Judging Erin's lies: Our Friday Wrap

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Looks can be deceiving.

I'm ABC Investigative Reporter Rachel Brown.

And I'm Stephen Stockwell.

It is Friday the 27th of June.

We've just finished the ninth week of Aaron Patterson's triple murder trial.

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.

It's a tragedy what happened.

I love them.

Rach, we have found ourselves at the end of the penultimate week in this trial.

Yep, this is is where the rubber hits the road, Stocky.

It is.

Mostly I'm just excited to use the word penultimate in context.

But of course, I am excited to wrap up the week that we have seen as Justice Beale has been giving his directions to the jury just before they retire to consider their verdict.

We are getting so close to this point at the moment.

Before we talk through everything we've heard this week, though, can you give me a wrap of what we heard in court today?

We finished with the alleged incriminating conduct, Stocky.

So the last point was on Erin Patterson allegedly lying about being unwell and faking death cat mushroom poisoning.

And we heard the crux of both the arguments from the defence and the prosecution.

We moved on to what the jury should do with this alleged incriminating conduct, including lies that Erin Patterson has admitted to and conduct that she's admitted to, what the jury should do with that information and what weight to give it.

And then the jury was released for the weekend with a timeline of what to expect.

Thank you, Rach.

It has been a short day.

Fridays are a short day, which is a little treat for us heading into the weekend.

And we began the day, you know, going through the alleged incriminating conduct from Erin Patterson.

Justice Beale actually correcting himself.

No one, it appears, is immune from making an error.

Justice Beale coming in this morning and sort of saying to the jury, Look, no, I said we have one thing to go today, which is Erin Patterson, you know, the prosecution saying that Erin Patterson lied about being unwell following the lunch, but actually, there's one other bit as well.

There's also the lies that she told during the police interview.

These are things like saying she never foraged, that she didn't know to dehydrate her, all of that.

Fortunately, he didn't spend long on these.

Aaron Patterson has admitted to these lies.

So he just sort of went through a few points of what was said in the police interview and just said, you look,

that's all you need from that.

And, you know, going through the claim of Aaron Patterson not being sick following the lunch from the prosecution, Justice Beale again, going through the transcript, highlighting the arguments from each side,

and then dived into and spent a little while talking about and discussing the lies of Erin Patterson.

You know, these are the examples that I've kind of just mentioned, you know, the ones that she's admitted of, you know, lying about not foraging, lying about not having a dehydrated to police, and then also ones that she hasn't admitted, or the defense kind of counters.

These are things like the prosecution's claim that she was lying about being sick following the lunch.

What direction did Justice Beale give the jury around what to do with these rapes, how to to handle them, how to manage them?

He told them you can use this to help assess her credibility

and what to do if they find that she's lied on one thing, what they should make, whether they should believe other things that she has said to witnesses or to them, the jury, during her time in the witness box.

Basically, whether or not they can kind of trust what she's saying broadly, generally.

Precisely.

And Justice Beale said to them, just because she lied about one matter doesn't mean she's lied about everything else.

And this is really interesting because the idea of her being a liar has come up a lot in this trial.

So he was very, very clear on this point.

He said, it's up to you to decide what weight to give suggested lies.

But he said, just because she's told a lie doesn't mean she's guilty.

And he said that a number of times in a few different ways.

And we've heard it throughout his charge.

The other day, Stocky, I said to you that Justice Beale said, even if you don't believe her,

put that evidence to one side and ask yourself if the prosecution has proven its case.

Now, he's been quite clear on that.

We've heard it a few times.

Today, he said, even if you find she did believe that she committed certain offences, you have to consider all the evidence when deciding whether the prosecution has proven its case beyond reasonable doubt.

He said, you know, there are all sorts of reasons why...

people behave in a way that makes them look guilty, but they may have engaged in them even if they're not guilty.

He said, even if she looks guilty, it doesn't mean she is guilty.

And that kind of flows pretty neatly into what he was talking about around incriminating conduct too, right?

Like these are things like, you know, leaving the hospital the first time,

reluctance to have the kids checked, you know, dumping the dehydrator, all that sort of stuff.

