WEBVTT - Why did Erin Patterson captivate the country? 0:00:00.920 --> 0:00:04.720 Usually when I'm interested in a crime, I want there 0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:07.920 to be layers. I'm interested in stories which tell us 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:11.000 something about Australia and what it is like to be 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:13.880 living in this country in twenty twenty five. 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:18.560 Like so many of us, Chloe Hooper spent twenty twenty 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:21.960 five obsessing over the triple murder trial of Aaron Patterson. 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:25.200 It was different to the crimes that she's. 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:27.600 Written about before in her books The Arsonist and the 0:00:27.640 --> 0:00:29.960 Tall Man, which was about a death in custody. 0:00:31.800 --> 0:00:32.559 For Chloe, it. 0:00:32.560 --> 0:00:35.519 Was the domestic nature of the Mushroom killings, the family 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:36.920 dynamic that drew her in. 0:00:38.760 --> 0:00:42.400 Love skirts very close to hate sometimes, and hate can 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:47.600 skirt close to love, And I think in our domestic settings, 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:52.120 people have these really complex relationships, and so I think 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:55.640 there was a sort of you know, even it's pretty warped, 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:59.120 but people attached to this story like a folks story 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:03.080 because we could all relate to it in some way. Actually, 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:06.760 I think it told us something about Australia's fascination with 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:11.640 true crime, and people were tuning into this story for 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:14.360 all sorts of complex reasons. 0:01:15.000 --> 0:01:18.280 So why did this story captivate the country and what 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:21.280 does it say? About us, particularly about women that were 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:23.800 drawn to true crime. That was one of the questions 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:26.440 that drove Chloe and her friends and colleagues, the writers 0:01:26.480 --> 0:01:29.720 Helen Ganner and Sarah Krasnastein, as they began traveling to 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:33.840 the town of Morewell to watch Aaron Patterson's trial. What 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:37.319 followed is the Mushroom Tapes. Conversations on a triple Murder, 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:40.319 a book that wrestles with ideas about power. 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:41.960 Money, marriage and murder. 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:48.040 I'm Ruby Jones and you're listening to seven AM today 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:51.760 Chloe Hooper on what our collective fascination with Aaron Patterson 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:54.480 tells us about who we are as a country in 0:01:54.520 --> 0:02:01.960 twenty twenty five. It's Wednesday, December thirty one. Chloe, this 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:04.960 case became a national obsession this year, But if you 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:08.440 look back to when the story first broke in twenty 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:11.960 twenty three, we got these brief details of what had happened, 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:15.920 and these initial glimpses of Aaron Patterson herself. I just 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:18.440 can't fathom what has happened. 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:22.960 That Ian and he have lost her lives, and Gail 0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:24.960 has lost her life, and Donna is still in hospital, 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:28.280 and I pray, I pray that he pulls through. 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:30.799 What do you think it was that, I think right 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:33.200 from the very beginning before it sort of turned into 0:02:33.840 --> 0:02:36.160 I guess what it is now? What do you think 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:38.880 was interesting about it at that point? 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:45.640 Well, I think everybody I know has some family complexity, 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:51.480 has a relative or in law, or knows somebody who 0:02:51.680 --> 0:02:57.639 has had a bitter separation. And I think that something 0:02:57.720 --> 0:03:01.800 about this story spoke to all of our sense of 0:03:01.880 --> 0:03:07.680 family dynamics and how complicated they can be. And I 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:10.480 think in a way, Aaron Patterson is a sort of 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:14.040 operatic figure. The sort of scale of what she did 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:18.680 was just so extreme, and I think people kind of 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:19.760 tapped into that. 0:03:20.480 --> 0:03:23.799 As the book describes, there was this whole cottage industry 0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:30.120 of journalists, of podcasters, of authors, documentary filmmakers, TV producers, 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:32.600 you know, TV fiction in the work as well. So 0:03:33.160 --> 0:03:36.640 everyone's there in this tiny town in more Well for 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:40.160 the duration of this trial. So I mean, first of all, well, 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:42.440 just I mean, what was that lacking part of that? 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:46.640 Well, it started off slowly. We got to the trial. 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:49.480 It was day five, so it was you know, we 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:53.760 hadn't really decided to go until the trial had already started. 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:57.600 And at first you could find a seat in the 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:03.480 courtroom relatively easily, and then slowly, as you probably saw 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:09.119 photographs in the newspapers are online, there were crowds descending 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:10.360 on the court house. 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:14.880 This is more Well, a small, unassuming town two hours 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:18.840 outside of Melbourne. Until recently, its main tourist attractions were 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:21.440 a rose garden and an art gallery. But that was 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:24.400 before it became the host of an Australian murder trials 0:04:24.440 --> 0:04:27.039 gripped the nation and captured international attention. 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:32.640 People were getting up at four am and driving to 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:36.040 get a seat and lining up outside. 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:39.040 Well. Almost every major news outlet in the country has 0:04:39.040 --> 0:04:41.960 set up basically this is Channel seven, Here is the ABC, 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:44.520 it's Channel ten and Channel nine, this. 