Bonus Q&A: Sentencing, frozen assets, mushroom music

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Frozen Assets and the Next Stages.

I'm ABC Investigative Reporter Rachel Brown.

And I'm Stephen Stockwell.

Welcome to Mushroom Case Daily.

Just a week after four people sat down for a family lunch in rural Victoria, three of them were dead.

Homicide detectives are still piecing together what exactly happened at the lunch.

It's certainly looking like the symptoms are consistent with death cap mushrooms.

Erin Patterson said she bought the dried mushrooms at a supermarket and an Asian grocery store months earlier.

I cannot think of another investigation that has generated this level of media and public interest.

It's now been about a month since Erin Patterson was found guilty of three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder following a lunch where she served her guests a death cat mushroom poisoned beef Wellington rage.

That's right.

And we're now waiting for the sentencing process to start.

But you're sending us so many questions.

We wanted to dive into the inbox and answer them for you.

Yeah, there appears to be no limit to the curiosity of Mushroom Case Daily listeners.

So many people getting in touch via Mushroom Case Daily at abc.net.au.

And yeah, we thought we would take the time out of our podcast feed to jump in and answer a few more of them.

That's right.

We've got about 8,300 so far, Stocky, which is incredible.

People very curious about all aspects of this case.

Yeah, it's been incredible reading them.

Lovely feedback, thoughts, and ideas on where this feed should go next as well.

So we'll get into some of that this episode.

You know, talking through what happens if Aaron Patterson's lawyers didn't believe her or had cause to think that she committed these acts.

You know, is that something they can still stand behind her and argue against?

What happened to some of her phones during the trial and why wasn't this followed up?

And also, what happens or what would have been the process if Erin Patterson was found not guilty?

Where would things have gone from there?

So, Rach, we have a huge number of questions sitting in our inbox and I want to start here with one from Sally, which is very timely.

Sally emails and says, good morning, team.

Thank you for your podcast.

I have not missed an episode.

Even when traveling around Scotland with my husband, I listen daily.

It certainly helped me to understand the legal process and the complexities of this case.

I do not understand the wording and issues behind preventing the sale of Erin's house, though.

Is it possible to delve into the reasons and implications behind this?

Thanks, Sally.

And this is very timely, as you said, Stocky, because the DPP, the Director of Public Prosecutions, applied, which we've only learned recently, applied soon after her conviction, 10 days after, in fact, for what's called a restraining order over her house in Lee and Gathar.

Now, this is to preserve the property so that it can be used to satisfy any claim for compensation or restitution, for example.

So we're talking potential victims of crime compensation.

So I don't know whether Ian Wilkinson will make any such claim, but let's use him as an example.

He would have a year from the conviction date to lodge such a claim.

So this restraining order is put over the property to potentially satisfy any claim that comes from her conviction.

It's something that that is done, I've seen it done more often in,

remember the gangland wars and those drug trials, confiscation orders, and they were used to seize assets linked to criminal activity, like drug activity.

But this is interesting in terms of a potential victims of crime compensation claim.

And I also noticed that Erin Patterson's lawyers are listed as a mortgagee.

on that Liam Gather address.

So it's unclear whether her victims or her legal team would have first priority when it comes to how the value of that Lee and Gatha home would be distributed.

Right.

So basically, you know, Erin Patterson's in a position where she's not allowed to sell assets because the money from them might have to go somewhere else, either her legal team or, you know, the victims of the crimes she's committed.

That's correct, or both.

Yeah, okay.

Great.

Thank you, Rach.

And wonderful question, Sally.

Thank you for getting in touch with such a timely question.

It's lovely that, you know, even after the trial has finished, we've still got people kind of getting in touch with Mushroom Case Daily at abc.net.au to fling questions at us.

If you do have a question you'd like answered, please get in touch.

We love reading all your emails to start with, but also answering your questions is a real joy as well.

Rachel have got another one here from Peter.

Peter's question starts with a statement.

