Speaker 1: Nine podcasts. In this episode, a senior public health advisor
Speaker 1: is questioned about her communication with the accused killer as
Speaker 1: the health department tried to find the source of the
Speaker 1: death cap mushrooms, and we hear more from the digital
Speaker 1: forensics officer.
Speaker 2: Victoria's mushroom mystery, the mushroom lunch that claimed three lives.
Speaker 3: An Australian family's meal is now the center of a
Speaker 3: homicide investigation.
Speaker 4: For bizarre tragedy now grabbing global headlines.
Speaker 2: Aaron Patterson's alleged victims died after eating a family lunch
Speaker 2: she'd serve them at her home.
Speaker 1: I cannot think of another investigation that has generated this
Speaker 1: level of media and public interest. Four of the guests
Speaker 1: of that lunch were much loved members of this church.
Speaker 1: Only one will ever return.
Speaker 5: 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 her innocence in a court room in Country Victoria,
Speaker 1: Aaron Patterson is on trial accused of using death cat
Speaker 1: mushrooms to kill. She's pleaded not guilty to murdering three
Speaker 1: of her former in laws and attempting to kill a
Speaker 1: fourth the town's church pastor. It's up to the jurors
Speaker 1: to decide what happened when Pattison's loved ones sat down
Speaker 1: to eat. The fifth week of this trial has begun
Speaker 1: in Morewell and there's been quite a few more witnesses
Speaker 1: giving evidence. But before we get to that, we want
Speaker 1: to firstly, and this was the same order that the
Speaker 1: jury saw. All of this is come back to Sharman
Speaker 1: Fox Henry.
Speaker 6: Yes.
Speaker 1: Now, if people have listened to our previous episodes, they
Speaker 1: might remember he's a senior digital forensics officer within attached
Speaker 1: to Victoria Police and the cyber Crime Squad. Now he's
Speaker 1: previously given his evidence in chief. He has returned on
Speaker 1: various days and there's been different witnesses in between his evidence.
Speaker 1: But for the start of the fifth week he was
Speaker 1: back on the stand to be cross examined by Colin Mandy,
Speaker 1: Aaron Patterson's barrister.
Speaker 2: Into court in a slightly oversized suit. He has quite
Speaker 2: a significant mustache and some big black glasses on his
Speaker 2: head and he made his way from the door which
Speaker 2: is on the right hand side, all the way over
Speaker 2: to the witness box on the left. And this was
Speaker 2: one in a list of days that he'd appeared in court.
Speaker 2: But during the evidence that we heard today, Colin Mandy
Speaker 2: sc was questioning fox Henry about his qualifications. Penny. He
Speaker 2: was asked a little bit about what he does now,
Speaker 2: but what he was doing back at the time of
Speaker 2: this investigation. So it was August twenty twenty three that
Speaker 2: he was working as a digital forensics officer when he
Speaker 2: was asked by members of the homicide squad to take
Speaker 2: copies of what was found on these electronic devices and
Speaker 2: take that copy and give that over to Victoria Police.
Speaker 2: But now he works as a senior digital forensic officer
Speaker 2: in the Cyber Crime Squad. It was explained to the
Speaker 2: jury that he's since undergone a lot of extra training.
Speaker 2: He's done a lot of other courses and things like that.
Speaker 2: Butly Colin Mandy's questioning was was trying to establish what
Speaker 2: qualifications he had at that time, and the way that
Speaker 2: Sharman fox Henry explained it was a lot of his
Speaker 2: training on the different systems that Victoria Police use at
Speaker 2: the time was peer based. He learned a lot of
Speaker 2: it from his colleagues. Well, he may not have undergone
Speaker 2: specific training with these specific companies, it was peer based
Speaker 2: and he essentially had learned what to do from his colleagues.
Speaker 1: And he's spoken through different parts of his evidence that
Speaker 1: he sort of had a qualification in sound initially and
Speaker 1: he'd then worked in audio visual and that was with
Speaker 1: Victoria Police as well. So while the court was told
Speaker 1: in this part of his cross examination and his re
Speaker 1: examination that he sort of started with the particular role
Speaker 1: with the cyber Crime Squad in sort of the June
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty three, so a couple of months before
Speaker 1: the August, that he had been working in a different,
Speaker 1: slightly different department, but doing some things that were still
Speaker 1: within that sort of information technology space. And he was
Speaker 1: taken through a number of different parts of his evidence
Speaker 1: and asked a lot of different questions by Colin Mandy
Speaker 1: sc and as part of one of them early on
Speaker 1: where he was being asked again about his training and
Speaker 1: who told him how and what to do and how
Speaker 1: is he being instructed, he was asked about when it
Speaker 1: came specifically to the computer that listeners will have heard
Speaker 1: about before that he extracted and he's given evidence that
Speaker 1: he extracted the data from for police and investigators to
Speaker 1: then go through how he sort of went about doing that,
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of different programs that are mentioned
Speaker 1: in this, but there was a specific question put to
Speaker 1: him by mister Mandy that essentially came to the answer
Speaker 1: of that he'd selected something that said select all as
Speaker 1: part of downloading this information.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he said that copying a device or the hard
Speaker 2: drive or hard drives of a device. We know in
Speaker 2: this case with his computer there was a number of
Speaker 2: hard drives on it, he said, was a plug in
Speaker 2: and press going process. So while these questions were being
Speaker 2: sent his way trying to figure out exactly what his
Speaker 2: qualifications are and how you actually do things, he was saying, well, no,
Speaker 2: these are the words that he was using was his
Speaker 2: plug in, pressco process, and that was how he would
Speaker 2: perform his job and transfer the material accurately.