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:47.119 Is the Lunelab. And then there was sort of seemed 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:51.839 to be more and more news outlets and media events 0:04:52.200 --> 0:04:55.840 and people doing crosses about this story all over the world. 0:04:56.160 --> 0:04:58.840 It's a case straight out of a true crime TV. 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:03.600 Psychostaticquit yours a whole Australian mushroom poisoning fatalities made headlines 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:06.240 far beyond the sleepy Aussie tone in which they happened. 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:10.920 You know, every conversation you had with friends or family 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:15.640 seemed to revolve around this. It did become a national obsession. 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:21.120 And so this book, this is a very kind of 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:23.760 different book to what you've put out in the past. 0:05:23.839 --> 0:05:25.480 It's a collaborative work. 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:29.039 How did it change your process and the way that 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:31.120 you thought about the case? To be spending all of 0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:34.600 this time I'm picking it in these conversations with two 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:38.159 other brilliant writers, Sarah Cratenstein and Helen Ghana, I. 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:41.159 Think that we got further working together than we would 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:46.919 have worked by ourselves. And it was an amazing experience 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:51.240 because usually we would all go into court proceedings on 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:54.240 our own, and you know, we'd have your notebook, and 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:58.680 it's very sort of solitary in a way, exercise. But 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:03.840 I think that there was something actually accelerated by not 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:08.440 putting your shoulder to your work and hiding it and 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:13.080 doing it on your own, actually engaging in these conversations, 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:14.840 and I think there were sort of moments where we 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:18.480 would spark off each other and lift each other up 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:22.560 further in our thinking. And I suppose I see this 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:27.320 book as actually just as much about women talking about 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:34.240 power and about good and evil and ethics of crime 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:37.920 writing and writing in general. And I suppose to have 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:42.760 those conversations with Helen and with Sarah was a special 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:46.400 moment in all of our lives. And we're all at 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:50.560 different stages in our careers. But you know, when you'd 0:06:50.600 --> 0:06:56.440 go to a trial, you're also sitting alongside really great misery, 0:06:57.240 --> 0:07:02.280 and so there is always the reality behind the headlines 0:07:02.600 --> 0:07:06.599 of the damage that is wrought in true crime, in 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:09.040 communities and a family. 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:11.680 Coming up. 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:15.400 What the trial revealed about Aaron Patterson and about us 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:22.080 if we go back to the trial itself, so as 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:26.720 it progressed, more and more of Aaron's life was revealed. 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:29.360 So you know, you looked inside her kitchen, you heard 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:34.640 her children talking. Her estranged husband also gave evidence. So 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:39.680 before anyone heard from Aaron herself, there was already this 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:43.040 picture of her forming, I suppose. So how did you 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:45.720 start to think about her who she was? 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:46.840 At that point? 0:07:47.400 --> 0:07:50.520 I had a sense that she was a fairly dark 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:55.800 character from her actions. It just struck me as incredibly 0:07:55.880 --> 0:08:00.520 calculated to go and search for deathcat mushrooms and then 0:08:01.360 --> 0:08:05.040 spend months working out how to make this meal and 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:11.160 inviting your husband's family over. She invited them over two 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:15.280 weeks before the lunch. It was also after she had 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:19.640 served the lunch. It's a horrible way to kill somebody 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:24.320 because it's very slow and painful, And there were opportunities 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:28.560 where she might have told medicos earlier that she'd foraged 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:32.559 for mushrooms, and they may have been able to administer 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:37.319 a prophylactic which could potentially have changed the outcomes for 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:38.079 her victims. 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:41.440 And So, how did the way that you saw Erin 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:43.200 compare to the others? 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:46.640 Sometimes I thought that they had sort of access to 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:51.439 deeper wells of humanity. They've had more sympathy for Erin 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:54.240 than I did. But I guess that one of the 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:59.080 interesting things about collaborating with other people is that even 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:04.760 when you disagree, it's almost as if you're all taking 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:08.400 different sides, which actually, in the writing of a book 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:12.880 an author might do anyway. So maybe they could afford 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:17.520 to be softer because I was being more hardline. And 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:20.640 I think that there actually was a way in which 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:25.360 our different perspectives balanced out, and the disagreements we were 0:09:25.400 --> 0:09:30.439 having kind of replicated what could happen in a writer's head. 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:34.760 And I think that in a way, this book kind 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:37.719 of shows the seams of what can happen in the 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:39.800 making of a book, and. 