The biggest moments of Erin's Evidence: Our Friday Wrap

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The calm before the closings.

I'm ABC Investigative Reporter Rachel Brown.

And I'm Stephen Stockwell.

It is Friday, the 13th.

of June and we've just reached the end of the seventh week of this 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.

We've reached the end of the seventh week of Erin Patterson's triple murder trial.

With the conclusion of evidence from the defence teams and the prosecution teams, Justice Beale decided to give the jury the day after day, Rach.

Not us, though, Stocky?

No, he's unfortunately not our boss.

But so much has happened this week, we did want to wrap it up for you.

I'm really keen to get an idea of some of the moments that have stuck with you, Rach.

Now that the prosecution and the defence have rested, I want to hear some kind of reflections on what we've heard throughout the entirety of the cases that they've presented.

But first, this week has been a week of Erin Patterson's cross-examination.

She has spent hours in the box, days, really.

How long?

Like, when you add it all up?

Eight days of the week, Stocky, but seven, I think, in total.

We had about three days of examination in chief from Colin Mandy, SC, her barrister, and then four days in cross-examination by Dr.

Nanette Rogers, the prosecutor.

So we have, because Erin Patterson is a defence witness, you know, throughout this trial, we've seen Dr.

Nanette Rogers or Jane Warren from the prosecution usually talking to the witnesses first.

In this instance, because Aaron Patterson is a defence witness, Colin Mandy kind of got the first go to run through that.

That was most of what we got last week.

And yeah, this week, Dr.

Nanette Rogers taking her through it.

Yeah, she had the stage for most of this week, Stocky.

And

I want to take you through some of the bigger points that she was trying to make to the jury.

One of them, you know, we spent a lot of time on this.

Dr.

Rogers saying that you made things up to explain why you weren't as sick as your lunch guests, you know.

And this line I think has stuck with a lot of people.

She said,

and I quote, I suggest that you never thought you'd have to account for this lie about having cancer because you thought the lunch guests would die and your lie would never be found out, correct or incorrect.

Erin Patterson said, that's not true.

But Nanette Rogers was saying Erin Patterson allegedly hadn't expected doctors to work out so quickly.

that death cat mushrooms were in the meal.

She alleged that Erin Patterson thought it would be just treated as food poisoning.

So Dr.

Rogers has said you had to make these things up quickly as you went.

The reason why you weren't as sick as the others.

Dr.

Rogers said you made up the story about the Asian grocer.

She said that was a lie.

You know, you sent the health department on a wild goose chase looking for a grocer that didn't exist.

Now, this is a prosecution story.

Yep.

I should repeat.

And then again, we went through the game of phones, which we talked about yesterday, all the phones in the household the different sim cards when different numbers were used why she used multiple ones and we heard again stocky about Erin's history of foraging Erin says she liked picking mushrooms wild mushrooms dr.

Rogers said nope that's a lie too yeah it was you know the way you were describing that just before the the kind of the proposition and then the correct or incorrect you know if there was a theme of this week, it was that style of questioning from Dr.

Nanette Rogers, the prosecutor.

Correct or incorrect, agree or disagree.

Yeah, I must have heard that.

God, it would be

probably thousands of times at this point.

Yeah, that was really interesting.

And it's interesting when you look at the way that this is framed between the defence and the prosecution, right?

You know, this is how the prosecution has, you know, kind of presented these facts.

The defence in their opening, you know, when talking about a lot of Aaron Patterson's behavior following the lunch and following the deaths of the guests, was basically saying this is a person who has panicked.

And we'll kind of come to the differences differences of the way the prosecution approaches this and the way the defence approaches this a bit later in this episode.

The other point of this week, outside of correct or intercorrect, disagree or agree or agree or disagree, I should say,

was the evidence from the Enrich Clinic in Melbourne.

And there's a lot going on here.

Just a heads up,

we're going to talk about eating disorders, so if that's something that

is challenging for you, potentially just a heads up to skip through a bit of this.

But yeah, to get to the Enriched Clinic and what Aaron Patterson has said over the last couple of weeks and then what evidence has presented around that, I want to go back to the lunch, Rach, and kind of what the guests were told, particularly what Ian Wilkinson said he was told at that lunch.

