Speaker 1: Nine podcasts. The lead investigator continues his evidence, questioned on
Speaker 1: exactly what security footage from the evening of the fatal
Speaker 1: lunch shows. He also tells the jury pulling all of
Speaker 1: the accused killer's phone records was too expensive for police.
Speaker 2: Victoria's mushroom mystery, the mushroom lunch that claimed three lives
Speaker 2: an Australian family's meal is now the center of a
Speaker 2: homicide investigation. For bizarre tragedy now grabbing global headlines, Aaron
Speaker 2: Patterson's alleged victims died after eating a family lunch she'd
Speaker 2: serve them at her home.
Speaker 3: I cannot think of another investigation that has generated this
Speaker 3: level of media and public interest.
Speaker 1: Four of the guests of that lunch were much loved
Speaker 1: members of this church. Only one will ever return.
Speaker 2: People are feeling very heavy with having lost such wonderful people.
Speaker 1: Today, Aaron Pattison remained here inside her home. She's continued
Speaker 1: to plead.
Speaker 3: Her innocence.
Speaker 1: In a court room in Country Victoria. Aaron Patterson is
Speaker 1: on trial accused of using deathcap mushrooms to kill. She's
Speaker 1: pleaded not guilty to murdering three of her former in
Speaker 1: laws and attempting to kill a fourth the town's church pastor.
Speaker 1: It's up to the jurors to decide what happened when
Speaker 1: Pattison's loved ones sat down to eat now. The lead detective,
Speaker 1: Stephen Eppingstall, has been giving evidence over a number of days,
Speaker 1: and during his cross examination with Colin Mandy that our
Speaker 1: listeners will have heard a little bit about in the
Speaker 1: last episode, he's been taken through a number of other
Speaker 1: specific topics and really questioned on particular parts of the investigation.
Speaker 2: There was a lot of questioning today that went through
Speaker 2: multiple topics, but a lot of it was to do
Speaker 2: with data, CCTV, mobile phone tower pings, this sort of thing,
Speaker 2: and one of the ones that they spend a little
Speaker 2: bit of time on today with Colin Mandy asking epping
Speaker 2: Stall about why certain mobile phone DOTA log records weren't
Speaker 2: gab for the entirety of the investigation or for about
Speaker 2: a year period. That was a twelve month period they
Speaker 2: were really talking about today and we heard and said
Speaker 2: that they focused their investigation on collecting this specific type
Speaker 2: of data analysis for dates that were closer to the
Speaker 2: lunch and not that twelve month period. And yeah, the
Speaker 2: detective was quiz on, well, why is that the case?
Speaker 2: Why don't we have more of this? And he explained
Speaker 2: that seeking data for that amount of time would be
Speaker 2: far too costly. He gave some figures, Penny, saying that
Speaker 2: when the technology first came available, it was about seventeen
Speaker 2: hundred dollars for two hours of data, and that if
Speaker 2: they were to seek a year's worth of mobile phone
Speaker 2: location tracking data, it would have probably left the homicide
Speaker 2: squad in with a bill that they needed to pay
Speaker 2: that would have been in six figures, so very cost prohibitive,
Speaker 2: is the way that he explained it. And he said, quote,
Speaker 2: my boss isn't really keen on spending that much for getting.
Speaker 1: And he mentioned as part of this evidence as he
Speaker 1: was going through it that basically, as the lead investigator,
Speaker 1: he wants every he wants to throw everything.
Speaker 2: At it, said he was greedy Penny, yeah, but.