It says, I think Erin is probably guilty, but I have to ask, why did the jury take six days to reach their unanimous verdict?

I would have thought if she was clearly guilty, the verdict would have been reached in a few hours at most.

Taking such a long time to decide makes me think there must have been a lot of discussion between the jurors, which implied they must have had a considerable doubt about some aspects.

And if there was a lot of doubt, how could they all find her guilty?

Thanks, Peter.

I've actually got this question a lot from friends, and it's a very good one.

In terms of

whether they could have decided quickly, I think they did a really thorough job as a jury.

And Stocky, we noticed they were very attentive during the trial.

It was a long trial.

It blew out.

There were 53 witnesses, 125 exhibits.

And their job is to work through all that.

And we never see inside that room.

Of course, we don't hear.

But it's my understanding that they, even if they had an idea at the start of deliberations, that they do need to work through that evidence.

Yeah, and like you say, there's a huge amount of stuff that they've got to work through.

They can't just sit there and go, yeah, pretty sure she did it, and then not check the working.

It's like

basically checking the working.

Let's go to lunch.

Done.

And there are four elements of murder.

We spoke about them during the podcast episodes, but remember, Stocky, there were two main I mean there's four, but there was two that would be the ones that they really had to think hard about, and that's whether she deliberately put death cat mushrooms in the meal and did she do so intending to kill them.

And then those four elements of murder would have to be applied to the four people.

So they did have a lot of work to do and they got that binder.

Remember that Justice Beale created a chronological

story, I suppose, of

the

witnesses, the exhibits, and how they could work their way through these rivers of evidence.

Yeah, Justice Christopher Beale, the judge presiding over Aaron Patterson's trial, kind of, yeah, giving them this, almost like a workbook, basically.

Oh, yeah, well, the chronology and the guide to all the evidence that was presented through the trial.

I wanted Peter to talk to you about intent, and that was one of the bars, the very high bars that I wondered whether the jury would be able to clear in terms of intent.

And now that I've had time, I don't know whether you're feeling the same, Stocky, but had more time to process it all, I think the jury's verdict was founded as much on what it didn't hear, what we've called the gaps,

as on what it did.

So there's only one record of a computer iNaturalist search a year before the lunch, but phone A was never found.

So the jury never got to hear if iNatural assertes were done on that phone.

Yeah, and phone A is, you know, what the prosecution was alleging was Aaron Patterson's primary phone in the year leading up to the lunch.

So, you know, not having that, you know, really kind of like a key absence of a lot of detail in this trial.

Huge gap.

The jury never got to hear Erin Patterson's alibi for the days that the Crown put her in lock and outram because the defence never asked her.

The jury never got to hear whether her claim of purging after the lunch would have reduced her toxicity levels.

The jury never got to hear if her claim of scraping off the mushroom paste would have actually protected her children who supposedly ate the leftovers because no scientist was asked.

So there were so many mental leaps, Stocky, that the jury was asked to make.

And this is what I meant when I said, I wonder if it'll be tricky for the jury, for 12 people

unanimously to clear that bar and to clear it beyond reasonable doubt.

But regarding these mental leaps, the jury might have convicted her on the absence.

of evidence that it wanted to hear these gaps.

And also, in my thinking, I'm wondering whether it convicted her because she seemed to have an answer for everything.

So the story kept growing new legs.

She explained away the dumping of the dehydrator because of panic, and I have seen people behave in crazy ways through panic.

And Erin said she feared losing her children.

So initially I thought, yep, the jury might buy that.

Then you have to try to rationalise away the cancer lie and then how she didn't get as sick as her lunch guests.

And then you realise that you're rationalising away so many things, so many elements that on their own might not be suspicious, but the sum of all the parts is suspicious.

So Peter, that's where I've landed.

I think the jury must have convicted both on the explanations that were too convenient, shall we say,

as well as on the absence of explanations to those big ticket items, which the jury just never heard.

Yeah.

