The jury returns its verdict for Erin Patterson's 'mushroom murders'

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The jury has found Erin Patterson guilty of murder and guilty of attempted murder.

I'm ABC Investigative Reporter Rachel Brown.

And I'm Stephen Stockwell.

It's Monday, the 7th of July, and after seven days of deliberation, we have a verdict.

Welcome, it's 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.

It's a tragedy what's happened.

I love them.

In July 2023, almost two years ago, Aaron Patterson served a lunch that resulted in the deaths of three people, charged with murder and attempted murder.

Her trial has run for 10 weeks.

This is the first day of the 11th week today, Rach.

And at 1.38pm today,

we had an email that the jury had reached a verdict.

We did.

We got that at 1.38.

I was in the middle of my lunch.

It was a bit surreal when it came up because I didn't think we were allowed to be informed during lunch breaks.

That's been our safe space.

And then I felt a hand on my shoulder and it was you, Stocky, making sure I'd got that email.

So dropped everything and ran over, ran across the road to the court.

I was standing outside having a moment of sunshine, doing a bit of prep work for exactly this moment when that happened.

I heard a gasp.

I actually wasn't checking my phone as religiously as I would have been checking it other times because again, Rachel like you, I thought this was a time where we wouldn't have,

we wouldn't be notified that a verdict would come through.

And those two journalists stood up straight away, went across the road.

I went inside, tapped her on the shoulder.

And

we started getting ready for the moment that have we been waiting for basically for seven days.

Not just us, so many media and members of the public rushing from wherever they were at that moment back to the little Latrobe Valley law courts.

Rachel had been sitting meters from the court.

this whole time to find a spot inside the court, obviously had to rush back.

But what was that moment like, you know, trying to get back into the courthouse and then into courtroom four for this moment?

I felt a bit sick, to be honest, Stocky, and it's just so much has led up to this.

A lot rests on this for a lot of people.

And

the email came through, as I said, we did get a little bit of time.

It said in the email that there'd be a 2.15 verdict.

So it wasn't, you've got five minutes, but usually in other cases, you don't get notifications about jury questions questions even during lunchtime.

So I first thought it's a jury question.

Like the jury will be coming back after lunch with a question.

So I had to read that verdict word a few times.

Ran over, as I said, took my place in the line.

There have been a lot of court watchers, Stocky, who've been there every day.

A lot of them were already there.

They don't like risking going for lunch even.

So they often leave their bags and coats in a line.

And I'd left my coat in that line when I was at lunch.

But I came back and I think about, I would say about 12 or 11 of them were already there.

So I think I was number 13 in line.

Yeah.

Getting into court for the verdict.

You know, court starts at 2.15 in the afternoon following the lunch break.

How is that managed?

I mean, usually this is like a slow trickle of people into this room.

But obviously, with the warning that we had just over half an hour for the verdict to be handed down,

what was it like getting into the room in that moment?

It was a little bit hectic.

People's

tension was was up.

People's patience was a bit thin.

We were lined up against the wall and then because the lines snaked around, there was some yelling from the back of the line from people saying, make sure the lines didn't bleed into one another.

People wanted to be sure of their spot in that line.

So things were a bit tense.

Defence team were let in, the homicide squad members were let in first, and then a representative from the Patterson family and a friend of Erin Patterson's was let in and then the court watchers and the media were finally let in to take their place.

Where were you sitting in the room, Rach?

I chose a seat that I've sat in quite a few times that I like because you can get the whole vista.

So it's in the back row.

three seats along from the window.

So that allows me to see Erin Patterson in the dock.

I wanted to see her reaction.

It allows me to also see the jury members as they come through and give their verdict.

Before Justice Beale enters the room, you're sitting in there, you're waiting for this moment.

Justice Beale will come in, the jury will come in, but before any of that happens, what's going on in the room?

I looked at Erin when she walked in.

She wasn't showing any kinds of signs of emotion or stress as far as I could tell.

But I'm not a psychologist and I can't be imposing kind of my subjective thinking on her, but she seemed...

neutral.

She had two prison guards beside her, as she has had most days, which we've not been allowed to tell you.

She was wearing a Paisley shirt that I've seen her wear on other occasions and her defence team came up to talk to her so that's Colin Mandy SC, Sophie Stafford who works alongside him and then Bill Dug

one of her solicitors came up to talk to her also and her friend Ali who's been there most days of this trial supporting Erin Patterson.

Yep.

How long before Justice Beale entered the room?

It wasn't long.

I think the defence team was talking to her for a couple of minutes.

And then

I think it was the tip staff, Stuart Hastings, said, counsel ready.

