Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
Speaker 1: It's Thursday May one, twenty twenty five. Big business says
Speaker 1: they're worried the Albaneze government will keep going with industrial
Speaker 1: relations reform if re elected, highlighting what they say would
Speaker 1: be an eighteen billion dollar hit to the economy if
Speaker 1: labor implements universal portable leave for casuals that would allow
Speaker 1: low paid workers in sectors like disability, aged care and
Speaker 1: cleaning to carry their entitlements for long service, sick and
Speaker 1: careers leave to multiple employers. The federal election is two
Speaker 1: sleeps away and you can read all our scoops and
Speaker 1: analysis twenty four seven at the Australian dot com dot au.
Speaker 1: It's a rumble in the Crumble, a high stakes battle
Speaker 1: between two celebrity cooks, Nagi Mahashi and brook Bellamy. Mahahi
Speaker 1: says recipes including chocolate caramel slice were lifted from her
Speaker 1: wildly popular recipe Tineats Empire for Bellamy's book Bake with Brookie.
Speaker 1: Bellamy denies any plagiarism. Aaron Patterson served a mushroom meal
Speaker 1: that killed three elderly relatives and made another seriously ill.
Speaker 1: The Crown says it was murder. Patterson says it was
Speaker 1: all a terrible accident, and that in the aftermath Patterson
Speaker 1: behaved in ways that might make her look guilty simply
Speaker 1: because she was panicking. Today, the Front's Christen Amiot with
Speaker 1: all the detail.
Speaker 2: At lunchtime on July twenty nine, twenty twenty three, a
Speaker 2: Victorian mother of two, Erin Patterson, served beef Wellington to
Speaker 2: Don and Gale Patterson, the elderly parents of her husband, Simon,
Speaker 2: and Ian and Heather Wilkinson, his aunt and uncle. For
Speaker 2: three of those elderly people. The meal was fatal, and
Speaker 2: now Erin Patterson, who is pleading not guilty, is facing
Speaker 2: trial three counts of murder and one of attempted murder.
Speaker 2: On day one of hearings Wednesday, the Crown took a
Speaker 2: jury of fifteen through the events on that Winter's day
Speaker 2: two years ago, Patterson, according to the Crown, case, invited
Speaker 2: her extended family to lunch with the intention of killing them.
Speaker 2: Ian Wilkinson is a pastor at the church where Erin
Speaker 2: Patterson worshiped, and Heather was his wife. Simon Patterson wasn't
Speaker 2: present at the lunch The court heard he and Erin
Speaker 2: were separated at the time, but still in regular contact.
Speaker 2: Rogers said he turned down his wife's invitation, texting her
Speaker 2: that he didn't feel comfortable attending after their relationship soured.
Speaker 2: These are the words spoken in court by the Crown prosecutor.
Speaker 2: Doctor Nanette Rogers sc we've used voice actors throughout this episode.
Speaker 3: The beef Wellingtons were prepared as a piece of steak,
Speaker 3: covered with mushrooms and completely encased in pastry.
Speaker 2: Rogers said. Aaron Patterson claimed to have used two different
Speaker 2: types of mushrooms in the beef Wellington, a packet of
Speaker 2: button mushrooms from Woolworth's and dried mushrooms from a Chinese
Speaker 2: groser in the Melbourne suburbs.
Speaker 3: Heather and Gale moved the four large plates from the
Speaker 3: bench to the table, and the accused took the smaller,
Speaker 3: lighter colored plate to her place at the table. They
Speaker 3: said grace and started the meal.
Speaker 2: The prosecutor said ian Heather and Donald ate their entire portions,
Speaker 2: while Gail had about half and gave the rest to
Speaker 2: her husband. The Crown told the jury the guest said
Speaker 2: later how delicious the meal had been. After some catching up.
Speaker 2: Rogers said, Aaron Patterson told the group she'd been diagnosed
Speaker 2: with overian cancer, something both Crown and Defense now agree
Speaker 2: was not true, and asked for their advice on whether
Speaker 2: to tell her children. They prayed for her well being
Speaker 2: before leaving the Leon Gather home that evening, the symptoms
Speaker 2: began severe vomiting and diarrhea. While waiting for an ambulance
Speaker 2: to collect them from their home. The next morning, Roger said,
Speaker 2: the pastor's wife, Heather Wilkinson, asked Simon Patterson a question.
Speaker 3: Unprompted. Heather said, I noticed that Aaron put her food
Speaker 3: on a different plate to us. Her plate had colors
Speaker 3: on it. I wondered why that was.
