Rachael, Kristian and Stocky tell you what they really think

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Erin Patterson, a triple murderer. And after dozens of episodes of this podcast, we'll tell you what we really think.
I'm ABC Investigative Reporter Rachel Brown. I'm Court Reporter Christian Silver.

And I'm Stephen Stockwell. Welcome to Mushroom Case Daily.
The small-town mystery that's gripped the nation and made headlines around the world.

On the menu was Beef Wellington, a pastry filled with beef and a pate made of mushrooms. At the heart of this case will be the jury's interpretation of Erin Patterson's intentions.

Erin Patterson has strongly maintained her innocence. It's a tragedy what's happening.
I love them.

It has been almost two years since Erin Patterson murdered Don and Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson with a beef wellington at her lunch in Lee and Gather and attempted to murder Ian Wilkinson.

A jury made that decision on Monday after nine weeks of evidence and a week of deliberations.

Stocky, until now we've been told it was a court of law, not a court of morals, but now we can finally talk about the latter. Could say it's a mushroom case daily unchained.

You could. This was a huge trial.
It ran for twice as long as we expected. It was held in the the regional Victorian town of Morwall.

And for almost a quarter of a year, we have been following these proceedings.

And today, we're going to highlight our key moments, look at some of the turning points in the case, talk through some legally blonde moments, and tell you more than you thought you'd probably ever know about what we think.

As you can tell, we brought back Christian Silver for this episode because he's such a big part of the pod. Christian, I'm going to start with you.

Were you surprised by the verdict? Well, thanks for having me back.

No, I wasn't. In short, I thought the prosecution presented a case with quite a lot of strong evidence.

I thought that Erin Patterson was unable to create the doubt in the jury's mind and ultimately, even though it took a while, I wasn't surprised that they found her guilty based on that evidence.

How about yourself, Rach?

I was surprised, Stocky, and a lot of the people that I've been talking to this week said they expected a not guilty verdict, but they also add that they suspect the jury has got it right.

So we're not today going to talk about whether we think she did it or not, but in terms of the verdict, I was expecting a not guilty verdict because of the high bar of intent that jurors have to clear.

In the moment outside of court when I heard the verdicts kind of repeated by the TV journalists who were crossing into various programs, I was surprised by a guilty verdict.

Like Rachel like you, I wasn't sure that the jury would, you know, kind of get to the point where they were comfortable and could do this beyond reasonable doubt.

As I've thought more about it, though,

I'm less and less surprised. There was a moment, quite a strong moment in the prosecution case where Nanette Rogers, Dr.

Nanette Rogers SC, spelt out a timeline of how sick Aaron Patterson was compared to the lunch guests, and it was a really stark difference.

Colin Mandy, SC, the defence barrister, explained parts of that, saying that, you know, Aaron Patterson tasted the duck sell, which is why, you know, you could assume that she would get sick slightly earlier.

She also purged that meal following it, which is why she didn't get as sick as the other lunch guests.

But if the jury doesn't buy that argument, then it's a reasonably short journey to understanding and kind of breaking down a few of those moments in there.

And I think that's where I want to kind of go to next as well. It's like I'm wondering sort of what you think

would have swayed the jury. Like we're never going to know what moments swayed the jury.

They're the only ones who know that and can be confident in their mind around what actually you know, what led their decision.

But Rach, what do you think were kind of some of the key moments of the prosecution case that would have have swayed them? I think the prosecutor, Dr. Rogers,

made a strong play towards the end about lying. And I was wondering what the jurors were going to do with that.

The Enrich clinic that she said she went to for gastric banding surgery, which turns out they don't offer gastric banding surgery.

She made a strong case that, you know, this is another example of Erin lying and she's lied to you, ladies and gentlemen, in the box, in the witness box. So I wasn't sure how that would play out.

I also would have liked to hear from a toxicologist or a doctor about her claim that she threw up after the lunch.

And if she'd thrown up earlier, would that have decreased the chances of the toxins going into her system?

But we never, it was more for me, the absence of certain things that I feel like maybe was weighing on the jurors' minds. How about you, Christian?

What are some of the key moments you think potentially swayed the jury?

Well, I think after seeing Erin Patterson on on the stand for eight days, the jury got to see firsthand the fact that Erin Patterson is a liar.

And her own barrister, Colin Mandy, did say that she had told some lies.

But then when you see it firsthand, the way that the story kept growing new legs, it almost seemed a little bit too good to be true. And the fact that...
A lot of things were not mentioned by Mr.

Mandy in his openings, we then heard a whole bunch of evidence from a whole bunch of witnesses of different expertise.

And then Erin Patterson tells a story that just neatly fits into every hole of every expert's evidence. It just seemed too good to be true.

And I think that may have been a problem.

The kids didn't fall sick. I think that's a major factor as well.
You know, Erin Patterson says she's sick. That's debatable.
Obviously, four lunch guests fall very ill.

