Speaker 1: Hire listeners. As we said in our daily show, there
Speaker 1: is no court sitting today, but we thought we would
Speaker 1: give you another little taste of our Sunday subscriber show.
Speaker 1: We're up to the very last days of the trial
Speaker 1: of Aaron Patterson. The prosecution and the defense have spoken
Speaker 1: their last words and the only thing the jury has
Speaker 1: left to hear is from the presiding judge. As always,
Speaker 1: I'm joined by veteran crime reporter Anthony Dowsley to break
Speaker 1: it all down. I'm Brooke Greeber Craig and this is
Speaker 1: the Mushroom Cook. Hi dows Welcome back for another episode.
Speaker 2: Hi Brooke, morewell's treating you well? I hope it's come
Speaker 2: to the very point to end at last. Was supposed
Speaker 2: to be what set down for six week five six
Speaker 2: week trial, then they said it might be a month,
Speaker 2: and now it's going to be almost nine weeks in
Speaker 2: the end.
Speaker 1: Yes, we're heading into the ninth week. So this week
Speaker 1: we heard the closings from the prosecution and the defense.
Speaker 2: The highlights package. It's where both sides get to sum
Speaker 2: up their case. It's not actual evidence, it's a summary
Speaker 2: of the evidence, but it's persuasive argument as well. And
Speaker 2: that's where both the prosecution and the defense get to
Speaker 2: try and have their last well lash at the jury
Speaker 2: to say this is why you should either convict or
Speaker 2: not convict, guilty or not guilty.
Speaker 1: And Crown Prosecutor and Nannette Rogers really focused on five
Speaker 1: deceptions during her summation, Dows, did you want to talk
Speaker 1: our listeners through each one of them? Maybe we'll start
Speaker 1: off with the first one, which was the fabricated cancer
Speaker 1: claim Aaron used as a reason for the lunch.
Speaker 2: And this is an interesting one because it's a deception
Speaker 2: that caught the ears of everyone that during this lunch,
Speaker 2: this fatal lunch, Aaron Patterson, as everyone will remember, mentions
Speaker 2: at the end of it that she has cancer. And
Speaker 2: there is debate around exactly what she said, but this
Speaker 2: is what the prosecution of led off with. It was
Speaker 2: one of the things that was in the opening addresses
Speaker 2: and it's something that they've closed with as well. But
Speaker 2: the defense point out Colin Mandy, who's Aaron Patterson's lawyer,
Speaker 2: said that it's not a ruse because well, she didn't
Speaker 2: tell them as a reason to get there. She's not
Speaker 2: telling them, he says, say I've got cancer, come to lunch.
Speaker 2: He's saying that this comes at the end of the lunch,
Speaker 2: so it's not a ruse. He says that because she
Speaker 2: never told them she was diagnosed with cancer, that it's
Speaker 2: more of a like a ploy to get love and attention,
Speaker 2: that she's an isolated woman, that she's living basically an
Speaker 2: isolated life. That's the argument he's putting forward. Aaron Patterson,
Speaker 2: no evidence said, you know, I'm not proud of this,
Speaker 2: but I led them to believe that I might be
Speaker 2: needing some treatment in regards to cancer. Ovariant cancer was mentioned.
Speaker 2: She admitted to misleading them. Now, from the prosecution side
Speaker 2: of things, they say that there was never going to
Speaker 2: be a need for Aaron Patterson to account for her
Speaker 2: cancer lie because they say she intended to kill her
Speaker 2: lunch guests. They say her lie would die with them.
Speaker 2: But there's also a reply from Aaron Patterson's cancel, Colin Mandy.
Speaker 2: The barrister says, why tell them after the lunch because
Speaker 2: they've consumed the meal, So what's the point.
Speaker 1: Okay, Now, let's move on to the second deception, the
Speaker 1: lethal doses of poison Aaron secreted in the beef Wellingtons
Speaker 1: this is something that the prosecution claims.
Speaker 2: So murder trials come down to intend. That's one of
Speaker 2: the key elements of murder. And if you're deliberately secreting
Speaker 2: poisonous mushrooms into a meal, that goes a long way
Speaker 2: to intent. Colin Mandy Erin's lawyer disputes this by saying
Speaker 2: that his client didn't deliberately put death cap mushrooms in
Speaker 2: the meal. He says the three sources of mushrooms were
Speaker 2: from Woolworth's, an Asian grosser, and foraged mushrooms, but we
Speaker 2: don't know where the forage mushrooms necessarily came from. The
Speaker 2: Prosecution say that Aaron Patterson's phone data shows that she
Speaker 2: was in areas of Locke and outram In about April
Speaker 2: May of twenty twenty three. Now, in those areas, as
Speaker 2: you know Brook, there was an eye naturalist website where
Speaker 2: it was indicated that death capt mushrooms were growing in
Speaker 2: those areas, But there's no direct evidence that she picked
Speaker 2: any mushrooms from these areas, so that will be something
Speaker 2: the jury will likely deliberate on. And I should add
Speaker 2: that the prosecution have led some evidence which show Aaron
Speaker 2: Patterson weighing mushrooms during this period of time in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three, in April, and they say this is evidence
Speaker 2: that she's, you know, got some mushrooms. She's weighing them
Speaker 2: and she's looking for more. But the defense say there
Speaker 2: were mushrooms Aaron Patterson foraged that were put into a container,
Speaker 2: and after everybody gets sick, Aaron Patterson says she started
Speaker 2: to worry that somehow they got mixed up together and
Speaker 2: that death Cat mushrooms ended up in this meal by mistake,
Speaker 2: and that she was never aware that she'd ever had
Speaker 2: Deathcat mushrooms in her possession.
Speaker 1: To listen to the full show, go to the links
Speaker 1: in the description of this episode.