Speaker 1: Nine podcasts.
Speaker 2: Aaron Patterson has given evidence around how she made the
Speaker 2: beef Wellington meal, telling The Cord that she used a
Speaker 2: mushroom mix as part of a paste, and that she
Speaker 2: became concerned that mix could have contained foraged wild mushrooms
Speaker 2: around the time that her estranged husband approached her in
Speaker 2: hospital and she says accused her of using a dehydrator
Speaker 2: to poison his parents. From there, she says she panicked.
Speaker 3: Victoria's mushroom mystery.
Speaker 4: The mushroom lunch that claimed three lives.
Speaker 5: An Australian family's meal is now the center of a
Speaker 5: homicide investigation. The bizarre tragedy now grabbing global headlines. Aaron
Speaker 5: Patterson's alleged victims died after eating a family lunch she'd
Speaker 5: serve them at her home.
Speaker 4: I cannot think of another investigation that has generated this
Speaker 4: level of media and public interest.
Speaker 2: Four of the guests of that lunch were much loved
Speaker 2: members of this church.
Speaker 1: Only one will ever.
Speaker 5: People are feeling very heavy with having lost such wonderful people.
Speaker 2: Today, Aaron Pattison remained here inside her home.
Speaker 1: She's continued to plead her innocence in a court room in.
Speaker 2: Country Victoria Aaron Patterson is on trial accused of using
Speaker 2: death cat mushrooms to kill She's pleaded not guilty to
Speaker 2: murdering three of her former in laws and attempting to
Speaker 2: kill a fourth, the town's church pastor. It's up to
Speaker 2: the jurors to decide what happened when Patterson's loved ones
Speaker 2: sat down to eat. On her third day of evidence,
Speaker 2: Aaron Patterson has told the court details of how she
Speaker 2: says she made the beef Wellington meal. She's also told
Speaker 2: the court that she now believes that there could have
Speaker 2: been foraged wild mushrooms in the mushroom mix that she
Speaker 2: put into that dish.
Speaker 5: There's a lot to unpack from today, Penny. We are
Speaker 5: recording this podcast episode later than we normally would because
Speaker 5: there's been a lot to try process and a lot
Speaker 5: to break down and understand, double check quotes, all of
Speaker 5: these types of information to make sure what we are
Speaker 5: bringing our listeners is a real and true reflection of
Speaker 5: what happened in court today. When I was sitting trying
Speaker 5: to write my story for the Age before we've sat
Speaker 5: down to do this, it was quite difficult to figure
Speaker 5: out how much I could get into the first few
Speaker 5: pars there was line after line after line of information
Speaker 5: and the reason for that is this is Aaron Patterson's third
Speaker 5: day on the stand and she was answering questions from
Speaker 5: her barrister, Colin Mandy. Again, Aaron, I agree definitely with
Speaker 5: the you know, the crosses that I've done throughout the
Speaker 5: day for radio and TV as well. It's definitely there's
Speaker 5: been so many topics.
Speaker 2: Covered, particularly on this particular day, and the fact that
Speaker 2: we have the podcast where we can try and bring
Speaker 2: people large chunks.
Speaker 1: Of the evidence.
Speaker 2: We're really hoping, as we've said, that this gives people
Speaker 2: a real insight into what was going on in the courtroom.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm looking at a notepad in my left hand
Speaker 5: at the moment with a little bit of scribble on
Speaker 5: it to remind me of different points to not forget
Speaker 5: and the order in which they were presented to the
Speaker 5: jury today and some of those. And we'll take you
Speaker 5: through all of the evidence that we heard today, but
Speaker 5: a quick recap, I suppose on where we got to
Speaker 5: by four o'clock this afternoon. We heard a little bit
Speaker 5: about a conversation between Aaron Patterson and Simon Patterson when
Speaker 5: they were left alone in a hospital room at Monash Hospital. Here,
Speaker 5: Simon Patterson asked questions of his estranged wife as to
Speaker 5: whether or not she'd use a dehydrator to poison his parents.
Speaker 5: We also heard a little bit about Aaron Patterson dumping
Speaker 5: some evidence, including a dehydrator during the aftermath of the lunch.
Speaker 5: We heard a little bit about Aaron Patterson admitting it
Speaker 5: she did wipe a mobile phone a number of times.
Speaker 5: She also said that she told some lies Penny to
Speaker 5: keep her children. There was also different things about her
Speaker 5: her diary and in her words, her illness continued to
Speaker 5: get worse and worse. But she also took us more
Speaker 5: importantly and the reason why we're all in court Penny
Speaker 5: through the lunch, what happened at the lunch, through in
Speaker 5: her mind what she recalled of that. And there was many, many,
Speaker 5: many questions that she answered to the jury today about
Speaker 5: that lunch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and those included elements of the shopping, the preparation,
Speaker 2: the recipe, the serving up, the plating up, why she
Speaker 2: says she held this lunch. And we'll take everyone through
Speaker 2: as much as we can fit into one recording. But
Speaker 2: let's sort of start from some of the first parts
Speaker 2: of the evidence that the jury heard today, and that
Speaker 2: was when Aaron Patterson's barrister took Aaron Patterson through a
Speaker 2: number of photographs on the big screens and the court
Speaker 2: was told that these came from an SD card, so
Speaker 2: a memory card that had been recovered from the Gibson
Speaker 2: Street Lee and Gatha home during a police search. Now,
Speaker 2: Aaron Patterson was sort of going through these different photos
Speaker 2: with her barrister and what we saw in those photos
Speaker 2: was quite a few different mushrooms.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think there was twenty odd pages that Aaron
Speaker 5: Patterson was taken through and asked did you take these photographs?