These kids supposedly eat the same leftovers. She scrapes off the mushrooms, but miraculously, no traces end up in the meat and the kids are completely fine.
I think that's very difficult to ignore.

You've got the phone, Towers,

putting her in the locations where death cat mushrooms are growing one day after Tom May makes a post on iNaturalist, a website that she's familiar with.

To me, off the top of my head, those are just like a few examples. And there's more.
Do you think it was a strong case?

I think the prosecution put forward a strong case. And I say that

we don't know what was going through Erin Patterson's mind. I don't think it's right for us to say that we know that she did it, but we can analyse what the prosecution put forward.

And it was, in my view, pretty strong, having sat through a whole bunch of cases. It had many facets to it.
It had technology, it had science,

it had those human accounts from Ian Wilkinson and Simon Patterson, you know, direct observations about grey plates and whatnot

and orange plates. So I think the overall picture was pretty strong and Erin Patterson had that chance to inject that doubt and I just think she didn't do that.

Yeah, with Did It Make Its Case, there were lots of gaps for me, you know, especially with the forensic evidence.

and whether that was enough to show intent because you look at her iNaturalist visit in May 2022, which is a year before the lunch.

So there's only one record of that, and it only lasts for three minutes. There's no evidence that she saw these two posts by Funky Tom May and Christine Mackenzie.
But again,

The gaps for me are problematic because there's obviously things we're not seeing.

You know, we heard the analogy over and over and over about the puzzle piece, and you need to zoom out to look at all the pieces. We were missing so many pieces.

And I think the prosecution case, no offense, Dr. Rogers,

it was missing a lot, but not for the fault of Victoria Police. I think that just there were things that couldn't be found.
You know, maybe

Christian, we had this conversation before. You might argue, well, maybe she did make other iNaturalist searches on Phone A.
And they never found, police never found phone A.

So there's a lot that the jury, I think, still doesn't know. And phone A never being recovered, I think, is, you know, might help answer some of the questions that we've all got.

You know, this is the phone that police say was Aaron Patterson's primary phone in the kind of, you know, six to eight months leading up to the lunch. It was never recovered by police.

And it brings, you know, thinking about the phones, this is something I thought a lot about in the moment.

And there's moments where you start to doubt or question the stories that you're hearing or what's being told.

And, you know, the phone resets of phone B, you know, while police are searching Aaron Patterson's house, for me, don't paint a positive picture.

You know, her handing over that phone, this video of her at the kitchen table with the police asking for the phone across the table and them saying, is there a pin?

And she's like, yeah, it's either four or six digits. And she hands it over and goes to swipe up on the phone to put the pin in and it just unlocks as it's being handed over.

And, you know, there's also her saying that she, you know, took a modium before going to hospital because she was experiencing diarrhea.

She wanted something stronger, basically, was the reason that she went to hospital.

Going to hospital, she never mentioned she takes this medicine to anybody at the hospital when she's looking for other treatment.

You know, Rach, were there any moments in the case like those that kind of of gave you pause or inserted doubt over Aaron Patterson's version of events?

I just really struggled with, I've talked about the gaps and the lack of a motive. Like that really, I couldn't grapple with that and I couldn't hold those two things at the same time.

We heard that she was a devoted mother.

I heard nothing to make me doubt that. Very generous, she gave her siblings-in-law

sizable loans, up to $400,000.

Devoted daughter-in-law, we heard that she loved Don and Gail, that they loved her children, that she didn't have parents of her own still alive, so she looked to them as parents.

So there was nothing I could latch on to

to try to rationalise why Erin Patterson would do something like this.

But then I come back to maybe I don't know all the pieces of her mind and I don't know her reasons.

And there are obviously things that we haven't been hearing, but that's, I struggled with that a lot because in the early days of this trial, even outside, you know, in

cafes and at family barbecues and things like that, people would be like, oh yeah, but she dumped the dehydrator. And I said it to both of you.
I'm like, yeah, I can kind of understand that though.

Like, maybe I would do that out of panic, even if I hadn't committed murder.

You know, I could understand that, you know, and people do do things out of panic, but then we heard so many, you know, phone A,

this lie, that lie, and then it starts to build up. And you've got this

almost, you know, tens and tens of things that you've realised you've tried to rationalise, and that gives you pause for thought. And I think

Erin Patterson is not someone that

thinks like most other people, and it may be an impossible task to try to get into her mind to figure out what exactly she was thinking.

Again, it goes back to the four elements of murder. Motive isn't one, and I think for good reason because with a lot of these killers

their rationale doesn't make a lot of sense to normal people and there is still I think a long way to go for the community to understand Erin Patterson, to understand what she may have been thinking.

And I know in the last few days a lot of people have been pretty forceful with their opinions about her or theories about why she did something but I still think there's a lot that we don't know

that may come out over the next few months but realistically there's a good chance that it won't and the only person who may know the truth is Erin herself.

What is clear is that she's a liar. She's someone who very happily will just lie straight to someone's face.