If you're interested in hearing a bit more about the kind of whole story and a retelling of all of that, jump into some of our previous episodes and listen back to the kind of whole story of the lunch that Erin Patterson cooked in 2023 and what happened through that whole process and and some of the lies that she told to to try and get away with these crimes um rach, we have another question here from Tim in Newcastle, very well-timed question that flows off the back of the one from Peter because it's about Aaron Patterson's phones.

Tim says he really enjoyed the coverage of the case that the pods offered, but he wants to know what the deal with Phone A is.

He can't get over the fact that its existence has been acknowledged, it wasn't recovered, and that's just kind of accepted.

Did police attempt a second search for it?

Did they ask Aaron Patterson to hand it over?

If so, what did she say/slash do?

If Erin was totally innocent and wanting to clear her name, why wouldn't she just hand it over to police?

It's something that's frustrated me the whole way through.

Tim, I think it frustrated police as well because as the prosecution said during the trial, this was her main phone for most of the year.

So if there was anything incriminating, it was going to be on that phone.

And they never found it.

And I'll remind you that at some stage, so when police come to search her home initially, and it's the same day as the police interview, so we're talking the 5th of August, a week after the lunch, it's a Saturday, at some stage when police are searching her home between midday and 1.45 p.m.

The SIM card in phone A, so that crucial phone she'd been using all year,

disconnected from the network.

And when it shows back up on the network, it's very early Sunday morning, like close to 2 a.m., and it's in a different handset.

It's in a Nokia.

So you're right, Tim, that phone was crucial.

They didn't take that phone A on that Saturday.

And at the same time, it seems like the sim's been taken out.

The phone she does give police is phone B, what they called the dummy phone.

And as for whether phone A was ever found, no, it wasn't.

So phone A wasn't found.

The Nokia that phone A sim went into wasn't found.

They did do another search of her house in November, and that was the day that she was arrested, early November.

But these two phones were never found.

Now, you'll remember, Stocky, the defence made something of this during examination of Erin Patterson, examination-in-chief, and they showed her a photo.

And basically, they were trying to impugn that black rectangular object on a windowsill that that could have been phonet.

So

suggesting that perhaps police just weren't that thorough with their search.

It was there all the time.

They just didn't find it.

But

I don't know whether the jury bought that.

We heard prior to the trial, this wasn't something we heard during the trial, but we heard on the second search of Aaron Patterson's house that the Victorian police actually borrowed electronic detector docs from the AFP for that search to go through that house.

And at the time, that wasn't something that really made a lot of sense.

It was an interesting kind of detail in some of the early reporting around the arrest and the search of Aaron Patterson's home.

Obviously, something now that takes on a completely different light, knowing how badly they wanted to try and find this phone.

So, Tim, I'm not sure that it was just accepted in the way that you've suggested and the way that Rach has been talking about here as well.

Yeah, they really wanted it.

And, you know, these dogs fascinate me, Stocky, these detector dogs.

Do you know they can smell

where a USB used to be?

So there was a case of a dog finding a book in a bookshelf and police opened the book and there was a hole cut out for where a USB used to be.

The USB wasn't any there anymore, but the dog found that.

Yeah, and even they couldn't find Aaron Patterson's primary phone, Phone A during the trial.

So yeah, look, interesting detail.

Tim, yeah, not the only person who would have been frustrated by that one, I don't think.

Rach question here from Pat in Ascot Vale.

Pat says, not sure if loving the podcast is the right term, but I am enjoying following you all and did so while they were traveling overseas.

It became our breakfast ritual, cappuccino, croissant, and mushroom case daily.

For those of us who've experienced firsthand the effects cancer has had on themselves and their loved ones, the fear, the uncertainty, the anger, the sadness, the use of this disease as a tool for attention or sympathy is reprehensible to me.

And so, for some context around what Pat is saying here, Erin Patterson was talking to the lunch guests at her house on the day she served the Poison Beef Wellington about scans about a potential cancer diagnosis.