He kind of like went through a lot of that and said, look, you know, the prosecution is saying this is incriminating, but you need to remember it could have also been X.

That's right.

And he put to them in a similar kind of cadence each time, you must consider.

So leaving Leigh and Gather Hospital, you must consider whether she thinks she knows better and she's not accepting of their suspicion that she's ingested death cat mushrooms.

For her being reluctant to have the children assessed, you have to consider whether she might have feared that that would cause them stress because they've had previous distressing times dealing with medical professionals.

And maybe Dr.

Webster and his loud voice, as we've spoken about before, put her off, you know, and that she didn't understand why she needed treatment.

But when it was explained to her by another doctor, Dr.

Foote, that had a less blunt approach, that that's when she decided to bring her children in.

And these are the doctors who are working at the Leon Gather Hospital the morning that she has presented, left and then come back on that day.

With the dehydrator, he said, you have to consider.

that she might have panicked and that she was scared of being wrongly accused of deliberately poisoning the guests and she was scared about losing custody of her children.

Because the prosecution has said in those instances and in a bunch of others that we went through in our episodes earlier this week that I recommend you jump back and have a listen to if you want a bit more detail on on some of this and some of the disputed statements and the like

they're basically saying look the reason that Aaron Patterson has acted in these ways is because she is you know she's deliberately tried to harm these people and is worried she's being found out you know leaving the hospital they're saying she's done that because you know it's the real it's the moment that she realizes the allegation from the prosecution is the moment that she realizes that she's been rumbled that um you know that they know there's death cat mushrooms in the meal and she wasn't expecting them to find out you know for not bringing the children in um she knows they haven't eaten the meal is what the what the prosecution is saying and dumping the dehydrator a simple one for the prosecution basically she's trying to get rid of the evidence um and yeah justice bio kind of giving the other side this is his job stocky you know he he has a very important role he's an independent adjudicator we've heard a lot during this trial we've heard a lot of allegations um people have read a lot about it in the media but not these jurors but i mean this is quite a massive case and this is his job to point out everything, and nuance included.

Yes, these big things might stick with you, the lies might stick with you, certain conduct might stick with you, but this is his job to remind them of the nuances, inferences,

and

the bits that they are legally obliged to consider in our justice system.

I mean, yeah,

you say that, and it sort of reminds me of things he was saying earlier this week.

I mean, he was quite specific that when the jury is considering the verdict of guilty or not guilty, you know, they shouldn't be considering the questions that were asked, rather the answers that were given to those questions.

It's kind of a reminder of what the facts are, what the evidence that was given is, kind of underlining a lot of that.

That's right.

And how we perceive things in society is very different sometimes to the legal system.

And certain protocols have to be followed, certain things have to be proven in a certain way.

So he's like the coach.

He's trying to, you know, you might remember

the big plays, but you also have to remember other little strategies that will help you get to your decision.

The one percenters.

Great, great analogy, Rach.

Thank you.

You know, Justice Beale, he's had a big week.

You know, he's been taking us through the, you know, his judges' charge.

You know, he thought he might be finishing on Wednesday.

We are here on Friday.

We are going through to next week.

And he really did look like

he'd been working for it today.

When he moved on to, he said, I'll move to the next topic.

And he took off his glasses and I looked up at him and he rubbed his face really slowly and looked down and said, thank God it's Friday.

And I thought, oh, buddy, we feel you and you're feeling it too.

But he has such a lovely rapport with the jury.

They walked in this morning and he said, morning.

And they all said, morning, Your Honor.

And it reminded me of coming into school, like as if it was a teacher, like, morning, Mr.

Beale.

And he kind of smiled and said, oh, thanks for that.

So he hasn't lost them.

They're holding on, you know, for more instructions from their coach.

Yeah, I mean, like I was saying, it's been a big week.

He has been running through his directions to the jury, which are the final part of this trial of Aaron Patterson.

This is the moment in the trial where he gives them the direction on law.

Like he actually broke it into three bits.

I mean, it was like the principles of law they've got to apply, the issues that they have to decide on, the kind of things that are up for like, you know, up as a bit of a contest that they've got to think through,

and then some direction on like how to get to the verdict.