Speaker 2: By August five, Heather Wilkinson and Gail and Donald Patterson
Speaker 2: were dead suffering a multiple organ failure. All were diagnosed
Speaker 2: with amenetia mushroom poisoning. The death cap Ian Wilkinson, the pastor,
Speaker 2: now a widower, survived.
Speaker 3: It is the prosecution case that the accused deliberately poisoned
Speaker 3: with murderous intent each of Ian Wilkinson, Heather Wilkinson, Gail Patterson,
Speaker 3: and Donal Patterson. On the twenty ninth of July at
Speaker 3: her house and Lee and Gatha after inviting them for
Speaker 3: lunch on the pretense that she'd been diagnosed with cancer
Speaker 3: and needed advice about how to break it to the children.
Speaker 3: It is also the prosecution case that A, the accused
Speaker 3: did not consume death cap mushrooms at the lunch, and
Speaker 3: that she pretended she was suffering the same type of
Speaker 3: illness as the lunch guests to cover that up. This
Speaker 3: is why we say she was reluctant to receive medical
Speaker 3: treatment for death cap mushroom poisoning. B. The accused did
Speaker 3: not really feed the leftovers of the poisoned beef Wellington
Speaker 3: to the children. This is why she was reluctant to
Speaker 3: have the children medically assist, because she knew that, like her,
Speaker 3: they had not eaten any poison food. See the accused
Speaker 3: lied about getting death cap mushrooms from an Asian grosser.
Speaker 3: The accused disposed of the dehydrator, which contained death cap
Speaker 3: mushroom remnants to conceal what she had done.
Speaker 2: But why, Rogers told the jury the Crown did not
Speaker 2: have to prove what Patterson's motive was, or even if
Speaker 2: she had won.
Speaker 3: What you will have to focus your attention on is
Speaker 3: whether you are satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the accused
Speaker 3: committed the charges on the indictment, not why she may
Speaker 3: have done so.
Speaker 2: Patterson has always denied any wrongdoing and has pleaded not guilty.
Speaker 2: Later in this episode, you'll hear the defense case. The
Speaker 2: court heard the first time Aaron Patterson complained of feeling
Speaker 2: unwell was on the morning of Sunday, July thirty, the
Speaker 2: day after the lunch, when she spoke with her husband
Speaker 2: on the phone. She said she'd been experiencing diarrhea at
Speaker 2: regular intervals from the evening of the twenty ninth acclaim,
Speaker 2: the prosecutor told the court is refuted by eyewitness and
Speaker 2: CCTV evidence. The court heard Eron Patterson drove her son
Speaker 2: to his flying lesson on the Sunday afternoon and wasn't
Speaker 2: observed stopping to use the toilet with any regularity.
Speaker 3: The accused is captured on CCTV entering the public toilet
Speaker 3: at the service station and exiting nine seconds later before
Speaker 3: she selected the products from the store.
Speaker 2: When she did present at an urgent care clinic on
Speaker 2: the morning of Monday, July thirty one, two days after
Speaker 2: the lunch, Rogers told the jury, Aaron Patterson was extremely
Speaker 2: reluctant to be admitted to hospital. Doctors at leon Gather
Speaker 2: Hospital had only just learned the Wilkinsons and the Pattersons
Speaker 2: may have been poisoned by death cap mushrooms, so they
Speaker 2: voiced their concern she should be assessed as soon as possible.
Speaker 3: Amongst this discussion, the accused repeatedly said she needed to leave.
Speaker 3: She said, I haven't come prepared to be admitted to
Speaker 3: hospital and I was just coming to be checked. She
Speaker 3: said she needed to go and sought her kids and
Speaker 3: that she needed to go home and pack for hospital.
Speaker 3: She was adamant that she would not stay.
Speaker 2: Against the advice of doctors and nurses. The Crown says,
Speaker 2: Aaron Patterson signed her own discharge form and left, telling
Speaker 2: them she'd be back in twenty minutes. It was only
Speaker 2: when one of the doctors informed Erin Patterson of his
Speaker 2: plan to get the police involved, that she returned to
Speaker 2: the hospital and agreed to be assessed.
Speaker 3: Doctor Foot assessed the accused and she formed the impression
Speaker 3: that the accused was moderately dehydrated and appeared to have
Speaker 3: a gastro intestinal type illness.
Speaker 2: The prosecutor also said Patterson didn't appear to appreciate the
Speaker 2: urgent need for her children, aged nine and fourteen at
Speaker 2: the time of the alleged murders, to be tested.
Speaker 3: The accused responded that the children had not been present
Speaker 3: for the lunch, but had eaten some of the leftovers.
Speaker 3: The next day, the accused said that the mushrooms had
Speaker 3: been scraped off as the children did not like mushrooms.