And Pat is saying that, you know, that whole idea shows a complete disrespect for those people who genuinely have or have had cancer.

It is selfish and manipulative and goes to the core of human decency.

To use this as a pretense to lure people you supposedly love to a lunch goes to the character of a person or lack of character, more appropriately.

Yeah, thanks, Pat.

I've had a couple of people that this...

the cancer lie, as it was put in the trial, really affected them, like really upset them.

And I can completely understand that.

They've lived through this horrific disease and survived it and come out the other end.

And it was the same kind of hatred that we saw directed at Belle Gibson.

Her name's been in the press again recently.

But, you know, using that as a lure for attention, which really grates with people that have had the real thing and really suffered through it.

And Stocky...

I've had mates that have had cancer.

I've sat with them.

I've cried over it.

I've gone for walks with them trying to keep them distracted.

Friends have lost parents to cancer.

and it is horrific watching friends go through that.

And so, yeah, I get it.

I get why something, this horror that they've lived that Erin has used, as the prosecution said, as a lure, I get why that would piss people off completely.

Yeah.

Pat, wonderful question.

Thank you for getting in touch and writing to us at mushroomcased daily at abc.net.au.

Rachel, we have a question here from Anna.

Anna says, Hi, Rach, Stocky, and Christian.

Love the pod.

Thanks for taking on the challenge of informing us as the trial was underway.

I do have a question about the verdict.

If Erin was found not guilty, what would the next step have been?

There was acceptance from both sides that death caps were used in the meal that she served that caused three deaths.

So would she just walk free or would she be charged with manslaughter?

How would that have worked?

Yeah, Anna, this is such a good question.

So often it's all or nothing, and I'm talking about trials in general.

Sometimes neither party wants it.

You know, the prosecution might want just a murder conviction.

The defence sometimes thinks oof if you offer that up as an alternate charge the jury might seize on that if they can't make their mind up.

So

that's one reason why manslaughter is never put on the table and secondly sometimes it's too tricky a concept to propose to the jury.

depending on what the details of the particular case is.

So in this case, Anna, I never heard it debated in court.

We were waiting for it, weren't we, we, Stocky, waiting for the M-word to be mentioned.

I thought it would come close to the judge's charge.

It never did.

The judge, Justice Beal, might have raised it, but the fact that I didn't hear about it in court means that either one or both sides didn't want it left up to the jury.

So with manslaughter

never being mentioned as an alternative, if Erin was found not guilty, Anna, she would have walked.

She acquitted, that's it.

So they wouldn't have, the prosecution wouldn't have then gone after the fact, gone, okay, well, we couldn't go on murder.

Let's do this all again.

Let's bring up the charge of manslaughter and try a totally different trial, just with manslaughter as the end goal.

No, I don't think they can, Stocky.

I think in our legal system, only the defence can appeal.

But for the prosecution, once a defendant is found not guilty in a criminal trial, the verdict is considered final.

Because if they went again, shall we say, that's considered double jeopardy,

which

isn't isn't allowed to happen in Victoria.

It's also not allowed to happen in the US.

I've seen a film about that, it's actually where my entire knowledge of double jeopardy is based on.

I think Harrison Ford's in it.

Anyway, getting distracted.

Wonderful.

Right basis for all legal research.

Basically, all pop culture up until this point for me.

Wonderful question.

And thank you so much for getting in touch.

Mushroomcase Daily at abc.net.au.

Thank you, Rach.

Another one here, Rach, from Anthea.

Anthea says, Hi, Rachel and Stocky.

Thank you for your daily updates throughout this trial.

Do defence barristers, like Colin Mandy, for example, who was Aaron Patterson's barrister, have a duty to disclose if or when they have formed an unquestionable belief that their client is guilty?

For example, let's say a person they're being paid to defend has disclosed that they did commit the crime, e.g.

murdered someone, as well as facts that prove they did it.

The defendant obviously still wants to get away with the crime and is paying good money to be represented.