Like, is that like that?

That's right, yeah.

And we're in the meaty one now.

And he said, I've almost broken the back of that.

And then there'll be some more issues that they have to use to decide this case and the evidence and the arguments that bear upon those issues.

And then, yeah, the final act, shall we say, will be their verdict and reaching a unanimous verdict.

Most of the week has been taken up, you know, in his charge, is kind of like the issues that the jury has to decide on.

Like this is basically him reviewing disputed statements, talking about how to apply expert evidence as well,

you know, talking through the alleged incriminating conduct, which we talked through a bit earlier in the app and also in episodes yesterday, I think maybe even the day before.

and a lot of this was quite dense

you know we've explained in other episodes like and as I've explained in this one you know he's he's reading through transcripts like huge slabs of transcripts from the evidence that was given about a certain event

and yeah we you know we we kind of skimmed a bit of that because it was it was pretty heavy but we've had a lot of questions from people going hey look can you just kind of run us through it

and I was wondering Rachel like you know in a kind of quick list, really fast here, can you take us through, in the disputed statements, what the ones that the kind of prosecution had put forward?

Sure.

So the alleged prior inconsistent statements, what that means, I'll give you an example.

The first one, a tendency to pick and eat wild mushrooms.

So the prosecution's like, that wasn't a thing she did.

You know, she didn't talk to anyone about it.

And the defence says, well, no, she did.

She started during COVID.

So this is an example of one.

The others are whether her children were invited or free to attend the lunch, the source of the mushrooms, how much she ate, how much Gail ate when Erin claimed that she started to experience diarrhea, whether she knew or suspected that her lunch was the cause of her in-law's illness on sunday evening and finally whether erin knew that don and gail were in comas by the morning of the 1st of august yeah um and yeah the way that justice beal would run through it like you gave the example with the pick and eating wild mushrooms um you know you know there were quick arguments that you gave them but justice beal in those instances is reading through the transcript of everything people have said about that and then you know reminding the jury this is what the prosecution said this is what the defense says imagine if you're going through eight of them.

This took a while.

It was a lot.

So for each one of them, it might be what five different doctors said and what a child protection worker said and you name it.

Yeah, yeah.

So we were doing you a favour, is basically what I'm trying to say.

But yeah, that was kind of some of the stuff that was happening through that.

I mean, the ABC has a wonderful live blog.

If you want to go back and read through some more of that, you can check that out as well.

And, you know, the defense, those things that we've gone through there, these are things that the prosecution had specifically asked Justice Beale to highlight in his closing.

He was like, look, they were like, these are the disputed events we want you to make to kind of address and remind the jury of.

The defense did the same sort of thing.

They kind of did it with people, though.

And, you know, kind of a couple of different examples around like, you know, the relationship between Simon Patterson, for example, and Aaron and, you know, what Chris Webster said at a certain point.

So that's kind of how they approached it there, rather than kind of a straight hit of actual events.

Again, same kind of vibe.

You know, X said this.

This is the transcript.

This is the argument from them.

This is the argument from them.

There you go.

Off you go.

Have a good time.

Thanks for watching.

Yeah.

And it might be seen to be hair-splitting, but I mean, this is where everything

is important

when it comes down to the crunch.

So one of these five people, Sally Ann Atkinson, for example, she had

an initial note that Erin Patterson used some of the dried mushrooms soon after she bought them.

Was that true?

Or did her notes have a gap?

And it actually turned out she didn't use any and she put them in a Tupperware container for later.

So again, we're sparing you some quite tedious discussions and timelines.

Yeah.

Also things about like yeah what Aaron Patterson had told certain people at certain points all of these things kind of like rolled through in these pieces.

One of the bits that I found quite interesting was you know a review of some of the expert evidence from Dr.

Matthew Sorrell who's this kind of like phone location base tower expert and then also Sharman Fox Henry who's like a digital forensics officer well like he is a digital forensics officer from the Victoria Police.

These are people who have come in to give evidence around devices and phone locations, things like that.

Justice Christopher Beale has, you know, kind of highlighted their evidence.