Speaker 5: Do you have any memory of taking these photographs? What
Speaker 5: is depicted in these photographs? And some of her answers
Speaker 5: were that there was mushrooms in those photographs that were
Speaker 5: taken in the wild. There was other mushrooms that had
Speaker 5: been picked and that were placed on newspaper and Aaron
Speaker 5: Patterson identified that particular picture as being one that was
Speaker 5: on her kitchen bench at the time at a previous
Speaker 5: addressing in corn Bara in Shelcotte Road. But she was
Speaker 5: also then asked to identify some other people that may
Speaker 5: have been in that photograph and that's when she got
Speaker 5: a little bit emotional. Penny for the first time on
Speaker 5: day twenty six of the trial, and that was when
Speaker 5: she was asked to identify, yeah, people in the background,
Speaker 5: and she said they were her children.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And part of what was shown to the court
Speaker 2: was some very small images which it was asked for
Speaker 2: them to be zoomed up, and it was explained by
Speaker 2: the barrister. He says that these were snapshots basically taken
Speaker 2: from a video, and Aaron Patterson.
Speaker 1: Told the court that she believed that.
Speaker 2: She had taken that video that her children had been
Speaker 2: riding their scooters on a rail trail.
Speaker 1: They're excited to do that, yeah, and she.
Speaker 2: Sort of she said, look, you can see that they're
Speaker 2: both in that image, and that's when she got a
Speaker 2: little bit emotional talking about those children.
Speaker 1: But she also noted to the jury that there was a.
Speaker 2: Child in that image wearing a red sort of top
Speaker 2: and that that was the same child. She said, you
Speaker 2: could then see in this other image that she said
Speaker 2: was taken at her kitchen bench. But through a lot
Speaker 2: of these photos, she seemed to be able to recall
Speaker 2: some parts of exactly when she'd taken them and why
Speaker 2: She says that was she noted some particular mushrooms, that
Speaker 2: they were sort of a brownie yellowy color to me,
Speaker 2: at least in grass, that she had picked those from
Speaker 2: the grass, and that she had been trying to identify those,
Speaker 2: she said, to find out if they were toxic.
Speaker 1: For her dog.
Speaker 2: She told the jury that she said that was an
Speaker 2: inner cybe mushroom and she'd come to know that that
Speaker 2: was a poisonous mushroom that she believed grew on her property.
Speaker 5: She was also taken to other screenshots that the prosecution
Speaker 5: had introduced as part of their evidence, and they related
Speaker 5: to a purchase at the corn Bar Top Pub. This
Speaker 5: was something that was happening around the same time as
Speaker 5: there was also a visit to a website II Naturalist,
Speaker 5: and Aaron Patterson said, yes, that could have been her
Speaker 5: that accessed the our Naturalist page. It made sense because
Speaker 5: at the time she was researching whether or not there
Speaker 5: was death cat mushrooms growing in South Gippsland. She said
Speaker 5: ultimately they weren't and she was then asked further questions
Speaker 5: about what else was going on at that time. She confirmed,
Speaker 5: as I said, this purchase at the Coronborough Middle pub,
Speaker 5: she said, yes, I remember doing that, I remember making
Speaker 5: that purchase.
Speaker 2: And she said that she did sometimes purchase dinner on
Speaker 2: occasion for her and her family there. When she was
Speaker 2: talking also about those sort of the use of her phone,
Speaker 2: she was sort of asked about when she was trying
Speaker 2: to identify mushrooms how she would do that. She said
Speaker 2: mostly she would use her phone because that was the
Speaker 2: device usually that was easiest when she had it with her.
Speaker 5: When she was asked as well about some of the
Speaker 5: our naturalist posts that we've heard during this evidence thus far,
Speaker 5: she was asked whether or not she'd ever seen posts
Speaker 5: that pinpointed that where deathcat mushrooms were believed to have
Speaker 5: grown from other witnesses, Tom May and another woman called
Speaker 5: Christine Mackenzie, and she said no, she had not, she
Speaker 5: did not ever recall seeing those posts. And well, when
Speaker 5: she was asked of her phone records and her travel
Speaker 5: was consistent with traveling to lock An Outram area and
Speaker 5: if she'd ever forage in those areas, she said.
Speaker 2: No, Yeah, she said she'd never foraged in either of
Speaker 2: those two particular locations.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we heard in June twenty twenty three, I think
Speaker 5: it was the twenty fourth of June, Penny that Aaron
Speaker 5: Patterson had a lunch with Don and Gale and her children.