Speaker 1: Across so that it could then be further looked at
Speaker 1: by investigators, and then the investigators can then tag that
Speaker 1: with different evidence tags we heard today and Fox Henry
Speaker 1: was asked, well, did you put those tags on yourself,
Speaker 1: and he said no, there is these tags that the
Speaker 1: police can put on themselves.
Speaker 2: And there was something like two million artifacts or files
Speaker 2: that were downloaded off this particular PC. But fox Henry
Speaker 2: explained that it was only sixty odd different files that
Speaker 2: essentially went to Victoria Police for them to have a
Speaker 2: further look at.
Speaker 1: And he's previously explained in his evidence using this word artifacts,
Speaker 1: not perhaps in the way that people might commonly think
Speaker 1: of that word, but artifacts sort of being types of
Speaker 1: data and URLs and different things that can be looked
Speaker 1: at singularly or individually from these devices. Now we've heard
Speaker 1: about a number of other devices through mister fox Henry's evidence,
Speaker 1: and two of those are a tablet that police say
Speaker 1: was sees from Aaron Patterson's home, and the other is
Speaker 1: a phone that's been referred to it's a Samsung mobile
Speaker 1: phone as Phone B And previously the prosecutor has given
Speaker 1: evidence that the court will hear some evidence that that
Speaker 1: handset was given to police by the accused woman by
Speaker 1: Aaron Patterson. Now, going back to those two devices, neither
Speaker 1: of those were examined by this particular witness by fox Henry.
Speaker 1: He's told the court they're examined by another member sort
Speaker 1: of of the team. But he was asked quite a
Speaker 1: lot of questions about these by mister Mandy, and one
Speaker 1: of those the tablet and the photos that were contained
Speaker 1: on the tablet. He was asked basically, could was there
Speaker 1: any way of knowing exactly what device had taken a photo,
Speaker 1: if it was a phone, how it had ended up
Speaker 1: on something, or could they potentially have been sent to
Speaker 1: a device and ended up on a device from someone
Speaker 1: downloading a picture from the Internet or from a Facebook message.
Speaker 2: At this point, Penny that I actually missed hearing a
Speaker 2: little bit of Fox Henry's evidence because something had just
Speaker 2: happened after the mid morning break, and we were all
Speaker 2: a little bit distracted, I think in the court room
Speaker 2: for a little bit of time. We know that the
Speaker 2: mid morning break usually happens about eleven thirty am, about
Speaker 2: a fifteen minute break.
Speaker 1: And that's given by the judge and it happens in
Speaker 1: most trials as well. He's set this out with the
Speaker 1: jury from the start that they get a break in
Speaker 1: the morning and in the afternoon, sometimes more because they're
Speaker 1: listening to so much information so that they can just
Speaker 1: have a moment sort of a fifteen minutes or so,
Speaker 1: like you said, and then they can come back in
Speaker 1: refreshed and keep listening for another hour or so.
Speaker 2: But just as the jury sat back down and Fox
Speaker 2: Henry went to take his position in the witness box.
Speaker 2: There was a gentleman in the back row, a protester
Speaker 2: that stood up. He had a yellow T shirt on
Speaker 2: with writing on it, and he fixed his gaze on
Speaker 2: the judge and said, your honor or judge, accusing him
Speaker 2: of covering up murders and a like. And we couldn't
Speaker 2: hear exactly all the words that he was saying, but
Speaker 2: this was set in front of jury Penny and this
Speaker 2: gentleman he also had a blazer on, like a suit
Speaker 2: jacket over the top of this yellow shirt, and he
Speaker 2: was sitting in the back row next to five or
Speaker 2: six different members of the press. But this is also
Speaker 2: less than five meters away from the accused woman herself. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but very very quickly, this didn't last very long. The
Speaker 2: tip staff and a police officer quickly escorted this man
Speaker 2: from the room, and the judge said to the bar table,
Speaker 2: all right, let's just continue.
Speaker 1: And it did really continue quite rapidly after that, this
Speaker 1: evidence mister fox Henry sort of continuing what he'd been
Speaker 1: saying and what he spoke about with Colin Mandy. He
Speaker 1: sort of said, yes, well, there isn't an exact way
Speaker 1: necessarily to know you could have downloaded something from a
Speaker 1: chat or something if you've got if you were already
Speaker 1: viewing it through the app Google Photos, which is already
Speaker 1: spoken about through part of his evidence. So that was
Speaker 1: mentioned to him and he agreed with the defense there.
Speaker 1: But then there was this other device, Phone B was
Speaker 1: brought up again too, and mister Mandy asked him a
Speaker 1: number of dis frenk questions regarding how do you know
Speaker 1: exactly how a time and date and those settings are
Speaker 1: set on a particular phone. He's spoken about previously in
Speaker 1: his evidence that this phone, when he looked at the
Speaker 1: data that had been extracted and when he was explaining
Speaker 1: it to the jury, that there were four times that
Speaker 1: this phone has been factory reset, And he explained through
Speaker 1: his evidence during this cross examination that basically a factory
Speaker 1: reset removes all of the details except perhaps maybe some
Speaker 1: security details, maybe some sort of serial numbers, and it's
Speaker 1: largely unable to be recovered, and that when there was
Speaker 1: this evidence being shown to the jury that all of
Speaker 1: these resets, according to the data, were in twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: one sort of in February of twenty twenty three one,
Speaker 1: early August, sort of a few days prior to the
Speaker 1: next two factory resets, and that then the two factory
Speaker 1: resets that followed on the fifth and the sixth of August.