Speaker 1: He said, you know, you don't always get everything. That
Speaker 1: was how he explained it, and then sort of with
Speaker 1: that very specific cost as well. But he was asked
Speaker 1: a lot about the search of Aaron Patterson's home. Now
Speaker 1: the jury has been told there were two searches, one
Speaker 1: on the fifth of August twenty twenty three, which is
Speaker 1: sort of in the week following the lunch and then
Speaker 1: also another search that was on the second of November
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. Now, when he was the detective being
Speaker 1: taken through this evidence by Colin Mandy sc he was
Speaker 1: spoken to about, well, we know that I believe Colin
Speaker 1: Mandy's words were many many electronic devices were seized, but basically,
Speaker 1: what about some others that have been shown in some
Speaker 1: images that the jury has seen up on the screens
Speaker 1: and these images they've been told were taken from these
Speaker 1: search videos that were made and still images from that
Speaker 1: search on the fifth of August, and the detective confirmed, yes,
Speaker 1: he did believe that particularly one of these images had
Speaker 1: come from there, and he didn't dispute that in any way.
Speaker 1: And he was taken to a particular room in the
Speaker 1: house and shown what appeared to be and what Colin
Speaker 1: Mandy described as a phone box in a basket of
Speaker 1: sort of in an area where we'd seen other electronics
Speaker 1: earlier in the house and we'd seen also a sort
Speaker 1: of a lot of cords and asked asked about that,
Speaker 1: and that's when the detective sort of said, well, we
Speaker 1: seized everything we saw our goal was to get every
Speaker 1: electronic device we could. But he was then taken into
Speaker 1: what was being described as the Lego room, and this
Speaker 1: was a room. In the photos we could see it
Speaker 1: was shelves sort of built in floor to ceiling, and
Speaker 1: there was a lot of different items on those shelves.
Speaker 2: They were open shelves, and it was a picture that
Speaker 2: the jury hadn't seen before. We know that the search
Speaker 2: of the house on both occasions was filmed and then
Speaker 2: there was these steal images taken from that and that's
Speaker 2: what was shown to the jury. But this was a
Speaker 2: new one that was shown to the court today and
Speaker 2: the informant was asked to look at what was in
Speaker 2: that particularly on a couple of bottom shelves on the
Speaker 2: right hand side of the room he was directed to,
Speaker 2: and they even zoomed on the image at that time,
Speaker 2: and there was two particular shelves where Colin Mandy sc
Speaker 2: was suggesting that whether or not the informant agreed that
Speaker 2: they could be computers, perhaps these were computers that were
Speaker 2: missed or weren't picked up or weren't found during the
Speaker 2: search warrants. And we know the search warrants had a
Speaker 2: description on them to search for electronic devices, and epping
Speaker 2: Stare was looking at them and he spent a bit
Speaker 2: of time. He zoomed in himself, Penny, and he was
Speaker 2: asked to look at the way he described them was
Speaker 2: sort of two boxes, and one of them, he said, yes,
Speaker 2: was kind of consistent with what could be a laptop.
Speaker 2: But the other one, he said, appeared to have a
Speaker 2: microphone over the top, and he really couldn't agree with
Speaker 2: the suggestion that Colin Mandy was making that that was
Speaker 2: also a laptop.
Speaker 1: Let's have a little bit of a listen to what
Speaker 1: the detective said as part of his evidence. This is
Speaker 1: where he was being asked about one of these particular
Speaker 1: dark shapes that we could see in the photo in
Speaker 1: that shelf, it's voiced by actors.
Speaker 4: On the shelf on the right hand side, there was
Speaker 4: a keyboard sitting on top of a laptop.
Speaker 3: From that photos, I couldn't And in.
Speaker 4: The shelf below that you can see the black case
Speaker 4: on the left hand side.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the black one has a similarity to a laptop,
Speaker 3: I'll grant that, But that top right one, I couldn't say, sir,
Speaker 3: what that is.
Speaker 4: And these items were not seized by police.
Speaker 3: Okay, if they're laptops. This is the first I'm learning
Speaker 3: of these items.
Speaker 4: Okay, all right, thank you. There are other items as
Speaker 4: well in the premises that weren't seized. For instance, in
Speaker 4: the pantry there was a USB storage device. You recall that.
Speaker 3: I wasn't searching, sir, I was with miss Patterson.
