The questions we couldn't answer — until now

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Thousands of emails, all asking one question we couldn't answer, until now.

I'm ABC Investigative Reporter Rachel Brown.

And I'm Stephen Stockwell.

Welcome to Mushroom Case Daily.

The small town mystery that's gripped the nation and made headlines around the world.

On the menu was Beef Wellington, a pastry filled with beef and a pate made of mushrooms.

At the heart of this case will be the jury's interpretation of Erin Patterson's intentions.

Erin Patterson has strongly maintained her innocence.

The tragedy what covered.

I loved them.

So all through this podcast, I've been checking the emails that you've been sending to mushroomcasedaily at abc.net.au.

And there have been two massive ones that came up again and again and again.

Sometimes I have to scroll past like three or four emails or each.

And there were questions that we couldn't answer.

Now, there are really strict rules about what we can and can't report during a trial.

We've got kind of free reign when it comes to things the jury's here, things that are set in front of them.

But anything that happens when they're outside of the room, anything they don't see or hear, we can't get into.

Yeah, because there have been interesting things that have happened in the room that I don't think would have kind of swayed the jury either way, but interesting interesting bits of colour we wanted to tell you.

But we haven't even been able to do that, Stocky, because we literally have to be your eyes and ears and only tell you things that the jury has seen and heard.

Yeah, we have loved getting all your questions about this trial as we've been making this podcast.

There were so many fantastic ones that were sent to mushroomcase daily at abc.net.au.

And now that the trial has finished, we have got A little bit more latitude, I'll say, to get into some of these, to talk through and answer the questions that we couldn't answer during the trial.

These are things like where Erin stayed during the proceedings, if she had any friends with her in the room, whether the jury was given the option of manslaughter, if they could have come to that themselves, and also what happens if the jury couldn't decide.

So let's get into some of them now, Rach.

I want to start with the question, where was Erin?

And you know, we have so many questions on each of these topics.

That's the reason we're making this entire episode around them, but I'm going to use examples of these to help us get him into them.

This one is from Carolyn.

Carolyn says, hi guys, thank you.

I'm loving the podcast.

One question, where is Erin staying while the case is on?

Is she in a hotel or at the police station?

I think she was at Ridges, wasn't she?

Hotel?

No, I joke.

She was at the police station in Morwell.

She was moved there on a Monday from Dame Phyllis Frost prison, and then she would stay in the Morwell cells during the week.

And then in the morning before court, she she would be brought up by two prison guards into the dock.

Now, Stocky, we haven't even been allowed to use that word, the dock.

And I think listeners would probably guess that if you're on trial for murder, it's very rare that you'll get bail.

Very, very rare.

So I think most people in today's day and age understand that you will be in custody, you will be in prison, but perhaps it's a hangover from older times, but the media is still not allowed to say she's in custody.

We're not allowed to show photos of Erin in handcuffs or being flanked by prison guards.

So in a lot of these episodes, I accidentally said dock, and we'd have to cut it out because we have to be so careful with anything that might sway a Jura's perception about an accused's danger, I suppose, and connotation of guilt.

Now, Juras should not have been listening to our podcast, and I'm sure they weren't, but we still couldn't talk to you about this.

And it was interesting, Stocky, that early in the proceedings, her lawyer, Colin Mandy, SC, asked she'd be able to have access to certain things, like a laptop.

Apparently, she was promised that at the start.

She had trouble getting a laptop in the Morwell cells.

Some people might say, well, why does she deserve a laptop?

It's so she can have access to the documents for her case, you know, to help her lawyers run that case properly.

Another thing they asked for was a blanket because the Morwell cells were apparently quite cold.

Yeah, it's been very chilly in Morwell as we've been covering this trial and going through that.

One of the things that I sort of hinted at before we recorded this episode when I let you know that we were going to be making it was the tunnel.

And so you wouldn't have seen very many photos of Aaron Patterson throughout this process because she didn't walk from the police station, which is next to the La Trobe Valley Law Courts, into the La Trobe Valley Law Courts.

There's a tunnel that links those two buildings.

So every day during the proceedings, Aaron Patterson would be brought through that tunnel.

into the La Trobe Valley Law Courts and would more or less just appear in the dock at the back of that room, flanked by two prison guards.

Rachel mentioned in our verdict episode that, you know, Aaron Patterson had been flanked by those guards throughout the trial.