Speaker 1: It was sort of being asked by Colin Mandy, well,
Speaker 1: if there was a factory reset, especially not very long ago,
Speaker 1: how would that affect the data for the next lots
Speaker 1: of factory resets. So there was lots of questions about this,
Speaker 1: and the witness basically said, well, yes, there's no way
Speaker 1: that you can fully know exactly if that time is
Speaker 1: in or out. If it's been slightly altered, then potentially
Speaker 1: that could mean that the data you're getting could be
Speaker 1: slightly off. It's sort of hard to say when there
Speaker 1: has been that many factory resets on the phone.
Speaker 2: But when he was referring to the photographs on the
Speaker 2: tablet for example, and that time and date was also
Speaker 2: brought up again, the witness maintained that Windows ten that
Speaker 2: was being used at the time on the PC saves
Speaker 2: its own time. It's got like its own server or
Speaker 2: database that the time is linked in with. It's not
Speaker 2: up to the user, for example, or some other means
Speaker 2: to change the time so there was lots of questions
Speaker 2: in the evidence today for this particular witness about the
Speaker 2: times and dates and how we ensure things are what
Speaker 2: they say that they are.
Speaker 1: And he also mentioned as part of his evidence that
Speaker 1: when they're making these copies, there's a copy of the
Speaker 1: data that's made that it's essentially unwritable, it's uneditable, so
Speaker 1: that whoever's coming in and examining that can't go adding
Speaker 1: or changing things. It exists as it was taken off
Speaker 1: that device.
Speaker 4: That's right now.
Speaker 1: Moving on to the next witness that the jury has
Speaker 1: heard from now, this was a forensic pathologist, doctor Brian Bier,
Speaker 1: and he gave evidence about the autopsies that were conducted
Speaker 1: on the three lunch guests who passed away. And the
Speaker 1: first autopsy that he was talking about was Heather Wilkinson.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't actually himself who conducted that autopsy. It
Speaker 1: was a colleague, he said, but that he has a
Speaker 1: more senior role and he was overseeing that particular procedure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, doctor Brian Bier. He's worked at the
Speaker 2: Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine for a number of years now,
Speaker 2: but even longer as a forensic pathologist. Then his evidence
Speaker 2: really got underway. We know he either conducted or was
Speaker 2: overseeing the autopsies of the three lunch guests who passed away,
Speaker 2: and he was explaining the dates and time that they
Speaker 2: arrived and then the process to really have a look
Speaker 2: at not only what was going on in their body
Speaker 2: at the time of death, but whether or not they
Speaker 2: had any pre existing health conditions that could have impacted
Speaker 2: the medical treatment that occurred.
Speaker 1: He concluded essentially for all of them that there was
Speaker 1: this extensive neurosis of the liver which was very consistent
Speaker 1: with amanita poisoning or toxic mushroom poisoning. Now, there's been
Speaker 1: different parts of evidence given by different witnesses at medical
Speaker 1: levels about making these diagnoses, but it was in the
Speaker 1: bodies of the two female lunch guests. There wasn't any
Speaker 1: of this particular toxin that was able to be found
Speaker 1: from a death cat mushroom, but there was some of
Speaker 1: that toxin found in the results from Donald Patterson.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the way he explained it, Penny was he told
Speaker 2: the jury that all three had acute liver failure and
Speaker 2: multiple organ failure that was consistent with someone who had
Speaker 2: eaten deathcat mushrooms and while Donald patterson he remains were
Speaker 2: the only ones that tested positive to Amanita toxin or
Speaker 2: death cat mushroom poisoning. Both sisters, he said, had organ
Speaker 2: damage that were really consistent with the same It was
Speaker 2: a urine test that had been taken from Don Patterson
Speaker 2: while he was still in hospital that was tested and
Speaker 2: that's where the positive result came for deathcat mushrooms. The
Speaker 2: pathologist explained that when all three arrived at his facility,
Speaker 2: police had asked for immediate autopsies to be conducted on
Speaker 2: the bodies, and he was told that it was believed
Speaker 2: that all three had eaten deathcat mushrooms as well.
Speaker 1: And there was one part of his evidence that he
Speaker 1: answered a few more questions on regarding Gail Patterson and
Speaker 1: any pre existing conditions. He spoke as well about Don
Speaker 1: Patterson's heart and that it was a little more enlarged
Speaker 1: and heavier than you would expect of someone sort of
Speaker 1: for his description at that time, and maybe that he
Speaker 1: did have a sort of a high blood pressure of
Speaker 1: hypertension at the time. But he noted in his evidence, well,
Speaker 1: there's probably a lot of people even in this room
Speaker 1: who were living with that condition and that he did
Speaker 1: believe that there was definitely this amanita poisoning as well.
Speaker 1: But he also noted with all of these particular autopsies,
Speaker 1: they also looked at all of the medical history that
Speaker 1: had come from all of the different hospitals, yes, local
Speaker 1: hospitals standing on the Austin and various other notes too.
Speaker 1: But he spoke a bit more about what he found
Speaker 1: around Gail Patterson and her health.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the first autopsy that was taken place was
Speaker 2: on Heather Wilkinson. She was sixty six at the time
Speaker 2: and she died on the fourth of August twenty twenty three,
Speaker 2: and he said he was unable to find any existing
Speaker 2: medical conditions, but noted that she did appear to have
Speaker 2: been a fairly healthy lady at the time. She said there,
Speaker 2: he said that there was a very extensive necrosis of
Speaker 2: the liver in her case, and of all of her
Speaker 2: liver cells had died. And in addition to that, he
Speaker 2: said the small and large bow, well the lining of
Speaker 2: it was also necrotics. So his explanation was quote that
Speaker 2: the cells were dead. Beier said that Wilkinson's sister, Gail Patterson,
Speaker 2: who was seventy at the time also died from acute
Speaker 2: liver failure and multiple organ failure. Was the second autopsy
Speaker 2: that was conducted, and then the third autopsy, he said,
Speaker 2: was conducted on Don Patterson, who was seventy at the time,
Speaker 2: three days after his death.
