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Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.

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Speaker 1: It's Thursday May fifteen, twenty twenty five. A whistleblower tried

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Speaker 1: to warm the ndis a disability care provider was sending

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Speaker 1: untrained staff out on the job a year before it

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Speaker 1: was investigated for possible fraud. Cocoon SDA says it's done

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Speaker 1: nothing wrong. That's an exclusive live now at the Australian

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Speaker 1: dot com dot a U. A mushroom expert asked to

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Speaker 1: analyze the remains of a fatal beef Wellington lunch kept

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Speaker 1: the leftovers in her fridge at home. That's part of

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Speaker 1: the expert evidence as the Aaron Patterson murder trial digs

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Speaker 1: into exactly how three people died after a family meal.

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Speaker 1: Aaron Patterson is pleading not guilty. Today. Where Aaron Patterson's

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Speaker 1: defense lawyers are going with detailed evidence about mushrooms, the

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Speaker 1: infinite variety of mushrooms. That's where the erin Patterson murder

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Speaker 1: trial is going deep with expert evidence about exactly what

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Speaker 1: deadly mushrooms look like and how they might be similar

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Speaker 1: or different in appearance to perfectly innocuous ones.

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Speaker 2: There are millions of mushrooms in regional Victoria. Who knew.

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Speaker 2: Some are poisonous, some are not poisonous. Some have bumps

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Speaker 2: on their caps, some don't have bumps on their caps.

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Speaker 2: Some are white, some are brown, some are yellow, some

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Speaker 2: are green. There are lots of mushrooms in Victoria.

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Speaker 1: Ellie Dudley is The Australian's Legal affairs correspondent and she's

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Speaker 1: covering the trial in more Well, in Victoria's Latrobe Valley.

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Speaker 1: The crown case is that Aaron Patterson deliberately cooked deaf

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Speaker 1: cap mushrooms in a beef Wellington she served to four

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Speaker 1: elderly relatives on July twenty nine, twenty twenty three. She's

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Speaker 1: pleaded not guilty, and her defense says it was a

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Speaker 1: terrible accident. Ellie, I believe you now called for a

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Speaker 1: degree in micology after sitting through several days of this

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Speaker 1: evidence about mushrooms.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I'm considering a career change. Goodbye journalism,

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Speaker 2: hello micology. But yeah, look, I know all about the

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Speaker 2: buttery collybr the springfield cap, the shaggy parasol honey mushrooms

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Speaker 2: and of course, most importantly, deaf cat mushrooms.

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Speaker 1: Ellie, We won't know until the defense's closing statement exactly

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Speaker 1: where they're going to take this, but we do know

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Speaker 1: that Aaron Patterson's lead defense counsel, Colin Mandy is c

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Speaker 1: told the jury on day one the deaths were a

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Speaker 1: terrible tragedy. He's a voice actor reading Colin Mandy's words.

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Speaker 3: The starting point for you is that Aaron Patterson is

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Speaker 3: innocent of this charge. So as you listen to the evidence,

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Speaker 3: you should consider when it comes to that fundamental issue

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Speaker 3: of Eron's intention. Did she have a motive to kill?

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Speaker 1: So where has the mushroom evidence taken us so far?

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Speaker 1: And what do the defense lawyers want to know from

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Speaker 1: these expert witnesses.

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Speaker 2: So what defense counsel Sophie Stafford was doing today with

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Speaker 2: mycologist Tom May was showing him photos of death cat

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Speaker 2: mushroom look alikes and asking for him to identify similarities

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Speaker 2: I guess with deathcat mushrooms, So things like them having

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Speaker 2: a smooth top, them having a cup at the bottom

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Speaker 2: of the stem, things like that, and identifying the fact

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Speaker 2: that he couldn't definitively say based off a photo whether

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Speaker 2: these were deathcat mushrooms or if they were other mushrooms entirely.

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Speaker 1: Tom May gave some evidence about the smell of deathcat mushrooms.

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Speaker 1: What's the significance of that. Well, at some.

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Speaker 2: Point Aaron Patterson told one of her doctors that the

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Speaker 2: mushrooms had an extremely strong smell, and Tom May today

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Speaker 2: gave evidence that he has dried out deathcat mushrooms before.

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Speaker 2: He said they've got quite a bitter sweet smell when

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Speaker 2: they're first picked, but once they're right out, he said,

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Speaker 2: they've got an extremely unpleasant smell.