Do defence lawyers have an obligation to the client or to truth and justice?

I love this question.

It's so interesting.

Thanks, Antea.

And we'll go from Harrison Ford to Sam Neal.

So you'll be happy, Stocky, with pop culture.

So initially, I thought, oh, what was that conversation I was having with a defence lawyer mate?

Because I put to him, would that ever happen?

Because in The Twelve, a TV drama, an accused wants to change his plea.

And Sam Neal's like, no, I wouldn't do that.

So I was like, what was the answer to that?

And then I thought, maybe I should...

not go off my reading of the 12 and actually ask my friend.

Basically, he explained to me that a defence lawyer's obligations are in this order.

Court,

client, colleagues.

So, court first.

So, the obligation to the court trumps the obligation to the client.

So, a defence lawyer can't put things to a judge and to a jury that they know to be untrue.

Like, a client can't say, oh, I did it, but please get me off.

because the defence barrister just can't keep acting for them on the basis of a not guilty plea.

Right.

So,

park that for a second.

It's also not a defence barrister's job to determine whether their client's guilty.

They just act on instructions given to them by their client while still fulfilling their obligations to the court.

So a large part of a defence lawyer's job is explaining the evidence to the client.

And they might say,

that means you kind of screwed.

But if the client says, no, I didn't do it, then it's on the defence lawyer to run the best case that they possibly can.

Right.

So, So, in short, if someone says, Yeah, I did it, but you've got to get me off, they can't keep going?

They can't because the presentations they'd need to keep making to the court, they would know that they were lying.

Yeah, right.

Unless they can find some clever way around it, which I'm sure some defence lawyers are very smart, but essentially my guess would be no.

That was what I was wondering.

I mean, I feel like defence lawyers are pretty clever and their command of the English language is,

you know, impressive in some ways and terrifying in others.

Good gymnastics.

Yeah, so I do wonder if there's a way where they could, you know, know that and still technically not lie while rolling through it.

So yeah, fantastic question, Anthea.

And thank you for bringing in a pop culture reference for me there, Rach.

Very much appreciated.

Question here from Mandy in sunny northwest Tasmania.

Mandy, why do I suspect that your description of the weather in northwest Tasmania is somewhat of an exaggeration?

Mandy says, hello, Rach and Stocky, fascinating podcast.

Can't get enough.

Like many of your listeners, I'm not sure why this has dragged me in.

My question is, what are the grounds for appeal?

Justice Speal spent so much time and detail during his charge to the jury, including the hard copy brief he gave them.

Do you think this was to ensure there was little scope for an appeal?

Yeah, thanks, Mandy.

I'll deal with that in two sections.

So grounds for appeal can be anything from improper admission or exclusion of evidence, insufficient evidence to support a guilty verdict, or errors in jury instructions.

And I think that's what your question's going to,

whether Justice Beale had such an amazingly, what seemed watertight charge to appeal proof

whatever verdict was handed down.

We did get similar questions, Stocky, during the trial, so it might bear repeating also this bit, that fairness is not bias.

So Justice Beale, some people wrote in, oh, it sounds like he's kind of taking the defence side.

That was Justice Beale not being biased, but being fair.

That's his job.

So, reminding people things like Erin is innocent until proven guilty.

The onus is on the prosecution.

You know, if you find she's a liar, that doesn't mean she's a murderer.

If you find she did lie about one thing, that doesn't mean she lied about everything.

That's actually Justice Beale's job, and he did it very well.

He has to deal with not just the big hits, as I think we said back then, but even the one percenters.

And he has to explain the nuance of evidence and testimony and exhibits and what weight that the jurors should give those particular things.

Great.

Thank you, Rach.

And thank you, Mandy.

Wonderful question.

And probably a question here, Rach, that we have had

so many times.

I mean, there were the big questions that we were asked during the trial, which were things like, you know, is there anyone there supporting Erin?

Can she be charged with manslaughter?

Things we couldn't answer during the trial.