Speaker 5: She said she'd become a little worried that there might
Speaker 5: have been some distance growing between her and her in
Speaker 5: laws at the time. The way she remembered it when
Speaker 5: she was expressing this to the jury was that it
Speaker 5: was a really, really good time and her children really
Speaker 5: really enjoyed it, and she said that's one of the
Speaker 5: reasons why she planned the lunch again a month later
Speaker 5: on the twenty ninth of July. It was at this
Speaker 5: time as well, Penny, that she was taken back to
Speaker 5: an exhibit called Exhibit fifty one, and this was a
Speaker 5: string of text messages or messages that had been sent
Speaker 5: between her and Gail Patterson, and this was a discussion
Speaker 5: about her medical appointments.
Speaker 2: Here's a little bit of what Aaron Patterson told the
Speaker 2: jury while she was being questioned by her barrister, Colin Mandy.
Speaker 2: It's voiced by actors.
Speaker 3: The message is from Gail to you, Is that right?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 3: And it says hi, erin just wondering how you got
Speaker 3: on in your appointment today.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 3: What was Gail referring to.
Speaker 4: I must have told him I was having a medical
Speaker 4: appointment that day.
Speaker 3: And do you remember when you told them that?
Speaker 4: It may have been at the lanch or maybe slightly
Speaker 4: before it. I think it was slightly before.
Speaker 3: And what did you say about that medical appointment?
Speaker 4: I think I just said I was I was having
Speaker 4: a problem or a lump on my arm checked out?
Speaker 3: Did you have a lump on your arm?
Speaker 4: I thought I did at one point.
Speaker 3: Your response, on twenty ninth of June to that message
Speaker 3: is Hi, Gail, the appointment when? Okay? Thanks for asking.
Speaker 3: I had a needle biopsy taken of the lump and
Speaker 3: I'm returning for an MRI next week and we'll know
Speaker 3: more after the results of those two things. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: wrote that had you been to an appointment?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: Had you had a needle biopsy taken of the lump?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 3: Were you returning for an MIRI the next week?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: And were those lies? Yes? And why did you tell
Speaker 3: those lies?
Speaker 4: So some weeks prior, I had been having an issue
Speaker 4: with my elbow with pain, and I thought there was
Speaker 4: a lump there and I had told Gail and Don
Speaker 4: about that when I saw them or spoke to them,
Speaker 4: and they had shown quite a lot of care about that,
Speaker 4: which felt really nice, and the issue started to resolve,
Speaker 4: and I felt a bit embarrassed that I'd made such
Speaker 4: a big deal about it, and I didn't I didn't
Speaker 4: want their care of me to stop, so I just
Speaker 4: kept it going. I shouldn't have done it.
Speaker 2: And this is where Aaron Patterson explained that she while
Speaker 2: she had thought that she had this particular issue with
Speaker 2: her arm that had sort of resolved by then, that
Speaker 2: she was actually thinking and planning, she said, to have
Speaker 2: a different procedure, that she was planning to undergo gastric
Speaker 2: bypass surgery to help her, she said, get control of
Speaker 2: her weight, and she felt she didn't really have control
Speaker 2: of her body at that time.
Speaker 5: She remembers she told the jury thinking that she didn't
Speaker 5: want to tell anybody, and she didn't want anybody to
Speaker 5: know what was going on, and she was really embarrassed
Speaker 5: and thought that at this point, maybe by allowing that
Speaker 5: lie to go on, her in laws will be able
Speaker 5: to help her with the care of her care of
Speaker 5: her children.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: As another part of the evidence, she was taken to
Speaker 2: the particular meal, this particular lunch that her barrister has
Speaker 2: noted as part of this evidence is what this trial
Speaker 2: is all about. And as part of that, Aaron Patterson
Speaker 2: noted that she'd invited both Gail and Heather while they
Speaker 2: were at church, that she wanted to make this sort
Speaker 2: of connection with both of them, and she felt that
Speaker 2: Ian and Heather had been good to her in the past,
Speaker 2: and so it would be nice to extend and invite
Speaker 2: to them, because she said that Gail had previously said
Speaker 2: when she'd spoken to her about having her guard and
Speaker 2: done that she thought that that's something that Heather might
Speaker 2: really enjoy seeing.
Speaker 5: She said that when she invited her lunch guests her
Speaker 5: in laws, she didn't give them a reason for the lunch,
Speaker 5: but she did acknowledge that when Simon Patterson canceled and
Speaker 5: said and texted her to say he wasn't coming shortly
Speaker 5: before the lunch, that she revealed to him that there
Speaker 5: were some health concerns that she wanted to talk about.
Speaker 5: She said she grew she grew really frustrated that he
Speaker 5: wasn't coming, and that she really wanted him to be there.
Speaker 5: She really wanted to feel like the family was getting
Speaker 5: around her at that time. And then the questioning turned
Speaker 5: to more about the beef Wellington penny and why Aaron
Speaker 5: Patterson decided to cook that particular meal.