That is not unusual.

That happens to every person who is accused, who is sitting in the dock.

Those two are usually there.

It's just something that we hadn't been able to mention up until that point.

I would love to see that tunnel.

I think there's, and it's not far, we're not talking far between the police station and the court, but of course for security reasons.

the tunnel perhaps was a necessity, but I think there's a lift at the end of that tunnel that would have brought her up onto level two where we were and then through a door at the back of the courtroom into the dock.

Yeah.

Also, because you, I mean, we would have seen potentially some of the only photos that were taken of Erin Patterson throughout this trial were her in a prison van.

And Rach, as you were saying, Erin Patterson would spend the weekends at Dame Phyllis Frost in the west of Melbourne, and then she would get in the prison van on Monday morning and be driven out to the Latrobe Valley Law Courts in Moore.

That's probably from there, at least a two-hour drive that she's doing in that.

And it was really the only opportunity that the photographers had to get a photo of Erin Patterson.

They were trying throughout.

I remember, Rach, there was one Monday morning.

I didn't realise what was happening.

I saw, we were crossing the road from the cafe to walk into court, and I saw a white prison van pull up, and then I saw a photographer up against, you know, holding a camera up against one of the windows, trying to take a photo.

And I realised, oh, that's what they're trying to do.

They're trying to get.

this shot.

And another thing we should say is apparently those prison vans are compartmentalized, so the snapper wouldn't have even known which compartment she was in.

Yeah, there's a, I know there were photos taken of someone completely different while they were trying to get a photo of Aaron Patterson in that van.

And, you know, they weren't able to get a photo often as Erin Patterson was heading into the police station.

There's a little gate that the van would stop at to go through.

And that wasn't able to be kept open very long, so it would wait there.

And that was the opportunity for the photographers to get that photo.

Erin Patterson would often have a book or something covering her face, so they couldn't get that shot.

Also, the photographers, quite canny, knowing they're not going to be able to get that, were trying to time the police van coming into Morall and timing the lights to try and get it to stop at the lights to get a photo of that light.

So I know they had someone crossing the road very, very slowly to try and get the van van to slow down.

The van instead would drive very slowly up to the lights if they were red, and as soon as they were green, would pick up speed and get through.

So it didn't have to stop.

The van drivers were onto him, were they?

They were, yeah.

The van drivers onto the photographers there.

But, you know, the photos that you have seen were taken on a day where there was no actual hearing.

So there was a legal argument that day.

The jury wasn't in.

Rachel, I believe we were probably back in Melbourne that weekend.

The normal photographers weren't there.

I think that was the one day we weren't there, Stocky, out of, what, was it 43 or something like that?

Yes, Yes, it was a day that most of the reporters weren't there.

There weren't any photographers there.

There was one photographer there and saw the van going in, had a special rig built around the camera to stop the flashes reflecting back off the glass, got that on the window and got those photos and you see Aaron Patterson in the van reacting to the bright flash of the lights.

She's not expecting any photographers there because the jury's not coming in, most of the reporters aren't there.

And that's how we saw those photos.

Incredible photos too, because when we saw her in the dock, that word I can finally say, each day she was very composed.

And like I said, when the verdict came down, very stony-faced, she didn't give anything away.

She'd had 10 weeks to practice, you know, and you know, we were all scrutinising her and any flinch or any movement or any eyebrow raise.

So in the van as well, I think she knew the days that would get a lot of attention, but this day I think she just must have been off guard, off her guard, because there was no book up.

Sometimes I've heard that she she tried to kind of crouch under the bench so she wouldn't be seen, but I think this day she thought she was safe.

And those are the photo.

And that's, I think that's the only photo, Stocky, that someone managed to get.

And I mean, it's not an easy job.

They stand out there all day and days have been freezing just on the hope.

Just on that one hope that today might be the day that they get it.

Yeah, there were some fantastic photos of other people coming, going from the court.

You know, we've been, as we've talked about, spending a lot of time with other media and you get to see some of the photos they're taking of the defence team coming in, of the prosecution team coming in, of witnesses coming and going as well.

And yes, some incredible work being done by photographers from all outlets and all wires over the course of the trial.

Rach, something we spoke about a lot through the trial was the Patterson and Wilkinson families in the court.

They were in there, you know, they're often supporting Ian Wilkinson, the sole surviving lunch guest, when he was giving evidence.