And there was another one that we got so much that just didn't really fit in the episodes we were producing at that time.

And then it was a question about the music that we use in this podcast.

And so I've got a question to hear from Jess in Alice Springs.

Jess says, Hi, Rachel and Stocky, thanks for your amazing journalism.

I love how fair and informative your delivery is.

I've learnt so much listening to this podcast.

I've got a question about the podcast music, who composed it.

It feels spot on for this series.

When I listen to it, I picture mysterious mushrooms appearing here and there.

I like how it's not dramatically sensationalizing the story or passing judgment.

It'd be great to hear from the artist who created it and learn a little bit more about their process.

Well, the music wasn't composed for this podcast.

So I'll dispel that myth here.

This is actually music that I found over a year ago in a large library of production music.

It was composed by a man called Philip Guiler.

He's a really accomplished composer.

He's actually produced music that's been used in Doctor Who, all sorts of stuff.

So he's been working on this for a very, very long time.

So yeah, it's not bespoke to Mushroom Case Daily,

but it was produced using a very rare vintage 80s synth synthesizer.

So for some of the synth nerds out there, you'll enjoy this.

It was a Yamaha CS80 that he bought for

a rather high sum, about £30,000 British pounds.

So yeah,

pretty expensive bit of kit, but it was the sort of synth that was used on a lot of like really big music through the 80s.

You know, you got Blade Runner soundtrack, Chariots of Fire, Toto's Africa.

It's this analog synth, which is very, very sought after.

And you can create some, you know, really interesting sounds, more so than the sort of samples you can make on a computer, which is why Philip likes it.

I can totally hear how that would have worked in Blade Runner.

Yeah, absolutely.

Philip says his ethos when recording this song was for it to not sound 80s, but he wanted to be clinical and forensic with a neutral feel, which is exactly what we were looking for for Mushroom Case Daily.

The next album he is recording, if you're interested in Philip's music, will be recorded with a full orchestra at Abbey Road Studios.

And it's another album that is focusing on the crime genre.

So, yeah, he's a really interesting man who works on a lot of different things.

And that's a little bit about where the music for Mushroom Case Daily has come from.

Definitely be checking out that album.

So, Philip Guiler, it's interesting, Stocky, how sound becomes just as nostalgic as some memories that link you back to a time and a place.

I will never ever forget, you know, the initial tinkle of piano keys for the serial theme when that came out.

And I still get the same feeling whenever I hear it.

Yeah, I think a lot about music and sound, obviously, the job that I'm doing.

And it's interesting to see the life that the Mushroom Case Daily Music has taken on.

The number of people who equate it to mushrooms and things like that, I've kind of had this belief that you know things are kind of or often not always but often like quite meaningless until people put meaning on them so for something like this um for for philip to create this kind of canvas that we can then you know lay mushroom case daily off the top of and for you to then associate that so deeply with what we've produced is you know it's really quite sweet and philip was very appreciative and uh you know in in my language pretty stoked with uh with all the interest and the love that you've been you've been giving his music,

which is lovely.

Rach, before we start wrapping this up, talking a bit about the kind of the next steps in the Aaron Patterson process, so sentencing, the like, all of that, we have a return of more of a statement.

That's when someone writes into us, they don't ask a question, they just sort of send us a statement.

This one is from Emily.

Emily says, hello, I've been really transfixed like the rest of Australia and the world, apparently, by this case, and have really enjoyed, if that can be said, of a triple murder and an attempted murder, listening to your coverage of it.

But I just wanted to point out, as a First Nations person, I put a contention in a recent episode about there being not much of a history of mass murders in Australia.

Now, Rach, in the episode we recorded with Christian a few weeks ago, where we talked about kind of our thoughts on the process and the trial, we reflected on the fact that Australia really hasn't had that many mass murderers.

And Emily points out that there have been many mass murders across the country and poisonings that have occurred throughout the history of colonisation where the majority of perpetrators have never had to face up to their crimes.