Well, this is where it all started, didn't it?

So Ian Wilkinson, the surviving, the sole surviving guest from that lunch, says that they ate their beef Wellingtons and then after the lunch, the issue of cancer comes up.

So I think from memory, it was a relative of Don Patterson that had cancer.

Ian Wilkinson told the court that Erin announced that she had cancer and that she was very concerned.

She believed it was serious, life-threatening.

She was anxious about how to tell the kids.

Should I tell them or not tell them about this threat to my life?

Ian Wilkinson told the court he remembered it being some sort of ovarian or cervical cancer and he said she spoke about a diagnostic test because there was a spot on the scan that he remembered he thought was said to be a tumor.

So they started talking about possible or planned treatment.

So that's what Ian remembers.

Erin Patterson says, and this brings us to Enrich,

that she was considering gastric bypass surgery or gastric banding surgery.

She says she's been struggling with her weight since her 20s.

Leading up to the lunch, she told the court that she'd been vomiting two or three times a week.

So

she says that she kept the cancer idea alive in their minds as a possibility for treatment

because she was considering having gastric bypass surgery and she would need help with logistics around the kids.

And then she could sort that out and see whether they could help with appointments after school.

you know, trips to school.

Kind of like that.

And that she wouldn't have to tell them the real reason because she says that she was ashamed and embarrassed, that she couldn't control her weight.

Yeah, yeah, kind of like a, you know, I think for lack of a better word, almost like a cover, this cancer story for the reason that,

well, for this other, you know, procedure that she was thinking of getting.

And then as this was a kind of like question or sort of like looked at in a bit more detail.

So we first heard about this story from Aaron Patterson when she was giving her evidence in chief to Columb NDSC, who is her barrister.

And then under questioning from Dr.

Nanette Rogers, the prosecutor, these are the people who have kind of brought the charges of murder and attempted murder against Aaron Patterson.

Dr.

Rogers started asking a few more questions about, okay, so what was this clinic you were going to?

What were you

trying to get done?

All of that stuff to try and pick it apart.

And we saw that evolve over the course of this week.

And I mean, starting last week, I think Friday last week, we first heard the name, the Enriched Clinic.

And then this week, we started seeing a bit more detail and a bit more questioning about that, right?

and they'd got they'd quickly got shall I say a statement from the practice manager did she have an appointment yes she did the 13th of September it seems it was cancelled on the 11th of September two days earlier

they dr Rogers raised this idea that that clinic doesn't do gastric bypass surgery

so

suggesting Erin Patterson was lying about this.

Erin said, look, I was also considering other weight loss options like liposuction.

Perhaps the clinic did that.

So when we came back to re-examination, Colin Mann DSC picked up that line and said, you know, we've looked, the clinic does seem to have offered liposuction in the past up until 2023, I believe.

Yeah, it was interesting seeing

the screenshot, I think it was, that Colin Man DSC showed the court yesterday showing that firstly the clinic had moved since 2023 when Aaron Patterson had made that appointment and then also saying that from I think sometime maybe last year they weren't going to be offering liposuction procedures anymore.

The thing as well from this whole process that we heard a little bit about this week with Dr.

Rogers,

you know, Erin Patterson talking about

this kind of binging and purging that she said she had been doing in you know in the years leading up to the lunch,

talking about how following the lunch that she had eaten the best part of an orange cake that was brought a dessert and then following that had vomited and thrown that up and then questioning today, questioning, not today I should say, questioning this week from Dr.

Rogers, talking about how, well, is that why you weren't as sick?

Because you had thrown up the Beef Wellington meal with the death cat mushrooms that you say were kind of included in that accidentally.

So, yeah, I guess that was a really interesting point to see as well in that line of questioning as well.

Erin Patterson saying, look, I don't know.

I can't say what I did or didn't throw up.

And she was trying to nail her down on the timing too.

And Erin said, look, I can't remember when I threw it up.

I think it was closer to lunchtime, like closer to 2.45, because that's when her guest left then dinner time, but I don't know the exact time.

She was asked, do you remember what was in it, in the vomit?

And she said, oh, God, I didn't study it.

I'm not sure.