Speaker 2: She's told the court through her evidence that she made
Speaker 2: a shepherd's pie for the previous family lunch. She said
Speaker 2: that Donnegale seemed to really enjoy that, but she felt
Speaker 2: it wasn't really a special enough meal for what she
Speaker 2: wanted to this particular lunch occasion to be. And she
Speaker 2: told the court that she remembered that her mum used
Speaker 2: to make beef Wellington's on really special occasions, and she
Speaker 2: said she'd actually never made a beef wellington herself, but
Speaker 2: that she had this memory and she thought, well, she
Speaker 2: might try and give that a go. And she gave
Speaker 2: evidence that she used the recipe Tin Eats.
Speaker 1: Cookbook YEP as the basis for this recipe.
Speaker 2: She also was taken through her shopping history quite a
Speaker 2: bit on the days that came before this lunch, so
Speaker 2: particularly it was touched on the twenty third of July
Speaker 2: and the twenty seventh and multiple purchases for pastry, and
Speaker 2: there was also multiple purchases for mushrooms there as well
Speaker 2: as phil Att's steak. And she told the jury a
Speaker 2: little bit about why she said that she was making
Speaker 2: these different purchases.
Speaker 5: Her recollection of the events at that time was she
Speaker 5: saw in the recipe books, in the recipe Tin Eats book,
Speaker 5: that the beef Wellington was made in a log shape.
Speaker 5: And at this time during her evidence, she was using
Speaker 5: her hands penny to demonstrate the size of the beef
Speaker 5: Wellington log to the jury as she was answering questions
Speaker 5: from her defense barrister, and she explained that when she
Speaker 5: was out shopping, yes, she bought pastry shalots, these types
Speaker 5: of ingredients for the meal. When she was trying to
Speaker 5: find meat to fit this log style beef Wellington, she
Speaker 5: couldn't find anything big enough, so she changed her mind
Speaker 5: and decided to buy steaks. And she said that's when
Speaker 5: she started to adapt the recipe a little bit and
Speaker 5: make them individual beef Wellington's. And it was at this
Speaker 5: point she was looking up up to her right up
Speaker 5: to the roof, and she appeared to be remembering other
Speaker 5: changes that she made to the meal as well.
Speaker 1: At that time, she was.
Speaker 5: Saying that because she made the individual beef Wellington's penny,
Speaker 5: she needed more mushroom paste because there was more surface
Speaker 5: area that needed to be covered.
Speaker 2: She gave evidence that she had also bought this extra
Speaker 2: filo pastry because she felt there was a step in
Speaker 2: the recipe involving a crepe that was a little bit difficult,
Speaker 2: so she was trying to sort of replace another item there.
Speaker 2: She also said the recipe called for proscuto, but that
Speaker 2: she didn't use that because don didn't eat any pork.
Speaker 2: So she took the court in quite a lot of
Speaker 2: detail through what she says she did to make this
Speaker 2: particular meal, and she said that as she was sort
Speaker 2: of making this meal, she'd used her thermo mix to
Speaker 2: condense down or chop up those already sliced fresh mushrooms.
Speaker 5: These were fresh sliced mushrooms she said that had been
Speaker 5: prepackaged that she bought from the supermarket that were covered
Speaker 5: in clear plastic. And she added those two garlic and
Speaker 5: shalots that were already cooking in the pan.
Speaker 2: And she said that's when she tried this particular sort
Speaker 2: of mixture, and she felt that it was actually a
Speaker 2: little bit bland. So she told the jury through her
Speaker 2: evidence that she had then gone and got decided to
Speaker 2: add some dried mushrooms to this to try and sort
Speaker 2: of add to that particular flavor, and in her evidence
Speaker 2: she said that she was getting some dried mushrooms that
Speaker 2: she remembered purchasing from a grosser in Melbourne back a
Speaker 2: few months before this lunch. But what will take you
Speaker 2: to now is Colin man dys as he's questioning his
Speaker 2: client about this particular element of the preparation.
Speaker 1: It's not anyone's real voice.
Speaker 3: You said, he told the jury yesterday about the topperware
Speaker 3: container that was in your pantry. Yeah, at that time,
Speaker 3: to your knowledge, what was in that tupperware container?
Speaker 4: At that time, I believed it was just the mushrooms
Speaker 4: that I'd bought in Melbourne.
Speaker 3: And now what do you think might have been in
Speaker 3: that tupperware container?
Speaker 4: Now, I think there was a possibility that there were
Speaker 4: foraged ones in there as well.
Speaker 5: Now I've got in my notes here, Penny. It was
Speaker 5: at this point that I looked up from where I
Speaker 5: was seated in the courtroom and I could see Aaron Patterson,
Speaker 5: who appeared to be sobbing at this point. And it
Speaker 5: was as she was also talking about how she introduced
Speaker 5: those mushrooms into the meal. This was all part of
Speaker 5: the same line of questioning, and she was also using
Speaker 5: her hands again to express how she was cooking and
Speaker 5: adding these dried mushrooms to the meal. And she said
Speaker 5: that she used a little strainer with a handle and
Speaker 5: she used that to roughly pour some water, allow some
Speaker 5: water to be poured over them to get the crispness out,
Speaker 5: chop them up, and then sprinkled them over what she
Speaker 5: said was her duct cell. Then she said, you quote
Speaker 5: push them in with an egg flip.