He's gone through a lot of that and then just said to the jury, look, you know, these people are experts.

That's why they've given their opinion.

No one else is giving an opinion.

They're just reporting, just relaying facts or their recollections of things.

And it's kind of up to you if you take or leave.

that evidence.

You know, it's up to you.

You're the judges of the facts.

You reminded the jury a lot about this week.

You're the judges of the facts.

You take, you leave what you think is relevant in this case.

That's right.

They've got the most important job here.

And then we, you know, for the most of the last couple of days, we've run through incriminating conduct.

These are things like what we've spoken about at the start of the episode.

I'd recommend jumping into yesterday's episode and the day before to get a more fulsome list of some of that if you want to hear it, because there's a lot of detail in here that we, you know, we've kind of covered in some of them.

So jump into that.

But Rachel, I do want to talk about a point from yesterday where we were going through one of those kind of things that was considered, you know, criminating conduct that is the alleged lies around feeding the children leftovers and you know the prosecution claimed that um if they had eaten that they would have gotten sick uh and justice beal had a really specific direction for the jury around around that sort of you know suggestion from the prosecution yeah and just don't don't make that mental leap because you can't you know they're suggesting that they must have how how could you not get sick if you eat something with death cat mushrooms in them erin patterson told the court she scraped off the mushroom paste So Justice Beale, in trying to tie off that issue, said, you actually didn't hear any expert evidence whether those toxins would have penetrated the meat.

No experts were asked that on the stand, you know, and whether these tests that were done on the leftovers that showed up with alpha and beta amanitin, you know, is that because it was in the meat or is it because it was on the bits of matter that had it adhered to the meat that was also being tested.

Yeah.

Really specific, really detailed scientific evidence.

We're getting to at certain points of that.

But, you know, again, kind of highlighting the value of a judge's charge, I suppose, where you have the independent arbiter, the coach in this situation, Rach, kind of going, look, this bit here, don't worry about this bit.

You know, you actually didn't hear specific evidence to get you to that point, so you shouldn't consider that argument.

Yeah, I've really never seen it, the value of the charge

as crystallized as clearly as here.

I just, I, you know, I wish Justice Beale would help me make some of my big life decisions, quite frankly.

Rach, as we wound our way through the week, I mean, the timeline that we are working towards with this trial,

it's like a rubber band, just sort of gets pulled out and stretched and changed and all that.

You know, last week,

just expands and contracts.

Last week, Justice Beale was saying, look, you know, best case, I'm done by Wednesday afternoon.

I think we knew by maybe even Tuesday afternoon that we were not getting done by Wednesday afternoon.

He's He's saying, okay, look, maybe we're done on Thursday.

Then it was, maybe we finished Friday.

Here we are Friday.

And then it was, we live in hope.

Yeah, it was, we live in hope.

Rach, where are we up to?

What are we looking at here?

Justice Beal has told the jury he expects to finish his charge before lunch on Monday.

Okay, great.

So we think Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday?

No, let's go with Monday lunch.

He said, look, I've still got a bit to go in the first part, but I've more than broken the back of it.

Other issues that they have to decide in the case, he'll run through them.

And then the third part about it being a unanimous verdict that's required, he said, will be mercifully brief.

Excellent.

He said, look, don't let anyone get in your ear over the weekend.

Only discuss it with fellow jurors in the privacy of the jury room.

Please have a media blackout as far as you're concerned, which is something that he tells them when they go away every weekend.

Just a little reminder.

And he said, good coach, he said, you're doing a great job.

Keep it up.

Have a good weekend and come back refreshed.

Oh, that's very kind of him.

Something I want to pass on that Justice Beale has said a few times through the trial.

I know, you know, we're here going into week 10 of what was initially supposed to be a four to six week trial,

he said it's no one's fault.

You know, he's been, you know, he's not blaming anyone in the situation, certainly not the jurors' faults.

No, it is, and everyone's just trying to be thorough.

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

So we're, you know, working through it.

And again, you know, trying to be thorough, trying to make sure everything's in there.

And, you know, when you're looking at the length of the charge as well, you know, this is something that's been going for almost a week at this point.