Speaker 1: Now, as part of what the detective was also taken
Speaker 1: through by the defense, he was asked about the seizing
Speaker 1: of phones from the Pattersons. So the court was told
Speaker 1: as part of this through what Colin Mandy was speaking about,
Speaker 1: that there were three phones that were handed over by
Speaker 1: Simon Patterson, Aaron Patterson's a strange husband, those being his
Speaker 1: parents done and Gail's devices, and then also his own
Speaker 1: mobile phone. Now, he confirmed in his evidence, the detective
Speaker 1: that he'd initially got these phones on the sixth of
Speaker 1: August when he spoke with Simon Patterson. But he clarified
Speaker 1: as part of his evidence that while he had this
Speaker 1: phone from Simon Patterson on the sixth, that he had
Speaker 1: taken it back to the office and he hadn't actually
Speaker 1: been able to download that particular phone at the time.
Speaker 1: So because particularly Simon's parents had passed away on what
Speaker 1: was going on at the time he gave that phone
Speaker 1: back to him, and then it was on the twelfth
Speaker 1: of September that it was returned to him via Simon
Speaker 1: Patterson and passed on to specialist investigators to download that data. Now,
Speaker 1: as part of this, Colin Mandy sc sort of pressed
Speaker 1: him on this in a few different ways, and it
Speaker 1: was then that Justice Biale actually sort of hopped in
Speaker 1: and clarified what was being said by the informant or
Speaker 1: the lead detective, and Stephen Eppingstall gave evidence that yes,
Speaker 1: he had been told by Simon Patterson that he'd essentially
Speaker 1: changed phones, he'd got a new handset, but that his
Speaker 1: understanding was that the phone that he received back on
Speaker 1: the twelfth that was then downloaded, that that phone wasn't
Speaker 1: actually a different one to the one he was given
Speaker 1: on the sixth, just that they'd had I had this
Speaker 1: discussion about him getting a new handset, and that he
Speaker 1: also spoke briefly about Donald Pattison's phone too, and he
Speaker 1: said he didn't uncover much on that particular phone. It
Speaker 1: was fairly empty and there was a bit of reaction
Speaker 1: to that in the court.
Speaker 2: There is a lot of laughter in the courtroom at
Speaker 2: that time. I was sitting in the back row and
Speaker 2: had a pretty good view of everybody that was in
Speaker 2: there today, and from all of the jury members, from
Speaker 2: all of the family members, from the Pattisons and Wilkinson's,
Speaker 2: they were all having a bit of a chuckle as
Speaker 2: that was mentioned. The suggestion made that Don really didn't
Speaker 2: use his phone that much. Even looking at the judge,
Speaker 2: there was a bit of a smile on his face.
Speaker 2: It was one of those softer moments during this trial.
Speaker 1: And the jury's also been shown some CCTV. Now they've
Speaker 1: been shown this a number of times throughout the detective's evidence,
Speaker 1: and this is CCTV that they've been told came from
Speaker 1: near a subway store in Lee and Gatha, and it
Speaker 1: showed a red car and a couple of other things.
Speaker 1: But when the detective was taken back to this by
Speaker 1: the defense, there's asked some really quite specific questions regarding
Speaker 1: that particular video.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was challenged on who it was that the
Speaker 2: prosecution alleged got out of that car and walked into
Speaker 2: the subway's store making a purchase. As the person they
Speaker 2: allege was Aaron Patterson drove away for eleven minutes in
Speaker 2: that vehicle, which they've been unable to ascertain details about
Speaker 2: before returning. So the prosecution cases and Stephen eppings Stall
Speaker 2: maintained that Aaron Patterson had dropped her son off at
Speaker 2: that subway store. He'd walked in the dark through some
Speaker 2: sort of dimly lit concrete walkway into the store, and
Speaker 2: then she'd come back and picked him back up. But
Speaker 2: Colin Mandy suggested today Penny, was this really the accused
Speaker 2: woman's son or was this a different boy? And they
Speaker 2: used photographs that had been taken of the accused of
Speaker 2: the accused woman's son during his video evidence and during
Speaker 2: an earlier exhibit we heard a rocket video he'd been
Speaker 2: doing with his grandfather Don that we're using that to
Speaker 2: try and compare. The defense was to Stephen Eppingstall, is
Speaker 2: this really him or is this somebody else's.
