Speaker 1: Did you intend to kill or cause really serious injury
Speaker 1: to Donald Patterson by serving that meal?
Speaker 2: No? I didn't.
Speaker 1: Did you intend to harm him in any way?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Did you intend to kill or cause really serious injury
Speaker 1: to Gail Patterson by serving that meal? No? Did you
Speaker 1: intend to cause her any harm at all? No? Did
Speaker 1: you intend to kill or cause really serious injury to
Speaker 1: Heather Wilkinson by serving that meal?
Speaker 2: No? I didn't.
Speaker 1: And did you intend to cause her any harm at all?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: And did you intend to kill Ian Wilkinson by serving
Speaker 1: that meal? No?
Speaker 2: I didn't.
Speaker 1: Did you intend to cause him any harm at all? No?
Speaker 2: I didn't.
Speaker 3: There were some emphatic denials from Aaron Patterson in court today.
Speaker 3: As her defense barrister Colin Mandy brought her three days
Speaker 3: of evidence in chief to an end. But it wasn't
Speaker 3: the end of her time on the stand, because Crown
Speaker 3: Prosecutor Nannette Rodgers had our own set of questions for
Speaker 3: the woman accused of triple murder.
Speaker 4: I suggest that you deliberately used foraged mushrooms in the
Speaker 4: beef Wellington that you'd serve to your guests on Saturday,
Speaker 4: the twenty ninth of July.
Speaker 2: No, that's not true.
Speaker 4: I also suggest to you that those foraged mushrooms were
Speaker 4: death cap mushrooms.
Speaker 2: I didn't deliberately put death cap mushrooms in the meal.
Speaker 3: It was a day dominated by the prosecution's cross examination
Speaker 3: of Erin, and we'll break it down in this episode.
Speaker 3: I'm Brooke Greebert Craig, and this is the Mushroom Cook.
Speaker 3: We just finished day twenty six of Aaron Patterson's murder trial,
Speaker 3: and court reporter Laura Passella joins me in our makeshift
Speaker 3: podcast studio.
Speaker 5: Let's get this episode underway.
Speaker 3: As we mentioned at the start of the episode, today
Speaker 3: the jury mostly heard the prosecutions cross examination of Aaron,
Speaker 3: and there was a lot of rapid fire questions from
Speaker 3: doctor Rogers.
Speaker 5: Yes it was, mister Mandy. Didn't take very long today
Speaker 5: to finish Erin's evidence in chief, so by eleven thirty
Speaker 5: doctor Rogers had risen to her feet and asked Erin
Speaker 5: her first question.
Speaker 3: Here's an exchange between Aaron and doctor Rogers from today
Speaker 3: in court, voiced by actors.
Speaker 4: So to sum up in relation to your so called
Speaker 4: cancer diagnosis, your claim to various people that you had
Speaker 4: been diagnosed with cancer before the lunch was deliberately false.
Speaker 4: Yes or no?
Speaker 2: I didn't make that claim.
Speaker 4: You told this lie. I suggest as part of your
Speaker 4: efforts to get the lunch guests and Simon to attend
Speaker 4: your lunch correct or incorrect? Incorrect, And I suggest to
Speaker 4: explain why the children were not present correct or incorrect?
Speaker 2: Incorrect.
Speaker 4: You knew you didn't have cancer, however, correct, that's true,
Speaker 4: but you needed, I suggest, to appear to have a
Speaker 4: good reason to invite your guests to lie lunch at
Speaker 4: your house, because it was so out of the ordinary
Speaker 4: for you to do this. Agree or disagree?
Speaker 2: Disagree?
Speaker 4: Do you say that it was ordinary for you to
Speaker 4: have people over to your house for lunch.
Speaker 2: No, it wasn't ordinary, and it.
Speaker 4: Certainly wasn't ordinary to invite Ian and Heather, was it.
Speaker 2: That's true. They hadn't been for lunch at my house before.
Speaker 4: I suggest that you never thought you would have to
Speaker 4: account for this lie about having cancer because you thought
Speaker 4: that the lunch guests would die.
Speaker 2: That's not true, and.
Speaker 4: Your lie would never be found out. Correct or incorrect,
Speaker 4: That's not true.