I don't mean for this to take away from all that you've reported, but perhaps it's an opportunity to consider this history alongside the coverage of this case.

The recent release of the UROC report provides a lot of evidence and detail about this.

Definitely worth a look to consider the other crimes and concepts of justice in the history of Victoria and Australia.

Yeah, thanks, Emily, for highlighting that.

Very important point.

And Stocky, you've looked at the UROC report.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

In that report, Rach, details in that around the murders of almost a thousand people, 50 separate massacres that occurred just across Victoria, not including the rest of the country.

So a very good point for Emily.

Rach, as we look forward in the process of Aaron Patterson, what happens from here?

You know, we've got sentencing coming up.

What are we looking at there?

Sentences I found usually happen like three or four months after the conviction.

So I know that was the case in the last big trial I covered of Greg Lynn.

He was convicted and then his sentence happened four months later.

So if you apply the same timeline, we'd be looking at a sentencing for Aaron Patterson in around like October, November.

Before that, stocky, we have what's called a plea hearing, which is very confusing in Victoria.

It's also a pre-sentence hearing.

So it's not when she says her plea, but it's a time when it's about potential sentence mitigation, basically.

So the defence will say why it shouldn't be a massive sentence and the prosecution will argue why it should be.

And this is also the time that we hear victim impact statements.

So how her crime has affected others and in what ways.

And this is also the time that in some trials we hear about psychological reports that are done or the convicted person's history, family history, mental health history, things like that.

So that will be an interesting hearing.

How long does that usually take, that kind of plea hearing?

About a day, usually.

Yeah, right.

Okay.

And is a lot of that actually done kind of before the fact?

Like we're not going to be sitting in a room listening to psychologists giving evidence about Aaron Patterson's mental state.

We're not going to be kind of hearing Ian Wilkinson talking for hours about his experience and the impact it's had on him.

It's all sort of, is that all kind of provided beforehand and then just read?

Yeah, good question.

So the psychological report, if one is done, will be wrapped into an address that Colin Mandy gives Justice Beale.

So her defence barrister gives Justice Beale.

And then as for the victim impact statements, we might hear, I think in the Greg Lynn case, we heard four victim impact statements from the children

and a friend of Carol Clay.

So it would be interesting to see how many are presented in this one.

Yeah, and are they, I mean, when we're looking at, I'm thinking back to kind of the trial of Aaron Patterson, you know, when you have someone in the witness box, they're talking for kind of hours at a time.

Is there kind of a limit on the victim impact statements or can they be quite long?

I don't think there's a limit as such.

And the ones I've heard have varied, but they might be...

I don't know, a few pages and then the victim reads it out or can ask someone to read it out on their behalf if it's too painful.

Right, okay, so it's like a pre-prepared thing.

It's not something they're kind of sitting in there being questioned about

talking through.

Okay, great.

It's like a statement.

Yeah, wonderful.

Thank you so much for that, Rach.

Well, look, as well as the developments in the Aaron Patterson trial, there's also some developments for this podcast feed as well.

Mushroom Case Daily will be rebranding.

We're just on the process of putting the new stickers on the car and the sign on the outside of the building and all of that.

So it'll change from being mushroom case daily to the case of, and then we will have a little line afterwards, which is, you know, giving you some context as to what we're looking at.

So if we were doing mushroom case daily again, you would have the case of the mushroom lunch.

There's some more artwork on the way as well.

And the schedule is going to change as well.

So part of the reason for, you know, it no longer being Mushroom Case Daily is that it won't be going forward a daily podcast.

It's going to be something we're going to bring you twice a week.

And we're going to be looking at some of the most interesting trials from around Australia.

So, we're going to be doing a little bit of kind of live court coverage.

So, you know, similar to what we were doing with the trial of Aaron Patterson, we'll be bringing you updates from these really interesting trials from around the country and then also diving into just some really interesting stories that the ABC's court reporters are coming across when they're sitting in courtrooms.

