Speaker 1: Already and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS. Oh,
Speaker 1: now it makes sense.
Speaker 2: Good morning, and welcome to the Daily Oz. It's Tuesday,
Speaker 2: the tenth of June. I'm Lucy Tassel.
Speaker 1: I'm Billy Fitzsimon's.
Speaker 2: Last week, Aaron Patterson, who is accused of the murder
Speaker 2: of three people and the attempted murder of another, took
Speaker 2: the stand in her own defense. Patterson told the court
Speaker 2: her version of the events of the fatal lunch she hosted,
Speaker 2: a meal she now admits must have contained death cap mushrooms.
Speaker 2: In today's episode, we'll recap the first week of Patterson's
Speaker 2: testimony and how it squares with what we've learned in
Speaker 2: the trial so far. So Lucy.
Speaker 1: Last Monday is when we first learned that Aaron Patterson
Speaker 1: would actually be in the witness box for this trial,
Speaker 1: which is a surprise because she didn't have to do that, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: She did not, And I think it's not editorializing to
Speaker 2: say I was very surprised. That's because defendants in criminal
Speaker 2: trials are not required to testify, and it's rare that
Speaker 2: they do, so that means the defense kind of builds
Speaker 2: its case around calling other witnesses to kind of speak
Speaker 2: for the defendant, and also by asking questions of the
Speaker 2: prosecution's witnesses. Obviously, the prosecution and the defense, the two
Speaker 2: different sides can ask questions of each other's witnesses.
Speaker 1: And it's because the burden of proof is on the prosecution, right, Yes,
Speaker 1: so Aaron Patterson doesn't necessarily actually have to prove that
Speaker 1: she didn't do it. The prosecution just has to prove
Speaker 1: that she did it.
Speaker 2: Yes, And when we say did it, we mean intentionally
Speaker 2: poisoned a meal. Yes, that's the allegation. But yeah, that's
Speaker 2: the concept of innocent until proven guilty, and it's the
Speaker 2: prosecution's jump to prove that she is guilty.
Speaker 1: Got it.
Speaker 2: So when a defendant testifies in that rare case, they
Speaker 2: get asked questions by their own lawyers first, who obviously
Speaker 2: are interested in making sure they defend themselves. That's like
Speaker 2: the key verb. So we might hear the defense asking
Speaker 2: questions about their client's perspective on the events that are
Speaker 2: the subject of the trial. So in this case, the
Speaker 2: July twenty twenty three lunch, and that's to convince the
Speaker 2: jury of their case. The danger and the reason that
Speaker 2: defendants tend not to do. This is because they also
Speaker 2: have to be cross examined by the prosecution, so the
Speaker 2: other side, those questions will usually be more pointed, more direct.
Speaker 2: And again, as we say, the prosecution is trying to
Speaker 2: prove that the defendant did something, so the questioning is
Speaker 2: going to be very different, and we definitely saw those
Speaker 2: two approaches in Patterson's trial this week.
Speaker 1: Before we go on and explain what exactly happened last
Speaker 1: week in this case, I think for anyone who isn't
Speaker 1: as familiar with this story, do you want to just
Speaker 1: explain who Aaron Patterson is and what she is accused of.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. Aaron Patterson is a fifty year old woman
Speaker 2: who lives in the regional town of lean Gatha in
Speaker 2: eastern Victoria. She is married to a man named Simon Patterson,
Speaker 2: and they have two children. Erin and Simon married in
Speaker 2: two thousand and seven and separated in twenty fifteen. They've
Speaker 2: never been divorced, but they've also never got back together.
Speaker 2: In July twenty twenty three, Erin invited five people over
Speaker 2: to lunch, Simon, his parents, Don and Gail, and his
Speaker 2: aunt and uncle Heather and Ian Wilkinson. Now, Simon told
Speaker 2: Erin the night before the lunch that he would not attend,
Speaker 2: and we know that from texts that have been shown
Speaker 2: in court and also Simon's evidence and this week Erin's evidence.