Saw this with the cancer thing, saw this with lying to the police repeatedly, and seemingly,

in the view of the jury, lying directly to them, as Dr. Rogers pointed out, the fifth deception, which she mentioned in her closing arguments.

Yeah, and I mean, what were some of the moments that you saw in court, you know, as evidence was presented that kind of, you know, gave you doubt or really made you question the, you know, Erin Patterson's versions of events?

Well, it was really the inconsistent memory that she had on the stand. And we know that memory is not a perfect science.

I can't remember what I ate for breakfast yesterday, but I remember, you know, some random meal that I ate on a trip to Italy seven years ago. I get that.

But it was the fact that she was so precise with some things and then would have gaping holes in her memory. The Asian grocer thing to me was

utterly...

incomprehensible. It just made no sense to me that she could not remember the details.
What do you mean? How come? Is this because you feel your suburb has been marred? No, no, Rach.

It was just the fact that it was just too hard to believe.

And I do have a bit of a personal connection to Glen Waverly, one of the suburbs that was a possible location of where the mushrooms were purchased from this so-called Asian grocery.

And Kingsway was a location that was floated. And whether this

kind of wasn't fully appreciated by the jury, I'm not sure. But anyone who's been to Kingsway

knows that you don't forget a trip there. It's off the main road.
It's a massive strip of shops. It's an absolute nightmare to get a park,

right?

And you do not forget a trip. to Kingsway for all of those reasons.
It's a bustling area. It is not something that you can just confuse for a little strip of shops on a main road.

This is a destination in that suburb. And I just found it hard to believe that despite offers by the toxicologist who spoke to her on the phone to help prompt her memory,

she just didn't want a bar of it. And I think that was a sign that

it was quite possibly a Furfe.

I've been thinking a lot about Erin Patterson's memory and recollection over that time.

You know, there were moments where her memory was so sharp and she was able to correct the Crown Prosecutor, Nanette Rogers, Dr. Nanette Rogers SC,

on, you know, a day that she got wrong. I I mean, I wonder a lot about whether Dr.
Nynette Rogers did that deliberately, deliberately got the name wrong to draw Erin Patterson out to correcting her.

I don't know if she deliberately got it wrong, but then when she saw the reaction, she wanted to capitalise on it.

And it is interesting because she remembers the packaging of the mushrooms that she says she got from the Asian grocer, you know, the white label handwritten. and the weight of that packaging.

But yeah, she couldn't remember what shop or even what suburb. And I've thought a lot about that basically because you know this was this wasn't a long time before the lunch.

You know this is only in the months before lunch. Not like this is something that she bought two or three years ago and has sat in a pantry for years at this point.

It was something that was purchased a couple of months beforehand, opened, smelt too strongly to use in the dish that she said she was going to use it in, and put into a Tupperware container that was then taken from that house to a house in Leongatha.

And then at some point in between that, she has dehydrated other mushrooms, she says, and then put them into that same container.

That's where she says the mix-up mix-up around the death cat mushrooms occurred.

I just think in that timeframe, it is unlikely that you would not recall what was in what container and what would be in your pantry.

Sure, there's stuff in my pantry that's been there for years and years that, you know, I don't recall the exact location of, but, you know, we're talking basically the length of this trial is the distance between when she purchased them to when they were used in this dish.

It's a few months. And, you know, I can kind of place anything I've bought in my pantry over the last kind of three months.
So that was something for me that did make me question question this.

And there were lots of moments like this that people actually got in touch with us about on the pod. So we're getting emails all the time to mushroomcase daily at abc.net.au.

And this is what I was talking about when I mean our legally blonde moments, because we had Mushroom Case Daily listeners who were getting in touch with questions like this one from Clementine in Litruita, Tasmania.

Clementine's email says, there's this moment in Legally Blonde where L cracks the case because nobody who's just had a perm would take a shower because science.

On a sutorial note, no one who's had diarrhea would wear white pants and drive a 180 kilometre round trip. Yeah, this is definitely the every man's question.

We were all thinking it as well

for reasons that I don't quite understand. It was never brought up in evidence.
Maybe Dr. Rogers and Mr.
Mandy were above all that. I don't know.

But you would have thought there could have been a subtle way to ask that question without doing it in a way that was kind of like shaming her.

But look,

it wasn't addressed. Whether the jury considered it or questioned it themselves, I guess we'll never know.
What was the final makeup of that jury?

Seven, five. Seven and five.
Seven men.

Probably a question that more women have been considering, but

five women on that jury, maybe one of them thought of it at least.

Do you think about why that question wasn't asked, Rach? I do, actually. And this is where we go back to court of law versus court of public opinion.

we had a lot of emails about the white pants didn't we and someone actually said you know should you should you just like whisper in dr. Rogers ear like should you

should you maybe ask her to ask this and I didn't I answered this question at the time very carefully Clementine but I can tell you a bit more now I have done this in the past and it did not go down too well and I can imagine dr.