Speaker 2: She gave evidence that she made six of these different
Speaker 2: beef Wellington six parcels yep, and that she'd sort of
Speaker 2: cooked them, and she also talked through some processes around
Speaker 2: browning off the meat, putting that into eventually sort of
Speaker 2: the entire process to cook these.
Speaker 5: And then we got to a bit of a timeline
Speaker 5: of the lunch and what happened and who was standing
Speaker 5: where and receiving what, and that's when the questioning switched
Speaker 5: to the plates that we used, and Aaron Patterson was
Speaker 5: asked what plates that she had, and she took the
Speaker 5: jury through that she think that it was a couple
Speaker 5: of black ones, a couple of white ones. There was
Speaker 5: one that was red on the top and black underneath,
Speaker 5: and also one that her daughter had made her at kindergarten.
Speaker 5: But then she was asked by Colin Mandy, do you
Speaker 5: own any other dinner plates, and her response was no,
Speaker 5: I did not. Then he asked did you own any
Speaker 5: gray plates, and she also said no. Then she was
Speaker 5: explaining as she was dishing up what food was going where,
Speaker 5: and who was grabbing which plates, these types of things,
Speaker 5: And then the conversation or then the evidence turned to
Speaker 5: the conversation that was happening at the lunch table. She
Speaker 5: was explaining that the other guests were sharing with her
Speaker 5: the news that a family member had just had a baby,
Speaker 5: and she was really excited about that, and later even
Speaker 5: sent off a text message congratulation to this woman. And
Speaker 5: then there was a little bit more information about whether
Speaker 5: or not she saw her lunch guests take the plates,
Speaker 5: and she said no, Penny. At that time, she turned
Speaker 5: and she was heating up some gravy when the plates
Speaker 5: were picked up and her recollection was By the time
Speaker 5: she turned back around, four of the plates were already
Speaker 5: being carried to the table, so she took the one
Speaker 5: that was left on the bench.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she said, there was no assigned seats at this
Speaker 2: particular lunch and when she was doing that gravy. She
Speaker 2: said it was a packet gravy, that it was perhaps
Speaker 2: two packets, that she'd heat it up relatively quickly in
Speaker 2: a saucepan. She noted it didn't take long, and she
Speaker 2: said that's the last thing that she did before she
Speaker 2: came and got her plate. She was asked a few
Speaker 2: questions about if she could remember exactly who had eaten.
Speaker 1: What and how much people had eaten.
Speaker 5: She said that, yeah, that there was a conversation about
Speaker 5: one of the lunch geest seating a little bit more
Speaker 5: of somebody else's lunch, But she really remembered that there
Speaker 5: wasn't much left on the plates afterwards, maybe a couple
Speaker 5: of beans and a little bit of potato mash. But
Speaker 5: she was asked why she didn't eat all of her meal,
Speaker 5: and she explained to the jury that she'd been talking
Speaker 5: a lot and eating quite slowly, and quote, that's about
Speaker 5: all I can say about that. Then we heard a
Speaker 5: little bit more about when the children returned to the house.
Speaker 2: But we'll let the listeners hear this through the words
Speaker 2: of Aaron Patterson and her barrister, Colin Mandy.
Speaker 1: This is voiced by actors.
Speaker 3: Now, during the course of the meal, what was the discussion,
Speaker 3: as best as you can remember it from the beginning
Speaker 3: sitting down? What did you talk about?
Speaker 4: We talked about what we'd been up to, what had
Speaker 4: been happening in the family, probably a bit of politics
Speaker 4: and current affairs, about what the kids were doing. They
Speaker 4: all asked a lot of questions about the kids, or
Speaker 4: at least Heather and Gail did. At one point, I
Speaker 4: remember Don talking about his brother that was battling throat cancer.
Speaker 4: I think it was his brother Bobby.
Speaker 3: And what happened with that conversation about cancer? Did it
Speaker 3: move on to other topics?
Speaker 4: It stayed at that topic at that point?
Speaker 3: What did you say about your health?
Speaker 4: So it was right at the end of the meal,
Speaker 4: and I mentioned that I had maybe not scare is
Speaker 4: the right word, but I had an issue a year
Speaker 4: or two earlier where I thought I had a varying
Speaker 4: cancer and had various scans about and related to that.
Speaker 4: And I'm not proud of this, but I led them
Speaker 4: to believe that I might be needing some treatment in
Speaker 4: regards to that in the next few weeks or months.
Speaker 3: Can you remember what you said about that in any
Speaker 3: more detail?
Speaker 4: Not specifically. I do remember I referred to upcoming treatment
Speaker 4: because primarily in my mind was thinking I might need
Speaker 4: help with getting the kids too and from the bus
Speaker 4: or activities, and I might need to explain why going
Speaker 4: out to hospital for a day or two. So that
Speaker 4: was really the focus of what I was talking about.
Speaker 3: Did you mislead them?
