Speaker 1: I'm sick of this shit. I want nothing to do
Speaker 1: with them. I thought his parents would want him to
Speaker 1: do the right thing, but it seems they're concerned about
Speaker 1: not wanting to feel uncomfortable and not wanting to get
Speaker 1: involved in their son's personal matters are overriding that. So fuckam.
Speaker 2: On August five, twenty twenty three, police search the home
Speaker 2: of Aaron Pattison, the woman who is now on trial
Speaker 2: for murder over the deadly Mushroom Mill. Investigators seized multiple devices,
Speaker 2: but on one particular mobile phone they found Facebook messages
Speaker 2: sent from an account linked to Erin messages sent to
Speaker 2: friends in a group chat.
Speaker 1: So Don said they can't adjudicate if they don't know
Speaker 1: both sides, and Simon won't give his side, so he
Speaker 1: said all he can ask is that Simon and I
Speaker 1: get together and pray for the children this family. I
Speaker 1: swear to fooking God.
Speaker 2: These messages, along with images, screenshots, and other evidence taken
Speaker 2: from different devices, were shown to the jury. Here in
Speaker 2: my well, I'm Brooke Greebert Craig, and this is the
Speaker 2: Mushroom Cook. And once again with my colleague, court reporter
Speaker 2: Laura passella Hey Brook, it was a busy day in court,
Speaker 2: wasn't it.
Speaker 3: Yes, it was definitely a jam pack day.
Speaker 2: Let's start with Digital forensic Officer Shaman fox Henry. We
Speaker 2: spoke about him yesterday. He was in court again today
Speaker 2: continuing his evidence.
Speaker 3: That's right. Our listeners may remember that yesterday he was
Speaker 3: speaking about a Cooler Master computer that was seized from
Speaker 3: Aaron's house during one of the search warrants, and he
Speaker 3: spoke about what was found on that device. But today
Speaker 3: he focused on the phones and a tablet that was seized.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about one of the mobile phones first. We
Speaker 2: heard grabs from a voice actor at the start of
Speaker 2: the episode that we're reading some of the messages that
Speaker 2: were found on that device.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's right. This was a Samsung phone analyzed by
Speaker 3: one of mister fox Henry's colleagues, and there are a
Speaker 3: raft of messages that were extracted and they were all
Speaker 3: shown to the jury on screens in the courtroom and
Speaker 3: read out by Crown Prosecutor Jane Warren. As you would
Speaker 3: have heard at the top of the episode, these are
Speaker 3: messages from a Facebook group chat that had members including
Speaker 3: Danielle Barkley and Jenny Hay, who were witnesses who gave
Speaker 3: evidence at the beginning of this trial. They were some
Speaker 3: of the friends Erin had made over the internet.
Speaker 2: Now, these messages were sent from an account called Aaron
Speaker 2: Aaron Eron.
Speaker 3: Yes, you've got that right. In the prosecution opening, the
Speaker 3: jury heard that Erin spoke to her online friends under
Speaker 3: three account names, and at the time the prosecution said
Speaker 3: these were Aaron Patterson Erin Erin and the one you
Speaker 3: just mentioned, Brook Aeron Erin Erin, And the messages that
Speaker 3: were brought up on the screen today were all in
Speaker 3: relation to that third account name. The messages were sent
Speaker 3: in early December twenty twenty two and reference the child
Speaker 3: support dispute between Aaron and Simon. In the messages, Aaron Aaron,
Speaker 3: Aaron writes to her friends about Don's response to this
Speaker 3: ongoing dispute.
Speaker 2: Here are some of those messages.
Speaker 1: I said to him about fifty times yesterday that I
Speaker 1: didn't want them to adjudicate nobody bloody listens to me.
Speaker 1: At least I know they're a lost cause. I wonder
Speaker 1: if they've got any capacity for self reflection at all.
Speaker 1: I mean, clearly, the fact that Simon refused to talk
Speaker 1: about personal issues in part stems from the behavior of
Speaker 1: his parents and how they operate.
Speaker 3: Days later, on December nine, another message was sent.
Speaker 1: His mum was horrified I'd claimed child support. Why isn't
Speaker 1: she horrified her son is such a deadbeat that I
Speaker 1: had no choice but to claim.
Speaker 3: So it's really important to note that these texts were
Speaker 3: read into the record today, but mister fox Henry wasn't
Speaker 3: asked anything about what they meant or anything about their contents.
Speaker 3: He simply explained that these messages were found on the
Speaker 3: device and linked to the account name Aaron eron Erin,
Speaker 3: and I will just add that there were other messages
Speaker 3: today shown to the jury.
