step our listeners through
Speaker 3: all of these phones slowly, so I'm glad we're breaking
Speaker 3: it down and focusing on each phone individually. So focusing
Speaker 3: on Phone A. This was a phone that Erin bought
Speaker 3: in February twenty twenty three, so by the time of
Speaker 3: the lunch it was about six months old. She confirmed
Speaker 3: she was using her usual SIM card ending in seven
Speaker 3: eighty three in this phone. Today. Doctor Rogers asked her
Speaker 3: if she was using this SIM card right up until
Speaker 3: August fourteen, and Erin actually said that she still thinks
Speaker 3: that simcard is connected to this day. Dr Rogers then
Speaker 3: put a series of accusations to Erin.
Speaker 1: I suggest that you use this phone to research deathcap mushrooms,
Speaker 1: agree or disagree?
Speaker 3: Disagree.
Speaker 1: I suggest you also used Phone A to look up
Speaker 1: I naturalist in twenty twenty three. Agree or disagree, disagree?
Speaker 1: And I have already put this to you previously, but
Speaker 1: I just want to make clear that I suggest you
Speaker 1: saw the post by Tom May on twenty first of
Speaker 1: May twenty twenty three on this phone. Disagree Phone A. Disagree,
Speaker 1: And that's how you saw the post by Christine McKenzie
Speaker 1: that she'd posted on eighteenth of April twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3: I didn't see that post.
Speaker 1: You didn't use that phone to do that.
Speaker 3: I didn't see the post, is what I said.
Speaker 1: Phone A was not recovered by police on fifth of August. Agreed.
Speaker 3: Agree.
Speaker 1: I suggest it's because you deliberately concealed this phone from police.
Speaker 1: Agree or disagree?
Speaker 2: Disagree.
Speaker 3: After these questions, doctor Rogers took Erin back to her
Speaker 3: evidence in chief when she said that Phone A was
Speaker 3: not cutting it anymore by early August because the screen
Speaker 3: was damaged. But doctor Rogers suggested to Erin today that
Speaker 3: there was actually nothing wrong with Phone A at all,
Speaker 3: and this was another lie. Erin disagreed. She was then
Speaker 3: shown dozens of pages of phone records that have previously
Speaker 3: been shown to the jury. Erin confirmed that on August four,
Speaker 3: the phone record appeared to suggest that she was continuing
Speaker 3: to use her SIM card in this phone. Doctor Rogers
Speaker 3: then took Erin to August five, the day the search
Speaker 3: warrant was executed at her house. It was at this
Speaker 3: point that phone C entered the conversation. Doctor Rogers accused
Speaker 3: Erin of moving her SIM card from phone A into
Speaker 3: Phone C, that being the Nokia when she was privately
Speaker 3: calling a lawyer as police searched her house, but Erin
Speaker 3: denied this accusation. The jury has previously heard that after
Speaker 3: the search of Erin's house, she was taken to one
Speaker 3: Thaggy police station for her record of interview. After that
Speaker 3: had taken place, Erin was returned home by the police
Speaker 3: and given a property seizure record. She told the court
Speaker 3: that when she read this record, she realized that Phone
Speaker 3: A and Phone C had not been seized by police.
Speaker 3: Erin had claimed that Phone A was left on a
Speaker 3: window sill in her loungey untouched by police, but doctor
Speaker 3: Rogers suggested that claim was nonsense. Erin disagreed with her,
Speaker 3: so she said it was at that point that she
Speaker 3: moved the SIM card from Phone A to Phone C,
Speaker 3: keeping in mind that she said Phone A was damaged
Speaker 3: and she wanted to use a new phone.
Speaker 2: Thanks Laura for that explanation. Let's now move on to
Speaker 2: Phone B.
Speaker 3: All right, round two. So with Phone B, as you said, Brook,
Speaker 3: this was the phone that Aaron handed to police at
Speaker 3: the end of the search before she was taken to
Speaker 3: the police station for her record of interview. As I
Speaker 3: just said, it was during this week that Aaron said
Speaker 3: she wanted to set up a new phone, but Erin
Speaker 3: told the jury last week that she not only wanted
Speaker 3: to switch from Phone A to Phone B because of
Speaker 3: the damaged screen, but she also wanted to change her
Speaker 3: phone number after Simon made that accusation that she had
Speaker 3: poisoned his parents. The SIM card ending in seven eighty
Speaker 3: three was her usual phone number, but she said she
Speaker 3: set up Phone B with another SIM card ending in
Speaker 3: eight three five. But doctor Rogers suggested to Erin today
Speaker 3: that the real reason she handed Phone B to police
Speaker 3: was not because it was the phone she was beginning
Speaker 3: to use, but because she knew there was no data
Speaker 3: on the device. But Erin disagreed, telling the court that
Speaker 3: since this was the phone she was starting to use,
Speaker 3: it was the phone she felt she should give the police.