You know, I saw Simon Patterson giving evidence during this trial as well.

And we talked about that.

And one of the questions questions we got a lot were about whether or not Aaron Patterson had any supporters in the room.

And now, as we've mentioned, you know, if the jury doesn't know this, we can't talk about it.

And so when the jury enters, everyone's sitting down in their chairs.

So they, you're not seeing people walking around.

They're not seeing people talking to certain people.

So they don't know that, you know, person Y might be a supporter of Aaron Patterson.

One of the questions we've got here is from Meg on the Southeast Coast.

Meg says, hi there.

I'm learning so much about how a court case is run in our country.

Thank you.

I wondered if Aaron Patterson had any support in the courtroom, any families or friends.

Meg, she didn't have any family, or none that at least I saw.

She does have a sister.

I don't believe she attended the trial.

Her two children I didn't see there, and I think it wouldn't have been a place for them.

And even, you know, their names and their images have been suppressed to protect them.

And I hope they have been protected as much as they can through this.

But I have been thinking about them a lot, and I really do sincerely hope that they're doing okay, because I can't believe the toll that this would be taking on them.

In terms of friends, she has had one supporter that's been there most days, but she's been the only person there that I've seen for Erin.

And then there has been a representative for the Patterson family there most days as well.

And she was there on Verdict Day on her own.

I don't think the families wanted to be there that day.

Yeah.

It was interesting, you know, with Erin's friend, one of the early days in there, while everyone's still figuring out who people are, this might have even been the same day that Stuart Hastings, the tip staff, told me to get off my phone when I was sitting in one of the public seats, not realizing that I was a member of the media.

Don't blame him.

I don't dress like it.

But he also, I think on that day, you know, Erin's friend went up to her while she was in the dock and Hastings kind of like immediately got up to sort of like, look, you're not allowed to do that.

You're not allowed to talk to the accused in these situations.

And then the defense team kind of clarified, oh, no, look, this is someone who is, you know, a friend of Aaron's.

So, you know, that was all kind of smoothed over.

And then I don't believe there are any issues after that because everyone knows knows who everyone is and kind of figures out the roles and the places

in that courtroom.

Rach, another one of the questions we've had a lot of is around any psychiatric assessment that was done of Aaron Patterson.

Again, we've had this question a lot.

You know, we're getting, you know, most of these questions we're going through here, we probably had, you know, dozens of times, if not hundreds of times, coming through.

There's one we've actually had thousands of times that we'll get to in a little bit.

But this is a question from Eva.

Eva says, I never thought myself as someone interested in true crime crime until now.

I can't quite work out my slightly obsessive interest in this case, but I think it's related to my career in mental health, hence my question.

As a clinically trained therapist, I can't stop wondering about any forensic psychological assessment of Aram's presentation in this case.

Are you aware of any forensic mental health assessments that may have been historically carried out or planned to be in the future and how they may fit into this case?

Eva, no, I'm not.

I'm not aware of any psych assessment before the trial.

There may be one coming up to the pre-sentence hearing.

So we will hopefully find out a date for that hearing in early August.

The pre-sentence hearing is when the prosecution and defence get to run arguments about what kind of sentence Erin Patterson should be given.

So that would be the time if the defence wanted to offer a psych assessment, that would be the time for it.

It's also the time when the prosecution offers victim impact statements, you know, if they want to offer up one from Ian Wilkinson, for example.

Throughout a trial like this, the accused has a total right to silence.

They don't need to submit to any of these sort of things.

If they want to volunteer, something like that, you know, it's kind of up to them, but it's not something that can be forced on someone who's been accused of a crime.

It's kind of similar, I think, to a question we answered earlier on in

this podcast around whether or not Erin Patterson has done a lie detector test.

She hadn't done one.

It's not something that's actually very common in Australia, but something like that, forcing someone to do that, would take away their right to silence in a case like this.

Rach, we have had a lot of questions about a book as well that's come through, a pop culture kind of crossover, I suppose.

And this is around a book called Lessons in Chemistry.

Now, again, we had this question a lot, and I'll use a question from Lee to get us into this one.

Lee says, Hi, Mushroom Case Daly.

I've been listening to your podcast from Angoston in the Barossa Valley, South Australia.

I'm wondering whether Erin Patterson has read the book Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmas.