Yeah, didn't see any corn or anything in there.

And there was a back and forth.

Well, you didn't eat any corn, did you?

It was kind of a bit of a

testy exchange.

Yeah.

Rach, as well as the, you know, this kind of, this evidence from the Enriched Clinic we've seen this week and the way that's been questioned by the prosecution and then kind clarified, I suppose, as well by the defence.

The other thing that I've noticed from this week is Aaron Patterson seeming to disagree with a number of witnesses that we've heard from throughout this entire trial, from dozens and dozens of witnesses, I think 50 plus.

Dr.

Rogers putting to her different testimony from different people, questioning her, Erin Patterson, in some cases saying, no, that's not what I said or I don't remember, or clarifying details around that.

It was interesting, the difference.

And she says that, you know, she's spoken to so many medical experts that she told the court, and two spring to mind in my memory, two, she says she can't even remember at all.

Like, can't remember the conversation at all,

not just bits of it.

And she said, look, I was talking to dozens of medical experts.

doctors, nurses.

I also had the health department texting me and calling me, trying to work out where the grocer was.

So that's her reason for not remembering certain conversations.

But her answers to a lot of these questions from Dr.

Rogers did get quite testy, as I said before, because her answers were, well, you know, I'll give you an example.

A nurse invited you into this bay to be assessed at Lean Gather Hospital.

And Erin said, no, I didn't respond to a question she didn't ask.

You know, saying, not only, I'm not going to answer that because I don't even remember her asking that because I don't remember talking to her at all.

So she didn't want to be led down avenues like that.

And the way that she challenged the evidence, or not challenged is probably the wrong word, kind of clarified is probably clearer what happened more often,

was also different when

there were kind of differences in what she had told compared to the testimony from her children as well.

The word that she used quite a few times for

variances in her children's evidence were I think they were mistaken.

So one example, Stocky, is her son doesn't remember her stopping on the way to his flying lesson on the Sunday.

This is immediately following the lunch.

That's correct, the day after.

Erin Patterson, as we know, has told the court that she had to pull over to do a bush poo, basically, that she had diarrhea, used tissues,

put them in a doggy poo bag.

put that bag in her purse that she then says she put in the toilets at the BP service station.

But her son doesn't remember that.

So, you know, and another one

was

whether or not she instructed them to go to the movies, her children.

She remembers it being that they wanted to go to the movies, but we've heard evidence from the children that I think her daughter said something like, oh, it was spoke that we're going to have adult discussion, something like that.

This is instead of being present at the lunch on the 29th of July 2023.

That's right.

And her son gave evidence.

Mum said she wanted it to be just the five of them.

I thought it would just be personal reasons.

She wanted to talk about something either to do with me or my sister that she was worried about.

I'm not sure.

But here's Stocky.

I think here's where it's so important, where nuance is so important, that some things that her son has said he doesn't remember,

like...

it being put to him that his mum was a forager, for example.

And the son and daughter don't remember Erin foraging in that sense.

But remember, our chat

feels like a billion years ago but I do remember her son talking about a photograph of a mushroom that Erin took in the Corranborough Botanical Gardens because I remember his comment on that that Erin thought it was a lovely photograph and he remembers it because of the symbiotic relationship between mushrooms and trees and how they support each other.

I remember me telling you that's kind of almost like it's like a family.

So I think nuance is going to be really important in this case.

Yeah, it's interesting as well.

I mean, I'm reading a lot about what is happening in court, and the thing that I've noticed you don't get in so much of that is the kind of the tone or the pauses and the reflection, like the way that things read is so different to how they were actually said.

So, that nuance will be interesting to see how the jury interprets all that and what weight they apply to that as well.

They'll get all the transcripts and all that of these conversations, and then they'll be able to remember what was actually said, how those exchanges went.

Even pauses are so important, aren't they, sometimes?

You know, you've just reminded me of something that came up this week, that Dr.

Rogers suggested to Erin that she paused before agreeing that Simon Patterson should pick the children up and bring them to the hospital.

And there was a bit made about this pause, you know, and Dr.

Rogers was suggesting the pause was because she realised that insisting on picking them up herself might undermine her alleged pretense of being unwell.