And then there were three heavy knocks, and Justice Beale came in.

We all stood and bowed, as is the practice every day.

Justice Beale said, I understand the jury have reached their verdicts.

Can we have the jury, please?

And then...

Mr.

Hastings went to the door to the jury room and did two heavy knocks and brought them in.

Yeah.

At this point, the jury is about to enter this room.

Justice Beale sitting at the, you know, in his seat at the front of the courtroom.

All of the defence and prosecution teams sitting in their places?

Yes, all but one.

Dr.

Nanette Rogers S.C., the prosecutor, wasn't there today.

I'm not sure why.

But in her seat was Jane Warren, who has been leading a lot of the work in this trial for the prosecution.

How did the jury enter the room?

So after those two knocks, they filtered through.

Erin Patterson stood up, as she does every day.

I don't think she has to, but I think it's a mark of respect.

So she watched them come in.

And I've never watched 12 people closer than I did Stocky when they walked in.

None of them looked at her.

Why is that relevant?

So there's a theory that if jurors don't look at the accused, then it's bad news for the accused.

And I know it's just a theory and I have watched other times it hasn't played out, but it's something that reporters always look for.

And none none of these 12 jurors looked at Erin Patterson when they walked in.

And I wondered whether any would look over when they sat down.

And I didn't notice that either.

How was the...

Talk me through the verdict being handed down.

So the jurors have entered this room, they've walked in, they haven't looked at Aaron Patterson, who's at the back of the room in the dock.

They've taken their seats.

What is the process from here?

So the first thing that happened, Justice Beales said to the four person,

has the jury agreed on a verdict?

And the four person said, yes.

He said, on the charge of attempted murder against Ian Wilkinson,

the four person said guilty.

On the charge of murder against Heather Wilkinson,

guilty.

On the charge of murder against Gail Patterson, guilty.

On the charge of murder against Donald Patterson,

guilty.

How did Aaron Patterson react?

She didn't give much away, Stocky, and I don't know how

I was wondering what my face would do, but she looked stony-faced.

I couldn't see any emotion that crossed her face.

Her lips were pursed for most of the time.

Nothing stood out to me, not shock, or pain, or confusion.

Nothing.

And

people have been watching her like a hawk.

Maybe that's what she decided to do ahead of time, I'm not sure, but there was nothing that I can say in terms of her reaction.

Yeah.

We've had members of the Patterson and the Wilkinson family in court throughout this trial.

Ian Wilkinson, the sole surviving lunch guest, was there most days actually spoken about this on the pod.

But we didn't see any family at the verdicts.

No, and I had heard in advance that the last day of the trial would be their last day.

You know, they'd sat through all the evidence, all the exhibits, and I think

that's all

I understand they wanted to do.

You know, they wanted to be there for that.

In terms of the verdict, they haven't been sitting outside waiting like we have, Stocky, or the Court Watchers.

They have had, or the Patterson family has had a representative there for them.

The Wilkinsons, I'm not sure, but we haven't had any reacts so far.

As we sit here recording, I don't think there's been any statement from either of those two families, but they did do, they wore the toll of being there every day, whether it be themselves trying to get answers or closure or

I don't know.

We haven't had the chance to ask them.

I certainly didn't want to ask them during the trial, so we'll wait to see whether any statement is released today.

But it is a good time, Stocky, to remind people that

this story has been sensational, you would say, in media terms, but three people have died, Don, Gail and Heather.

Ian very nearly died.

And so

no one wins out of this.

It has

destroyed our community.

It's broken friendships.

Two children now face their mum going to jail.

It's sad for everyone.

This was such a big moment that we've been working up to for

the start of the 11th week now.

So over 10 weeks we've been working towards this point, jury deliberating for a week, almost exactly a week, actually.

Well,

seven days, starting on

almost exactly a week.

Yeah, and I did the math, Stocky, and it sounds like a long time.

People have been saying, you know, oh, it's going to be hung jury.

They've sat for so long.

When you think about it, it hasn't actually been that long because they only sit for four and a half hours a day.

So, by my math, they've deliberated for 27 hours, which isn't a lot when you think about it, considering the trial went for nine weeks.

The judge's charge alone was, what, 365 pages.

So there was a lot to digest.

So I wasn't too surprised that

it took this long, but I don't even think it is this long because they've done a thorough job of working through the evidence.

Yeah.

And when you look through everything that was built into this moment as well, Rach, like, you know, we've spent a little while talking about this now, but the whole process was done in minutes.

Three minutes, I think, Stocky.

From when Justice Beale sat down to when we all exited the room.

So fast.