Does she have it on her bookshelf at home, borrowed it from the library, or listen to it as an audiobook?

In chapter 30, the protagonist describes the use of death cat mushrooms to, in inverters, kill off your loved ones.

I've read that book, it's excellent, and I actually heard Bonnie Garmas speak at the Wheeler Centre and she was brilliant.

Millions of people, I think, have read that book and not killed off their loved ones.

So, and I think there's a Bryce Courtney book also that involves mushrooms as a potential murder weapon, but no, it wasn't on her bookshelf as far as I'm aware.

We've done a search of the transcripts too and couldn't find it.

The only books that were talked about were the books that police found during a search of her home and or what wasn't there, shall I say?

Like there were no foraging books or anything like that.

So lessons in chemistry didn't come up, no foraging books.

Erin's response to that was, well, there's a whole load of boxes in the garage.

There might have been books on mushrooms in there, but you didn't check that.

So we heard about the books that she did have.

There were some diet books, Stocky, and then a bunch of other topics as well.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Interestingly, on Lessons in Chemistry, I remember going into

one of the cafes across the road from court after lunch, and I became familiar with this book because of all the emails that were sent to mushroomcase daily at abc.net.au.

And I walked into the cafe one day and I saw a woman sitting in there reading lessons in chemistry and had to stop myself from going up and asking if she was there to sit in court and watch the trial of Aaron Patterson.

Have you read it yet?

I have not read it, no.

I highly recommend.

I've been reading court transcripts for 11 weeks, so I need to

get into some fiction, I think.

Maybe our next pod can be book reviews.

little easier on the heart yeah something for us to to work towards rach um now look the question that more or less i'm not saying forced our hand to do this episode because we do did want to do it but the question that we got more than any other question uh was whether or not aaron patterns could be charged with manslaughter if the jury could find her guilty of manslaughter now we have had this question thousands of times sent into the Mushroom Case Daily inbox.

There were days when I would have to scroll past four or five emails in a row to find ones that we could answer on the pod.

This is not something we could answer at the time.

So please forgive me for ignoring you.

There were moments through the pod where I did say, Look, there's a question you think is really obvious that we're not answering.

Please forgive us because there's a reason.

This is the question I was referring to.

Yep.

So hopefully you don't hate me too much for not getting to this now.

But yeah, look, Rach, let's get into it.

Could Aaron Patterson have been found guilty of manslaughter?

No, not in this case.

So I, too, Stocky, have got this question over and over and over and over, Instagram, Facebook, in the cafes, family and friends.

So no, it wasn't considered during this trial.

It doesn't need to be on the indictment.

It's often raised during trials as an alternate charge.

Right.

So I can give an example of Greg Lynn, for example.

He was charged with the murders of two campers up in the high country.

Now, during that trial, which I also covered in depth, like this one, that came up during a day of legal argument.

And the two parties argued about whether manslaughter should be considered as an alternate charge.

Now, neither side wanted it, wanted it left to the jury.

Now, in that situation, it was because it was too confusing a prospect, because so much was unknown about the order of the deaths in the high country or the potential motive.

So, both counsels thought,

just too confusing to add that into the mix with everything.

And sometimes, in other cases, neither parties want it because the prosecution wants all or nothing.

Prosecution doesn't want manslaughter.

And the defense sometimes thinks, oh, we don't want to put it up as an option because if a jury can't decide, maybe they'll just take that as an out rather than a guilty or a not guilty.

So that's historically speaking.

In this case, every single day I listened out for the M-word.

And in all the legal argument towards the end, I'm like, is it going to come up today?

Now, to my knowledge, it didn't come up even without the jury there.

So it might have been something that the counsels discussed amongst themselves that they didn't want as an alternate charge.

But to my knowledge, in court, when I was there, which was most days, it never came up.

Yeah, and it's not something that the jury, you know, we had a week of deliberations in this case.

It's not something they can kind of all sit around and go, yeah, you know, I'm not sure if it meets this bar, but like, look, maybe it's just going to be manster.

And they kind of come back to the judge and go, yeah, actually, we think it's this.

Like, is that an opportunity for them?

Definitely not for the jury.

and because that's an issue of law.

And so, like I said earlier, jurors are jurors on the facts, but Justice Beale guided them on issues of law.

So if manslaughter was to be an option, Justice Beal would have had to have taken them through very specific instructions on how to

use that charge or what evidence to apply or not to that charge.

