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Speaker 1: From the newsroom A news still come to the.

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Speaker 2: Gooday there, I'm Andrew Bucklow. Earlier this month, convicted killer

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Speaker 2: Aaron Patterson lodged documents to appeal her conviction. Now, when

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Speaker 2: I saw that on news dot com dot Au, I

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Speaker 2: found myself wondering what exactly was the evidence that convinced

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Speaker 2: the jury she was guilty. I mean, I'd heard bits

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Speaker 2: and pieces of it, but not the full story. So

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Speaker 2: today I'm going to chat to a man who knows

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Speaker 2: the case better than most. He'll take us inside the courtroom,

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Speaker 2: detailing the evidence that jurors saw, some of which is

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Speaker 2: genuinely hard to believe. Together, we'll unpack the actions that

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Speaker 2: sealed Erin's fate and the moment that convinced the jury

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Speaker 2: she was guilty. The Mushroom murders made headlines around the world.

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Speaker 2: It all began on July twenty nine, twenty twenty three,

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Speaker 2: when Aaron Patterson hosted a lunch.

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Speaker 1: At her home in Regional Victoria.

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Speaker 2: She had four guests that day, the parents of her

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Speaker 2: estranged husband, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail's sister Heather

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Speaker 2: Wilkinson and her husband Ian. Eron's ex husband Simon Patterson

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Speaker 2: had also been invited, but canceled the night before. That day,

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Speaker 2: Aaron cooked and served individual beef Wellington's. Now prosecutors argued

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Speaker 2: all of them, except the ones she ate herself contained

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Speaker 2: toxic death cap mushrooms.

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Speaker 1: Within twelve hours.

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Speaker 2: Her guests fell violently ill. They were rushed to hospital,

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Speaker 2: and days later three of them were dead.

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Speaker 1: Ian Wilkinson survived, but only just.

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Speaker 2: Aaron Patterson was arrested this morning when police swarmed her home,

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Speaker 2: bringing in specialist sniffer dogs.

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Speaker 3: Ninety six days after Aaron Patterson hosted the deadly beef

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Speaker 3: Wellington lunch, the homicide squad made its move, arresting the

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Speaker 3: forty nine year old at her lingan at the home

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Speaker 3: and bringing her in for questioning.

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Speaker 2: Aaron was charged with three counts of murder and one

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Speaker 2: of attempted murder. Her trial began in a twenty twenty

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Speaker 2: five and after ten long weeks, she was found guilty

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Speaker 2: on all charges.

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Speaker 4: The total effective sentence is life imprisonment and I fix

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Speaker 4: a non parole period of thirty three years.

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Speaker 2: As I mentioned, Erin is now appealing her conviction. Personally,

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Speaker 2: I was interested in Erin's trial, okay, but I wasn't

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Speaker 2: following it very closely at the time.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I.

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Speaker 2: Wouldn't say I was aware of the individual pieces of

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Speaker 2: evidence that convinced the jury is to convict the mum

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Speaker 2: of two. But that'll change when I read a new

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Speaker 2: book by Greg Hadrick called The Mushroom Murders. It has

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Speaker 2: written from the perspective of a juror, and every single

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Speaker 2: detail in the book comes directly from the evidence the

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Speaker 2: real jurors heard and saw during the trial. I've got

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Speaker 2: to tell you there was some material in this book

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Speaker 2: that genuinely shocked me. And Greg joins me now to

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Speaker 2: talk about these standout moments. Well, Greg, thank you so

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Speaker 2: much for chattingtonews dot com dot au pleasure. I want

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Speaker 2: by talking about the reason Aaron Patterson organized this lunch

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Speaker 2: in the first place. It wasn't just a friendly catch up.

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Speaker 2: Aaron said there was something pretty serious she wanted to

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Speaker 2: discuss with her in laws.

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Speaker 5: Right, Yeah, that's true, and it had evolved over several

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Speaker 5: text messages she had with Gail, in particular over the

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Speaker 5: four or five weeks previously, where she said she had

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Speaker 5: a lump on her elbow and then she was going

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Speaker 5: to go for an MRI, and Gail asked very concerned

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Speaker 5: how the MRI went, and she was saying, oh, it's

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Speaker 5: you know, it's a bit troubling and maybe we should

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Speaker 5: talk face to face about it. And then after the lunch,

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Speaker 5: according to Ian Wilkinson, who was there, and Don who

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Speaker 5: spoke to someone about it, afterwards, she said to all

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Speaker 5: four of her guests that she'd been diagnosed with cancer

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Speaker 5: and that it was quite serious. She needed to go

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Speaker 5: in for treatment and she could be in hospital for

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Speaker 5: a week or two, and part of the reason was

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Speaker 5: to how she should break that news to her kids.