Speaker 2: The lunch was held at Aaron's home. Don, Gail, Heather,
Speaker 2: and Ian all came. As I said, not Simon. All
Speaker 2: four of those people became very ill after the lunch.
Speaker 2: They all went to hospital where Don, Gailee, and Heather
Speaker 2: later died with suspected death cap mushroom poisoning. Ian however, survived,
Speaker 2: and he went on to give evidence at this trial.
Speaker 1: And Ian is the uncle of Erin's husband, Yes, exactly,
Speaker 1: so he is the sole survivor of this.
Speaker 2: Lunch other than Aaron. Yes, got it. Erin has also
Speaker 2: given evidence that she became ill following the lunch too,
Speaker 2: though not as sick as her guests obviously did so.
Speaker 1: Erin was giving evidence last week, and that came after
Speaker 1: weeks of other people also giving evidence, because this trial
Speaker 1: has now gone on for several weeks. Right, Yes, what
Speaker 1: else did we learn when Erin took the stand?
Speaker 2: We heard a lot, which is understandable when a person
Speaker 2: is asked questions all day for four and a half days.
Speaker 2: Erin began giving evidence on Monday afternoon. I'll try and
Speaker 2: give you some of the biggest moments, but just to say,
Speaker 2: like there is so much, let's start with the lunch itself.
Speaker 2: This was something that her defense barrister, Colin Mandy sc
Speaker 2: took her through. We know that Erin served her guests
Speaker 2: a beef Wellington Traditionally. I don't know if you've ever
Speaker 2: had a beef Wellington haven't. I think I must have once.
Speaker 2: But anyway, traditionally it's cooked as one big, large baked dish.
Speaker 2: It's like a log. You cut it and you serve
Speaker 2: it in slices. So we have already heard from other
Speaker 2: witnesses in this trial though, so like from Ian Wilkinson,
Speaker 2: for example, that Erin prepared individual beef Wellington's for her guests.
Speaker 2: Now on the stand last week, she said this was
Speaker 2: because she couldn't find a big enough piece of beef
Speaker 2: for a whole log, as the recipe calls for, so
Speaker 2: she bought individual steaks. Another big element of beef Wellington
Speaker 2: is this mushroom paste that kind of wraps around the
Speaker 2: big piece of beef, which Erin told her barrister she
Speaker 2: made using some woolies mushrooms and some dried mushrooms from
Speaker 2: her pantry. It also goes for procudo, but she said
Speaker 2: she didn't put protrudo in because one of the lunch
Speaker 2: guests don doesn't eat pork, so she substituted that. So
Speaker 2: she's made a couple of changes to the recipe, but
Speaker 2: the key thing is she makes this paste of mushrooms
Speaker 2: that wraps around the beef. In the days following the lunch,
Speaker 2: doctors were suspecting death cap poisoning. After of course, her
Speaker 2: four guests have shown up at hospital and they're very unwell.
Speaker 2: When authorities were starting to get involved, Erin told health workers,
Speaker 2: like health authorities, she had bought mushrooms at an Asian
Speaker 2: grocer in Eastern Melbourne, and that actually sparked a massive
Speaker 2: search by authorities to find if there was an Asian
Speaker 2: grocer in Eastern Melbourne selling death cap mushrooms well, because
Speaker 2: that would be a massive concern, right, yeah, that would
Speaker 2: be a huge public health issue. And so that's based
Speaker 2: on evidence those workers have given to the court during
Speaker 2: the trial. Now, in terms of what Erin has said,
Speaker 2: she said she stored these mushrooms in a tupperware container
Speaker 2: for some months. On the stand last week, though, she
Speaker 2: admitted she now believes that dried mushrooms she'd foraged could
Speaker 2: have been in that tupperware, and that she could have
Speaker 2: unknowingly foraged death cap mushrooms. She's denied intentionally foraging for
Speaker 2: death caps or intentionally poisoning the meal, but has accepted
Speaker 2: on the stand that they must have been in there.