Speaker 1: I did?
Speaker 3: How did that conversation conclude?
Speaker 4: They all showed a lot of compassion about that. And
Speaker 4: then we saw Simon's car driving into the driveway coming
Speaker 4: back with the kids, and so Ian said, why don't
Speaker 4: we pray for Erin? And so that's what we did.
Speaker 3: I asked you, did you mislead them? Did you lie
Speaker 3: to them?
Speaker 4: I did lie to them.
Speaker 3: Why didn't you tell them the truth about what you
Speaker 3: were intending?
Speaker 4: I was really embarrassed. I was ashamed of the fact
Speaker 4: that I didn't have control over my body or what
Speaker 4: I ate. I was shamed of that and embarrassed, and
Speaker 4: I didn't want to tell anybody and intern I shouldn't
Speaker 4: have lied to them.
Speaker 5: Aaron Patterson then explained to the jury Penny that after
Speaker 5: her lunch guests left, she recalled her son coming in
Speaker 5: and helping her clean up, and she remembered him putting
Speaker 5: some stuff on the sink, and then he went to
Speaker 5: the computer room with his friend.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she said that the two boys had sort of
Speaker 2: gone to a bit of a computer room it and
Speaker 2: gone straight on the computers. But she noted that her
Speaker 2: son was normally really quite good at helping clean up,
Speaker 2: so she thought that he probably would have done that,
Speaker 2: and that she recalled there'd been a conversation at least
Speaker 2: between him and his grandfather about some flying related things,
Speaker 2: and that the friend had also had a bit of
Speaker 2: a chat she thought to the grandparents because this friend
Speaker 2: had had previously met them before. But she said that
Speaker 2: then once once they were sort of gone that I
Speaker 2: and she remembered she thought had some sort of meeting
Speaker 2: to do with the church, so then they had to
Speaker 2: go to And then she was there in the home,
Speaker 2: she said, cleaning up after this lunch.
Speaker 5: Yeah, She said that the lunch guest had left behind
Speaker 5: a fruit platter and also an orange cake. Now, she
Speaker 5: explained the orange cake had about three quarters of the
Speaker 5: cake left, and it was at that point that she
Speaker 5: recalled to having a piece of the cake. She then
Speaker 5: said she had another piece, and another piece, and another
Speaker 5: piece penny until there was no pieces left. And at
Speaker 5: this point she said she was feeling sick, she felt
Speaker 5: over full, and that's when she went to the toilet
Speaker 5: and brought it all up again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And Aaron Patterson had given some evidence throughout her
Speaker 2: time being questioned that she throughout her life, she says
Speaker 2: had had low self esteem and issues with her weight,
Speaker 2: and that at times throughout her life she would binge
Speaker 2: and overeat and then then she may bring this back up. Now,
Speaker 2: she said at different times. Sometimes this would happen multiple
Speaker 2: times a week, other times it was much less than that.
Speaker 2: But she's previously given this evidence and then she was
Speaker 2: taken to what had happened with this cake.
Speaker 1: We'll be back with more of.
Speaker 2: Aaron Patterson's evidence after this and what she said her
Speaker 2: estranged husband asked her about a dehydrator while she was
Speaker 2: in hospital.
Speaker 1: Following the lunch.
Speaker 2: Aaron Patterson has given evidence that she presented to the
Speaker 2: Landgatha Hospital and was then taken on to the Monash Hospital. Now,
Speaker 2: she was taken to a particular time when she was
Speaker 2: at the Monash Hospital where she'd confirmed that she did
Speaker 2: have a bit of contact with Simon Patterson. Her strange
Speaker 2: husband at that time, that the children had also been
Speaker 2: brought into the hospital and that they'd had a few
Speaker 2: different conversations, one being about She said while the kids
Speaker 2: were in the room, that one of the children had
Speaker 2: asked basically about what was going on, and she said
Speaker 2: that she'd explained she thought that a few people had
Speaker 2: become sick, and that perhaps they'd become sick from the
Speaker 2: meal that she'd made.
Speaker 1: But she said that.
Speaker 2: One of the children then asked, well, why are we
Speaker 2: here because we didn't come to the lunch, and she explained, well,
Speaker 2: you ate the leftovers. She said previously in her evidence
Speaker 2: that this sixth beef Wellington that she'd talked about, that
Speaker 2: she'd cooked it but put it straight in the fridge,
Speaker 2: she says before she actually served up the rest of
Speaker 2: this meal for the guests, and she told the jury
Speaker 2: that she gave the children that that for dinner, but
Speaker 2: had scraped off the mushrooms and said she said that
Speaker 2: to that child, But then there was a further discussion
Speaker 2: about mushrooms that went from there.
Speaker 5: This was a point in her evidence where she explained
Speaker 5: to the jury that Simon Patterson and herself had been
Speaker 5: left alone in that hospital room.
Speaker 2: And let's hear a little bit about how this was
Speaker 2: presented by Aaron Patterson and her barrister, Colin Mandy.