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Speaker 5: Unfortunately for her, for Aaron, what the police were able

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Speaker 5: to prove through Victorian health records was that all of

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Speaker 5: that was a complete She'd never had an MRI, she

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Speaker 5: had no lump on her elbow, there was no cancer diagnosis,

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Speaker 5: there was none of it was true.

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Speaker 2: Aeron actually acknowledged in court that she did mislead them

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Speaker 2: about the cancer. She claimed she was actually too embarrassed

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Speaker 2: to tell them what she claimed was the truth that

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Speaker 2: she was getting weight loss surgery a gastric bypass. But

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Speaker 2: that also seemed a little bit dubious, didn't it, Gret.

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Speaker 5: Well, it did seem duebis because it was quite a

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Speaker 5: big moment in the court because this came as news

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Speaker 5: to the prosecution. In the two years before the trial,

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Speaker 5: Aaron had never mentioned this, but suddenly she claimed she'd

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Speaker 5: been having issues with her weight and had been boaliemic

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Speaker 5: for several years twenty years and had finally reached a

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Speaker 5: crisis point and had to do something about it. And

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Speaker 5: the real reason for saying she had cancer was it

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Speaker 5: was to mask the fact that she was going to

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Speaker 5: be spending some time in hospital for gastric bypass surgery. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 5: when she also said she'd already made an appointment to

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Speaker 5: discuss this at the end, reach critic. What she didn't

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Speaker 5: realize and what the prosecution found out over the weekend

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Speaker 5: was that the Enrich Clinic did not offer gastric bypass surgery.

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Speaker 5: So then she had to backtrack again and say, well,

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Speaker 5: I thought they did or I'm not quite sure what.

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Speaker 5: And it was her barrister who suggested that she was

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Speaker 5: really going in for life perception, which is a very

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Speaker 5: different procedure and not something that I've heard many people

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Speaker 5: who suffer terribly from bolimia would consider. But again that

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Speaker 5: was erin having to try to present to the jury

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Speaker 5: some reason why this all happened.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so at first she made it seem like she

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Speaker 2: had cancer and wanted to talk to them about that.

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Speaker 2: Then she's saying it was weight loss surgery when she

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Speaker 2: was in court that turned out probably not to be true.

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Speaker 2: I mean, pretty crazy for that to all play out

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Speaker 2: in court. Another bit that stood out for me from

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Speaker 2: the book and the trial was something that happened on Sunday,

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Speaker 2: which is the day after the lunch. So at the time,

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Speaker 2: Aaron knew that Don and Gale were already in hospital

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Speaker 2: with severe gastre and to writers and Aaron herself claimed

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Speaker 2: that she had been suffering from nausea and diarrhea. Clearly

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Speaker 2: it was something due to what they ate at the lunch.

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Speaker 2: It doesn't take a genius to put that together. And

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Speaker 2: yet the very next night, when her kids were hungry,

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Speaker 2: her two children, she happily served them some of the

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Speaker 2: leftover beef Wellington in the fridge, albeit after scraping off

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Speaker 2: the mushrooms and the pastry. I mean, tell us why

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Speaker 2: that was such an odd move and what it suggested Greg, Well, it.

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Speaker 5: Goes I think to instinctive human behavior. I mean, anytime

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Speaker 5: that people eat a meal, have a lunch, and then

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Speaker 5: within ours a suffering gastro they look back at that

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Speaker 5: lunch and if there's leftovers in the fridge, the first

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Speaker 5: thing you do is just check it out. That's, I think,

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Speaker 5: just an instinctive human reaction. So she knew, innocent, Aaron,

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Speaker 5: if we're saying, if we're believing Eron, at this point

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Speaker 5: in time, she knew she'd been suffering from diarrhea. She

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Speaker 5: knew that at least two of her other guests. Simon

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Speaker 5: claimed he'd also told her about Ian and Heather, So

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Speaker 5: she either knew that two or all four of them

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Speaker 5: and herself were ill because of the lunch that she'd

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Speaker 5: cooked on that Saturday. And it was very difficult, and

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Speaker 5: you could sort of feel that the jury were finding

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Speaker 5: this impossible believe that an innocent erin knowing that that

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Speaker 5: lunch had created that many health issues without a second thought,

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Speaker 5: would serve it to her children. And so the only

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Speaker 5: reasonable explanation for that behavior is that she knew that

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Speaker 5: the meals that she was serving her children would not

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Speaker 5: make them sick.

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Speaker 2: One of the most shocking parts of the trial and

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Speaker 2: the book occurred on Monday morning, two days after the lunch.