Speaker 1: Let's hear a little bit about what Stephen Eppingstall said
Speaker 1: in his evidence.
Speaker 4: Can I suggest that this is a still from the
Speaker 4: CCTV footage inside the subway?
Speaker 3: Yep?
Speaker 4: And that is not the sun.
Speaker 3: I believe it to be him, but it's obviously a
Speaker 3: matter for the jury.
Speaker 4: All Right, Well, let's just compare that image then with well,
Speaker 4: so we all know that you agree that the first
Speaker 4: photo is the sun. Yes, yes, we'll just show you
Speaker 4: a still from the video interview now that we know
Speaker 4: to be him. Yes, two weeks later on the sixteenth
Speaker 4: of August.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the two and a half. Yes, yes, sir, yep.
Speaker 4: And do you agree with me that that's not the
Speaker 4: same person as is depicted in the subway footage.
Speaker 3: Oh, to me, he looks more like the subway guy
Speaker 3: than that first photo, sir.
Speaker 4: Yes, Well, that might be right, but it's still not
Speaker 4: the same person.
Speaker 3: Okay, And again that's a matter for the jury, sir.
Speaker 4: I'm not suggesting that there wasn't a visit to Subway.
Speaker 3: No, I understand that. Yeah, I understand.
Speaker 4: That we're saying the path I've got the wrong one,
Speaker 4: is what you're saying.
Speaker 3: Yes, I don't think so, But that's a matter for you, sir.
Speaker 1: Just to come back to that, the jury has been
Speaker 1: told that this particular CCTV came from the night of
Speaker 1: the twenty ninth of July, that that on that night,
Speaker 1: there's been other evidence given that Aaron Patterson had been
Speaker 1: dropping this boy's friend off to his home, and that
Speaker 1: then the prosecution had alleged they'd gone to Subway and
Speaker 1: as part of this sort of lead into trying to
Speaker 1: work out who was the boy being shown in the
Speaker 1: footage in these very close up screen grabs from the
Speaker 1: footage that were being zoomed in, and that you could
Speaker 1: hear the detective just speaking about. Then in that voiced
Speaker 1: evidence he spoke to the defense about when they asked, well,
Speaker 1: how did you you know confirm this? He says Simon
Speaker 1: Patterson had told him that there had been a subway
Speaker 1: dinner that night for his son, and he said that
Speaker 1: it was then when they went to look for this
Speaker 1: CCTV to try and find the right time code because
Speaker 1: CCTV sometimes is out with the times, that he actually
Speaker 1: asked Simon Patterson to go through the son's bank account
Speaker 1: looking for a transaction and that it was a transaction
Speaker 1: from that bank account for about seven twenty five PM
Speaker 1: that he relied on to then try and find this CCTV.
Speaker 1: And as you just heard, then he certainly maintains that
Speaker 1: this was Aaron Patterson's son in the particular vision. But
Speaker 1: when he was questioned by the defense, Colin Mandy mentioned, well,
Speaker 1: how did you know basically that the bank records had
Speaker 1: the correct time on that too, So there was a
Speaker 1: bit of back and forth around a few elements of
Speaker 1: this CCTV.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and when Eppingstaal was asked, how do you explain
Speaker 2: these discrepancies that may have occurred, he said, I've got
Speaker 2: no idea, and then they moved on quickly to another topic.
Speaker 2: As we said, there was quite a few today, but
Speaker 2: that was one of the ones that he was really
Speaker 2: pressed quite heavily on of his memory of it. And
Speaker 2: when the different photographs of who the prosecution say Zick's
Speaker 2: son was shown on the screen, you could see a
Speaker 2: lot of members of the jury staring at the big screen.
Speaker 2: You could also see many members of the public in
Speaker 2: the courtroom sort of turning and looking at one another.