Speaker 1: Lucy, I have so many more questions, but before we
Speaker 1: get to them, here is a quick message from USWANSA.
Speaker 1: When we say foraging, do we mean she found these
Speaker 1: mushrooms in the wild.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: So she's no longer saying that she bought them at
Speaker 1: this Asian grosser. She's now saying that she literally found
Speaker 1: them in a forest, sumwherre or in the wild somewhere.
Speaker 2: So this is one of the interesting aspects of Erin's evidence,
Speaker 2: and it's also the kind of thing that typically prevents
Speaker 2: defendants from testifying. Erin has, on the stand last week,
Speaker 2: admitted to telling authorities lies. And I want to be
Speaker 2: super clear. As journalists, we have to be incredibly careful
Speaker 2: about what we say about an active ongoing trial. We
Speaker 2: would never normally say this person has lied, but Erin
Speaker 2: has to the defense and the prosecution, admitted that in
Speaker 2: her original police interview, which was recorded on the fifth
Speaker 2: of August twenty twenty three, she told police she had
Speaker 2: I'm quoting her, never foraged, as in gone out and
Speaker 2: looked for mushrooms. And she has now admitted on the
Speaker 2: stand that this was a lie, that she had in
Speaker 2: fact done so, so telling authorities that these mushrooms must
Speaker 2: have come from an Asian groser. She had gone to
Speaker 2: an Asian grocer, but she was not telling them the
Speaker 2: whole truth, which was that she was beginning to worry.
Speaker 2: She said that she had accidentally picked up death cap
Speaker 2: mushrooms while going out into the wild and searching for
Speaker 2: mushrooms in her area.
Speaker 1: Okay, so she admitted to lying about foraging. Yes, was
Speaker 1: there anything else that she admitted to lying about?
Speaker 2: So there was another big one that she admitted to
Speaker 2: lying to police about, and that is about owning a
Speaker 2: food dehydrator.
Speaker 1: I've seen this, I've seen the headlines about this.
Speaker 2: Yes, although I suppose I one is partly true. So,
Speaker 2: as I said in her police interview that was the
Speaker 2: fifth of August twenty twenty three, she told police she
Speaker 2: didn't own a dehydrator. That was partly true, I say,
Speaker 2: because two days earlier she was seen on CCTV footage
Speaker 2: disposing of the dehydrator at the local tip.
Speaker 1: Got it.
Speaker 2: So in that moment she did not own a dehydrator,
Speaker 2: but she previously had and she used it to dehydrate mushrooms.
Speaker 1: Right, and so in the court case last week, she
Speaker 1: admitted to using the dehydrator on the mushrooms that were
Speaker 1: used in the beef Wellington pie. Yes is that pie?
Speaker 2: Yes, it's like a yeah, it's pies. Cool. Yeah. So
Speaker 2: she told police she didn't own one. They said, why
Speaker 2: do you have a manual for a dehydrator? And she
Speaker 2: said maybe I owned one in the past and paraphrasing
Speaker 2: this is the general thrust, got it. But yes, she
Speaker 2: has since admitted in court saying it wasn't entirely true
Speaker 2: to tell police that I didn't own a dehydrator, and
Speaker 2: she has admitted that her fingerprints are confirmed to have
Speaker 2: been on the dehydrator that police took from the tip.
Speaker 2: I'll just say, though, what she has maintained across questioning
Speaker 2: by with the defense and the prosecution is that she
Speaker 2: did not intentionally forage for death cap mushrooms. She did
Speaker 2: not intentionally put them in the meal, and she did
Speaker 2: not intend to kill any of the people who later died.
Speaker 1: So my understanding of this case is that she is
Speaker 1: not denying that there were death cap mushrooms in the
Speaker 1: meal that she cooked for the four guests at her house. Yes,
Speaker 1: what she is denying is that it was intentionally death
Speaker 1: cap mushrooms and that she intentionally killed three people.