But you have to remember that we've had seven, eight weeks of evidence.

Then we've had closing arguments.

We've had all of this stuff coming in.

So there's just a huge volume of data.

You know, I was looking at My Notes document, which I've spoken about before, which is nowhere near as detailed as some of the other court reporters' documents.

I think I'm up to like 150 pages.

It's like 70,000 words or something like that.

It's some like, you know, basically a thesis at this point.

So yeah, it's a huge bit of, a huge amount of information to kind of get through and synthesize.

And that's what Justice Beale is doing at the moment.

Speaking of synthesising information, though, Rach, we're getting a lot of wonderful questions.

Emailed to mushroomcased daily at abc.net.au.

And I was wondering if you'd help synthesize some information for us now in our answers to that.

Start here with a question from Liz.

Hi, team.

Thanks so much for the podcast.

Liz, our pleasure.

I'm loving your wrap-ups.

One thing I've been wanting to ask you is for you to describe Mr.

Hastings, the tip staff, in more detail.

I feel like every time you mention him, there's a little chuckle in your voice.

He sounds like quite a character, just like Justice Beale.

I'd love to get a clearer picture of him.

He is, Liz.

And the reason, just because of the little glimmer in his eye I catch every now and then, he has a very important job.

He has to keep order in the courtroom.

You know, if anyone's on their phone or laptops that shouldn't be, we get a special dispensation because we're media.

But if anyone's using their phone, he's right on it.

you know, and gives them a very stern, you can't do that.

But I've given him a sly smile every now and then and I see a little twinkle in his eye.

So I think he's a good egg.

I've been on the receiving end of a, you shouldn't be on your phone from Mr.

Hastings because I rock up to court.

I don't know you.

I rock up to court in a hoodie and jeans most days.

And I don't think I was sitting in a media seat.

And so I was sitting there trying to probably send a message to the Mushroom Case Daily team.

And I got a Stern put that away in about week two of the trial.

So,

you know, still a very nice man.

You know, he's doing his job.

He's doing a very good job.

He did it in a very solid way in that instance.

Rach, another question.

here from Alex.

Alex says, hi, you've been joking about the jury bringing their toothbrushes.

And this is something we've said the last couple of days.

It was a joke that actually Justice Beale made, telling the jury they didn't need to bring their toothbrushes, indicating they wouldn't be heading away to retire to consider the verdict earlier this week.

And Alex says, I gather from this that the jury will be put up in a hotel or something and can't go home until a verdict is reached.

How isolated are there, really?

Question mark.

Is it like COVID hotel quarantine where their meals are brought to them and they can't leave their room?

Deliberation lasts a long time to get their laundry done for them.

Can they FaceTime with family in the evenings?

Can they use the internet for things other than reading news?

Rach.

Yeah, Alex, they're going to be sequestered.

So the jurors will have very limited contact with the outside world.

They'll be sequestered for the whole time.

There are people called jury keepers that look after them.

What a name.

One of our producers, Yaz, said it sounds very mystical, and it does.

They are the point people for the jurors.

And so jurors, family members will be given their phone number, the jury keeper's phone number, in case of any emergencies or things like that.

So they've got someone to contact.

But otherwise, no.

The jurors don't get to have any kind of communication with friends and family.

I'm going to assume they get their laundry done.

I'm not sure, though.

It's a really good question, Alex.

We'll find out.

We will find out.

Actually, it's a very well-timed question.

When the jury goes away to deliberate, depending on how long they're deliberating for, we're hoping to answer a lot of your questions around jurors and juries and how this all works.

So if you have a question, please get in touch, mushroomcase daily at abc.net.au and send it through.

Put just, you know, jury question in the subject line or something like that and tell us how much you love the pod.

And, you know, that's a really good way to get straight through.

Another question here, Rach, from Owen.

He's following the instructions.

He says, hi, Stephen and Rachel.

Loving the podcast and thoroughly look forward to each episode as it turns up in my feed.

Owen, it's our pleasure.

You're so welcome.

Owen's question is regarding the legal discussion that the jury are not privy to and which you are understandably avoiding talking about while the trial is ongoing.