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Speaker 1: We heard from another mycologist, Camille Trong, who told the

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Speaker 1: jury she was asked to analyze some leftovers that had

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Speaker 1: been obtained from Aaron Patterson's home. That was happening as

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Speaker 1: doctors were trying to work out what was wrong with

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Speaker 1: Aaron Patterson's lunch guests, her elderly relatives Don Gale Patterson

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Speaker 1: and Ian and Heather Wilkinson. It's a real contrast, isn't it,

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Speaker 1: Between the urgency and sort of rising panic of the

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Speaker 1: doctors back at the hospital and Camille Trong's quite painstaking

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Speaker 1: and careful examination of the leftovers she'd been given.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the jury is being painted a very interesting image

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Speaker 2: of all these doctors running around various hospitals with four

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Speaker 2: people who are dying in front of them. And then

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Speaker 2: you've got Camille Trong in her home where the beef

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Speaker 2: Wellington leftovers ended up with Tweeze's gloves a microscope sort

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Speaker 2: of painstakingly examining these very finely chopped mushrooms that had

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Speaker 2: been sent to her in an urgent taxi from the

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Speaker 2: Modash Medical Center. Part of that evidence, which was quite interesting,

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Speaker 2: is that Camille Trong said that she didn't find any

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Speaker 2: deathcat mushrooms in the sample that she had been sent.

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Speaker 2: She said the only mushrooms that she found were mushrooms

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Speaker 2: you'd typically find in a grocery store.

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Speaker 1: She also said she told authorities when they were asking

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Speaker 1: about what potentially could have poisoned these people, that she

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Speaker 1: didn't think it was likely to have been deathcat mushrooms.

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Speaker 1: Why not She.

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Speaker 2: Said that it was unlikely because deathcat mushrooms hadn't been

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Speaker 2: spotted in the area. The other part of that is

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Speaker 2: she was told by Laura Muldoon, who's the emergency registrate

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Speaker 2: at the Monish Medical Center, that she had been told

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Speaker 2: by Aaron Patterson that the mushrooms had been brought from

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Speaker 2: a supermarket and also from a Chinese grocery store, and

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Speaker 2: Camille Trong told the court that it was probably impossible

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Speaker 2: that deathcap mushrooms could have been bought from a store

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Speaker 2: because they are growing the wild and they can't be cultivated.

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Speaker 1: Dr Tom May, who's alter ego, of course is Funky Tom.

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Speaker 1: He's one of the people who posted these images of

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Speaker 1: deathcap mushrooms on the Eye Naturalist website. When he was

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Speaker 1: in the witness box, Ellie did he seem to indicate

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Speaker 1: that it was easy to tell a deathcat mushroom from

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Speaker 1: any other kind of mushroom.

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Speaker 2: He wasn't very definitive when he was identifying death cat mushrooms.

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Speaker 2: So he works for effectively the poisons hotline in Victoria,

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Speaker 2: and so when he is sent an image, he isn't

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Speaker 2: definitive when describing it as a deathcat mushroom or not.

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Speaker 2: He says that some of its features can be highly

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Speaker 2: consistent with death cat mushrooms, things like that smooth top,

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Speaker 2: the yellowish cap, the lump on the bottom of the stem.

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Speaker 2: So he drew comparisons between deathcat mushrooms and deathcat mushroom

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Speaker 2: look alikes, and he said that when looking at an image,

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Speaker 2: he would be hesitant to say that that mushroom is

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Speaker 2: a deathcat mushroom. But that would be a different scenario.

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Speaker 2: Say if he was out in the field, when he

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Speaker 2: was with a bunch of field workers or students, and

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Speaker 2: he saw a deathcat mushroom, he said that he would

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Speaker 2: be much more likely to be definitive in that instance.

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Speaker 1: Here's what prosecutor Nanette Rogers told the jury in her

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Speaker 1: opening Right at the beginning of this trial, Aaron Patterson's

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Speaker 1: browsing history showed she had looked at a website I Naturalist,

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Speaker 1: where experts and amateurs can share the location of wildlife

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Speaker 1: they've spotted in the bush. And that's where the phone

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Speaker 1: records come in. Patterson's phone was pinging cell towers, Rogers

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Speaker 1: told the court in areas where I Naturalist uses had

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Speaker 1: earlier reported death caps. In April twenty twenty three, a

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Speaker 1: retired pharmacist named Christine Mackenzie observed deathcap mushrooms on a

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Speaker 1: walk with her husband and grand in the township of Locke,

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Speaker 1: about twenty eight kilometers from Lean Gather, where Patterson lived.

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Speaker 1: We've used a voice actor to bring you Nannett Rodger's

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Speaker 1: words spoken in court.

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Speaker 4: She collected and disposed of every example of death cap

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Speaker 4: mushrooms that she could find. She did this because she

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Speaker 4: knew how dangerous they were. She posted four photographs of

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Speaker 4: this sighting to the I Naturalist website page using her

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Speaker 4: username Chris mc k, which GEO tagged the discovery location.

