Speaker 1: On July thirty one, twenty twenty three, mushroom expert Camille
Speaker 1: Truong was searching for answers. There'd been a poisoning at
Speaker 1: a lunch in a small country town, and she had
Speaker 1: been asked to examine a sample of leftover food. She'd
Speaker 1: left work when a request came in to test the meal. Luckily,
Speaker 1: doctor Chruong had a home set up and the sample
Speaker 1: was sent over to her. She cleaned a bench and
Speaker 1: pulled out her equipment.
Speaker 2: I have a small microscope setting in my house, so
Speaker 2: I went there. I always clean up the bench and
Speaker 2: then I use gloves. I use a small tray and
Speaker 2: tweezes that are also sterilized with alcohol wipes. I opened
Speaker 2: the package, saw it was a food item which contained
Speaker 2: mushrooms inside. So with tweezers, I carefully picked out the
Speaker 2: little pieces of mushroom on the tray, and then I
Speaker 2: studied them under the microscope.
Speaker 1: After she examined the food, she put them in her
Speaker 1: fridge and she tested them again on August two. What
Speaker 1: she found, along with her other investigations into death caps,
Speaker 1: she told to the court today in the trial of
Speaker 1: Aaron Patterson. I'm brook Greebert Craig and this is the
Speaker 1: Mushroom Cook. We've just finished day eleven and once again
Speaker 1: I'm joined by my colleague, court reporter Laura PLASSELLA Hey Brook,
Speaker 1: how are you going?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Not bad getting through now, Laura.
Speaker 1: We've had some luck finding voice actors that sound like
Speaker 1: the witnesses on the stand, but unfortunately not this time.
Speaker 3: No, unfortunately not. As our listeners heard at the top
Speaker 3: of the episode, we heard from a second mushroom expert
Speaker 3: today and she speaks with a French accent. But alas,
Speaker 3: we don't have any French speakers in our office, so
Speaker 3: we had to make.
Speaker 1: Do that's right. So doctor Treong was the OnCore my
Speaker 1: college at Victorian Poisons Information Center on July thirty one.
Speaker 1: She was sent the leftovers of that beef Wellington dish
Speaker 1: that was fished out of Aaron's bin by a local
Speaker 1: police officer.
Speaker 3: We heard last week some details around this operation. One
Speaker 3: of the local cops spoke to Erin over the phone
Speaker 3: and got the access code to her front gate. Erin
Speaker 3: directed him to one of her outside bins and said
Speaker 3: that would be the place he would most likely find
Speaker 3: leftovers of the beef Wellington and after donning some gloves
Speaker 3: and having a search through the bin, he found a
Speaker 3: Woolworth's bag that contained the leftovers.
Speaker 1: But today the jury was told more about where the
Speaker 1: leftovers of that meal ended up after it was taken
Speaker 1: in an ambulance with Aaron to Monash Medical Center.
Speaker 3: Yes, these leftovers have gone on quite the journey. So
Speaker 3: from the bin at Erin's lean Gatha home, like you said, Brook,
Speaker 3: they've been taken to lean Gatha Hospital from their transported
Speaker 3: in an ambulance with Erin to Monash Medical Center in Melbourne,
Speaker 3: and then from Monash Medical Center they've been ferried in
Speaker 3: an urgent taxi to the city to the office of
Speaker 3: the Royal Botanic Gardens.
Speaker 1: And then what happened with them.
Speaker 3: So doctor Truong works for the Royal Botanic Gardens and
Speaker 3: she's a mycologist, just like doctor Tom May who we
Speaker 3: heard from yesterday, and she received a phone call from
Speaker 3: doctor Laura Muldoon who worked at Monash Medical Center about
Speaker 3: these leftovers. Doctor Muldoon had sent doctor Truong a photo
Speaker 3: and asked her whether or not from that photo she
Speaker 3: could identify whether there were death caps in that meal.
Speaker 3: Considering four people had fallen seriously ill after consuming the
Speaker 3: beef Wellington lunch. But doctor Truong said that there was
Speaker 3: not enough information from that photo for her to be
Speaker 3: able to draw any conclusions, and the court heard more
Speaker 3: today about her thought process after she spoke with doctor Mildoon.