But Erin's reply to that was that she

because

she said Simon Patterson's tone was really sarcastic, and that put her off.

Right.

Interesting.

The thing, again, on the tone, and I mean, the style, I guess, of the questioning we've seen this week.

We've seen most of the week, Dr.

Annette Rogers cross-examining Erin Patterson, which is that very,

you know, aggressive is not the word, but it is very direct, the questioning.

It's putting a proposition, it is an agree or disagree, it is recounting things that have been said.

That is one approach that we've seen this week.

The other approach that we've seen this week that we saw last week as well is Colin Mandiesi and the way that he questions Erin Patterson.

You know, obviously her defence solicitor, this is the person who is defending her from the charges of murder and attempted murder.

So very different approach, very different style.

And Erin is very different in her responses to the different parties.

That's right.

And it's because, you know, when dealing with Colin Mandiesi, he's part of her team, you know, and he is trying to draw out, I think, more emotive replies, you know, and paint her

as a person as opposed to some of the one-dimensional images that we're getting out of scientific witnesses, for example.

So Colin Mandy, SC, you know, it's his job, he's keenly listening the whole time to see whether he needs to jump up as kind of her goalie, in a sense, to make sure that no questions that go through to the keeper are inappropriate or not phrased the right right way.

Yeah, breaching the rules of the way that they're allowed to kind of question people who are in the witness box and the kind of procedures of court.

I've also noticed, and I noticed this particularly yesterday, when we saw the change from Dr.

Annette Rogers back to Colin Mandiassee for that re-examination, you know, Erin Patterson talking a lot about her children, about her family, and things like that to Dr.

Rogers and being quite direct in her response, quite clear in her response.

And then, you know, when questioned by Colin Mandiassee, when he's looking to draw those sort of longer, more emotional answers out, she got more emotional talking about her children.

The children and sense of belonging that we've spoken about before, belonging to the Patterson family, are the two issues that I've noticed her get most upset about when she's drawn on.

But you're right, very different style from Dr.

Rogers, as it needs to be.

She doesn't...

necessarily want the long-winded answers.

She doesn't want explanations.

She just wants yeses or no's for the jury to consider.

And that kind of explains the staccato tone that we've spoken about before, that sometimes machine gun fire style.

Incorrect, correct.

Incorrect, correct.

Go agree, disagree.

She just wants quick answers for the jury.

Yeah.

Rach, as we find ourselves at the end of the seventh week of Aaron Patterson's true murder trial, we've spoken through kind of the key details and the key evidence that we've heard.

What has been a moment of this week that you have found yourself returning to or thinking about?

It felt quite heavy this week, Stocky, and I don't think it's just because it's week seven.

I think it's because Erin Patterson was in the box for all of it.

And as you touched on, it's been very emotional, very personal.

You know, she has got upset when talking about her children, you know, when talking about inviting Heather Wilkinson to lunch because she wanted to show her her garden.

You know, those emotional bits have really stuck with me.

But that has also got me thinking about the Patterson and Wilkinson families who have been there for much of the trial, especially Ian Wilkinson.

He's been there most days and I just think it would be pretty tough to be sitting there listening to all this evidence and he's done so very gracefully.

So I just wonder whether these families, what they're hoping to get from coming every day, is it closure?

Is it answers that they still feel like they don't have?

I'm not sure.

And we may never know.

I was in the court for a day this week.

I'm not sure.

It's all blurred into one.

But I remember sitting reasonably close to Ian Wilkinson, who's the surviving guest of the lunch, and thinking exactly this.

You know, this is a man who's been here almost every day, as far as I can recall, sitting

in the courtroom watching the proceedings.

The thing I've, you know, I've thought back a bit on this week, and

it's been dense.

There's been a lot that we have been going through.

It has been a lot of questions, kind of moving between different topics to Erin Patterson.

But the moment that I has kind of stuck with me was the way that Erin Patterson talked about Dr.

Chris Webster

telling her or asking her about her children, bringing her to children's hospital, saying, you know, they could be scared and alive or dead.

And not so much, I mean, that...

that sentence itself is a big sentence and the way that Erin spoke about it was that that hadn't quite landed with her.

The thing that sort of surprised her was that this doctor was shouting at her.