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Speaker 1: Rogers said on twenty eight April, Patterson bought a Sunbeam

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Speaker 1: dehydrator on.

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Speaker 4: That morning, two and a half hours before she bought

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Speaker 4: the dehydrator. The accused mobile service starter from her phone

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Speaker 4: suggests that she traveled to and remained in the Loch

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Speaker 4: area before returning to Corumborough.

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Speaker 1: Three weeks later, my cologist Tom May posted on Our

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Speaker 1: Naturalist that he'd found deathcap mushrooms at Nielsen Street outrom

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Speaker 1: pinpointing the location to with it twenty meters of where

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Speaker 1: he found the mushrooms. May use the handle Funky Tom.

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Speaker 4: The very next day, the accused mobile service darter suggests

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Speaker 4: that she traveled to and remained in the Lock area

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Speaker 4: at around ten am before returning to Lean Gathera Later

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Speaker 4: that same day. Her mobile service stater suggests that having

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Speaker 4: traveled to Locke between nine and ten am, she traveled

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Speaker 4: from Lean gathera to the Outram area at around at

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Speaker 4: eleven am before returning to lian Gatha.

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Speaker 1: Coming up another mushroom death and why authorities fear more

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Speaker 1: people are at risk, The trial has heard Victorian authorities

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Speaker 1: were worried about people cooking and eating deadly mushrooms after

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Speaker 1: a death last year. In twenty twenty four, according to

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Speaker 1: Aaron Patterson's defense counsel Sophie Stafford, sc a woman died

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Speaker 1: after consuming Amanita Falloides death cap mushrooms she found in

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Speaker 1: her garden. So this is a.

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Speaker 2: Story about a woman who in April twenty twenty four

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Speaker 2: found mushrooms in the front of her home and she

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Speaker 2: cooked them into a meal that she served to her

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Speaker 2: and her son.

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Speaker 1: Now when they ate them.

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Speaker 2: In April twenty twenty four, they went to bed that

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Speaker 2: night completely fine, woke up the next morning no issues.

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Speaker 2: Off they went. A month or so later, she found

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Speaker 2: mushrooms again and again showed them to her son, again

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Speaker 2: made them into a meal that both she and her

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Speaker 2: son ate, but this time at about two am that night,

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Speaker 2: she woke up unwell. She was going to the bathroom.

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Speaker 2: Her son came and checked on her, and she was

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Speaker 2: very unwell. He fell unwell as well at about six am.

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Speaker 2: They both ended up in hospital the next day. She

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Speaker 2: died and he survived. And it was later found by

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Speaker 2: the coroner that it was due to death capt mushroom

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Speaker 2: poisoning that both of these people fell ill, and how

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Speaker 2: the mother ended up eventually dying.

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Speaker 1: Sophie Staffords see who is Aaron Patterson's barrister, told the

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Speaker 1: court that both those mushrooms, the innocuous ones that didn't

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Speaker 1: make the mother and son sick, and then the ones

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Speaker 1: that apparently killed the mother, were growing in the same

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Speaker 1: spot in that front yard. Now, the mycologist, doctor May,

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Speaker 1: said he'd been asked by the Victorian Department of Health

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Speaker 1: to advise on how to respond to coronial recommendations that

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Speaker 1: arose from that case, including that there should be more

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Speaker 1: public health messaging about the dangers of consuming wild mushrooms.

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Speaker 1: Did we hear whether that had happened, that there had

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Speaker 1: been more public health messaging.

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Speaker 2: Doctor May indicated that the Victorian Department of Health was

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Speaker 2: very concerned about what to do after this mother died

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Speaker 2: after eating wild mushrooms that she had found on her property.

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Speaker 2: And other evidence that doctor May has given is that

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Speaker 2: He advises on people effectively undergoing an apprenticeship before they

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Speaker 2: forage for wild mushrooms, that they get proper training under

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Speaker 2: their belt before they undertake that sort of a task.

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Speaker 2: Because there appears to be a rise in people foraging

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Speaker 2: for wild mushrooms in Victoria. So look with this rising

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Speaker 2: popularity of foraging, which he says is partly to do

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Speaker 2: with the COVID nineteen pandemic, clearly there is more that

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Speaker 2: has been done or more that is being done about

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Speaker 2: people looking for wild mushrooms in this state.

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Speaker 1: Ellie Dudley is The Australian's Legal affairs reporter. You can

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Speaker 1: follow her live coverage and read our colleague John Ferguson's

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Speaker 1: analysis and reporting every day at The Australian dot com

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Speaker 1: dot au