Speaker 3: These are her words, it's not her voice. I did
Speaker 3: indicate to her that if the mushroom were coming from
Speaker 3: a shop or a supermarket, it was extremely unlikely and
Speaker 3: probably impossible to be death cap mushrooms because those mushrooms
Speaker 3: only grow in the wild, whereas the mushrooms that you
Speaker 3: buy in the supermarket are cultivated, are grown in culture,
Speaker 3: and death cap mushrooms cannot be grown in cultures. She
Speaker 3: went on to say.
Speaker 2: I also told her that there were absolutely no sighting
Speaker 2: of death cap mushrooms in Victoria during the last months,
Speaker 2: So based on the information that I received, it was
Speaker 2: highly unlikely to be a case of death cap poisoning.
Speaker 1: So, Laura, you said, doctor Truan couldn't make any conclusions.
Speaker 1: What was her next steps?
Speaker 3: So I mentioned earlier that the leftovers were ferried to
Speaker 3: her office at the Royal Botanic Gardens, but she hadn't
Speaker 3: heard from staff at Monash Medical Center for a while,
Speaker 3: so she actually went home. The leftovers arrived at her
Speaker 3: office and she wasn't there, so she then had to
Speaker 3: arrange for them to be brought to her home. But
Speaker 3: rest assured. Doctor Trung had a microscope at home, as
Speaker 3: our listeners would have heard at the top of the episode,
Speaker 3: so she was well equipped to be able to take
Speaker 3: a look at these leftovers from the comfort of her house.
Speaker 1: And what did she find?
Speaker 3: So after she used some tweezers to extract some pieces
Speaker 3: of the mushroom, she popped them under her microscope and
Speaker 3: took a look. She was asked today and caught by
Speaker 3: Crown Prosecutor Nnette Rodgers, whether or not she found any
Speaker 3: pieces of death cat mushrooms, and she said she didn't. Now,
Speaker 3: this may be a good time to remind our listeners
Speaker 3: that the prosecution allege erin served individual Beef Wellington's that
Speaker 3: day at that lunch. Beyond that, the prosecution also alleged
Speaker 3: that her serve of that Beef Wellington that individual serve
Speaker 3: did not contain death cat mushrooms. But again to also
Speaker 3: remind our listeners, the defense claimed that what happened at
Speaker 3: that lunch was a tragedy and a terrible accident, and
Speaker 3: Erin has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Speaker 1: That's right, Laura. So doctor Truon did find another type
Speaker 1: of mushroom in those leftovers that she was examining.
Speaker 3: What were they, so, she told the court. After examining
Speaker 3: these mushrooms on July thirty one at her home, she
Speaker 3: put them in her own fridge at her house, and
Speaker 3: it was two days later that she took them out
Speaker 3: and brought them back to her office to examine them further.
Speaker 3: She told the court today, upon examining them for the
Speaker 3: second time, she identified them as field mushrooms, and she
Speaker 3: went on to say that these are mushrooms that are
Speaker 3: very typically found at your everyday supermarket.
Speaker 1: The leftovers were then collected by the Department of Health
Speaker 1: on August two, So before the jury heard from doctor Truong,
Speaker 1: my collogist Tom May returned to the stand and continued
Speaker 1: his evidence from yesterday. Laura, can you remind the listeners
Speaker 1: who doctor May is.
Speaker 3: So, he is an internationally recognized fungi specialist, and he's
Speaker 3: actually colleagues with doctor Truong. They both work at Royal
Speaker 3: Botanic Gardens, where doctor May has worked for over thirty years.
Speaker 3: His cross examination continued today and he was brought to
Speaker 3: another fatal case of death cap mushroom poisoning. The court
Speaker 3: heard last year there was a Victorian woman who picked
Speaker 3: some mushrooms from her front yard that she cooked in
Speaker 3: a meal that she served to her and her son.
Speaker 3: The jury heard that she first picked mushrooms from her
Speaker 3: yard in April twenty twenty four and she cooked them
Speaker 3: and everything was fine. Her and her son didn't fall ill.
Speaker 3: But then a month later she noticed that mushrooms were
Speaker 3: growing in the same location in her yard, so she
Speaker 3: picked them again and cooked them again, but this time
Speaker 3: they both got very ill following the meal. They were
Speaker 3: both taken to hospital, but unfortunately the woman died.
Speaker 1: And doctor May told the jury that he was familiar
Speaker 1: with this particular case. Why is that, Laura?