Speaker 2: Now, mister fox Henry continued his evidence and he was
Speaker 2: asked questions around a Samsung tablet seized from Aaron's home.
Speaker 2: The jury were then showed images that were extracted from
Speaker 2: that device. These images were of a black dehydrator from
Speaker 2: April thirty, twenty twenty three, and images of mushrooms on
Speaker 2: a set of kitchen scales from May four, twenty twenty three,
Speaker 2: so this was about two months before that deadly lunch.
Speaker 3: Mister fox Henry explained that these photos were extracted from
Speaker 3: a Google Photos cash folder, and the dates that you
Speaker 3: mentioned just then, Brooke, were the last modified dates that
Speaker 3: were pulled from the tablet. Beyond these photos that were
Speaker 3: taken of the dehydrator and the kitchen scales, some photos
Speaker 3: were also extracted from the device that appeared to be
Speaker 3: screenshots taken of a web browser. The search results in
Speaker 3: the screenshot were shown to the jury and there were
Speaker 3: four in total, all referencing cancer. There were three relating
Speaker 3: to ovarian cancer and one about lymphoma. One of the screenshots,
Speaker 3: which had a last modified date of May tenth, twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three, had reference to a website called Stage four
Speaker 3: ovarian Cancer, and the text on the screen read stage
Speaker 3: four ovarian cancer means the cancer has spread to other
Speaker 3: body organs some distance away from the ovaries, such as
Speaker 3: the liver or the lungs. Again, mister Fox, Henry wasn't
Speaker 3: asked any questions about what these screenshots or these photos meant,
Speaker 3: simply that they were extracted from this tablet.
Speaker 2: And just to remind the listeners, the prosecution alleges Aarin
Speaker 2: falsely claimed to have had cancer to explain why the
Speaker 2: children were not at that lunch on July twenty nine,
Speaker 2: while the defense has suggested Aaron only told the lunch
Speaker 2: guests she had as suspected diagnosis of cancer.
Speaker 3: We've heard evidence as well from Professor Andrew Burston who
Speaker 3: has examined Aaron's medical records and confirmed she has never
Speaker 3: been diagnosed with cancer.
Speaker 2: And there was another phone that mister fox Henry spoke
Speaker 2: about today, wasn't there?
Speaker 3: There was? This was another Samsung mobile phone. So there
Speaker 3: are two Samsungs that have been seized in this case.
Speaker 3: And this phone is being referred to as Phone B.
Speaker 3: It was the phone that Aaron handed to investigators during
Speaker 3: the search warrant. It was analyzed by again one of
Speaker 3: mister fox Henry's colleagues, and he told the court that
Speaker 3: when it came time to examine the device, they found
Speaker 3: that four factory resets had been conducted. A report was
Speaker 3: shown to the jury of those factory resets, and it
Speaker 3: could be seen that they were made on February twelve,
Speaker 3: August two, August five, and August eighth, twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3: August five was the date of the warrant itself, and
Speaker 3: August eighth was three days afterwards, after the phone had
Speaker 3: already been seized. Mister fox Henry told the court that
Speaker 3: no user data had been extracted from this device.
Speaker 2: Now let's move on. The jury heard more about the
Speaker 2: investigation the City of Monash Council did into mushrooms at
Speaker 2: Asian grosers. Our listeners will remember that Erin claimed to
Speaker 2: multiple different medical experts that she bought the dried mushrooms
Speaker 2: that she used in the beef Wellington dish from an
Speaker 2: Asian grosser.
Speaker 3: The jury heard about this investigation through one of the
Speaker 3: Monash City Council's Environmental health officers. His name was Troy
Speaker 3: schwan neckt I think I've pronounced that wrong, so I
Speaker 3: apologized Troy, So I'm just going to call him by
Speaker 3: his first name for this little bit of the episode.
Speaker 3: He explained to the jury that he was tasked with
Speaker 3: first coming up with a list of all of the
Speaker 3: Asian grossers in Oakley, Clayton and Matt Waverley were some
Speaker 3: of the suburbs Erin had mentioned to these experts. You
Speaker 3: spoke about Brook. She said she couldn't remember which suburb
Speaker 3: the Asian grocer was located, but she said it may
Speaker 3: have been in one of these three.
Speaker 2: So it was really up to him to attend those premises,
Speaker 2: take photos of the mushrooms and then establish a supply
Speaker 2: chain and understand whether there were any changes to it.
Speaker 3: In total, he attended fourteen grocers. There were five in Oakley,
Speaker 3: five in Clayton, and four in Mount Waverley, and he
Speaker 3: told the court that across his investigation he took more
Speaker 3: than three hundred photos, and some of those were shown
Speaker 3: to the jury today on the screens.