And it felt that fast in there too.

Yeah.

How did this

the end of this trial, I guess, wrap up?

Justice Beale said to the jury, look, the last thing you want is another long speech from me.

which got a chuckle from one of the jurors who always laughs at Justice Beale's jokes.

He said, you've been an exceptional jury.

You've conducted yourself in a way that's caught my attention and you've remained in good spirits, even though this went a lot longer than anyone expected.

And so he said, I thank you again.

And anyone that wants dispensation, I'll give you 15 years of it.

That's if, you know, not having to serve on a jury.

But he said, if you want to, you can, but 15 years grace if you don't.

And then what the jury leaves the room, Justice Beale leaves the room.

Have I got that right?

The jury filtered out, that's right.

And then Justice Beale gave some other instructions to the media and to counsel.

Rich, throughout this whole process, I was standing outside the courtroom.

So outside of the Latrobe Valley Law Courts this afternoon at 1.40 as we got this notification,

that courtyard came alive.

There are people doing live crosses from every major news channel.

There would have been probably 20 photographers all crowded around the door.

Everyone in the the lead-up to this verdict all of the news channels are running through different coverage updating things and as the verdict is coming out they're delivering that in real time so I heard the verdict from TV Journals giving the reports live to the news channels and it was you know such a hectic scene in those moments I haven't even asked you is that how you found out that's how I found out right so I was before my text before your text the first moment I heard was as the news journalists were reading out the verdicts

and then, you know, just waiting to see kind of what unfolded in those moments.

How long?

It wasn't long until you came out of the building, Rach.

We saw Colin Mandy, SC, leaving the building as well.

He's the defence barrister who's represented Aaron Patterson through this process.

We saw him leave.

Stephen Eppenstahl, the police informant, the officer who has led the case, who did the investigation.

It's been two years of his life working through this case and being here at this trial as well.

And then Rach, you mentioned earlier in the pod, one of Aaron Patterson's supporters, Ali, and we saw her leave the court.

And this is a moment where the cameras, you know, all bunched together, crowded around journalists, you know, putting microphones in.

She gave a very, very brief statement to the cameras.

But Rach, I understand, you know, you've spoken since then and have a statement from her.

Yeah, that was a very tight swarm.

I didn't hear what she said.

I think it was something about being sad, stocky.

I caught her later in a quiet moment and she was very sad.

And I said, look, is there anything?

You don't have to, but is there anything you want to say?

Because she's been here every day.

And regardless of what you think about Erin Patterson, these kind of cases do take a toll on people that are there for other people.

Same goes with the Patterson and Wilkinson families.

You know, this has been an incredible toll on them, I'm sure.

So I said, look, is there anything you want to say?

She said, look, I'd asked people to refrain from the vigilanteism and the nastiness that surrounded this case.

She said, the attacks have been really personal on anyone who's supported Erin so far.

They've been unconscionable.

No one who's just supporting a friend and remaining neutral should be treated so, so badly.

So that's from her friend, Ali.

Again, I would love Stocky to bring you guys something from the Patterson or Wilkinson families.

I think their reaction is so, so important.

I hope someday we hear from them, but if we don't, we also have to respect that.

This is a hugely traumatic era, and if they want privacy, then we'll give them privacy.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you, Rach.

Look, we've heard so much evidence over the last 10 plus weeks.

We've had 50 plus witnesses.

Aaron Patterson has now been found guilty of murder and attempted murder, which means the jury was convinced by the prosecution's arguments as they were presented.

Can you remind us what they were?

Sure.

So the main ones, the prosecution argued Erin Patterson never foraged.

She never told her friends and family that she was into foraging.

The prosecution said she was duplicitous and that was talking about an animosity she had towards her in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson.

And this stemmed from, it said, a dispute over...

child support payments.

She wanted them to kind of intervene to help Simon,

you know, come come to his senses and she says, and contribute to these payments.

She was hoping they would be a mediator.

They didn't really want to do that.

They were uncomfortable with that.

So during the trial, we saw a lot of text messages with them and Erin, but also Facebook messages between Erin Patterson and a true crime group that she got to be friends with.

And the prosecution was trying to say she's duplicitous because she acts one way to the Patterson family, but then, you know, is quite nasty to them during these Facebook messages.

The prosecution told the jury about iNaturalist, that there was signs of a search on the citizen science website for iNaturalist, which is we saw later in the trial where people post things they find like death cat mushrooms.

We saw two posts from Christine Mackenzie and Tom May.

And then the prosecution argued that after these two posts of death cat mushrooms in South Gippsland, Erin Patterson's phone pinged in those two locations, in Outram and in Lock.