Speaker 2: And we know it was a really really packed courtroom
Speaker 2: again today. There was about six members of the homicide
Speaker 2: squad attended today alongside Eppingstall who was sitting in the
Speaker 2: public gallery. There was a number of press and there
Speaker 2: was also a lot of members of the public as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and one of the other things that was mentioned
Speaker 1: regarding Aaron Patterson's children in some of the things that
Speaker 1: the cross examination has focused on was sort of the
Speaker 1: memories of the children and the evidence that they'd given
Speaker 1: in these pre recorded videos that the jury was played
Speaker 1: earlier in the trial. Now, Colin Mandy took the detective
Speaker 1: today to those two videos and in it he was
Speaker 1: asking about, you know, the sun had given evidence in
Speaker 1: that video that they'd stopped at an outback jack donut
Speaker 1: stop at Cooi Rup in Gippsland sort of as part
Speaker 1: of their trip on the way back from Taiab. Now
Speaker 1: it was mentioned that yes, that seemed to be correct
Speaker 1: and that seemed to be consistent with what the jury
Speaker 1: has then been shown in bang records. But then there
Speaker 1: was a question from the defense regarding a stop at
Speaker 1: the Caldermeaede service station the BP that the jury has
Speaker 1: been shown CCTV of and a receipt in regards to
Speaker 1: the transaction made there and what was ordered with a
Speaker 1: ham sandwich, a sweet chili chicken wrap and a packet
Speaker 1: of gum shown as part of the evidence of this
Speaker 1: detective on a receipt that the prosecution alleged was what
Speaker 1: Aaron Patterson had purchased in the CCTV that has been
Speaker 1: shown to the court of a woman entering that service
Speaker 1: station on that day. But it was mentioned by the
Speaker 1: defense basically that this wasn't mentioned by the child when
Speaker 1: he gave his evidence when it was pre recorded and
Speaker 1: then played to the court.
Speaker 2: It wasn't part of his memory. Is the way that
Speaker 2: the jury was told that when he gave his video
Speaker 2: recorded evidence, that he only recalled that there was one
Speaker 2: stop on the way back, and that was at the
Speaker 2: stop where they stopped at the Doughnut Fan And there
Speaker 2: wasn't a memory in his video recording of them stopping
Speaker 2: at the BP at Colder Meade.
Speaker 1: And the detective read with that as well, we'll be
Speaker 1: back with more evidence after this. The defense, continuing with
Speaker 1: the cross examination, also asked about again bank records, phone records,
Speaker 1: phone numbers, things like that, and what was put to
Speaker 1: the detective was that on the fourth of August, when
Speaker 1: the homicide squad already had carriage of this investigation, and
Speaker 1: before the search of Aaron Patterson's home on the fifth,
Speaker 1: which later that day there was this record of interview
Speaker 1: that's been played to the jury, that there had been
Speaker 1: an email sent that this detective was aware of regarding
Speaker 1: Aaron Patterson's different bank records, And the defense pressed the
Speaker 1: detective on whether or not they looked at the bank
Speaker 1: records all the way back to April of twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: and he said that they hadn't. Here's a little bit
Speaker 1: of the detective's evidence while he was being questioned by
Speaker 1: Colin Mandy from the defense. It's voiced by actors, and
Speaker 1: it also includes, as well as the bank records, questions
Speaker 1: around particular phone numbers.
Speaker 4: You knew that Aaron Patterson was utilizing the phone number
Speaker 4: ending in seven eighty three prior to the execution of
Speaker 4: the search warrant.
Speaker 3: Yes, that is correct.
Speaker 4: And you knew that she'd been in the Mount Waverley
Speaker 4: area in April of twenty twenty three, Yes, sir. And
Speaker 4: you didn't ask her about that the last of those
Speaker 4: things in the record of the interview. Yeah, the Mount
Speaker 4: Waverley the fact that she'd been spending time there in
Speaker 4: April of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 4: No, And you didn't ask her about the fact of
Speaker 4: the seven eight three mobile number in the record of
Speaker 4: the interview. No.