Speaker 1: Let's hear a little bit more about what doctor Brian
Speaker 1: Beier said in his evidence. It's not their real voices.
Speaker 5: Did Gail Patterson suffer from any serious pre existing health
Speaker 5: conditions that you have been able to gather from reading
Speaker 5: her medical records and performing the autopsy on her body.
Speaker 7: I'll just qualify by saying there was no serious issues
Speaker 7: just prior to her death. Having said that, in twenty twenty,
Speaker 7: she had an episode of Herpes simplex type one encephalitis,
Speaker 7: which she presented with basically changes of fever and headaches
Speaker 7: in essence, just issues with understanding and expressing herself understanding
Speaker 7: other people anyway. That was from all accounts, diagnosed fairly quickly.
Speaker 7: She had a CSF sample taken and that confirmed that
Speaker 7: this was due to the Herpes simplex type one, and
Speaker 7: also a subsequent CT and MRI scans showed changes which
Speaker 7: were very consistent with that as well. She was given
Speaker 7: antibiotic creme and appears to have recovered quite well from that.
Speaker 7: I think early in January of twenty twenty one. There's possibility,
Speaker 7: some question that there could be a reoccurrence, but I
Speaker 7: think that was not confirmed. And my understanding from reading
Speaker 7: the notes that she made quite a good recovery with
Speaker 7: just some slight issues, particularly with her ability to express
Speaker 7: and understand various things.
Speaker 5: Did that in any way contribute to her death.
Speaker 7: No.
Speaker 2: At this point, Penny Aaron Patterson could be seen crying
Speaker 2: in the dock. There was tears in her eyes and
Speaker 2: she was looking up at times as be confirmed his
Speaker 2: autopsy results.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this was sort of a part of the
Speaker 1: evidence that the jury has already heard in this fifth
Speaker 1: week of the trial, but there was quite a bit
Speaker 1: more evidence to come from another witness. They've been told
Speaker 1: that that is a Department of Health official, Sally Anne Atkinson,
Speaker 1: will come back after this with some of her evidence
Speaker 1: and what she could recall to the jury and told
Speaker 1: them was her memory of her communications with Aaron Patterson. Now,
Speaker 1: Sally Anne Atkinson told the jury that she was in
Speaker 1: a senior public health sort of official role within Victoria's
Speaker 1: Department of Health. At the time that the fatal lunch
Speaker 1: took place back at the end of July twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: and subsequently she was involved over the following days and
Speaker 1: weeks in regards to particularly trying to find the source
Speaker 1: of what had made these people so unwell.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she explained to the jury that she was working
Speaker 2: as part of this gashtro illness related team, and it's
Speaker 2: a team which oversaw illnesses such as typhoid and salmonella
Speaker 2: and these types of things. And she said that's when
Speaker 2: she received a notification about a potential outbreak of death
Speaker 2: cap mushroom poisoning. It was an alert from a doctor,
Speaker 2: she explained to doctor Connor. It was about two thirty
Speaker 2: three pm on the thirty first of July twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: She said the doctor believed that there'd been an outbreak,
Speaker 2: which is what she classified as anything involving more than
Speaker 2: two people that may have occurred at a family luncheon.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, she said, the way that she initially got
Speaker 1: this information was there's sort of a number that people
Speaker 1: can call, and she said through her evidence that they
Speaker 1: would be notified the team that she worked in by
Speaker 1: either council workers perhaps members of the public, doctors, other
Speaker 1: medical staff about any kind of food or gastro intestinal
Speaker 1: related outbreak and that you know that could include then
Speaker 1: trying to stop a product of self that had someone
Speaker 1: ella in it getting out and trying to sort of
Speaker 1: really get on top of any outbreaks in the community,
Speaker 1: and that an outbreak. As you said, anything over two people,
Speaker 1: they considered that an outbreak. But she said that this
Speaker 1: message came from doctor Connor McDermott, a doctor at the
Speaker 1: Austin Hospital, and that it had come initially as sort
Speaker 1: of a phone message, a voicemail, and it was very
Speaker 1: therefore short and.
Speaker 2: Brief, but it adverted to an email, yeah, and it.
Speaker 1: Had come through this email system and into her inbox,
Speaker 1: and that she had that little bit of information. She
Speaker 1: thought that they were family members and that there might
Speaker 1: have been some sort of luncheon. But from there she
Speaker 1: spoke about the different communications she had with Aaron Patterson
Speaker 1: and Jane Warren from the prosecution was taking her through
Speaker 1: all of these different points, and we'll take you through
Speaker 1: the same way. The jury heard this chronological sequence of
Speaker 1: evidence that Sally Ann Atkinson was giving in relation to
Speaker 1: all of the phone conversations. Text conversations that she was
Speaker 1: having at the time as she was sort of being
Speaker 1: prompted and questioned by Jane Warren.
Speaker 2: Initially, she said she reached out to Simon Patterson and
Speaker 2: the next of kin for those that were in hospital,
Speaker 2: and initially she said, Simon didn't really want to speak
Speaker 2: to her, which wasn't an uncommon thing, so instead that
Speaker 2: she sent him an email with like an official letterhead
Speaker 2: that said that she was from the Department of Health,
Speaker 2: and she said at this time he was then happy
Speaker 2: to speak and she asked him whether or not Aaron
Speaker 2: Patterson was known to forage mushrooms, and Simon Patterson's response
Speaker 2: to her memory was, it wasn't something.
Speaker 4: That I ever really knowed her to do.