Because there are, you know, there's a Christian Silver in every city around Australia for the ABC, and they are hearing some incredible things in the various courtrooms that they find themselves in.

It's so heartening, Stocky, for me that this

podcast will continue, albeit in a different vein, because Christian Silver, you mentioned court reporter here at ABC Melbourne, his idea for this podcast initially was about demystifying the system, you know, pulling the veil back, how it's all working behind the scenes, because he gets a lot of people questioning him about, oh, how did they get that verdict?

How did the jury come to arrive at that?

Or why that sentence?

So there is

not a lot of awareness about how our system actually works and that was something so remarkable to come out of this podcast, Stockie, not just interest in the trial itself, but also the mechanics of it.

You know, the people that wrote in what is onus of proof, what is circumstantial evidence, what weight do you have to give certain lies, for example.

And it was so touching for me personally that people were so interested.

And I just thought, yeah, I found my fellow legal nerds.

I found my people.

And it'll be interesting because court cases and legislation is different in all states, Stocky.

So it'll be still new and interesting for you, too.

Absolutely.

I mean, it's all very new and interesting to me.

The trial that we're looking at jumping into very, very soon, it actually starts this week, is the trial of Matt Wright.

Now, Matt Wright is a crock wrangler in the Northern Territory.

He's up in Darwin, and he has been charged with perversion of justice after a fatal helicopter crash in February 2022 killed his best mate and really badly hurt the helicopter pilot.

And so I'll be joined by Olivana Lothuris, who is the ABC's court reporter in Darwin.

And as well as Matt, we have a long list of trials that we've got on our two cover list rate.

There's one in there that I know you and I have spoken about as well, which is the Easy Street Murders Trial.

Yes, Stocky's so interested in this one.

The Easy Street Murders, I nearly did this for Trace 2, actually.

It refers to a double homicide of two women in a home in Collingwood, Melbourne in 1977.

went unsolved for decades despite a million-dollar reward.

Police have arrested someone.

He was extradited from Greece to Melbourne late last year, and his committal will be in October this year.

Yep, so I might have you back on the pod before too long, Rach.

And there's also another one as well, one we've spoken about, Rach, one that we've had so many emails about too.

That's Samantha Murphy and that trial we're expecting next year as well.

So we're going to keep on top of all of these.

We'd love to hear from you as well.

Please get in touch.

Mushroomcase Daily at abc.net.au is our email.

If you have any questions, if you have any ideas on the trials that we should be looking at next, please get in touch and let us know what you want to see us looking into.

This whole kind of change to the format is based off of the feedback that you've sent us.

The reason that we're changing it, we're moving it in this direction is because you're all so excited and keen for it to continue.

And, you know, we've heard all the cries of what people are going to listen to when the trial is over.

And we've created this.

So hopefully it's something that you enjoy.

And yeah, the email for now, now, mushroomcasedaily at abc.net.au.

I assume that will transform into the case of at abc.net.au at some point, but that doesn't exist yet.

So stick with Mushroom Case Daily.

And when the change happens, we'll keep you informed.

Rach, thank you so much for taking us through, answering those questions, and letting us know where we're going next.

Thanks, Docie, UT.

Mushroom Case Daily is produced by ABC Audio Studios and ABC News.

It's presented by me, Rachel Brown, and producer Stephen Stockwell.

Our executive producer is Claire Rawlinson and shout out to Jack Tonks who helped with research for this episode.

Huge thanks to our TrueCrime colleagues who keep helping us out as we're making this, our commissioning executive producer Tim Roxborough and supervising producer Yasmin Parry.

This episode was produced on the land of the Wurundjeri people.

Hi, I'm Sam Hawley, host of ABC News Daily.

It's a podcast explaining one big news story affecting your world in just 15 minutes.

From ABC investigations to politics, the cost of living, to major global events.

Expert guests and journalists join me to explain why the world works the way it does.

Follow the ABC News Daily podcast on the ABC Listen app.