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Speaker 2: So at this stage, the four guests were seriously ill

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Speaker 2: in hospital, not Erin, though she claimed she was just

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Speaker 2: suffering from some diarrhea, even though she'd eaten the exact

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Speaker 2: same meal as the others in theory, so Erin decided

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Speaker 2: to go to the hospital to get some fluids to

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Speaker 2: help with her gastro and once the hospital staff realized

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Speaker 2: who she was, Erin was told by the doctor there

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Speaker 2: was a very grave concern that the lunch she'd served

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Speaker 2: had contained death cat mushrooms, and they told her she

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Speaker 2: needed emergency IV treatment so that she didn't end up

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Speaker 2: as sick as the others. What happened next, Greg, because

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Speaker 2: this blew my mind.

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Speaker 5: Well, what happened was she was told that really it

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Speaker 5: was a life and death situation, that this wasn't just

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Speaker 5: you know, to avoid being some ill health. Chris Webster,

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Speaker 5: doctor Chris Webster was telling her that they did heavily

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Speaker 5: suspect deathcat mushrooms. They needed to test her liver a

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Speaker 5: function right now in order to save her life if

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Speaker 5: she was suffering from the same illness. Now, most people,

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Speaker 5: when they're told it's life and death would just immediately

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Speaker 5: allow themselves to be taken into hospital and get immediate treatment,

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Speaker 5: but Aaron decided not to. She decided she'd go home.

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Speaker 5: She had to lock up her lambs, feed her dog,

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Speaker 5: find some ballet clothes for a daughter, and get things

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Speaker 5: organized before she came back to hospital. She'd also been

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Speaker 5: told get your kids here right now too, because if

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Speaker 5: you fed them that meal on the Sunday night, which

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Speaker 5: she had she'd already said she had, then they needed

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Speaker 5: to be tested right now too to avoid again a

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Speaker 5: life and death situation. She didn't call the school, She

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Speaker 5: made no move to get her kids back to the hospital. Nothing.

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Speaker 5: So you wonder what is the reasonable explanation for that behavior?

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Speaker 5: And this is what the jury were wrestling with, Like

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Speaker 5: to reach their verdict, they had had to decide that

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Speaker 5: actually guilt was the only reasonable explanation for that behavior,

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Speaker 5: not innocence.

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Speaker 2: That is quite the red flag, isn't it to be

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Speaker 2: told by doctors that your life is at risk and

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Speaker 2: also knowing you may have put your kid's life at risk,

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Speaker 2: and instead of freaking out like most of us, would

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Speaker 2: you say, Okay, cool, thanks for that info. I'm just

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Speaker 2: going to pop home and do a few chores and

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Speaker 2: then I'll come back for treatment.

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Speaker 1: Very bizarre.

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Speaker 2: Hey, stick around, We've got more shocking evidence coming up

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Speaker 2: for you in just a moment.

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Speaker 1: Welcome back.

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Speaker 2: I'm chatting to Greg Hadrick, author of the Mushroom Murders. Now,

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Speaker 2: just before the break, we were talking about how Aaron

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Speaker 2: Patterson discharged herself from hospital against medical advice. She returned

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Speaker 2: about ninety minutes later for treatment a surprise prize. It

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Speaker 2: turned out she wasn't that sick at all, and she

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Speaker 2: eventually left the hospital. Greg, I want to talk now

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Speaker 2: about this food hydrator that Aaron owned. We know that

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Speaker 2: Aaron had foraged for wild mushrooms in the past. She'd

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Speaker 2: told friends that. Now the prosecution argued that Erin foraged

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Speaker 2: for the death cat mushrooms, dried them using her hydrator,

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Speaker 2: and later deliberately.

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Speaker 1: Used them in the beef Wellington to kill her guests.

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Speaker 2: All along, though Aaron had claimed the only mushrooms she'd

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Speaker 2: used in the dish were from Wooli's and a mysterious

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Speaker 2: Asian grosser that she could never provide many details about. Then,

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Speaker 2: on August two, four days after the lunch, Aaron grabbed

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Speaker 2: her food hydrator and dumped it at the local tip

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Speaker 2: I mean, how suss is that there was CCTV.

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Speaker 1: Footage of her doing this. She even used her bank

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Speaker 1: card to pay for it.

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Speaker 2: Eventually, after the police became suspicious of Erin, they found

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Speaker 2: out about this visit to the tip and they managed

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Speaker 2: to recover that hydrader. They asked her about it when

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Speaker 2: they interviewed her at the police station. Tell us what

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Speaker 2: happened to Greg.