Rogers

specifically would not have taken well she she wasn't too fond of us I don't mean that she disliked individuals.

It was more at times I think she found the media presence a little bit frustrating, a little bit distracting.

She was unhappy about the clackety clack clack

of our keyboards in the back of the room and

before the trial started actually

said it was unworkable and gave a bit of a grandiose speech. And Justice Beale calmed the situation quite well and asked the guilty parties to try to silence their keyboards a bit.

And we never heard about it again. So I'm guessing that it was okay.
Yeah, just to clarify, yeah, Dr. Nett Rogers, SC, not a fan of Mushroom Case Daily, just journalists more generally.

So it's not an individual thing against us. And Rach, before you were saying, you know, you've raised this previously, what do you mean by that?

You've gone to prosecutors and said, hey, I think you need to answer this question.

Yes.

Not in this case. I think Dr.
Rogers knows exactly what she's doing.

When I was a bit younger, not a lot younger, in a case, I had a lot of questions that I thought should have been put to the accused. And so I asked that of the prosecutor.

And I mean, it sounds impertinent now when I say it out loud, but it was bugging me because it's like these things, like if we knew these things,

God, this would help the jury so much. And so I rattled off like two or three things.
And the prosecutor said, oh, no, of course, I've thought about this. We have strategy meetings.

If I haven't asked it, there's a reason why I haven't asked it. And I thought, oh, that's interesting.
Because sometimes they would rather have a question hanging in jurors' minds that's not answered.

Like that's more helpful than the jury actually getting the answer. And then on the other side, the defence mightn't ask it because they don't know the answer.

And rule number one, don't ask a question that you don't know the answer to. So often muddiness

can actually help either party and that's why questions aren't asked because there was a lot of, I mean I think you feel the same Christian Stocky,

a lot of things, a lot of questions in this case that I desperately wanted the answers to weren't asked. You know, like I really wanted to know,

was she in Loch and Outram the days that the prosecution said she was? Because I thought, well, maybe she was there, but she could say, oh, I was having my hair done.

But the defence never asked her, and the prosecution never asked her either what about you christian was this was a big question mark hanging over something for you there was and i don't know whether there was an appropriate witness for this

but

a really bleedingly obvious question to me was if by erin's account you scrape off the mushrooms and serve leftover meat to your kid

can you eliminate the toxins?

That was never asked. And I don't don't know whether the VIFIM toxicologist was the right person or whether there's some other person out there who may have been appropriate to us.

But to me, a big glaring question that wasn't asked.

And, you know, we've had a number of things that, again, people were surprised kind of didn't come up, emailed to us, mushroomcase daily at ABC.net.au.

And also some clarifications around things that happened in court as well.

Like we heard the story of Erin Patterson's eating disorder, her binging and purging habits that were presented when she got on the stand. And there was this exchange between Erin Patterson and Dr.

Dynette Rogers SC at one point where Dr.

Nanette Rogers asked Erin Patterson what she saw in the toilet after she had purged the orange cake and the beef wellington following that lunch and Erin Patterson said, oh I don't remember what I saw.

You can't usually see like peas and beans and things like that in that. And we actually had an email from someone from Jess who said, love the pod, think you guys do a great job.

Found it intriguing that Erin stated you can't see what food is in vomit. I'm certain this isn't always correct.

The corn and beans comment was strange and I believe she was thinking of what you can see at the other end.

And it was interesting, you know, interesting observation around someone who, you know, says they'd had an eating disorder for a very long time, but

couldn't remember what they saw in that or said you couldn't usually see.

And Rach, you were really kind of interested in, you know, the kind of the story around the Enriched Clinic and Aaron Patterson's eating disorder kind of dropping so late in the piece.

Especially because I was in the overflow room that day and when this came up, the idea of purging,

the whole room went, oh,

as in that's what Erin's going to try to use to explain why she's not as sick because that was the big, you know, that was the big difference between her and those who died, right?

The timing and how sick they were.

So for me, I was really interested in that and why it was so late. And because it was so late, this is the gap that I mentioned before.
They didn't end up testing it.

They didn't go to an expert and say how would that reduce the absorption rate depending on what time she threw up. And she said she couldn't remember what time she purged.

And Rach, to really hammer home the point of how late this eating disorder story came up in the piece, we never heard any medical expert say that Erin described that to her.

obviously never said that to the police.

In the weeks after the lunch, Erin Patterson actually made a fairly lengthy written statement which found its way into the media.

And the ABC reporter Dan Oakes was actually the first reporter to break this story. It was a lengthy document written by Aaron Patterson about supposedly what happened that day and in the lead-up.

No mention of vomiting anything back up then.

Never heard about it in Mr. Manity's openings, acknowledging that those openings from the defence can be somewhat limited.

So you hear about this, you know, four weeks into the trial for the first time,

just seemed a bit too good to be true.

Obviously a surprise to the prosecution, although they did act very quickly, you know, chasing up the clinic, finding details from that.