Speaker 2: The jury also heard that Aaron told officials that she
Speaker 2: bought mushrooms from a store in a strip shopping center.
Speaker 2: She said the mushrooms were in a sea through packet
Speaker 2: and the label on the packet was white with typing
Speaker 2: on it. She also said that the mushrooms were either
Speaker 2: Shitaki mushrooms or Porcini mushrooms.
Speaker 3: So this really helped guide Troy's investigation. He made sure
Speaker 3: that when he was going to these premises he was
Speaker 3: really looking for mushrooms that matched this description. When it
Speaker 3: came time for him to write up his findings, which
Speaker 3: were again shown on the screen to the jury, he
Speaker 3: said that it was only one store in Oakley that
Speaker 3: had repackaged mushrooms. He explained that this particular shop got
Speaker 3: the mushrooms in bulk and due to the preferences of
Speaker 3: their customers, put those mushrooms into smaller bags for sale.
Speaker 2: And through cross examination, the jury heard that this was
Speaker 2: the store where some of the mushrooms were actually taken
Speaker 2: off the shelves for some time.
Speaker 3: This was because of the similarities some of these repackaged
Speaker 3: mushrooms shared with the information Troy was provided, but the
Speaker 3: court heard that ultimately he was unable to find any
Speaker 3: product across these fourteen stores that exactly matched the description
Speaker 3: Aaron had provided.
Speaker 2: Troy was also cross examined about something else, wasn't.
Speaker 3: He Laura, Yeah, there was one final point that defense
Speaker 3: barrister Sophie Stafford wanted to make, which was in relation
Speaker 3: to the fact that Aaron had told some officials that
Speaker 3: the dried mushrooms could have been bought from an Asian
Speaker 3: grocer in glen Waverley, but Troy confirmed he was not
Speaker 3: asked to attend any Asian grocers in Glen Waverley.
Speaker 2: Okay, Laura, now we're going to move on to a
Speaker 2: completely different topic. It's a bit jarring, but the jury
Speaker 2: was shown a chart of Aaron's BAO movements when she
Speaker 2: was in hospital on July thirty one, twenty twenty three. Now, Laura,
Speaker 2: this is a bit tmi, isn't it.
Speaker 3: Yes? We have heard quite a lot of medical evidence
Speaker 3: in this case, but things definitely got into the nitty
Speaker 3: gritties today.
Speaker 2: This evidence came through witness Mariam Cesspon, who was a
Speaker 2: nurse who assisted Aaron Attlean at the hospital on July
Speaker 2: thirty one.
Speaker 3: This was two days after the lunch and to remind
Speaker 3: our listeners, Aaron had presented at the hospital around eight o'clock.
Speaker 3: She discharged herself against medical advice five minutes later, but
Speaker 3: ultimately returned by around nine point fifty. After she was
Speaker 3: admitted and brought into a room. Mariam said that she
Speaker 3: asked Erin to tell her every time she needed to
Speaker 3: go to the toilet so they could collect these bow
Speaker 3: motions and keep a record of them.
Speaker 2: And something was mentioned about witch's hats, wasn't it Yes?
Speaker 3: And this was something I'd never heard of before. But
Speaker 3: another term for the pan they used to collect this
Speaker 3: matter is actually called a witch's hat. So she explained
Speaker 3: how the witch's hat is like an inverted triangle. It's
Speaker 3: placed on the toilet seat to collect the bow movements
Speaker 3: for examination by a doctor or nurse.
Speaker 2: Now, what were actually found on these charts?
Speaker 3: There were five bow movements recorded from ten am to
Speaker 3: around eleven fifty am, just before Erin was taken by
Speaker 3: ambulance to Monash Medical Center. The three bower movements were
Speaker 3: actually in very close proximity, so ten am, ten oh
Speaker 3: four and ten o six and Miss Sesspond was tasked
Speaker 3: with observing these bower movements and writing a description of them.
Speaker 2: Again, this is a bit TMI, but a few of
Speaker 2: them were described as medium and had the consistency of liquid.
Speaker 3: And Miss Sespond recalled to the court that at one
Speaker 3: stage Erin told her it does look a little like
Speaker 3: a we, but it is a bowl motion.
Speaker 2: And on that note, hopefully we don't have to talk
Speaker 2: about Aaron's bower movements ever.
Speaker 3: Again yes, I hope so too. But just to flag
Speaker 3: it is mister Fox Henry who is set again to
Speaker 3: take the stand tomorrow for his third day of evidence.
Speaker 2: We'll be back tomorrow, but in the meantime go to
Speaker 2: the mushroomcook dot com dot au for more