Speaker 2: And when I asked if the lunch guests were was
Speaker 2: commonplace for them to eat together, he said, no, it
Speaker 2: would have been years ago, if at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that that was probably some sort of family
Speaker 1: meal if they had eaten together at all. But as
Speaker 1: you mentioned, Simon Patterson was contacted. Sally Ane Atkinson said
Speaker 1: as the next of kin for Don and Gale. She
Speaker 1: noted that there were two next of kin details that
Speaker 1: she took, so also for Heather and Ian Wilkinson, because
Speaker 1: when someone is so unwell, they probably can't answer the questions.
Speaker 1: And as people have heard sort of earlier in this
Speaker 1: episode and throughout the trial, by the time these people
Speaker 1: were in hospital, they were very unwell. And she said
Speaker 1: through her evidence, Sally Ane Atkinson, she was aware that
Speaker 1: there were four people quite ill in hospital, and that
Speaker 1: she was aware there was a fifth person at least
Speaker 1: on their way to hospital. And she then when she
Speaker 1: picked up what had happened with her conversations around Aaron Patterson.
Speaker 1: She was asked about a conversation they had over the
Speaker 1: phone on the first of August twenty twenty three, while
Speaker 1: Aaron Patterson was still in hospital, and she said that
Speaker 1: she had basically said, oh, I'm sort of feeling okay
Speaker 1: at the moment. But here's a little bit more of
Speaker 1: the evidence as the court heard it. This is Sally
Speaker 1: Anne Atkinson while being questioned by Jane Warren from the prosecution.
Speaker 1: It's voiced by actors.
Speaker 6: At that stage. Where was she she was still in
Speaker 6: the hospital. Did she say how she was feeling?
Speaker 3: She said she was feeling okay, okay.
Speaker 6: Did you ask her about her symptoms?
Speaker 4: I did?
Speaker 3: She told me that her symptoms that she had experienced
Speaker 3: some diarrhea. She said she started to feel a bit
Speaker 3: unwell slightly before midnight of the twenty ninth and thirtieth,
Speaker 3: and then about midnight she said she had started to
Speaker 3: experience explosive diarrhea, which she said went pretty much throughout
Speaker 3: the evening throughout that night every fifteen to twenty minutes,
Speaker 3: and then throughout the rest of Sunday she said it
Speaker 3: was more approximately every forty five minutes. She then said,
Speaker 3: towards the end of Sunday afternoon evening she started to
Speaker 3: feel better, so she had a little bit of something
Speaker 3: to eat, a bowl of cereal, I believe, and then
Speaker 3: she said she started to feel worse again.
Speaker 2: So this Feige conversation Sally Natkinson record went for about
Speaker 2: fifteen minutes, and she'd got the phone number from medical
Speaker 2: staff for Aaron Patterson as part of her investigation to
Speaker 2: try and find out what was going on and whether
Speaker 2: or not there was some sort of outbreak of a
Speaker 2: deathcap mushroom poisoning, and whether or not there could be
Speaker 2: other people that may be unwell. And as their conversation continued,
Speaker 2: the witness said that Aaron Patterson told her she started
Speaker 2: to feel a little bit better after initially feeling unwell
Speaker 2: after the lunch around about the end of Sunday, and
Speaker 2: she even went ate a bowl of cereal, but then
Speaker 2: began to feel a lot worse and it was that
Speaker 2: point she dropped her kids off at the bus stop,
Speaker 2: got them ready for school, and said that she then
Speaker 2: took herself to hospital. Atkinson then went on to ask
Speaker 2: more details, she said, of Aaron Patterson about what was
Speaker 2: in the lunch.
Speaker 1: So here's the more of the evidence as the court
Speaker 1: heard it from Sally Anne Atkinson.
Speaker 6: Did you ask her any details to provide you any
Speaker 6: details about the meal that she served on the twenty
Speaker 6: ninth of July I did?
Speaker 3: She confirmed that it was beef Wellington, Yes, and she'd
Speaker 3: also served mashed potato and beans, and that she'd also
Speaker 3: had a packet of gravy that was one of those
Speaker 3: reheatable packets, so she didn't make it herself. She explained
Speaker 3: that it was a meal she had never made before
Speaker 3: and that she wanted to do something fancy, and she
Speaker 3: explained that the majority of the ingredients she had purchased
Speaker 3: were from leon Gatha Woolworth's.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Aaron Patterson told the witness that she'd use woolworst
Speaker 2: mushrooms and then also dried mushrooms that she'd purchased from
Speaker 2: an Asian grosser. But Atkinson said Aaron Patterson was unable
Speaker 2: to recall exactly where she bought the dried mushrooms, but
Speaker 2: she believed that it was sometime in April twenty twenty
Speaker 2: three during the school holidays.
Speaker 4: Perhaps.
Speaker 2: She said that she may have dropped her children off
Speaker 2: an activity.
Speaker 4: It was an unusual thing for her to go.
Speaker 2: They would go and stay down in Melbourne and she
Speaker 2: would drop her children off for these school holiday activities
Speaker 2: and then she would go and drive around for a
Speaker 2: little while until it was time to pick them up again.