I recall the lead informant on the case, Stephen Eppenstall, as soon as the clinic was mentioned, up out of his seat, out of the room, presumably on the phone to the clinic itself or someone back in the office to start chasing up details of that.

And the weird weird thing was, was that there actually was some sort of appointment booked,

which made me think, oh, is this going to be the little point of doubt? It doesn't quite make sense because that clinic doesn't do gastric bypass, but it does some kind of weight loss thing.

But evidently it didn't. Yeah, it came to do liposuction, didn't it? And so then the case they tried to make was that was part of her potential weight loss journey in the future.

Again,

when this clinic story comes up, it just really shows you the depth of the lies she's willing to make.

She's admitting that she's going to tell people that she's got cancer or potential cancer because she wants to have weight loss surgery. I mean,

that's pretty extreme. And we know from

daily life, Cancer is a disease that impacts so many people. Australians donate millions and millions of dollars towards cancer research and we frown very heavily upon cancer cons.

One of my girlfriends actually reached out and said that's the bit about the case that's made her the most angry.

That very thing.

Talking about some of the, you know, the behavior kind of inside the courtroom, things that, you know, happened in that room as certain things were being presented, also things that we saw around the court in breaks, in things like that.

There's things that kind of stick with us.

Christian, is there a moment for you that you think back to? Yeah, there's one key moment. And during the trial, when the jury was out of the room, Erin certainly rode a wave of emotions.

And look, that's understandable. She was on trial for a triple murder and an attempted murder.

There were times when she was... crying.
There were times when she seemed pretty calm,

moments when she would seem a bit more light-hearted. I get that.
She's a human being. But one moment really disturbed me, Stocky, and this was very shortly after the evidence of Dr.
Stephen Warrilow.

So he was the ICU

expert from the Austin Hospital, and he had systematically taken the court through the deaths of Don. Gail and Heather and described Ian Wilkinson's dramatic recovery.

This was a really heavy day of evidence. He's literally describing the deaths of these people.

He finishes his evidence.

Justice Beale calls a break and I went into the courtroom and took a seat and I could hear this sort of like heavy breathing coming from behind me and it was it was Erin and I my first instinct was she's broken down in tears because this has been so confronting to hear.

So I turned around. She was actually doubled over laughing hysterically with two of the prison guards.
Someone had cracked a joke and she was doubled over.

And I just thought to myself, my God, you've just heard this evidence about these people literally dying.

And even on your version of events, where it's all a tragic accident, you've caused this by feeding them these poisonous mushrooms.

And within five minutes, she's able to block that out of her mind and is just laughing about a joke and not chuckling, like fully, full-body laughter. I just thought it was...

really disturbing and I was quite put off by that.

Yeah.

Rachel, there moments that you saw around the court, you know, in breaks or, you know, in the hallways around that kind of have stuck with you and you think you'll kind of reflect on and think back on?

Yeah, and it's what we've said a couple of times in this series, that's the little moments of humanity and little glimpses into relationships that has no part in a courtroom, as in in the testimony, but that's the stuff that sticks with me.

Because in court cases, whether this is right or not, and Justice Beale said this isn't a boxing match, but unfortunately that's what happens. I mean, you probably see it it all the time, Christian.

So people who are there to support the victims sometimes unwillingly become pitted against those who might be there to support the accused.

And in this case family members of the Wilkinsons and Pattersons were there every day.

The day of the verdict there was only one representative there for them and then there was a friend of Aaron's who's been there for quite some time and I just assumed that they would be pitted against each other and the friend of Aaron's was quite upset outside the courtroom after the verdict and the representative of the Patterson family I saw go up and and hug her.

Oh wow.

Yeah and I wasn't expecting that and it's stuff like that that really stick with me and also of course Ian Wilkinson in the witness box.

you know, this tiny moment of levity for this poor man who's lost his best friend, Heather Wilkinson.

You know, when you'd remember when his chair started to sink and Justice Speal, and he laughed, he chuckled and Justice Speal said, oh, we do this to all our witnesses.

Those little moments of humanity that sneak sneak into very serious court cases always stick with me. I was just really taken aback by seeing Ian Wilkinson on the stand.
I mean,

the dignity of the man after what he'd been through,

you could still see that his qualities shone through. Still a very personable, likable man.

Impossible to imagine what he's been through, but still clearly

fulfilling his role as a leader, not only in his church, but in his family too. Yeah, you rarely see that level of grace from

a victim. Yeah.

Yeah, there were so many, you know, really interesting moments of like, I guess, resilience from so many people who we saw through this trial.

You know, there were like so many lovely moments as well.

You know, Justice Beale, the judge presiding over this case, the moments of lightness and levity with the jury was something that I think I'll remember back and forward.

I think there was one day where there was a number of legal arguments arguments and they were in and out of the room as those discussions were had.

And he didn't even need to say anything at one point. There was a pause and one of them stood up and was like, we know what to do.
And they just walked out of the room.