Speaker 3: The accused became and said she didn't want to involve
Speaker 3: her kids. She did not appear to be concerned so
Speaker 3: much about the children's health, but rather about stressing them out.
Speaker 3: Doctor Webster was blunt and said they could be scared
Speaker 3: and alive or dead.
Speaker 2: At the same time, Aeron Patterson was being transferred to
Speaker 2: the Monash Medical Center for treatment. Police went through her
Speaker 2: bins and retrieved a bag of leftover beef Wellington, which
Speaker 2: was taken to experts at the Royal Botanic Gardens in
Speaker 2: Melbourne for analysis. No evidence of death caps was found
Speaker 2: in the leftovers. Both Erin Patterson and her children were
Speaker 2: kept at the Monash Medical Center for observation overnight. The
Speaker 2: Crown says Erin Patterson started using a new phone from
Speaker 2: around mid January of twenty twenty three, and that she
Speaker 2: had two simcards on the go. Roger said Erin performed
Speaker 2: a number of factory resets on the devices, including one
Speaker 2: which was done remotely after the phone had been seized
Speaker 2: by police. The prosecutor said Aaron Patterson's browsing history showed
Speaker 2: she'd looked at a website I Naturalist where locals had
Speaker 2: reported death cap mushrooms growing in April and May of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, and that's where the phone records come in.
Speaker 2: Patterson's phone was pinging cell towers, Rogers told the court
Speaker 2: in the areas where the Eye Naturalist users had reported
Speaker 2: death caps.
Speaker 3: In approximately March, April and May twenty twenty three, the
Speaker 3: accused started posting messages in the Kelly Lane group chat
Speaker 3: about dehydrating mushrooms.
Speaker 2: Kelly Lane is a former Australian water polo player who
Speaker 2: was convicted of murdering her newborn daughter in nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 2: The prosecutor said Aaron Patterson was a member of a
Speaker 2: group on Facebook where members discussed the case and had
Speaker 2: struck up online friendships with some of them.
Speaker 3: The accus explained in the chat that she'd been dehydrating mushrooms,
Speaker 3: blitzing them into powder, and hiding powdered mushrooms in everything
Speaker 3: included putting poundered mushrooms into chocolate brownies without her children knowing.
Speaker 2: Police alleged Aaron Patterson disposed of a food dehydrator at
Speaker 2: a nearby landfill on August three, but it was collected
Speaker 2: by police the next day. Her fingerprints were later identified
Speaker 2: on the appliance, and it was determined it contained death
Speaker 2: cap mushroom residue, but at an interview conducted by police
Speaker 2: on August five, Patterson told police she'd never dehydrated food.
Speaker 2: The Crown prosecutor said an expert review of Aaron Patterson's
Speaker 2: medical records showed it was unlikely she'd been poisoned at
Speaker 2: the lunch on July twenty nine, and that she'd never
Speaker 2: been diagnosed with cancer.
Speaker 3: It is the prosecution case that the accused used the
Speaker 3: false claim that she had serious medical issues to ensure
Speaker 3: and to explain why the children would not be present
Speaker 3: at the lunch on twenty ninth July.
Speaker 1: Coming up Aaron Patterson's defense to the chargers.
Speaker 2: The defense case is that what happened at the home
Speaker 2: of Aaron Patterson in leon Gatha was a terrible accident,
Speaker 2: and that Patterson had panicked in the aftermath. On Wednesday afternoon,
Speaker 2: the barrister for Patterson, Colin Mandy, sc made his opening
Speaker 2: submissions to the jury of fifteen men and women.
Speaker 4: Allegations are easy to make, but it's proving them that matters.
Speaker 4: The starting point for you is that Aaron Patterson is
Speaker 4: innocent of this charge.
Speaker 2: Mandy said. Patterson doesn't dispute that three people died after
Speaker 2: attending lunch at her home, or that another person became
Speaker 2: seriously ill. He told the court his client is a loving,
Speaker 2: attentive mother to her children and a valued member of
Speaker 2: the wider Patterson family, even after the breakdown of her relationship.
Speaker 4: The defense case is that she panicked because she was
Speaker 4: overwhelmed by the fact that these four people had become
Speaker 4: so ill because of the food that she'd served. Might
Speaker 4: someone panic in a situation like that? Is it possible
Speaker 4: that people might do and say things that are not
Speaker 4: well thought out and might in the end make them
Speaker 4: look bad. So as you listen to the evidence, you
Speaker 4: should consider when it comes to that fundamental issue of
Speaker 4: Eron's intention. Did she have a motive to kill.
Speaker 1: The trial continues on Thursday. Our reporters Elie Dudley and
Speaker 1: John Ferguson are in court every day. You can follow
Speaker 1: their coverage live at the Australian dot com dot au