Speaker 2: And she said, that's what happened on this occasion. She
Speaker 2: drove around and then later I took the purchase home
Speaker 2: that the dried mushrooms. She said, we're in a small
Speaker 2: clear bag and she bought them. She told the witness
Speaker 2: for a specific meal which she thought was possibly a
Speaker 2: pasta dish.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And then this witness gave some evidence which she
Speaker 1: will continue to hear throughout this episode of text messages
Speaker 1: she exchanged with Aaron Patterson as well as these phone calls,
Speaker 1: and she said later that sort of after they'd had
Speaker 1: this conversation, which was about eight thirty in the morning
Speaker 1: on that first of August, that later in that day
Speaker 1: she also followed up with a text message that she
Speaker 1: sort of was alerting her to a number of questions
Speaker 1: that she needed to ask her because she hadn't hadn't
Speaker 1: been able to sort of get on to her again
Speaker 1: to answer those questions. So let's hear a little bit
Speaker 1: more of what Sally Anne Atkinson told the court in
Speaker 1: her evidence regarding this first sort of text message exchange
Speaker 1: she had with Aaron Patterson.
Speaker 6: At the top of that, we see text message Tuesday
Speaker 6: one August at three point thirty pm. So this is
Speaker 6: a message you were referring to just prior in your evidence,
Speaker 6: Is that right?
Speaker 3: Yes? Yep?
Speaker 6: And can you please read out what you wrote in
Speaker 6: that message?
Speaker 3: Hi, erin, Sally from the Department of Health here. I
Speaker 3: spoke with you this morning. I have left a message
Speaker 3: for you to call me, but thought it might be
Speaker 3: helpful if I let you know this sort of information
Speaker 3: I wanted to discuss. I need to know what drinks
Speaker 3: were served at the lunch. I also need to know
Speaker 3: what type of shalots you purchased, and if you could
Speaker 3: please give me a basic description of the packaging of
Speaker 3: the mushrooms from the Asian grocer, that would be good.
Speaker 3: Approximately the weight and size of the packaging. Was it
Speaker 3: partially see through or not? And if you can think
Speaker 3: of the names of the roads you were parked on
Speaker 3: or near when you went to the different grocery stores,
Speaker 3: then I can get officers out looking around those areas.
Speaker 3: Even a landmark you might have remembered at the time
Speaker 3: would be helpful. Just things to think about for when
Speaker 3: I talk to you again. Thank you, Sally.
Speaker 6: Now did you receive a response to that text message
Speaker 6: from Patterson? I did, and that was at what time? Please?
Speaker 3: Four eight pm?
Speaker 6: And could you read out the response please?
Speaker 3: Hi, Sally. Sure, I will try to get that information
Speaker 3: all to you as soon as possible. I'm just dealing
Speaker 3: with trying to manage and look after the kids in
Speaker 3: hospital here and a bit snowed under trying to manage that.
Speaker 3: I'll get this info to you as soon as I can,
Speaker 3: but I've just been in a couple of meetings with
Speaker 3: people at the hospital when you've been trying to call.
Speaker 6: Okay and then you responded, yes, at what time please?
Speaker 3: Shortly after I think at four ten. I said, thanks
Speaker 3: so much. I understand. Are your kids doing okay at
Speaker 3: the moment. I will try calling you later this afternoon
Speaker 3: around five.
Speaker 6: Okay, And she replied, at what time please?
Speaker 3: Her reply was eleven minutes past four pm. She said, yeah,
Speaker 3: they're fine. Thanks, thank you, And I said very pleased
Speaker 3: to hear that.
Speaker 6: Yes, that's okay. Now, did you that afternoon or evening
Speaker 6: make any further attempts to contact Aaron Patterson by phone?
Speaker 3: I did. At five twenty two pm.
Speaker 6: I tried to call her, okay. Did she answer?
Speaker 3: No? She did not.
Speaker 6: Did you leave her?
Speaker 3: I left a voice message for her asking her to
Speaker 3: call me.
Speaker 6: Back, okay. Did you receive a response that day?
Speaker 3: No? I did not.
Speaker 2: It was during this early phone conversation Penny as well
Speaker 2: that Aaron Patterson recalled to the witness that everybody, all
Speaker 2: the lunch guests that arrived at about twelve twenty pm
Speaker 2: in the afternoon, and she said everybody had been served
Speaker 2: individually and they had.
Speaker 4: All made they'd all had their own meals.
Speaker 2: But when asked if Atkinson had been told at any
Speaker 2: point of what the purpose of the lunch was she
Speaker 2: said at that point, no, she wasn't.
Speaker 1: And she followed up this part of her evidence where
Speaker 1: she was talking about that text messaging before onto the
Speaker 1: next morning, so this is now the second of August.
Speaker 1: She said that she called Aaron Patterson and she hadn't
Speaker 1: got an answer, so she'd left her a voice mail,
Speaker 1: and that she said she said in that message that
Speaker 1: followed another text message following up about half an hour later,
Speaker 1: that she really needed to get the investigation under way,
Speaker 1: and that she was going to send Aaron Patterson some
Speaker 1: questions or if she wanted to send her her email address,
Speaker 1: she could do it that way as well, but that
Speaker 1: she really needed to start to get this information. It
Speaker 1: was becoming quite urgent. And she then sent Aaron Patterson
Speaker 1: a list of seven questions via this text message and
Speaker 1: she was taken through them. She's basically reading them out
Speaker 1: as they were being shown up on the screens in
Speaker 1: the courtroom as well through her evidence. So let's hear
Speaker 1: a little bit more of Sally Anne Atkinson explaining this
Speaker 1: element of the text messages. It's while she's been questioned
Speaker 1: by Jane Warren from the prosecution. I understand you probably
Speaker 1: have a lot going on, so I thought i'd message
Speaker 1: with my questions so you can respond with what you
Speaker 1: do know and work on the rest. Alternatively, I am
Speaker 1: also happy to email you if you provide me with
Speaker 1: your email address, if that is an easier way to
Speaker 1: type your responses. One can you please confirm that it
Speaker 1: was definitely only the one other time you cooked with
Speaker 1: the dried mushrooms when you first opened them. No one
Speaker 1: else reported symptoms or issues when consumed.