Are these matters that you can or intend to discuss once the trial is over?

Further to that, are those discussions likely to be be of interest to the average listener?

Are they more focused on the final legal points which are likely to not mean much to the average Joe?

We might have given you a bit of an example today about the hair splitting, some might call it.

So yeah, we will after this trial.

You might regret that.

Maybe some might find tedious, some you might find really interesting, but we'll save that for one of the episodes for when the jury comes back with the verdict.

Yeah, no, there's there have actually been, you know, while there's a lot of it that is quite tedious and I can, you know, full-throatedly attest to it being incredibly tedious at times, there's been some fascinating things that have happened while the jury hasn't been in the room.

And I'm really looking forward to be able to kind of like bring you behind the curtain once the verdict is returned to keep you posted with that.

We'll mention probably a couple of them when we do our verdict episode on that day, and then we'll have an episode following that as well, which goes into a bit more detail of some of the things the jury didn't hear in this trial.

And our final question today is from Judith and Anna.

Hi, Rachel and Stocky.

The pod continues to deliver absolute gold.

It's Judith and Anna here reporting in from Marupna and Shepperton.

Back in the early days, Christian, who was hosting the pod with me for the first five weeks of this trial, he painted a lovely picture of Morwell, all friendliness and good humor.

Now that we are rolling into week 10, how?

Question mark, exclamation mark, we're curious, are you still feeling the love?

Are the locals still buoyant and basking in their moment in the spotlight?

Or has the novelty worn off?

Appreciate the Morwell vibe check.

Well, Judith, Anna, I would say, if anything, they like us more now because we haven't just been here for like two weeks and thrown in and flat out.

I feel like I do live in Morwill at the moment.

Like we've got our favorite people at various cafes and pubs.

I had a lovely interaction the other day.

I'm not sure if I've shared this on the pod already, but I was on the phone outside of a cafe while Rach was inside ordering lunch.

And one of the staff, Rhea, stuck her head out and kind of like, you know, flagged me out and was like, hey, look, are you having lunch?

You know, this is just the normal stuff you want.

And I was like, yes, please, thank you.

Yeah, you're a local now.

And by the time I was off the phone, my lunch was on the table in the cafe, which was absolutely delightful.

And we made friends at some of the pubs, which has been great.

And also, you know, it's interesting as well as the people that we're meeting around town.

We're also now becoming quite close with all of the other reporters that have been following this trial for the last nine weeks.

I have comfortably spent more time with people from the Herald Sun, The Australian, Nine, The Age, The Daily Mail in the last nine weeks than I have with my colleagues from the ABC who are based in the, you know, in the capital cities.

And there's a real sense of camaraderie and collegiality amongst all of all of the media here.

We're going out for dinner a lot of the time.

So it's been really sweet.

It's lovely to kind of be part of like a quite small-knit community in the sense of the reporters working on the case and then a larger community and the people around Morwell and the town that we're living in.

Yeah, we got a lovely email today, Stocky, from Ian, one of the guards at the court.

You might remember he brought us musticks as a thank you once.

He wrote that, you know, I know many of you have been away from home for weeks living out of hotels and still managing to hit deadlines and report with accuracy and integrity.

And he said, you know, I always thought a lot of you looked at each other like the competition, you know, if not the enemy, but it's been great to see the camaraderie that's developed throughout.

So it's really nice that those things are being noticed.

You know, sometimes the media gets criticised, often it's deserved, but it's nice when

Other things are seen in us like this.

You know, it's, I love seeing our mates in the cafe, their smiling faces every morning, that they know our lunch order.

What I've really appreciated most this week is the emails that we get, you know, thanking us for insight into the court process.

Because I've been doing it for a while now, I don't see it in the same way.

You're a good barometer, Stocky.

You often get excited about things.

I'm like, what, really?

But the emails have been the best part, I think, because people have thanked us for pulling back the veil a little on the workings of the court, which many people never have or hopefully will have to experience.

So we've got some thanks for that for informing people about the justice system, being empathetic while still being impartial.

You know, so much of my work is in isolation and, you know, it's rare to get such timely and personal feedback from the people who this work is for.