Yeah, my thinking throughout some of this, and my, you know, not a legal expert by any means.

My understanding of this was kind of like in sort of like a drink driving scenario.

Like if you're drink driving and you hit someone, you've been acting recklessly, you've been breaking the law in the first place.

And so, you know, you can be charged with manslaughter because your reckless activity caused the death of that person.

In this case, I just didn't see how that could be applied.

You know, on one side, you've got, you know, a woman who says she'd foraged mushrooms and didn't realize they were death caps and accidentally put them in this meal.

And on the other side, you've got, you know, the prosecution saying this is a deliberate and calculated act.

So there's kind of only really two paths, right?

Correct.

The only way, and I've thought a a lot about this, and we might have lots of lawyers write in after this, and if so, good, because I'm really curious about it.

I guess the only way manslaughter could have been used is if it could be argued that she knew they were death caps, but didn't necessarily know they would definitely kill them.

As in, if you were thinking, oh, I might try to give these people gastro or bad gastro.

I think that's the only way it could have been applied.

But because we heard so much evidence that, you know, it's one or the other, that it's these toxins are fatal, I don't know whether manslaughter could be applied in this case.

But if anyone has any more information on that, I'd love to hear it.

NoshroomcaseDaily at abc.net.au.

You can send your thoughts, feelings, questions through to us, and we'll have a read and we'll get back to you on that one.

And yeah, I mean, the reason that we weren't able to get into this anytime sooner, that you've had to wait for the conclusion of the trial for us to answer this question is because basically the jury just didn't hear it.

It wasn't something that was presented before them.

They weren't asked about it.

They weren't weren't told about it.

It wasn't mentioned in front of them.

So, you know, kind of as far as they're concerned, it doesn't exist.

I mean, I think a really interesting kind of point to think about in this is there was a moment

in the closing statements from the defense where Colin Mandiasi said there were only ever two death cat mushroom sightings in Gippsland, referring to the evidence that was presented during the trial.

Like, there were obviously more death cat mushrooms in Gippsland.

But as far as the jury is concerned, there have only ever been two sightings because that's what was presented to them.

So, yeah, something to kind of think about as we're going through this.

Rach, another question we've had a number of times is about the interview that Erin Patterson did at the front of her house.

So this is in late 2023.

It's following the deaths of Don and Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson.

And yeah, we have had a few questions about this.

I'll go in with one from Fiona.

Fiona says, hi, I'm interested to know if there's been any discussion in the trial of the media interview Erin Patterson gave outside of her house in early August 2023.

During this interview, Erin mistakenly said a number of times that Ian rather than Don, had passed away.

For someone who has shown a particular attention to detail in her testimony, who says she loved her in-laws, this seems like a very strange mistake.

And I wonder if it had been raised at all.

Fiona, no, it wasn't.

And a lot of people have found this quite interesting.

And this is where we come to the difference between the court of public opinion and what is legally admissible.

We didn't see it as an exhibit during the trial.

Not sure why.

It was never mentioned.

So what Stock is talking about is a door stop that I think Channel 9 did.

Erin Patterson was returning to her house, parked it under the carport area, got out of the car and was asked a couple of questions about the lunch.

And she starts looking like she's getting distressed and she's saying, you know, I loved them.

They were the only parents I have because, you know, my mum has passed away.

There was a lot.

Remember at the time, Stocky, there was so much public opinion on what that meant.

Was she crying?

Were they real tears?

Was it not?

This, I'm going to be honest, it made me angry because it reminded me of Lindy Chamberlain and we hadn't had the trial yet.

That's why we've been very careful with our language during this trial because under our system, innocent until proven guilty.

But there was a lot made of this interview and no, it didn't come up during the trial.

I did ask if you're interested, Stocky, before the trial, what a body language expert made of it.

Yeah.

So he said you have to consider a lot of different things and this kind of science fascinates me.

So he talked about pronouns, like and I'm not just talking about Erin here, but when we're studying people for guilt or innocence, he says, pronouns, you're talking about taking ownership or you're trying to create distance from something.

He said, people can lie with words, so you also have to look at body language to see if there's any conflict or contradiction there, like what you're doing now, Stocky.

I know you don't hate me, but you're looking very defensive with your arms crossed across your chest.

Thirdly, there's paralinguistic style.

means the tone, the pitch, the voice modulation, that kind of thing.