And then they also showed jurors

a photo of death cat mushrooms.

They put to Tom May in the witness stand, could these be death cats?

And he said, yes, they could be.

And that was one of the same photos that she'd shared on her Facebook

chat group.

Then the big one for the prosecution was four deceptions.

And that's that she lured the guests to lunch with this pretence of having cancer.

That she poisoned the four individual beef Wellingtons with death cat mushrooms, that she feigned sickness to suggest that she'd also ingested these toxins, and that there was a sustained cover-up after the lunch.

And this includes saying that her children had also eaten the leftovers,

so as in

if she knew it was poisonous, she wouldn't have fed them to her beloved children.

that she got some mushrooms from an Asian grocer in Melbourne.

She dumped a dehydrator on the Wednesday after that Saturday lunch and that she gave

police a dummy phone, phone B, when she'd been using phone A for most of that year.

And then the prosecution also told the jury about lies that she told police and other people.

That includes having cancer, lying about never having a dehydrator.

They said that she said she'd been helpful to the health department.

The prosecution disagreed.

And then the purpose of the lunch itself.

Yep.

Rachel, we've got a lot planned for this feed.

We'll have more coming very, very soon.

But can you give us an insight in what happens next?

Where does this process go from here?

Justice Beale asked the Defence Counsel when would be a good time to chat about a plea hearing.

Now, in Victoria, this is also known as a pre-sentence hearing.

So it's the hearing before the sentencing.

And it looks like there'll be a mention, like a directions hearing in the first week of August because Justice Beale is about to go and leave.

We'll keep you up to date with the

basically the timelines of all of this.

As we have promised throughout this podcast,

when there is a day in court that we can report on, we will bring you an episode.

And talking about things that we can talk about, I know we have said that we would bring you details on what the jury didn't hear, answer some of the questions that we haven't been able to answer throughout this pod, but there has actually been an interim suppression order placed over things that have been said without the jury in the room.

So, Rach, that's not something we can do at the moment.

Definitely not.

And we have to respect that.

So I think we'll be hearing more about that very soon.

And as soon as we know how long that order may or may not last, we will let you know.

Yep.

If you want to keep up to date with Mushroom Case Daily, I highly recommend you grab yourself the ABC Listen app.

If you want to refresh your memory about how this has unfolded, we have linked the Friday episodes in that description or in our current episode description, so you can can get back in and check out all of those things.

If you want to learn more about the prosecution's arguments that have led to this moment, you can look at the prosecution's closing.

Please jump back into some of those episodes for a kind of fulsome wrap of all of that as it was unfolding.

And while the verdict may be in, we do have a lot more to tell you though.

So we're going to be producing a summary series on this, taking you back through the kind of events before, during and after lunch that we can report on.

So we'll be preparing for that.

And I think finally, thank you so much for listening to this podcast.

This isn't the end.

That's the end of this chapter, obviously, but it has been so special to take you all through this and, you know, keep you up to date and share this story with you.

Yeah, I echo that.

And on top of being welcomed into this community here in Malwau, which we spoke a lot about in our last episode, Stocky, the most important thing for us has been you guys and all the amazing emails that have come in and we get to see how our work is resonating with you and as well as enlightening you on this case.

You know, a lot of you have said that we've lifted the veil on the justice system and helped you understand that a little bit more, which I've been very honoured to do.

It really has been a privilege to make this for you.

The community that's built around it, the people that talk about it, share stories with me, tell people how much they enjoy it, talk about how much their mums are stoked that they know me has been really wonderful.

So thank you so much for listening to this.

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 a huge thanks to our True Crime colleagues, our commissioning executive producer Tim Roxborough, and supervising producer Yasmin Parry.

Thank you as well to our senior lawyer, Jasmine Sims, for her legal advice every day.

We call her our legal queen, and we really mean it.

We could not do this without her every day.

She's been here from the very start.

Also, shout out to the Victorian Newsroom and Audio Studios manager Eric George.

And finally, to ABC Court reporter Christian Silver, who had the idea for this pod in the first place and brought it to life over a year ago.

Christian, we wouldn't be here without you.

And of course, to you for listening.

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

Hey, I'm Sana Kadar, and I host All in the Mind on ABC Radio National.

It's a show where we investigate why people behave the way they do.

But there's some perspectives we don't often hear about, like what makes people cross the line into criminal behavior.

Are they evil or are they damaged?

Are they both?

After the stealing, they often will describe a sense of pleasure or gratification.

Join us on Criminal Psychology, a special series exploring some of these questions.

Hear it now on the ABC Listen app.