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Speaker 5: Well, they interviewed her because they had found the manual

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Speaker 5: for a food dehydrator in her kitchen when they did

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Speaker 5: the search. So they were just following normal police procedure

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Speaker 5: and asking her, you know, well, did she have that

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Speaker 5: dehydrator that she had the manual for and she was

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Speaker 5: saying no, that was years in the past and she

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Speaker 5: hadn't used it for several years. She certainly hadn't used

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Speaker 5: it recently. She didn't have a dehydrator at all. What

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Speaker 5: she did not know when she was actually telling these answers.

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Speaker 5: And when you watch that interview online, you have to

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Speaker 5: remember that the police had already recovered that dehydrator from

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Speaker 5: the tip and it was in the room next door.

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Speaker 5: So the police were asking her questions about a dehydrator

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Speaker 5: that they knew she'd owned because they'd seen her throw

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Speaker 5: it out and they'd already got it, and it was

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Speaker 5: in the police station. And yet you watch eron and

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Speaker 5: without without a blinking she's just completely denying its existence

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Speaker 5: at all.

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Speaker 2: Where Okay, you say in the book at that stage,

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Speaker 2: that's when the police knew that they were talking to

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Speaker 2: a liar.

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Speaker 5: And a very good liar, because you when you watch

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Speaker 5: that interview, there's no sense of panic, there's no sense

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Speaker 5: of stress. She's just talking quite normally, denying its complete existence.

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Speaker 2: So just to cover off all that stuff, we know

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Speaker 2: that she lied to her guess about why she wanted

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Speaker 2: them to come to this lunch in the first place.

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Speaker 2: We know that she then served leftovers to her kids,

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Speaker 2: even though she knew that that had potentially poisoned her

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Speaker 2: other guests. She left the hospital once she rocked up

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Speaker 2: there after being told that she was in a potentially

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Speaker 2: life threatening situation, and then she lies about this food

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Speaker 2: hydrator even though the cops know that she has it.

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Speaker 2: I mean, there's so much shocking evidence that is obvious

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Speaker 2: why the jury convicted her. But I would like to

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Speaker 2: ask you, Greg, what do you think was the single

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Speaker 2: most damning piece of evidence as to why the jury

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Speaker 2: found this mum of too guilty.

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Speaker 5: Look for me, and you know, prefacing everything by saying

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Speaker 5: that the jury were told constantly you have to consider

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Speaker 5: the whole of the evidence in these sort of trials.

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Speaker 5: But for me, it goes back to feeding the kids

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Speaker 5: the leftovers on that Sunday night. For me, that was

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Speaker 5: there's a sequence of actions that Aaron took where it's

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Speaker 5: highly unlikely if she was innocent, she would have taken them.

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Speaker 5: For me, the thing with the feeding the kids the

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Speaker 5: beef Wellington's, regardless of whether the mushrooms are scraped off

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Speaker 5: or not. Doing that, there's no other explanation I feel

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Speaker 5: for doing that than that she knew that those beef

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Speaker 5: Wellington's did not contain death cap mushrooms. You wouldn't even

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Speaker 5: if you knew that there were death cap mushrooms, you

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Speaker 5: wouldn't just scrape it off because she would have known

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Speaker 5: it only took you eight millionth of the kilogram to

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Speaker 5: kill people. So a mother and a woman who does

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Speaker 5: that for me will only do it if she's guilty

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Speaker 5: of knowing exactly which Wellington's were poisoned and which word.

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Speaker 5: And I think that's the one piece of evidence that

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Speaker 5: you cannot find a reason why an innocent Erin would.

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Speaker 2: Have done that to everyone who is not across the

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Speaker 2: details of this trial, go and get Greg's book, The

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Speaker 2: Mushroom Murders. There are so many other shocking pieces of evidence,

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Speaker 2: including that Ian the survivor, claims that Erin had used

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Speaker 2: a different colored plate from her guests. Those plates were

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Speaker 2: never found. There was also the fact that Erin had

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Speaker 2: multiple mobile phones that she wiped, possibly to try and

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Speaker 2: conceal her tracks.

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Speaker 1: The book is mind blowing. Greg.

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Speaker 2: Thank you so much for writing it, and thanks for

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Speaker 2: chatting to news dot com dot you.

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Speaker 5: Thanks, Becky, it's been a pleasure.

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Speaker 2: We will keep you up to date on Aaron Patterson's

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Speaker 2: appeal on news dot com at dot AU in the meantime.

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Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening, and I would chat

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Speaker 2: to you again next week.

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Speaker 1: Follow or subscribe to from the newsroom wherever you get

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Speaker 1: your podcasts.