So he looks at all those types of things, but most importantly, he looks for deviations from normative behavior.

So you would have to get to know a person.

You can't just judge in a couple of minutes.

And he did an example on me.

He said, let me ask you, what was your very first job?

And I remember thinking, God, what was it?

Was it pizza, huh?

I kind of remember.

And he said, you had to stop and you looked up to the right, you know, and because I didn't allow you time to answer that question.

So that loss of eye contact is not indicative of deception.

But in your case, it was neurological neurological record.

And I thought that's really interesting.

And a lot sometimes is made of if eyes go up to the left or the right.

Sometimes it signals deception, sometimes it's someone trying to remember.

Crying, he said just because someone's not crying doesn't mean they're not experiencing emotion.

He used to work for the police and had to deliver very awful.

death messages, for example.

So he, you know, he couldn't cry during that.

And the last thing Stocky he mentioned was tensors.

So there was a case in Queensland that a man murdered his wife and then he started talking about his children and he said,

I'm really worried about my children.

And this expert said it was interesting he didn't say worried about our children.

So he was already talking in past tense.

So there's a lot to consider.

It's very fascinating science.

With this particular video, a lot was made of it.

You know, were there real tears?

Were there not?

But I don't think you can judge a person in one moment of extreme stress.

For example, you mentioned she forgot, was she confused Don and Ian's name?

Maybe, as we know now, maybe it was deception.

Maybe it was stress.

Thank you, Rach.

Yeah, it's interesting.

Again, not something that came up during the trial, not something that was mentioned to the jury.

The video itself wasn't even presented as evidence.

So again, we have to kind of consider that, you know, the jury doesn't even know this exists.

For all intents and purposes, until something is presented in front of the jury, introduced as evidence, we have to imagine that that thing is not real, just like death camp mushrooms outside of the two sightings in Gippsland that we heard about during this trial.

Rach, another interesting one that we've had a number of times was whether or not witnesses get paid.

So, this question here is from Georgia from Newcastle.

Georgia has loved hearing the updates and chatting about the podcast with her mum and her friends.

And she has a question about how Dr.

Sorrell is being compensated for his work, analyzing phone records and then giving evidence.

So, Dr.

Matthew Sorrell was the mobile phone location expert.

So he was studying the phone records of Erin Patterson, the location data, all of that, and then presenting that evidence to the court.

Georgia says that she saw that Dr.

Sorrell works for a private company and was wondering who pays for Dr.

Sorrell's work.

Is it the prosecution or the government or someone else?

I think you do, Georgia.

We do, the taxpayer through Victoria Police who has to compile a brief of evidence against Erin Patterson.

We heard from the informant Stephen Eppenstall in the witness box saying, you know, it is cost prohibitive these kind of base station records.

They got enough, like the level that they needed to be able to run this trial.

But he was talking about the extra layout that he said he was trying to be upsold.

EBN data

and records, he said, is cost-prohibitive.

It's something like $1,700 for two hours.

And so for a year, the records that they needed, he'd said we'd be talking well into six figures.

And he said, my boss isn't real keen on us spending too much money.

Yeah, I do remember that day.

It's nice that that's something that extends across all aspects of work.

There's a boss somewhere that's like, no, actually, let's not spend the money on that.

You can do with it what you will.

There's a follow-on part to George's question, Rach,

which is, if it is the prosecution who pays for this, or in this case, the police, how do they ensure that the expert/slash witness is not being, in George's words, bribed or paid to say certain things?

Is it just expected that the expert or witness will take their civic duties seriously?

That's where Colin Mandy comes in.

So his cross-examination.

So he had a lot of time with Matthew Sorrell to try to eke out, well, you know, really the closest you can get is possible, right?

There were possible visits to Loch and Outram because sometimes phones can ping off towers that are further away because they have a clear line of sight when you might be closer to another base station.

So even in your house, Georgia, your phone might ping off one station at the front door and a different one at the back door.

Yeah, yeah, it was interesting hearing him going through all that as well.

The other kind of expert witness we had in this case was Sharman Fox Henry, the digital forensics officer from Victoria Police.

He was paid for by Victoria Police.

He works for them.

They would have covered him to get out there, and I assume he gets his usual rate, maybe a bit of travel allowance or something, for living in Morwall for the days he was giving evidence there.