Speaker 5: Doctor Rogers reminded the court of Ian Wilkinson's evidence from
Speaker 5: the second week of the trial where he said that
Speaker 5: Aaron had announced at the lunch that she had cancer
Speaker 5: and that she had undergone a diagnostic test that showed
Speaker 5: a tumor. But Erin told the court today that she
Speaker 5: did not make those statements at the table. She did agree, though,
Speaker 5: that she wanted the guest to believe she would be
Speaker 5: having treatment for cancer, but she denied ever telling them
Speaker 5: that she had a diagnosis. Erin admitted yesterday in her
Speaker 5: evidence in chief that she misled the guests when she
Speaker 5: told them she might need upcoming treatment to hide the
Speaker 5: fact that she was planning to have gastric bypass surgery
Speaker 5: due to the body image issues she had developed over
Speaker 5: her life. She explained that she misled them because she
Speaker 5: was too ashamed to tell her guests she was planning
Speaker 5: to have that surgery.
Speaker 3: Let's move on. Aaron was asked many questions today about mushrooms,
Speaker 3: including whether she saw a post on citizen website I
Speaker 3: Naturalists and this post was about death cap mushrooms cited
Speaker 3: in Locke. Here's her exchange with doctor Rogers.
Speaker 4: I suggest that you saw Christine McKenzie's post that she
Speaker 4: posted on I Naturalists on eighteenth of April twenty twenty
Speaker 4: three about death cap mushrooms at Locke. Do you agree
Speaker 4: or disagree?
Speaker 2: I disagree.
Speaker 4: I suggest that you then went to Locke on the
Speaker 4: twenty eighth of April twenty five, twenty three. Do you
Speaker 4: agree or disagree?
Speaker 2: I don't know if I did go to lock that
Speaker 2: day or not.
Speaker 4: I'm going to suggest that you went to lock on
Speaker 4: that day to find death cap mushrooms. Agree or disagree?
Speaker 2: Disagree.
Speaker 3: The jury were then shown an image of yellow tinged
Speaker 3: mushrooms laid out on a dehydrator tray on a set
Speaker 3: of electronic scales.
Speaker 4: These mushrooms in image one of Exhibit eighteen are the
Speaker 4: death cap mushrooms that you found at lock on twenty
Speaker 4: eighth of April twenty three. Agree or disagree?
Speaker 2: Disagree?
Speaker 4: I suggest that you were weighing these mushrooms, these death
Speaker 4: cap mushrooms, so that you could calculate the weight required
Speaker 4: for the administration of a fatal dose for one person
Speaker 4: agree or disagree, disagree, and the weight required for five
Speaker 4: fatal doses for five people. Agree or disagree disagree.
Speaker 5: Eron told the jury yesterday that she made six beef
Speaker 5: wellingtons and put one in the fridge when she was
Speaker 5: plating up today, Doctor Rogers asked her whether she intended
Speaker 5: to serve one of those six beef Wellingtons to Simon
Speaker 5: if he had turned up to the lunch. She replied
Speaker 5: that if he had come, she would have given him
Speaker 5: a beef Wellington too, but she again denied deliberately putting
Speaker 5: death cat mushrooms in any of the beef Wellington's. On
Speaker 5: the topic of Simon, doctor Rogers also took Erin to
Speaker 5: some of his testimony, where he said that Erin had
Speaker 5: told him she had done a blind taste test with
Speaker 5: their daughter by hiding dried mushrooms in muffins to see
Speaker 5: which one she would like more. Eron told the court
Speaker 5: today that it was true that she was putting dried
Speaker 5: mushrooms in her children's food, including spaghetti, lasagna, stew, and brownies,
Speaker 5: and she explained that she was trying to get extra
Speaker 5: vegetables into her children's bodies. Doctor Rogers suggested that she
Speaker 5: was actually trying to see if she could successfully hide
Speaker 5: mushrooms in food generally, but Erin said it was only
Speaker 5: in really to her children's food.
Speaker 3: Doctor Rogers also questioned Erin about the dehydrator she bought
Speaker 3: from a store in lean Gatha about twelve seventeen pm
Speaker 3: on April twenty eight. Erin admitted that she dumped this
Speaker 3: dehydrator at the Kunwarra tip four days after the lunch
Speaker 3: on August two. Here's what was set in court.
Speaker 4: And you agree that they were your fingerprints found on
Speaker 4: your dehydrator.
Speaker 2: Correct.
Speaker 4: You took the dehydrator to the transfer station because you
Speaker 4: had been using it to dehydrate mushrooms, hadn't you, Yes,
Speaker 4: and not just any old mushrooms, death cap mushrooms in fact. Correct.
Speaker 2: I didn't know that i'd done that, and you knew.
Speaker 4: That they were death cap mushrooms that you had been dehydrating. Correct.
Speaker 2: No, I didn't know that, and you were very keen.