You know, I think a lot of that was quite deliberate. I think he knew that this would be a tricky case.
And I think

he knew that the jury was going to be asked to make a really big and difficult decision.

So he went early to try and build this rapport in case he needed to, as the jury was deliberating, kind of ask a few times, you need to go back and make a decision.

You need to go go back and make a decision if they came back with questions or couldn't find their way to a verdict.

You know, he didn't need to do any of that.

But, you know, there was still some, like, you know, in the, in, I guess, the deliberation stage, which we saw for a week, some interesting situations emerging there, Christian.

Well, I guess he had to build the goodwill

because this six-week trial turned into an 11-week trial. And obviously, we don't know what was going on in the jury room, but from what I gather and from what you guys have told me,

wasn't signs that jury members were whinging or complaining outwardly outwardly about this predicament.

And also the other thing was that Beale sequestered the jury, putting them up in a hotel, cutting off all their communication with friends and family and the internet and news.

And that's highly, highly irregular.

It is something in the toolbox that they can use, but it's not something that gets done. So maybe,

you know, getting in the good books early, knowing what he was going to do to them afterwards was a smart ploy. Yep.
The sequestration

wasn't without its complications though.

Yeah, it's come out that this has not run as smoothly as it should have.

This whole process is supposed to separate the jury from outside influence and we know that

this area, Morwell, Tralgon, Mowie, another one of those nearby towns, this is not a big community.

There's not heaps and heaps of hotels to stay at and also they had to have presumably a booking for 12 individual rooms plus jury keepers and whatnot. So it's, you know, fair booking there.

But the fact that the jury ended up in the same accommodation as some of the police, some of the prosecutors, and some of the media,

that is not a good look. There's no suggestion that anything untoward happened.

But what I was told by some people who were there, some pretty farcical scenes of people, you know, ducking into corridors,

shielding their faces to avoid contact, and it's just not a good look. And

you'd think that the jury wouldn't have been put up in the nearest town.

And given this jury pool is drawn from the area, while we don't know where they're from, it's quite possible that they were from this town that the hotel was in.

You would have thought they would have been shifted a bit further away to avoid that exposure. So maybe that's something that will be reflected upon by whoever sequesters the next jury.

I think because there was one entry and exit, that's it. So that's a problem.
You know, if the informant and prosecution team is seeing jurors, the school holidays, I think, was an issue.

As we know, even the reporters, we were getting, we weren't, we had a house booked a long time ago, but shuffled around between certain hotels because this trial went a lot longer than everyone thought.

So I'm sure that's the reason and there's nothing nefarious. But yeah, optically, not a great look.

And I did hear, Christian, that you probably haven't heard, one reporter was being a bit too loud and got wrapped over the knuckles by Dr. Rogers.
I did hear that.

One of the moments that I actually kind of rate. around the sequestration of the jury was that they were working from Monday to Saturday and then they had Sunday off.

And I was wondering what they would be doing on this Sunday. You know, they can't, you know, they don't have access to their phones.
They can't watch TV. What are they going to be doing?

They were taken on a little field trip out to a winery. They were kept

separate from the public, but they did have a day out, which I really respect. Just

give them the break to have that moment of freedom and yeah we stayed that weekend stocky in Morwell you went to Wilson's Promontory I went to Inveloc just to have a day I needed to see the ocean and have a break and I did think on my drive there oof what if they're at the Involoc pub I'd have to walk straight out again and the story that I heard that the jury keepers were the ones who served the food so that they would avoid contact with Mr Hastings Master Chef

so yeah good a good little story there and definitely a deserved break. I don't think any criticism at all should come to the jury for that.

They've been working exceptionally hard, and one day off is entirely reasonable. Yeah, yeah, we're coming to a verdict in the morning following that day off as well on the Monday.

You know, speaking of the legal teams, I mean, the prosecution in the hotel

with the jury in this instance, but

while we're thinking of the legal teams,

what do you think of, I guess, their kind of performance throughout this case rage, the prosecution and the defence? Man, they worked incredibly hard.

And we talked about how busy we were, but we could finish at 8 o'clock or whenever and go and get dinner. I've heard that some of them were working 2am, 3 a.m., getting up at 5 or 6 a.m.

and starting again. Both teams worked incredibly hard.
They did. And I think as well, and we've seen this through the entire legal process, not just the trial.
It has been a team effort.

And a lot of attention has come on Dr. Rogers because she's the senior counsel for the prosecution, sure.

But we know for a fact that certainly Jane Warren, Sarah Lenthal and some of the other OPP prosecutors were working around the clock.

They did exceptionally high levels of work. And even on the defence side, there's no doubt that Mr.
Mandy, Sophie Stafford and Bill Dug's team as well were working.

And Ophelia, we should add to that list too. They all were working really hard, long days

yep um before we kind of wrap up this episode I want to talk a little bit about sentencing in a moment that's the kind of next stage here I do want to give us a bit of space to

to to to admit when we're wrong you know if there's things through the case you you had a you know you thought would come back if there were things you expected would happen and didn't I will start in our first ever Friday rap episode I talked about dr.