Rachel, another question we got a lot, again, we couldn't get into this at the time because, as I've said, the jury didn't know, was basically why the trial was in Morwall.

I'm going to use one from Lynn to get us into this.

Her question is, I was wondering if you know why Erin's lawyers wanted her to be tried in the Morocco rather than in the city, Melbourne.

It's not so much about her lawyers or even Erin Patterson, Lynn.

The presumption is that crime is local, so trials should be conducted in the area in which the offence is alleged to have occurred.

And then they're moved, trials are moved if it's deemed necessary.

So that might be, you know, if there's a risk of an accused not getting a fair trial in their local area, or maybe due to logistics.

I think there was a case a Defence Barrister told me recently that was moved from Sheppard and to Melbourne because the accused wasn't getting enough sleep in the cells, kept getting woken up and so they couldn't work on their case properly and inform their barrister properly.

In this case we were in Morwell because it was the default location.

Now if a trial is to be shifted one or another party has to apply and then both parties get to make submissions on that application.

This is something we talked about a bit.

before the trial started in some of our really early episodes and the conversations that were had around that.

So if you're interested in learning a bit more about that, jump back into some of the details in there as well.

Rach, one of the biggest questions that we were asked over the last week or so, I think it was, as the jury was deliberating, even during the judge's charge, as people were kind of turning their minds to the jury's deliberations, was what happens if the jury couldn't decide?

What happens if the jury couldn't work out if they thought Aaron Patterson was guilty or not guilty of murder?

They couldn't pick one.

We couldn't say because it hadn't been presented to the jury.

So the jury, again, gets these really specific directions from the judge, Justice Beale, and they weren't told what would happen in this case.

I'm going to go into this one with a question from Trav.

Trav says, Hi, Stocky and Rachel.

I've been hooked on the pod since my wife got me onto it.

I have a question.

In the event of there being a hung jury, is this the type of case that would be retried?

Or would it be greater odds to result in a dismissal for Erin?

Yeah, Trav, this is actually something we were all really worried about, whether what would happen and whether would we be doing this all over again?

So generally in trials, if jurors are locked, they can tell the judge.

Remember in this case, Justice Beale gave them an instruction before they went out and said, if you have a question, I don't want to know about numbers.

He wanted to be blind about which way they were leaning.

So he's like, don't tell me seven and five, just ask your question.

I thought that was interesting.

But they might come back to him and say, look, we're stuck.

In that case, I think it's called an Allen's charge or a persistence charge.

He might say, look, keep trying

and maybe give them ideas about how to do that.

I don't know how many times persistent charges are allowed, whether they can just continue indefinitely.

In the interest of justice, I would assume not.

Lawyers might want to write in and let me know about that, but there might be a case where they're sent out a couple of times with a persistence charge, try again, you know, because it's been a lot of time and a lot of money.

If not, if it gets to the point of a hung jury, then that trial is abandoned and then, then, yeah, there'd be a retrial if the OPP decides to run it again.

I think I vaguely remember the case that was a hung jury held again, another hung jury, so the OPP abandoned what would have been the third attempt.

Yeah, we, you know, Justice Beale did tell the jury that they would have all the time that they needed.

And we did say in one of our episodes that, you know, what's the maximum time that a jury can deliberate for?

You know, there's kind of no limit on it.

I mean, you know, there's no formal limit.

The judge will kind of basically kind of give them that charge to go, look, you need to figure this out.

You need to get your act together and wrap this up.

You either need to go guilty, not guilty, or if you're not going to get there, this is where we're going with it.

Trav has a follow-up question, Rach, to this,

which was,

you know, if it is a retrial, are you mentally prepared for that outcome?

In short, no, Trav.

But I think Christian might be back soon, so maybe he might be prepared for it.

Yeah, Trav, really simple answer to your question there.

Yeah, absolutely not.

Thank you so much for all of your questions that you've sent through to mushroomcase daily at abc.net.au.

Please keep sending them.

Please keep getting in touch.

We've got a fair bit more freedom now than we did previously.

There's still things we can't get into, but you know, get us, get in touch, send us an email, mushroomcasedaily at abc.net.au.

And when we've got room to answer your questions, we will absolutely jump into that and bring them to you.

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.

A huge thanks to our True Crime colleagues who keep helping us out.

Commissioning executive producer Tim Roxborough and supervising producer Yasmin Parry.

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

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