Speaker 4: To dispose of any evidence which might connect you with
Speaker 4: the possession of death cap mushrooms.
Speaker 2: No, I didn't know they'd been in it.
Speaker 4: That's why you rushed out the day after your release
Speaker 4: from Monash to get rid of the evidence. Correct. No,
Speaker 4: you lied to police about never owning a dehydrator because
Speaker 4: you knew you had used the dehydrator to prepare deathcat
Speaker 4: mushrooms to include in the lunch. No, I didn't know
Speaker 4: that you lied because you knew if you told the
Speaker 4: police the truth, it would implicate you in the deliberate
Speaker 4: poisoning of your four lunch guests. Correct.
Speaker 2: No, no, it's not true.
Speaker 5: Aaron told the jury yesterday about a conversation she had
Speaker 5: with Simon while they were at Monash Medical Center on
Speaker 5: August one. She said that he accused her of poisoning
Speaker 5: his parents using the dehydrator. When she was asked to
Speaker 5: explain why she dumped the dehydrator, she said after that
Speaker 5: exchange with Simon, she was scared about the conversations that
Speaker 5: might flow with people from child protection, and she was
Speaker 5: scared that authorities would blame her for making everyone sick. Later,
Speaker 5: during the proceedings today, doctor Rogers asked Aaron about messages
Speaker 5: she sent her online friends in December twenty twenty two
Speaker 5: about Don's response to an ongoing child's support dispute with Simon.
Speaker 5: In the messages to her friends, Erin said that Don
Speaker 5: couldn't adjudicate because he didn't know both sides, and Simon
Speaker 5: wouldn't give his side. She said that Don told her
Speaker 5: that all he could ask is that Simon and her
Speaker 5: get together and pray for the children. Before she then
Speaker 5: said this family, I swear to foking God in this message.
Speaker 5: There were three emojis that Aaron sent, one after the
Speaker 5: reference to Simon not giving his side, and two after
Speaker 5: the reference to praying for their children. These messages were
Speaker 5: shown to the court today on screens, but they were
Speaker 5: not screenshots of the messages themselves, but rather extracts. I
Speaker 5: don't think any of us foresaw there would be in
Speaker 5: exchange about emojis in this trial, but that's what took
Speaker 5: place today. Here's what was said.
Speaker 4: I suggest to you that these are eye roll emojis,
Speaker 4: but you disagree with that.
Speaker 2: I think there's a better eye roll emoji than these
Speaker 2: that actually makes it clear that eyes are rolling. I
Speaker 2: can't see anything about eyes rolling in there.
Speaker 4: By inserting these emojis, I suggested that you were mocking
Speaker 4: their advice to you.
Speaker 2: Correct, No, that's not true, and.
Speaker 4: Part of your mockery was the religious components of their advice.
Speaker 4: Do you agree?
Speaker 2: No, I don't. I wasn't mocking. I was frustrated.
Speaker 4: Even though these emojis are right next to the phrases
Speaker 4: pray together and pray for the kids.
Speaker 2: They are.
Speaker 3: Doctor Rodgers will continue her cross examination of erin tomorrow, Laura.
Speaker 3: The jurors actually found out more about the timeline of
Speaker 3: the trial today, didn't they.
Speaker 5: Yes, that's right, So we're nearly at the end of
Speaker 5: the sixth week and at the beginning of the trial.
Speaker 5: Just as Christopher Biale indicated to the jury that the
Speaker 5: trial would only be about six weeks so today he
Speaker 5: turned to the jurors to offer them an update. He
Speaker 5: said that Erin would most likely continue giving evidence until
Speaker 5: early next week, before legal discussions would be taking place
Speaker 5: in the jury's absence. He then said that after that
Speaker 5: there would be the closing addresses from both the prosecution
Speaker 5: and the defense, which would likely bring them to the
Speaker 5: end of next week. Then after that, he said, they
Speaker 5: would be hearing from him directly when he delivers his
Speaker 5: judge's charge or his instructions to the jury, and that
Speaker 5: would also take a couple of days as well. Justice
Speaker 5: Bale then said to them that the brute would then
Speaker 5: go on the other foot because none of them could
Speaker 5: tell him how long it would take them to deliberate
Speaker 5: a verdict, but he said when that time came, they
Speaker 5: should take all the time they need.
Speaker 3: I'm sure the jurors appreciated getting that timeline. Just like
Speaker 3: we did, and just like them, we'll be here for
Speaker 3: the duration of the trial, bringing you all the latest
Speaker 3: updates in the case. For now, head to the mushroomcook
Speaker 3: dot com dot au for more