Danette Rogers SC immediately questioning Simon Patterson Erin Patterson's estranged husband about whether or not he had seen her air traffic controller certification,

if he'd seen her business degrees, and him saying that he had. And in my mind, I thought, oh, I wonder if Dr.
Nanette Rogers is going to bring this back that Aaron Patterson doesn't have these things.

And I flagged that, looked at something to watch.

Never returned, never mentioned again, died at that moment. I was completely wrong in expecting that to return.
You thought she might have forged an air traffic control

certificate, right? I was wondering if that was going to be something that was presented, but it never came before the courts.

Rach, what was the moment in this where, you know, you got something a bit wrong or thought something would go a different way?

Intent. You know, as I said earlier, I was just not sure that the jury would be able to reach that high bar of intent because there didn't seem to be any motive.

And even from the outset, the prosecution said, we're not going to offer one up. And I know...
You don't need a motive to prove murder, but it does help inform intent.

And these jurors, you know, if they say guilty, they're putting Aaron Patterson away for a very long time.

For me, I just, like I said, I feel like I'd want to cling to something as a reason for all this pain, and I couldn't find a reason for this pain, but

maybe there is no sensible well, of course there's no sensible reason.

For me, it was thinking that Erin Patterson would never testify, because

usually it's a terrible idea.

And

I think we saw after eight days that Erin Patterson is not the most likable person. That's not to say that she's terribly uncharismatic, but

I don't think she's the type of person who's capable to win over 12 strangers. And so on the opening day, we heard the prosecution openings and we heard Colin Mandy's reply.

And on reflection now, having been aware of some of the evidence that was going to come up in this trial, and when I heard Mr. Mandy's openings,

there were a whole bunch of new things that I'd never heard before.

And on reflection, it makes sense, of course, he was going to need to produce evidence. And Erin Patterson was the vehicle for that.
So that was one thing in my head that I definitely got wrong.

I never imagined that we'd see her on the stand, but

so it was.

Rach, what did you think of Erin Patterson as a witness? I thought she was very strong under questioning from Colin Mandy, SC, but of course she's in the safe hands of her legal team there.

But I thought she was quite strong the first couple of days and then started to become a bit frazzled under questioning from Dr. Rogers.

I know she got a lot of criticism about being pedantic, and even she called it out. Those were her last words, weirdly enough.
her last question. She said, oh, I have been a bit pedantic.

I have a habit of doing that or something along those lines. And she has and was.

But I didn't criticise her too much for that. A lot of people did because I think, you know, her life's on the line.
You want questions asked in a very specific way.

And this was her kind of personality and temperament that she wanted, not double-barreled questions or things like that.

I know people, a lot of people thought that was evasive. I just thought, well, I'd probably want

specificity too if I was on trial for murder. But we did notice, didn't we, Christian, that

she did become more defensive as those days went on. And then she was sitting there a long time.

Yeah, this was I thought quite a smart ploy by the prosecution was just to drag out this cross-examination.

Probably could have done it in a couple of days but they dragged it out.

They just gave her enough rope to keep saying more and more and then turned around and told the jury that all those things were lies.

And one thing that did

sort of stick out to me was in all of those days of evidence, she didn't show a great deal of empathy for those victims. And even on her story, you know,

she caused these deaths. And I just sort of think most people,

if they were ever in such a horrific situation where they caused three deaths, would just be so guilt-ridden by it

that it would just be the thing that they kept thinking about and a thing that they would keep referring to. But instead, it just came back to her.
And

I don't know. I just didn't think it looks good after such a long time in the witness stand.

Aaron Hatterson found guilty of the murder of Don and Gail Patterson, of Heather Wilkinson, and of the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson.

The next stage in this is her sentencing when Justice Beal will decide how long she spends in prison for committing these crimes.

Christian, you've been doing a bit of research to try and work out where this may go?

Well, there's no doubt that it's going to be a hefty sentence.

The standard sentence for murder is 25 years, and here you've got not only a triple murderer, but an attempted murder charge that's been proven as well.

So it is going to be a complicated sentencing exercise for Justice Beale.

He's going to hear arguments from the prosecution and defense about why it should be higher or why it should be lower or mitigating factors and all of that.

But he's also going to have to look at comparable cases and there's not really many cases like this.

You know, this isn't like a stabbing, which is a quite a common common form of killing or a shooting.

This is poisoning by mushrooms. It's pretty weird.

So just thinking back to some recent cases which have got some similarities with this,

there was a case of Rebecca Payne. This was a woman from Mildura, a regional town in Victoria, who actually laced

biscuits with prescription drugs to kill her husband. However, this was a case where where her husband was incredibly abusive, a horrible man by all accounts, who subjected Rebecca Payne to horrific

abuse and torture, I would say. In that case, she got 16 years jail for a murder, which is pretty low on the scale of things.