Speaker 2: Yes, she denies that she sought them out, that she
Speaker 2: dehydrated them intentionally. All these things got it, which intent
Speaker 2: is one of the things that the prosecution has to
Speaker 2: prove in order for the jury to make a finding
Speaker 2: of murder. She's saying that was absolutely not my intention.
Speaker 1: Was there anything else that she lied about or admitted
Speaker 1: to lying about.
Speaker 2: There's not so much a lie, but kind of something
Speaker 2: that she clarified through a few days of evidence. So
Speaker 2: when this trial began, we heard in both the defense
Speaker 2: and the prosecution's opening statements that Aaron had led her
Speaker 2: guests to believe that she had been diagnosed with ovarian
Speaker 2: cancer and was seeking their advice over lunch on how
Speaker 2: to tell her children.
Speaker 1: And did she have cancer?
Speaker 2: No. We also heard this point about her kind of
Speaker 2: explaining a diagnosis from Ian Wilkinson when he gave evidence
Speaker 2: last Wednesday. Under questioning from the defense, Erin said she
Speaker 2: had a history of ovarian cancer in her family and
Speaker 2: was worried about it. She added that in the past
Speaker 2: Don and Gail had shown her care and concern whenever
Speaker 2: she so that's Simon's parents. That they'd shown her care
Speaker 2: and concern whenever she discussed medical issues with them, and
Speaker 2: she had a desire for that interest in her well
Speaker 2: being to continue. She told her defense barrister she was
Speaker 2: quote not proud of this, but that she had led
Speaker 2: her guests to quote believe that I might be needing
Speaker 2: some treatment in regards to ovarian cancer in the next
Speaker 2: few weeks. She's since admitted she was never diagnosed. Instead,
Speaker 2: she told the court she was actually planning to get
Speaker 2: gastric bypass surgery following decades of struggling with her body
Speaker 2: image and with disordered eating. She told her barrister she
Speaker 2: would need the support of her in laws if she
Speaker 2: did get that operation. So that's a weight loss operation, yes,
Speaker 2: but that she had ultimately lied to them about why
Speaker 2: she would need their help. Then, under cross examination from
Speaker 2: the prosecutor, doctor Bennett Rogers, Aaron said she didn't think
Speaker 2: she had explicitly told her guests that she had been
Speaker 2: diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She agreed she wanted to lead
Speaker 2: them to believe she had cancer. It's a nuance. It's
Speaker 2: it's a nuance, and it's the sort of thing that
Speaker 2: can come out when you're being asked questions about the
Speaker 2: same thing by two different people with two different approaches.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so today is Tuesday. Yes, is Aaron Patterson
Speaker 1: still on the stand today?
Speaker 2: She is.
Speaker 1: And I remember we reported last week in one of
Speaker 1: our headline podcasts that the judge has said that this
Speaker 1: trial is going to go on for longer than he
Speaker 1: initially expected.
Speaker 2: Yes. I think that's probably because he wouldn't have expected
Speaker 2: Eron to give evidence. As I said, it's a rare occasion.
Speaker 2: But yes, Justice Christopher Beale has told the jurors that
Speaker 2: proceedings will continue for at least another week, at which
Speaker 2: point he'll let them know if they can go off
Speaker 2: to deliberate, or if there's more evidence that needs to
Speaker 2: be presented.
Speaker 1: Interesting. Well, we will keep everyone updated on what happens there.
Speaker 1: It is really a case that literally has the attention
Speaker 1: of the whole world. Yeah, they are a journalists from
Speaker 1: all over the world who are in this court in
Speaker 1: Victoria to find out what is happening in this court
Speaker 1: and report on it. Lucy, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: explaining it. Thanks Billy, and thank you so much for
Speaker 1: listening to this episode of The Daily os. If you'd
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Speaker 1: again this afternoon with your evening headlines, but until then,
Speaker 1: have a great day.
Speaker 2: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
Speaker 2: Bunjelung Caalcutin woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges
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