Speaker 3: And did you and Simon have any conversation?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so during that conversation with the children about the
Speaker 4: taste tests, and you had discussed in that conversation that
Speaker 4: I had dried the mushrooms. And I don't remember if
Speaker 4: it was Simon or I that had initiated it, but
Speaker 4: there was a conversation about how I had used a
Speaker 4: dehydrator or to do that, and he said to me,
Speaker 4: is that how you poisoned my parents using that dehydrator?
Speaker 3: And what was your response?
Speaker 4: I said, of course not.
Speaker 3: Did that comment by Simon cause you to reflect on
Speaker 3: what might have been in the meal?
Speaker 4: It caused me to a lot of thinking about a
Speaker 4: lot of things. Yeah, well, it caused me to reflect
Speaker 4: a lot and what might have happened.
Speaker 3: Okay, well, can you explain to us what crossed your
Speaker 3: mind then and what you were thinking about?
Speaker 4: So it got me thinking about all the times that
Speaker 4: i'd used it. And I had used the dehydrator, that's right,
Speaker 4: And I had dried forage mushrooms in it weeks earlier
Speaker 4: and I was starting to think, what if they'd gone
Speaker 4: in the container with the Chinese mushrooms, Maybe maybe that
Speaker 4: had happened. Yeah, I was thinking, maybe that's how this all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how did that make you feel scared?
Speaker 4: Responsible, really worried because child protection were involved, and Simon
Speaker 4: seemed to be of the mind that maybe this was intentional,
Speaker 4: and I just I just got really scared.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So Aaron Patterson, as the listeners have just heard through
Speaker 2: that evidence. Around this time, she said that they had
Speaker 2: been in touch with child Protection at the hospital, that
Speaker 2: there'd been some conversations with some workers while they she
Speaker 2: and the children were at that medical facility.
Speaker 5: Yeah, she said in the coming days as well, after
Speaker 5: she left hospital, she met and spoke to employees from
Speaker 5: the Department of Health and also child Protection, and it
Speaker 5: was at this point she explained that she started to
Speaker 5: feel worried that they may remove her children, and she
Speaker 5: said this was when she made the decision to dump
Speaker 5: the dehydrator at the tip. And then there was also
Speaker 5: a little bit more evidence from her about the fact
Speaker 5: that she recalled with holding information about the fact that
Speaker 5: she had gone and forage mushrooms at some point. She
Speaker 5: said though that she really believed what she was telling
Speaker 5: these officials was true. She really believed at that time
Speaker 5: that the vast majority of mushrooms in the meal were
Speaker 5: from Woolworths and from this Asian grosser, and she recalled
Speaker 5: that her mind started to shift in and think about
Speaker 5: whether or not there may have been other mushrooms that
Speaker 5: could have made their way into the meal.
Speaker 2: As you mentioned, with the dumping of the dehydrator, she
Speaker 2: said that she did, she panicked, and that she made
Speaker 2: that decision because she was concerned she was going to
Speaker 2: have her children taken away from her. And she also
Speaker 2: said that because she knew Child Protection were going to
Speaker 2: be coming to her home for this home visit. In
Speaker 2: her words, she thought that perhaps they might start asking
Speaker 2: questions about this dehydrator, so she'd gone through the process,
Speaker 2: she said, of going to the tip and removing it
Speaker 2: before that visit.
Speaker 5: One of the next and final topics of questioning that
Speaker 5: Colin Mandy was asking his client during her third day
Speaker 5: of evidence Penny was something.
Speaker 1: Called Exhibit fifty six.
Speaker 5: Now Exhibit fifty six, the jury were told, was a
Speaker 5: document that shows a number of factory reset records relating
Speaker 5: to a phone that it was in Aaron Patterson's possession
Speaker 5: in twenty twenty three, and there was a number of
Speaker 5: factory resets we heard in the lead up too and
Speaker 5: after the lunch, and she said that the first one
Speaker 5: of those factory resets occurred in February twenty twenty three
Speaker 5: when she was changing phones with her son. There was
Speaker 5: a string of factory resets, Penny, that were then asked
Speaker 5: about that happened in August twenty twenty three. She said that, yes,
Speaker 5: they were mine. I did those factory resets, and she
Speaker 5: did them, she said for a couple of different reasons. Now,
Speaker 5: one of those was that she was concerned that around
Speaker 5: the fifth of August, this is at a time when
Speaker 5: police were raiding her property. Around this time, she was
Speaker 5: concerned that there was an app on her phone, a
Speaker 5: Google account which had photos in it. In Google photos
Speaker 5: that she knew depicted mushrooms in her dehydrator. And this
Speaker 5: is another occasion, Penny. She said, she panicked and she
Speaker 5: did not want the detectives to see them.
Speaker 2: So she said that in the first reset that she
Speaker 2: said she was responsible for in that August time, that
Speaker 2: she'd been sort of looking at changing her handset. She
Speaker 2: also gave some evidence that at one point she thought
Speaker 2: she might change her number because she said she'd been
Speaker 2: concerned about what Simon Patterson had said to her at
Speaker 2: the hospital regarding the allegation about his parents, and that
Speaker 2: she didn't really want him to necessarily be able to
Speaker 2: call her now. Ultimately, she said she didn't end up
Speaker 2: changing her number, but that she was looking at different
Speaker 2: phones at that time, So she said she'd done that reset,
Speaker 2: then she'd done the one that she thought in regards
Speaker 2: to panicking about photos that were on that device, and
Speaker 2: then there was this other reset once she had handed
Speaker 2: that phone over to police.