Speaker 3: I asked her for her phone number in the record
Speaker 3: of interview, and I didn't realize that she hadn't given
Speaker 3: me that number. I just wrote it down and just
Speaker 3: moved past it.
Speaker 4: Okay, but she gave you the phone number of the phone.
Speaker 3: That she she gave me an eight three five number.
Speaker 4: Sir, Did she surrender to the police earlier?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Correct, Yeah, I just wrote it down and didn't
Speaker 3: give it any more thought until later on.
Speaker 1: Now, the jury was also shown again a number of
Speaker 1: Facebook messages and a number of signal messages or text
Speaker 1: messages that will go through in a moment as part
Speaker 1: of the cross examination of the detective. Some of the
Speaker 1: Facebook messages that were they were part of an exhibit
Speaker 1: that has already been shown to the jury what's been
Speaker 1: called the online Friends' Facebook chat with a number of
Speaker 1: different women as well as who the defense said today
Speaker 1: was Aaron Patterson also sending these sort of replies to
Speaker 1: these messages. But today what was shown was a number
Speaker 1: of other pages between essentially the messages that have already
Speaker 1: been shown to the jury. And it was mentioned by
Speaker 1: Colin man dysc that there was around one hundred and
Speaker 1: eighty six pages of these messages that spanned this time
Speaker 1: frame that the other messages sort of have come from
Speaker 1: that the jury's already seen.
Speaker 2: And yeah, he said there was context. He wanted to
Speaker 2: He was saying to the informant that, yes, you've selected
Speaker 2: a few of these messages and you've told these to
Speaker 2: the jury, you've read these to the juries part of
Speaker 2: the prosecution case. But I want you jury explained to
Speaker 2: you that there's more context here, and I want to
Speaker 2: put to you, as the lead investigator, that you haven't
Speaker 2: included all of the messages in the evidence that the
Speaker 2: jury's heard thus far. And here there's other women one
Speaker 2: name redacted, one was another woman who have replied, and
Speaker 2: then a lot of Eron's messages then follow those.
Speaker 1: Replies, and as we said, some of those are messages
Speaker 1: that the jury has already seen and you may have
Speaker 1: heard in our previous episodes where this was sort of
Speaker 1: first covered with the prosecution, But those messages were all
Speaker 1: sort of centering around how Erin was feeling and sort
Speaker 1: of coping at the time with Simon and with his family,
Speaker 1: especially regarding issues around the children and financial issues. And
Speaker 1: what was read to the jury today by Colin Mandy
Speaker 1: while he was doing this cross examination with the detective
Speaker 1: was a number of these different messages and we'll let
Speaker 1: you hear a little bit of that now.
Speaker 4: It's voiced by actors. Now, I'm not going to go
Speaker 4: through every one of these messages unless someone wants me to,
Speaker 4: but I am going to give you some examples of
Speaker 4: the context. So the first message that's extracted by the
Speaker 4: prosecution is the third one on that page. So Simon's
Speaker 4: dad contacted me this morning, et cetera, et cetera, Yes, sir,
Speaker 4: And then the following messages have been left out by
Speaker 4: the prosecution's exhibit, which is the discussion that flows from
Speaker 4: these propositions. A friend says, what morons at the time
Speaker 4: ten twenty three thirty six? Is that right? Yes, sir,
Speaker 4: Scroll down a bit, and then the same woman says
Speaker 4: shortly after that, anyway, you weren't asking them to adjudicate.
Speaker 4: You just wanted them to hear your story. And then
Speaker 4: she says something else that I won't read out.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 4: Then comes Erin's response, which is I said to him
Speaker 4: about fifty times yesterday that I didn't want them to adjudicate.
Speaker 4: Nobody bloody listens to me. At least I know they're
Speaker 4: a lost cause. Yes, So, just using that as an example,
Speaker 4: the adjudicating proposition is part of the context of the conversation.
Speaker 4: Do you accept that so the word the use of adjudicate.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, yes.