So that's a case where there's some similarity with this sort of, you know, poisoning someone who had no idea it was coming.

Another case, a very different method of murder, but one involving

an ambush of two family members who never saw it coming.

Accused by the name of Shaptophage in Victoria, he essentially assassinated his daughter and son-in-law, shot them in the head at point-blank range. There was a family dispute.

He was aggrieved, annoyed with his daughter and the son-in-law.

He got a maximum of life in prison and a minimum of 35 years years jail. So such a massive gap there between those two cases.
But I guess that goes to show

the range that you can see.

And I found another historical case and definitely would be intrigued to do more research about this case. It's a case out of New South Wales.
The woman's name is Caroline Grills.

And this is dating back to the 1940s and 50s. And from what I've been reading, a very helpful article I read in the Daily Telegraph, a history piece.
She killed four people

using what I believe was rat poison in tea.

And in that case, the jury apparently took 12 minutes to find her guilty. 12 minutes.
Yeah. Yeah.

She was

sentenced eventually to life in prison and Grylls is now dead.

That is the next stage for Erin Patterson is her sentencing. We'll keep you up to date on Mushroom Case Daily as we get closer to that stage.

And, you know, we'll learn more about Erin Patterson as we get to that point as well.

You know, even at this point, Rach, though, there's a lot of people making an assessment of Erin Patterson. What are you kind of thinking at the moment? I don't know.

And I mean that sincerely. I'm still struggling for a reason for all this pain.
You know, three people are dead. One man nearly died.
Relationships and families have imploded.

The town, hopefully not, but might suffer that stigma. And I can't find any reason for it.
I'm really struggling with that.

Yeah, I mean, I think we saw the day after the verdict, evil Erin was on the front page of one of the newspapers. I don't know if it's as simple as that.

And I also think there's a lot of things that remain unclear at this point.

We did mention in an episode earlier this week that there is still an interim suppression order which restricts us from talking about certain things, which may help us

more accurately portray what we think of Aaron Patterson. Also, with the sentencing hearing, the defense has the option of getting a psych assessment done.

And if they do, who knows what that will turn up and whether that will also alter the way that we look at Aaron Patterson. And I think also,

you know, to

try to summarize all of this or to try to paint the picture of this case, people might rush to do this as soon as they can, but I think

time.

Time is going to be the thing that places this case on so many levels. You know, where do we rate Erin in terms of the level of criminality?

Does she go down as one of Australia's most notorious criminals? I think time is the judge of that. And it's not only what we think of Erin, but of this entire tragic case as a whole.

There are cases from 50 years ago that still get talked about today.

Is this going to be one of these?

Time will tell. When you think about the number of mass murderers that we have in Australia, there's not a lot.

The number of people that have killed three people in one instance, and this was potentially a fourth attempted murder, there's not a lot of them in the history of Australia.

It could have been five if Simon Patterson had turned up.

Absolutely. Yeah.

We'll see what happens from here. We'll keep you up to date on Mushroom Case Daily with any of the details and any court appearances that are coming up.

You know, the sentencing is the next stage of this. There is still, you know, room for an appeal if the defence wants to appeal Aaron Patterson's murder conviction.

And yeah, if you want to keep up to date with all of that, make sure you're following Mushroom Case Daily on the ABC Listen app. We do actually have an exclusive ABC Listen episode up right now.

If you can't access the ABC Listen app, if you're living overseas, jump onto the ABC Listen website. Just search Mushroom Case Daily in your favourite search engine.

We know Erin Patterson used Bing, although she did say it wasn't her preferred search engine. But whatever you find yourself across, jump in there.

And if you are using the ABC Listen app and you're following Mushroom Case Daily, make sure you've got your notifications turned on in that app, then you'll get alerts every time a new episode drops.

We are looking at answering some of your questions as well. So if you want to get in touch, send us an email, mushroomcased daily at abc.net.au.

And Stocky, I've been impressed with the many ways that you find to subtly include that email address in all the questions and also

the thorough job you've done at convincing people to get on the ABC Listen app. Look, it's a wonderful app.
I've got it on my phone. You should have it on your phone.

When your notifications are on, you'll be the first to hear about the summary series that we're producing on the trial of Aaron Patterson, the details of what happened before the lunch, everything around the preparation, the meal itself, and what happened after as well.

It's a five-part series we'll be dropping in the next couple of weeks. So, get on the app, turn your notifications on, and you'll be the first to know.

Mushroom Case Daily is produced by ABC Audio Studios and ABC News. It's presented by me, Rachel Brown, Christian Silver, and Stephen Stockwell.

Our executive producer is Claire Rawlinson, and a huge thanks to our true crime colleagues who continue to help us out.

Our commissioning executive producer Tim Roxburgh and supervising producer Yasmin Parring.

Thank you as well to senior lawyer Jasmine Sims for legal advice every day, our legal queen, and also to the Victorian Newsroom and audio studios manager Eric George, this episode was produced on the land of the Rundry 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 behaviour. 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.