And as we've discussed in this podcast previously, when Dr.

Chris Webster was giving evidence himself,

booming voice, very loud voice, filled the courtroom.

And Erin said in the box that she had since realised that that was his inside voice.

Booming is the perfect word and a lot of the witnesses have been asked to move closer to the microphone so the jury can hear them.

Chris Webster did not get that direction.

Not one for Dr.

Chris Webster.

I also appreciated the mention this week of the Bristol Stool chart.

That's a small moment and it's something that if you are not familiar with, I would recommend just chasing up and having a peruse of.

It was a week of discussion of bodily functions in the courtroom and that is something that you can really take home with you.

Rach, as we reach the point where both the prosecution and defence teams have rested their case, what are your reflections on, I guess, everything we've seen or heard over the last seven weeks?

This is a really tough question, but I think it comes back to

the essence of this case, which is the lunch, you know, and how the certain ingredients of this case, shall we say, has

captured the world's attention, you know, and we can talk about that later down the track, why we think that that's happened.

But that's then led to this trial where we've heard, you know, rivers of evidence about amannitin, which is the death cat toxin, what it does to your liver.

We've heard about base stations, you know, we've gone from this whiplash from medical advice to scientific advice.

And I think it's going to be really interesting to see how all of this is distilled and contextualized for the closings and what each counsel wants to leave most with the jury?

Yeah, I think for me it is partly just how much information there is.

I've got a document that I'm kind of like noting down bits and pieces in, and my process of taking notes has changed dramatically over the course of the trial.

Initially it's like very reflective and I realised that the thing I need is actually more kind of like conversations and verbative notes about what's actually happening.

So that's changed.

But I've got over the course of the trial tens of thousands of words that I have written.

My notes are nowhere near as detailed as some of the kind of of pure court reporters who we share the room with in the Latrobe Valley Law Courts.

They would have hundreds of thousands of words of notes.

There is just so much information.

And the other thing is how the story appears to change as different evidence is presented.

And we've spoken about this in the pod before when we were hearing about different scientists analysing the remains of the meal and one person not finding microscopic elements of death cat mushrooms, but then another person finding traces of the toxin and how that sort of seems to change the story over days.

And again, in the last week or so, Erin Patterson's story of

booking this weight loss surgery pre-appointment with the Enrich Clinic,

hearing the story of how she booked that and why she had made that booking and why she told guests or had this discussion with guests about cancer.

And then hearing the different elements of that kind of presented to the court over the course of course of all this I find really interesting.

And yeah, how that seems to change what we're hearing.

And it's a really good reminder that, you know, we're not at the end of this.

You know, there's still things that don't seem to have been tied up and all of that, I guess.

I mean, is that something that we get to soon?

Yeah, so Stocky, on Monday, actually, so the closing start with the prosecution, it will go through, I'm sure, its big ticket items.

It said at the very beginning, as you remember, that it's not going to be proposing any motive.

So the jury will have to decide on one of those important elements of murder, which is intent without motive.

You know, so it will have to draw its own conclusions.

And then once the prosecution's closing has finished, we move to the defence.

And that will be the defence's last bid

to offer the jury some thoughts before it heads out to decide Erin Patterson's fate.

And then after that is the judge's charge, and that's when he gives final directions to the jury.

And that's in relation to the law.

They decide the facts, but he has to guide them on law.

And he'll be summarising the issues and the evidence and the arguments that they need to consider.

And then they'll retire to deliberate and they'll be doing so sequestered.

So they won't be going home to friends and family as to quarantine their deliberations.

Yeah.

We're about to enter a huge week in this trial where so much of what we've heard over the last seven weeks is kind of put in a way that is going to, you know, for both sides, for the prosecution and for the defense to try and crystallise their arguments to the jury.

And for you as well, if you're listening to Mushroom Case Daily, we'll be doing that as well, helping you understand where both of these teams are presenting and where they're going with the evidence that we've heard over the last seven weeks.

Rach, before we finish up for today, I've had some wonderful questions coming in.

If you've got questions, please get in touch.

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

We love hearing everything from you, your feedback, your thoughts, your ideas, and obviously, most importantly, your questions.