Speaker 4: Then someone asks a question, so you haven't heard from Simon,
Speaker 4: inviting a response yes, And then there is a response yes,
Speaker 4: all right. If we go down now page three, someone
Speaker 4: says it's pathetic, Yes, sir. Someone says, even if he
Speaker 4: doesn't want to talk about your marriage, they could at
Speaker 4: least demand to know how he's financially supporting the kids. Yes,
Speaker 4: And then comes the response which is in that context,
Speaker 4: yes sir, yes, thank you. I should make clear your honor,
Speaker 4: that we have redacted names from this document where it's
Speaker 4: not miss Patterson, because sometimes the content of what's being
Speaker 4: said is sensitive, so we have redacted personal information in
Speaker 4: that way.
Speaker 1: Now, some of these messages also weren't read out. They
Speaker 1: were you could see them on the screen, and the
Speaker 1: jury has a copy of the messages on their iPads
Speaker 1: as well. But some of them, particularly when Colin Mandy
Speaker 1: sort of got to them, he said, oh, I won't
Speaker 1: read that one out, And one of them was so
Speaker 1: Simon is meant to pray for his children because he's
Speaker 1: a shit dad. It makes no sense that was sent
Speaker 1: by someone said to be a friend of Aaron Patterson
Speaker 1: in that particular group chat. So it was something that
Speaker 1: Colin Mandy put to the informant that these discussions around
Speaker 1: different personal issues, but also discussions around pets, around celebrities,
Speaker 1: around deaths that have been reported in the news.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the death of Kirsty Ally was one that was mentioned. Penny.
Speaker 1: It was put by the defense to the informant that
Speaker 1: were these sort of random conversations around different topics but
Speaker 1: also supporting around their own issues in their own lives.
Speaker 1: Was that sort of what this chat was formed around?
Speaker 1: And he agreed that yes, there were a lot of
Speaker 1: these kind of topics covered. But then we're also shown
Speaker 1: some more of these signal messages, which of signal is
Speaker 1: something that's been mentioned a number of times throughout the trial,
Speaker 1: but they're essentially text messages.
Speaker 2: That's right. It was Don Patterson and Aaron Patterson's text
Speaker 2: messages that were spoken about today. Now, these were sent
Speaker 2: between the first and the fifteenth of January in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two, and it was here the jury were told
Speaker 2: that they the pair discuss some of the accused woman's
Speaker 2: ongoing health issues, and this included a saw back and
Speaker 2: Don Patterson messaging the accused saying I hope and pray
Speaker 2: that it gets better quickly, and you know, it's been
Speaker 2: great to chat to the kids this morning. There was
Speaker 2: replies that went back and forth where Aaron Patterson was
Speaker 2: talking about the fact that she'd had a terrible day
Speaker 2: and Donald continued to say, we'll keep praying for you,
Speaker 2: or keep praying that he keeps you in good health.
Speaker 2: Aaron then went on to respond that she tried pain
Speaker 2: relief and eurofin and stupidly that had run out. And
Speaker 2: then there was more messages about what was going on
Speaker 2: in the global health pandemic at the time COVID nineteen.
Speaker 2: We know that that also hit Lee and Gatha and
Speaker 2: Karen Burrow because Aaron Patterson was explaining to Donald that
Speaker 2: she knew that there was a number of cases in
Speaker 2: that local community at a time.
Speaker 1: And sort of saying be careful when you go out
Speaker 1: and just to ensure that they sort of avoided those
Speaker 1: COVID outbreaks. Will bring you more updates from the court
Speaker 1: as the evidence is presented to the jury. Thank you
Speaker 1: for listening to this episode of Say Grace. Please press
Speaker 1: the follow button in your app to get our next
Speaker 1: episodes as soon as we publish.
Speaker 2: For more reporting, on the case. Check out the Age
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Speaker 1: We'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land
Speaker 1: that this podcast was recorded on and wherever you're listening
Speaker 1: to it Now. Say Grace is created and hosted by
Speaker 1: me Penelope.
Speaker 2: Lesh and me Aaron Pearson.
Speaker 1: This podcast is produced by Genevevral