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:42.800 It wasn't clear for a lot of the trial whether 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:47.280 or not Aaron Patterson would give evidence, but she did end. 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:47.720 Up doing that. 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:51.560 So when that happened, what were you kind of looking for? 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:55.440 I suppose I think that when you're watching somebody on 0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:58.320 the stand, you're thinking, well, you know, wondering what the 0:09:58.400 --> 0:10:03.559 jury will make of their presentation. I was particularly interested 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:09.120 in the stories in which that erin was telling the jury, 0:10:09.240 --> 0:10:11.640 but also the stories in which she felt that she 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:17.640 was telling herself. Some of these tales were blatantly untrue. 0:10:18.080 --> 0:10:23.480 So Aaron Patterson is a person who lies very easily, 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:28.640 and when she got onto the stand there were a 0:10:28.760 --> 0:10:33.360 number of discrepancies which she had to try to explain 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:37.560 her way out of. Sometimes she did that very artfully, 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:43.839 other times it was a less convincing performance. She was 0:10:43.880 --> 0:10:46.640 also on the stand for over a week, which is 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:52.680 it's a lot for somebody under pressure to maintain their 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:58.760 different fictions, I suppose, in a really stressful environment. At 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:00.960 the end of it, there was the feeling, though that 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:05.080 she had done very well, and it was unclear whether 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:09.280 or not she would be found guilty, or at least 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:12.040 there seemed a strong possibility that there would be a 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:12.680 hung jury. 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:16.800 Did you find your opinion of her changing at all 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:17.640 during that week? 0:11:18.080 --> 0:11:22.200 I suppose the personality that thinks that they can get 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:25.600 away with a crime like this is also one that 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:27.800 thinks that they can kind of talk their way out 0:11:27.840 --> 0:11:31.000 of it. So I didn't believe going into the trial 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:35.520 that Erin was innocent. We knew before driving to Morewell 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:40.240 that there had been charges just recently dropped against her 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:43.280 for attempting to murder her husband, and that he had 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:46.600 been in a coma as well, with part of his 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:51.040 small intestine removed after eating some of Aaron's food. So 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:55.480 it seemed clear to me that she probably was guilty, 0:11:55.600 --> 0:11:57.840 But I didn't know that she was going to I 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:02.080 didn't know whether or not she would actually be found guilty, 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:05.040 So my opinion of her did not change a great deal. 0:12:05.880 --> 0:12:11.199 And how do you feel now, both about your own 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:14.760 interest in this case and all of our fascinations with it. 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:17.840 Well, I think that in some ways Erin seemed to 0:12:17.880 --> 0:12:21.040 me a kind of fixed force in this saga, And 0:12:21.200 --> 0:12:26.400 I think that our reactions and I'm you know, my reaction, 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:31.800 Sarah's reaction, Helen's reaction, and Australia and the world's reaction 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:34.600 is sort of more interesting. In a way, we know 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:38.560 that true crime is a genre, that the production of 0:12:38.600 --> 0:12:42.839 it is largely being driven by a female audience, and 0:12:43.520 --> 0:12:48.120 that's across all of the media. So why broadly are 0:12:48.200 --> 0:12:53.200 we fascinated by true crime and why in particular this crime. 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:57.240 I think that it's an escape. I think that these 0:12:57.280 --> 0:13:00.800 are stories about power. I think women are often tend 0:13:00.840 --> 0:13:05.680 to empathize not just with the victim of the crime, 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:10.120 and unfortunately most often the victims are women, but also 0:13:10.280 --> 0:13:16.160 with the murderer. I think that in this case, most 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:21.000 people are waking up in a state of deep anxiety 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:27.359 in Australia in twenty twenty five, but it regarding wars 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:32.880 around climate change, AI cost of living, and it's a 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:36.600 horrible thing. But in a way, I think we were 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:41.439 all looking at this trial so as not to think 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:46.520 about these issues that confront our day to day life 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:50.040 in ways we don't know how to fix or understand. 0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:54.840 With true crime, there's often the sense of an ending, 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:59.160 the sense that Erin is now in jail, that order 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:03.040 is restored, and we don't need to look so deeply 0:14:03.120 --> 0:14:04.400 at our own disorder. 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:08.840 Well Chloie, thank you so much for speaking with me, 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:10.880 and congratulations again. 0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:13.440 I loved the book. I really enjoyed reading it. Ruby, 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:14.160 thanks so much. 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:31.800 Tomorrow, on the show, I'm bringing you an interview with 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:36.400 China expert Linda Javin. After years of spectacular growth, China 0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:39.240 has been struggling. People in the country are now stuck 0:14:39.280 --> 0:14:42.240 in a loop of burnout and austerity, with high youth 0:14:42.320 --> 0:14:46.080 unemployment and low birth rates. The country has been trying 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:48.920 to turn us around, focusing on things like tech AI 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:52.600 and electric vehicles. We look at how China's new economic 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:55.640 experiment went in twenty twenty five and what this year 0:14:55.680 --> 0:14:58.080 holds for one of the world's great superpowers. 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:00.840 I'm Ruby Jones. Thanks for listening.