Speaker 3: The court heard that this was the subject of a
Speaker 3: cronial finding. The coroner recommended there to be more public
Speaker 3: health messaging about the dangers of consuming wild mushrooms.
Speaker 1: And in particular, he was contacted by the Department of
Speaker 1: Health to help with these public health messages, and doctor
Speaker 1: May was also asked about the smell of death cap mushrooms.
Speaker 3: He told the court that he's actually dried deathcap mushrooms
Speaker 3: before and he was asked by the prosecution what they
Speaker 3: smell like, and he said very unpleasant in his opinion.
Speaker 1: Okay, Now moving on to more medical evidence, the jury
Speaker 1: heard from an intensive care specialist. His name was Professor
Speaker 1: Andrew Burston. He actually examined Aaron's medical records. What did
Speaker 1: he find.
Speaker 3: The first thing he was questioned about today was whether
Speaker 3: or not Erin had ever been diagnosed with cancer. And
Speaker 3: to remind our listeners, it's the prosecution case that Arin
Speaker 3: invited her lunch guests over to her house on the
Speaker 3: pretense that she had cancer as a way to expl
Speaker 3: blained to them why the children were not in attendance. However,
Speaker 3: the defense have suggested that Eron never told the lunch
Speaker 3: guests she had cancer, but rather that she had a
Speaker 3: suspected diagnosis. So Professor Burston was asked today about this
Speaker 3: and he said that after reviewing Erin's medical records, he
Speaker 3: found no evidence that she had been diagnosed with cancer.
Speaker 3: The court specifically heard that Erin had completed a cervical
Speaker 3: screening test in March twenty twenty three, and the results
Speaker 3: of that had come back normal. Professor Burston told the
Speaker 3: court that these tests are only required every five years,
Speaker 3: and she would most likely have been told that.
Speaker 1: Through Aaron's medical records. Professor Burston also found no evidence
Speaker 1: of toxic mushroom poisoning after she was admitted to hospital
Speaker 1: following the lunch. We touched upon that in yesterday's episode,
Speaker 1: Now Laura, we saw the return of the dehydrator being
Speaker 1: mentioned in court.
Speaker 3: Yes, the dehydrator has been missing an action, but it
Speaker 3: made a return today and that was through the evidence
Speaker 3: of Darren Canty. He is an operations manager at the
Speaker 3: Dasma Group and this organization run the Kunwara transfer Station
Speaker 3: and landfill, so essentially one of the local tips in
Speaker 3: the area. Now our listeners might remember the tip from
Speaker 3: the opening addresses. Defense barrister Colin Mandy said that Aaron
Speaker 3: admitted she lied to police about dumping the dehydrator at
Speaker 3: the tip. Mister Canty told the court that he got
Speaker 3: a call from police on August four, who were making
Speaker 3: inquiries about a person who had gone to their tip
Speaker 3: to drop something off on August two, so two days earlier.
Speaker 3: He said he reviewed the CCTV footage from that day.
Speaker 3: This footage was shown to the jury and in it
Speaker 3: you can see a red fooel drive pull up to
Speaker 3: the tip. A woman who was dressed in a gray
Speaker 3: sweater and cream pants is seen getting out of the car,
Speaker 3: going to a boot and taking out an item. She
Speaker 3: then walks into a shed at the tip and about
Speaker 3: twenty seconds later re emerges without that item. She then
Speaker 3: gets back into her car and the footage stops.
Speaker 1: Mister Canty then got his colleague to go through the
Speaker 1: tip and find this item that was dropped off. The
Speaker 1: colleague then found a dehydrator and he told his boss.
Speaker 3: The jury was then shown a photo of the dehydrator.
Speaker 3: It was lying on its side, and mister Canty then
Speaker 3: said he rang the police to tell them what he
Speaker 3: had found, and before long they had come to the
Speaker 3: site to pick it up.
Speaker 1: That's right, so the police actually sees that dehydrator on
Speaker 1: August four.
Speaker 3: But I'm sure this won't be the last we hear
Speaker 3: about the dehydrator.
Speaker 1: So that's all the evidence from today and tomorrow we're
Speaker 1: expected to hear more from expert witnesses. So we'll be
Speaker 1: back then with another episode, and in the meantime, go
Speaker 1: to the mushroomcook dot com dot au for more