Speaker 2: And the factory resets of Phone B were also touched upon,
Speaker 2: weren't they, Yes, they were, and we have spoken a
Speaker 2: lot about them previously. But she confirmed again today that
Speaker 2: she did conduct two factory resets on August five and
Speaker 2: August six, having previously explained that she panicked during the
Speaker 2: search and didn't want police to find any photos on
Speaker 2: this device of mushrooms or her dehydrator. But doctor Rogers
Speaker 2: suggested Erin factory reset the phone for another reason. Here's
Speaker 2: what Erin was asked.
Speaker 1: I suggest that you did three factory resets of this phone,
Speaker 1: Phone B after the lunch on twenty ninth of July
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3: Agree.
Speaker 1: I suggest you did that to conceal the true contents
Speaker 1: of Phone B. Agree or disagree?
Speaker 2: Disagree.
Speaker 1: I suggest that you did this so you could then
Speaker 1: pass off Phone B as your usual mobile phone without
Speaker 1: police realizing. Agree or disagree?
Speaker 3: Disagree.
Speaker 2: So to summarize Laura, is it right to say that
Speaker 2: the prosecution are accusing Aaron of concealing her real phone,
Speaker 2: Phone A, from police, after using it to research death
Speaker 2: caps and look up eye naturalists.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's their case.
Speaker 2: And they're also accusing her of then giving police Phone
Speaker 2: B because she knew there would be no data on
Speaker 2: the device. That's right. Great, I'm sure that's not the
Speaker 2: last time that we will hear about Phone A and
Speaker 2: Phone B. But now let's move on.
Speaker 3: By this stage, doctor Rogers had come to the end
Speaker 3: of her cross examination and she had those final three
Speaker 3: questions for Erin we heard at the top of the episode.
Speaker 3: After the final disagree from Erin, doctor Rogers told the
Speaker 3: court she had no further questions and she sat back
Speaker 3: down in her seat.
Speaker 2: After a short break, mister Mandy started his re examination
Speaker 2: of Erin, and.
Speaker 3: He started off by asking her about the Enrich Clinic.
Speaker 3: Erin last week told the court that she had an
Speaker 3: appointment at this clinic to explore gastric bypass surgery on
Speaker 3: September thirteenth, twenty twenty three. This week, the jury heard
Speaker 3: that this clinic does not offer and has never offered,
Speaker 3: gastric bypass surgery. Erin accepted that that was the case,
Speaker 3: but today mister Mandy wanted to clarify something with her.
Speaker 3: Erin explained that at the time she made the booking
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty three, she was of the understanding that
Speaker 3: the Enrich Clinic offered gastric bypass surgery or liposuction. She
Speaker 3: said that her understanding was they could discuss her needs
Speaker 3: and what would be the procedure that best suited her.
Speaker 3: But Erin conceded she must have been mistaken the clinic
Speaker 3: offering gastric bypass surgery. The jury was shown a text
Speaker 3: message that confirmed she did have an appointment on September
Speaker 3: thirteen at the clinic, but as we previously heard, Aaron
Speaker 3: canceled that appointment two days earlier.
Speaker 2: Mister Mandy then asked Erin why she prepared a six
Speaker 2: beef Wellington for that lunch on July twenty nine.
Speaker 3: Doctor Rogers had previously accused Erin of preparing this beef
Speaker 3: Wellington for Simon if he turned up to the lunch,
Speaker 3: but Erin confirmed that after she bought five twin packs
Speaker 3: of iphillots and put two of those twin packs in
Speaker 3: the fridge, she decided to use the remaining six stakes
Speaker 3: for her beef Wellington. She said she had enough ingredients
Speaker 3: to make six and she thought she could eat the
Speaker 3: last one another day.
Speaker 2: After briefly covering several more topics, mister Mandy announced he
Speaker 2: had no further questions for Aaron.
Speaker 3: Just as Christopher Beale then asked, mister Mandy, does that
Speaker 3: close your case? And mister Mandy replied, it does your honor.
Speaker 3: With that, he sat back down and Justice Beale then
Speaker 3: turned to the jury. He then reiterated to them that
Speaker 3: they wouldn't be required for a little while because he
Speaker 3: would be having legal discussions with the prosecution and the
Speaker 3: defense before the closing addresses could commence. Justice Bill told
Speaker 3: them that these discussions would commence this afternoon, so we
Speaker 3: told them that they could go home.
Speaker 2: So the jury won't be coming in tomorrow. But rest assured,
Speaker 2: we do have a little something for you, but for now.
Speaker 2: To stay updated on the case, go to the mushroomcook
Speaker 2: dot com dot au for more