So yeah, I really can't explain how much that means to me.

So thank you.

If you would like to probably just make Rachel cry, you can send us an email, mushroomcasedaily at abc.net.au with your questions, with your feedback, your thoughts on the pod.

You know, Racha, I'm incredibly lucky on weeks like this where there are moments where I don't need to dedicate my entire attention to the charge of Justice BL.

I am able to head through the emails and read them all myself.

And it's been a real treat hearing how much people are enjoying the pod, what people are getting from it.

So hopefully, you know, you're enjoying the podcast and it's helping you understand the justice system.

If you are one of those people, I'd love it if you could jump onto whatever podcast app you use, give us a review, leave us a rating.

It means that other people can help learn about this process as well.

Rach, as we find our way towards the end of the episode, I want to do around the grounds.

We've got people listening all over the world, all over Australia, absolutely, all through regional Australia.

Absolutely fantastic.

But I love hearing from some of our further flung pod listeners.

Do you want to start us off with some people we've got around the world?

Sure.

We've got Karen in Malta and Mon and Pat listening over Breci in Malta and Spain.

Anna in central Italy, Jackie in Belgium and Liz in Switzerland.

We've got Shauna in Carolina, Katie in Washington DC, Julie in California, Kendra in Cannapolis, North Carolina, and Tonchi in Houston.

We've got Frances from the Bruce Peninsula in Canada.

We've got Monique in Monster near The Hague in the Netherlands, Cecile in Denmark, Ellie listening from England, Aoife in London, Sarah in Liverpool, John Paul from Swansea in Wales, Mark from Shropshire, Andrew from Shropshire and Richard in Huddersfield.

Hannah, Dundee, Scotland, Helena from from Frankerton in Scotland.

In Ireland, we've got Mary and Adam from County Clare and Kay in Cork.

This is just a small sample of some of our listeners.

If you've emailed us from somewhere far for long and I haven't gotten to it, it's because I probably spent about 15 minutes today madly scrolling through the spreadsheet that collects our emails, trying to find people from around the world.

We do love hearing from you.

Please get in touch.

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

If you've got questions about the jury you'd like us to answer for next week, please get in touch.

Any other questions as well about the process, about the trial of Aaron Patterson, please reach out.

Love hearing from you.

Love reading your emails.

And we'll have time as the jury retires.

You can give me something to do.

I'd love to read your emails.

You might even get a reply if I find myself particularly bored during deliberations.

And do they have like a couch for us in Malta?

Perhaps.

I don't know how that works with the ABC gift registry, Rach, but look, you know, send us an email.

We're open to it.

Also, while I'm asking things of you, you know,

I'm a fan of the ABC Listen app.

If you want to find yourself with the episodes of Mushroom Case Daily a little sooner than they are on other podcast services, they're up first on ABC Listen, about half an hour before they appear on everything else as they work their way through the internet.

No idea how it works, but, you know, it works.

But yeah, ABC Listen app, wonderful way to listen to Mushroom Case Daily and a huge amount of other wonderful ABC content available on there.

Rach.

End of week nine.

What are we expecting in week 10?

Monday, we'll have the judge's charge and then the jury goes out for deliberations.

Real pointy end stuff here on Mushroom Case Daily and in the trial of Aaron Patterson.

Be back in your feed on Monday.

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 who keep helping us out.

Our commissioning executive executive producer Tim Roxborough and our supervising producer Yasmin Parry.

A big thank you as well to senior lawyer Jasmine Sims, our legal queen who provides us with legal advice every single day.

And also a shout out to the Victorian newsroom and audio studios manager Eric George.

This episode was produced on the land of the Gunai Konai people.

Deeply insightful.

One hour.

Deeply personal.

Two mics.

Two microphones.

Four walks going at the same time, one for each hand.

Can you murder him, please?

Hey, what?

Unforgettable stories.

We got hit by a wave and I was just in this sort of penumbra of bubbles, this world of fizz.

And it was very beautiful.

I didn't notice that I was drowning.

Hear the latest from Conversations.

Find it on the ABC Listen app.