Speaker 4: Then.
Speaker 3: Two, please advise what drinks were served at lunch. Three
Speaker 3: please confirm what kind of charlots were used in the
Speaker 3: beef Wellington. Were they spring onions or the small individual
Speaker 3: Charlotte type onions? Please?
Speaker 7: Four?
Speaker 3: Did you possibly use your card to purchase the mushrooms?
Speaker 3: And can you please check your bank statements for the shop?
Speaker 3: That would be amazingly helpful. Five could there possibly be
Speaker 3: any other food left over still in the fridge? We
Speaker 3: could get counsel to meet your children on site and
Speaker 3: collect for testing. Six can you look at the maps
Speaker 3: and think of the streets you parked on or near?
Speaker 3: That would be helpful for the shops in Oakley, Mount
Speaker 3: Waverley or Clayton. We are urgently organizing sampling to get
Speaker 3: started today. Seven. Can you recall the size and type
Speaker 3: of packaging including color? What made you pick that brand
Speaker 3: over any others? Thanks again for your assistance and please
Speaker 3: feel free to call me back if you prefer.
Speaker 6: And then if we go to the next page, you
Speaker 6: finished it all.
Speaker 3: Off, yeah, I said, regards Sally Department of Health.
Speaker 6: Okay, now just to remind ourselves that was sent at
Speaker 6: nine twenty nine am on Wednesday to August. Is that
Speaker 6: right correct? Did you receive any response from Aaron Patterson
Speaker 6: to that?
Speaker 3: I did not.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The witness actually struggled to get hold of Aaron Patterson
Speaker 2: on the phone, making phone calls on and off for
Speaker 2: a number of days and continue to send her text messages.
Speaker 2: And this is when she said she learned that there
Speaker 2: was a child protection worker, a Katrina Crips, who was
Speaker 2: visiting the family home after the accused and her kids
Speaker 2: had been released from hospital, and she asked between her
Speaker 2: cryps if she could put them in touch.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, as you mentioned, the number of days, this
Speaker 1: sort of evidence from Sally ane Atkinson did span quite
Speaker 1: a period and it was brought up a number of
Speaker 1: times to her that she would send these texts often,
Speaker 1: especially if she hadn't been able to reach Erin on
Speaker 1: the phone immediately, or sometimes that she was then sending
Speaker 1: text saying can I call you now, just to try
Speaker 1: and touch base. But this was on the second of
Speaker 1: August again as well. She noted after Aaron Patterson and
Speaker 1: the children had been discharged from hospital, that this child
Speaker 1: protection worker was going to visit the home, and she
Speaker 1: said that she asked if she would basically facilitate a
Speaker 1: phone call because she needed to get some more of
Speaker 1: these questions answered. And it was in her evidence to
Speaker 1: the jury that this phone call was made at one
Speaker 1: fourteen pm of that day, the second of August, and
Speaker 1: she told the court that, yes, while this sort of
Speaker 1: colleague was there, she handed the phone to Aaron, that
Speaker 1: Aaron was with her and that they had this discussion,
Speaker 1: and she went through a number of points of that discussion.
Speaker 1: Let's hear a little bit more of the evidence. As
Speaker 1: the court was told.
Speaker 6: You had asked her in the text messages to confirm
Speaker 6: that it was definitely only the one other time that
Speaker 6: she cooked with the dried mushrooms. What did she say
Speaker 6: in relation to that?
Speaker 3: She stated they had not the mushrooms had not been
Speaker 3: used in any other.
Speaker 6: Meal, okay? Did she say why?
Speaker 3: She said that they smelt funny when she'd originally opened them,
Speaker 3: so she decided not to use them. She felt they
Speaker 3: smelt strong and funny, so thought they might be too
Speaker 3: overpowering for the meal she'd originally planned for them, and
Speaker 3: so just put them in a tupperware container to decide
Speaker 3: what to do with them and not use them.
Speaker 6: And that meal she originally planned before, is that the
Speaker 6: meal you described earlier, the pasta dish.
Speaker 3: The pasta type dish, yes, okay.
Speaker 6: Was this information consistent or different to what she had
Speaker 6: told you in the first commas about that?
Speaker 3: Different in what way? The initial conversation seemed to indicate
Speaker 3: she'd use some of them in the first dish, and
Speaker 3: then saying, you know, she was saying that she had not,
Speaker 3: but she wasn't very clear.
Speaker 1: So there was quite a few questions at different times
Speaker 1: through Sali Anne Atkinson's evidence that she said she was
Speaker 1: asking Aaron Patterson any detail you can remember about where
Speaker 1: these mushrooms came from. So here's some more of the
Speaker 1: evidence as the court heard it from Sally Ane Atkinson.
Speaker 6: Did you ask her another question about any other possible
Speaker 6: sources for the mushrooms.
Speaker 3: I did ask her if she had foraged for mushrooms and.
Speaker 6: Picked them herself, and what was her response.
Speaker 3: And she said no, she had bought them all right.
Speaker 6: And in relation to the beef Wellington that was served
Speaker 6: for lunch, did you ask some further questions about that?
Speaker 3: During the conversation, we had a discussion, yes, about the
Speaker 3: beef Wellington, and she made it clear that they the
Speaker 3: meat she had purchased. She'd made the beef Wellington's as
Speaker 3: individual beef Wellington serves.
Speaker 1: And she also mentioned that Troy Shanick, who previously has
Speaker 1: given evidence that he was involved on a council level
Speaker 1: as an environmental officer, and that she could send through
Speaker 1: some different some photos that have come from him to
Speaker 1: try and establish if she recognized any of the mushrooms
Speaker 1: he'd been out looking at in different shops.