Speaker 1: We'll hear a little bit of how this.
Speaker 2: Was explained in the courtroom with Aaron Patterson and Colin Mandy.
Speaker 3: Then these records show that at some stage on around
Speaker 3: the fifth of August, there was another factory reset of
Speaker 3: that phone. Yes, what data was on that phone at
Speaker 3: the time of that factory reset, just.
Speaker 4: All the apps had put on it since the third
Speaker 4: And why were.
Speaker 3: We factory resetting at that time? Well, because sorry, I
Speaker 3: shouldn't say, at that time, at about that time, on that.
Speaker 4: Date, I had put all my apps on it, including
Speaker 4: my Google account, which included my Google Photos and I
Speaker 4: knew there were photos in there of mushrooms and the dehydrator,
Speaker 4: and I just panicked.
Speaker 1: I didn't want them to see them.
Speaker 3: When you say them, who do you mean?
Speaker 1: The detectives.
Speaker 3: And then the last of those resets is on or
Speaker 3: about six August. Yes, what data was on that phone
Speaker 3: on the sixth of August?
Speaker 1: Nothing?
Speaker 3: Did you do that factory reset?
Speaker 1: I did?
Speaker 3: And why did you do that?
Speaker 2: One?
Speaker 4: So at some point, after the search of my house
Speaker 4: and the interview and the detectives have brought me home,
Speaker 4: I remember thinking, I wonder if I could log onto
Speaker 4: my Google account and see where all my devices are.
Speaker 4: So I did that, and I could see my phone
Speaker 4: and my son's phone and my daughter's bus tablet. And
Speaker 4: it was really stupid, but I thought, I wonder if
Speaker 4: they'd been silly enough to leave it connected to the internet.
Speaker 4: So I hit factory reset to see what happened, and
Speaker 4: it did.
Speaker 5: At this point, Penny, I looked to my right and
Speaker 5: in the front row, that's where the police informant was sitting.
Speaker 5: And this is at a point where she was explaining,
Speaker 5: as we just heard in her quotes, that she wanted
Speaker 5: to see if they were silly enough to leave it
Speaker 5: on now. Stephen eppings Stall, the detective leadings and your
Speaker 5: constable in this case, the police informant had his left
Speaker 5: hand over his mouth at that stage. He was turned
Speaker 5: and looking at Aaron Patterson, but I didn't see much
Speaker 5: of a reaction from him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it was really a lot of heavy device evidence.
Speaker 2: Towards the end of this evidence, people who've been listening
Speaker 2: to the podcast for a while will probably know that
Speaker 2: there has been multiple elements of phone data and things
Speaker 2: that have been explained through multiple different devices, and Aaron
Speaker 2: Patterson has taken through a number of photos from the
Speaker 2: searches of her home and explaining where she said that
Speaker 2: things were laptops, that things were phones, and sort.
Speaker 1: Of where they had been and where.
Speaker 2: So, while they talked about these multiple different phones through
Speaker 2: Aaron Patterson's evidence and went through different devices, she was asked,
Speaker 2: particularly at the end of her evidence, what had happened
Speaker 2: to phone A as it's been referred to.
Speaker 1: In the courtroom. And here's a little bit of what
Speaker 1: the jury heard.
Speaker 3: Where was phone A at this time on the second
Speaker 3: of November.
Speaker 4: Well, I don't know where it was on second of November,
Speaker 4: But towards the end of September. I got a skip
Speaker 4: brought to Gibson Street and it went in there with
Speaker 4: a lot of other broken stuff.
Speaker 3: And why did you get a skip at the end
Speaker 3: of did you say the end of September?
Speaker 4: The end of September?
Speaker 3: Yeah, why was that?
Speaker 4: It was something I did roughly once a year, just
Speaker 4: to do a clean out of the house and garage.
Speaker 5: Now a reminder to our listeners that this is day
Speaker 5: three of Aaron Patterson being in the witness box, but
Speaker 5: she's still being questioned by her defense barrister Colin Mandy
Speaker 5: as a defense witness. It will next be the prosecution's
Speaker 5: decision if they would like to ask questions of her,
Speaker 5: but at this stage the evidence that we've brought you
Speaker 5: from Aaron Patterson has come by questioning from her defense barrister.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to this episode of Say Grace.
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Speaker 2: our next episodes as soon as we publish.
Speaker 5: For more reporting on the case, check out the Age
Speaker 5: of nine News in your browser or app store.
Speaker 2: We'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land
Speaker 2: that this podcast was recorded on and wherever you're listening
Speaker 2: to it. Now Say Grace is created and hosted.
Speaker 1: By me Penelope Leash, and me erin person. This podcast
Speaker 1: is produced by Genevieve Rule.