I want to start, Rach with a question here from Lauren on Rundry Country, which is Melbourne.

Lauren says, Hi, Rach and Stoggy.

Firstly, hope Christian and family are doing well.

Christian, if you haven't been playing along for a long time, was hosting the pod with me for the first five weeks of the trial and has retired, well, not

has departed briefly while he expects a child with his lovely wife, which is very exciting.

Secondly, Lauren says, loving the pod and agree with the previous listener, please bring the case of Samantha Murphy later in the year.

So look, we'll put it on the list, Lauren.

Thank you very much.

Finally, to Lauren's question.

Does Erin have a dog?

I'm a proud owner of a beautiful seven-year-old Staffy, Jerry, named after Jerry Seinfeld, of course, and I do not have dog poo bags in my car or handbag.

I find it odd Erin had them handy to dispose of her diarrhea tissues in her car, and even more so if she doesn't own a dog.

Lauren, she does.

And you might remember from evidence that Erin Patterson gave the court,

this was one of the reasons why she left Lee and Gatha Hospital, she says, because she couldn't just be admitted straight away because she had to return home to feed the dog, to move the sheep in to some kind of shelter away from the foxes if she was away overnight, and to pack her daughter's bag for ballet that night.

So yes, she does have a dog.

Well, at least did then.

Yeah, thank you, Rach, and thank you, Lauren.

Wonderful question.

Another question here, Rach, from Adele in Queensland.

Adele says, hi, I love listening to Mushroom Case Daily and I miss it over the weekends.

That's why we've got our Friday episodes for, Adele.

You can listen back, catch up on bits you've missed.

Everyone does an amazing job with covering the details of the case and explains, well, what is going on?

There is something that has bothered me last week and I haven't been able to get it out of my head so I thought I'd ask.

Twice you've asked what Aaron is wearing.

Have you ever asked what a male was wearing?

I found this question asked two days in a row was very strange.

I'd be interested to know what your thinking was behind that question.

Well Adele, this one sounds like it's for me because I was asking Rachu what Aaron was wearing.

I've got some thoughts on this too though, but you guys.

I mean the reason I've asked it is to give you an insight into the courtroom.

That is basically what I'm doing.

So you have an understanding of what Erin is wearing on any given day.

It's a slightly, it's a way of just kind of bringing you into that room with us.

Yeah, Adele, I was a bit annoyed by this at first too, not from Stocky, I should say, but you know,

journalists in the overflow room asking those who were lucky enough to have a ballot, media ballot seat that day, what she was wearing.

Initially, I thought, well...

Yeah, does that matter?

You know?

But in radio, it does matter because we're trying to be the eyes and ears for you in that courtroom and so radio is all about painting this theater of the mind for you and unfortunately or fortunately what people are wearing does help with that and i know rach i mean i will say we have had there's been a it's been probably mostly men um in the in the witness box giving it witness box giving evidence through this case i mean you know they've they've been wearing suits a lot of the time there's nothing much of note in their kind of outfits i mean there's also been a number of women that have given evidence too we haven't described their outfits outfits.

I mean, I think the reason we're talking about Erin more is that she is the accused in this scenario, right?

And they're every day.

We're watching her every day.

Yep, yep.

Yeah, very keen eye on her to see, yeah, notice, I guess, any changes that we can kind of share with you as you're listening to the pod.

Rach, question here from Beth in Coffs Harbour.

Beth says, I've binge listened to catch up.

I'm now up to date on the podcast.

And her question is, if Erin is disagreeing with the prosecutor's claims that she was foraging in Loch and Outram on certain dates based on the cell phone tower info, et cetera, What does she claim she was doing instead?

Beth, it was never actually put to her by either the prosecution or defence

what she was doing that day, but she denied, as you said, she denied foraging ever in Loch or Outram.

And one of the explanations she gave for her phone potentially pinging off a base station near Outram was that that can happen when you're passing through on your way to Wonthaghi or Phillip Island?

Great.

Thank you, Rach.

And thank you, Beth.

Wonderful question.

Final question for this week, Rach, is from Cam in Rezi.

What does it mean when Rach says two of the jurors will, of course, be balloted off?

Rach, we were talking about this yesterday.