Speaker 2: And we heard from the witness that know that the
Speaker 2: mushrooms that were in the photographs were of a different coloring.
Speaker 2: And she continued to explain that they kept texting back
Speaker 2: and forth trying to locate this Asian grocery store, and
Speaker 2: then the conversation switched a little bit to more about
Speaker 2: the cooking process of the beef Wellington Penny and Atkinson
Speaker 2: said she was asking about the mushroom paste, the pace
Speaker 2: that Aaron Patterson said was used to coat this tenderloin steak,
Speaker 2: and there was questions about when it was cooked and
Speaker 2: how many batches of the mushroom pace did you make,
Speaker 2: and she recalled that Aaron said, no, only one batch
Speaker 2: of this mushroom paste was cooked. And then the there
Speaker 2: was more information back and forth in another phone conversation,
Speaker 2: and this was at about eleven twenty Ampenny the next day,
Speaker 2: moving to August three, twenty twenty three, and the witness
Speaker 2: said that Peter had another phone call at this at
Speaker 2: this point and it went for about fourteen or so minutes.
Speaker 2: Atkinson said this was the first time she really recalled
Speaker 2: one of the suburbs of interest changing. She was explaining
Speaker 2: that it was Clayton, Mount Waverly. These areas were where
Speaker 2: they wore, Cly and Oakley where they were they had
Speaker 2: their search going at the time and they were trying
Speaker 2: to get in touch with other investigators to sort of
Speaker 2: help on the ground, and she was explaining to Aaron
Speaker 2: Patterson that we have people ready to go out onto
Speaker 2: the streets. Is there any street names you remember, any
Speaker 2: places you remember, any street corners, things.
Speaker 4: Like this to help.
Speaker 2: But Atkinson said this was different, and at this point
Speaker 2: she believed that Aaron Patterson had not mentioned Glenn Waverley
Speaker 2: to her before, and it was in this fourteen minute
Speaker 2: phone conversation on the third of August that she said
Speaker 2: glen Waverley, not Mount Waverley, was mentioned for the first time.
Speaker 1: And let's hear a little bit more from Sally An
Speaker 1: Atkinson's evidence about that particular phone call again, talking about
Speaker 1: what she says Aaron Patterson relayed to her about how
Speaker 1: she'd cooked this particular meal, what sort of amounts she'd
Speaker 1: cooked it in, whether it was all in one batch
Speaker 1: or not, and why it was that she'd been asking
Speaker 1: those particular questions.
Speaker 6: In respect to the paste, did she say anything about
Speaker 6: how much was used?
Speaker 3: She said that she used up all of the paste
Speaker 3: to coat all of the tenderloin steaks that she had used,
Speaker 3: and all of it was used up.
Speaker 6: Did she describe how she coated them, what did she
Speaker 6: do to coat them? She didn't explain that. She just
Speaker 6: said that they were She just used it to cover.
Speaker 3: Them, okay?
Speaker 6: And then what was done with the steaks once they
Speaker 6: were covered in the mushroom paste? Then they were wrapped
Speaker 6: in pastry okay. Did she say if there was any
Speaker 6: of the paste leftover?
Speaker 3: No, she said she'd used up all the paste.
Speaker 6: Did you ask her about how many batches of paste
Speaker 6: she cooked?
Speaker 4: I did.
Speaker 3: I asked her if she'd cooked.
Speaker 6: More than one batch, and her answer was.
Speaker 3: No, she only cooked one batch.
Speaker 6: Was there a particular reason why you asked that question?
Speaker 3: In case there had been some which had had the
Speaker 3: mushrooms in from the dried mushrooms that might have been
Speaker 3: causing illness and others not, and so would explain why
Speaker 3: some people were sick and some were not. Or did
Speaker 3: she just not factor in enough mushrooms so she purchased more?
Speaker 3: Just to make sure I covered everything.
Speaker 1: Sally at Atkinson finished the evidence of what the jury
Speaker 1: has heard so far by mentioning and being asked a
Speaker 1: little bit about pastry.
Speaker 7: Now.
Speaker 1: She said that after she'd asked all of these questions
Speaker 1: over various days and gone back and forth with text
Speaker 1: messages covering things from not only what was the main
Speaker 1: meal at the lunch and how it was served, but
Speaker 1: the cake that had been eaten, the fruit, the drinks,
Speaker 1: all of these different elements that she realized that she
Speaker 1: hadn't actually confirmed the pastry where that had come from,
Speaker 1: how it was used, And she said she spoke to
Speaker 1: Aaron Patterson to confirm that what type of pastry was it?
Speaker 1: Had you also bought this from the shops or had
Speaker 1: you got it from from your freezer? And she said
Speaker 1: Aaron Patterson said it was Pampus puff pastry, that she
Speaker 1: had some in the freezer, but then she'd also bought more.
Speaker 1: And then she also added in a follow up exchange
Speaker 1: that she'd also used a roll of Philo pastry that
Speaker 1: was sort of in a round cylinder shape. So that's
Speaker 1: what the jury's sort of heard so far, going back
Speaker 1: and forth over these what Sally Anne Atkinson recalls as
Speaker 1: being Aaron Patterson's shopping habits of the times that she'd
Speaker 1: gone not only the source of the Asian grosser mushrooms
Speaker 1: they were trying to find, but also how often and
Speaker 1: not she might have gone to the local Woolworths and
Speaker 1: when exactly different ingredients had been purchased. That's what the
Speaker 1: jury has heard so far from her evidence. But we
Speaker 1: expect that we more to come. Thank you for listening
Speaker 1: to this episode of Say Grace. Please press the follow
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Speaker 1: soon as we publish.
Speaker 2: For more reporting on the case, check out the Age
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