The number of jurors and the demographic of the jurors, there's 14 left.

You mentioned that we'll end up with 12.

What do you mean by that?

What do you mean balloted off?

Well, the critical decision falls to 12 people, and we started with 15, so we had a bit of a buffer in case any get sick.

So won't so we don't have to start again basically

one was discharged very early in the piece for potentially speaking to friends or family about this case which is a huge no-no so we're down to 14 but only 12 get to make this decision so before they retire for deliberations two jurors will be balloted off yeah so they'll uh they'll get to go home they uh they won't be sequestered while they while they while the rest make the decision or while they would make that decision ordinarily uh rage quickly before we finish up i i skipped this last last week because

basically I was busy.

I didn't have time to go through the emails and check all the places that people have been emailing from, but I have found some time this morning to do a quick around the grounds from PICS the last couple of days, people listening in some far-flung paces of the world.

I'd love some help as you go through this, Rach, but I'll start with some of our friends in the United States.

You've got Brandy in Kansas, Amanda in San Angelino, Texas, Steph in Greenwood, Washington, Lorelei in North Carolina, Alania in New York, and Richard in San Bruno, California.

From Over the Ditch, Renee and Ben in Wellington, New Zealand.

Julie's in Essex, Manish in Manchester, Helen in Portsmouth in England.

Austin in Cardiff, Wales, Dom in Dublin, Ireland, and Erica's there too.

Anna and Noah in Amsterdam, Tim in Copenhagen.

There's Bob walking the Camino Trail in Spain.

And this is actually, I think, the second Mushroom Case Daily listener doing that.

There's quite a few, and my friend from the local pub, Oscar, is on it at the moment.

Hi, Oscar.

There we go.

And finally, Grace, Matt, and Katie,

who all hail from Melbourne but are currently in Columbia.

Thank you all for listening to Mushroom Case Daily in these places around the world.

Thank you for listening wherever you're listening from.

Big shout out to all of our listeners living in regional Australia.

You know, it's been wonderful spending time in Walwall and finding ourselves living in regional Australia as well as we cover this trial.

Also, I think a moment from this week that I will think about for a little while is one of our friends of the court, Ian, who's one of the security guards.

I actually missed this yesterday, but it was retold to me and it did make an impact.

He popped into the media room in the court yesterday and thanked everyone in there for their politeness and professionalism as they've been coming into court each week and each day and saying, look, you've been living out of suitcases for seven weeks away from your friends and family, and

you've been lovely despite all of that.

He left us with a box of must sticks and said, look, if you find yourself some time, have yourself a must stick and reflect on what motivates you.

I had a must stick and I thought, look, the thing that keeps me coming back each day is that we have a wonderful wonderful opportunity here to help people understand how the legal system works with Mushroom Case Daily.

So that's why that's what motivates me, Ian.

What a beautiful gesture, Hey.

What a legend.

Because we hear about these circuses as the media is often lumped in, descending on tiny towns.

And certain people make assumptions of how towns will receive us.

But this was just such a lovely reminder of some of the colourful people that we've met during our time.

And the must stick just took me back to lolly jar days.

My nanny would always have a lolly jar and must sticks were always in it.

So thanks, thanks, Ian, for that.

Much appreciated.

It was a wonderful treat.

Ian is a friend of the pod as well, so it was nice.

I hope you're having a wonderful day and weekend, Ian.

And just finally, before we wrap up this episode, if the discussion of eating issues has raised anything for you, you need to talk to someone, go chase up the Butterfly Foundation.

You can find them online, butterfly.org.au, and you can give them a call, 1-800-ED Hope.

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.

Huge thanks to our true crime colleagues who keep helping us out week in and week out.

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

Also, thanks to ABC senior lawyer Jasmine Sins for her legal advice every day, our legal queen, and also thanks to the Victorian newsroom and audio studios manager Eric George.

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

Hi there, Yumi Steins here, host of the podcast Ladies We Need to Talk.

We're all about health and wellness, sex and relationships.

If it's going off in your group chat, we're going to talk about it on Ladies We Need to Talk.

Perimetophores, Fertility, Your Love Life, The Mental Load, Ozempic.

Nothing's off limits.

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