Lies, phone resets, dumped evidence: the two explanations

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What Erin Did After the Lunch?

Under the microscope.

I'm ABC Investigative Reporter Rachel Brown.

And I'm Stephen Stockwell.

It is Wednesday, the 25th of June.

We've just finished day 36 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.

The tragedy will come.

I love them.

It has been a cold and rainy day in Worwell today, Rach.

Haz is a double sock day and I had my puffer.

The judge's charge has continued today despite the conditions.

We didn't get a repri.

There is much to discuss but before we get going Rach, can you give us like a run of the day first?

Legal argument dominated most of the morning stocky so the jury we didn't even see their faces until after lunchtime.

Then we moved on to evidence from Fox Henry.

He was the digital forensics analyst and the jury was reminded of the three devices that he studied and that was a computer, a tablet, and a phone, and the importance that the prosecution alleged that they play in this trial.

We also heard what to make of expert opinion, not just Sharman Fox Henry, but also Matthew Sorrell.

And the jurors were told, you know, if you don't like it, you can leave it.

And then at the end of the day, we moved on to incriminating conduct.

The prosecution relies on certain things that Erin did after the lunch as an implied admission of guilt.

The defence, however, argues there are other reasonable explanations why she acted like this.

Thank you, Rach.

We had, as you mentioned, basically a half day of the jury today.

Well, the jury had a half day, half day of legal discussion, all the way from 10:30 in the morning when we started until basically lunchtime.

We were going through

basically a legal discussion.

And we can't go into the detail of that.

Obviously, the jury's not in the room for that, so we can't get into that.

But it is interesting that even at this stage of the trial, Rach, we're right towards the end.

there's still things that is being sorted out between the prosecution, the defence, and Justice Beale.

Yeah, and I'm sure listeners might be frustrated not hearing, but we can only tell you what the jury's heard and they haven't heard this.

But there are still some important issues to work through.

The judge told the jurors that when he came back, look, sorry, we're late, but you know, this is a very important part.

of this process.

We need to do it right, even if it means we're slowly working our way through things that haven't been remedied yet.

So basically the morning was just Colin Mandy SC and Dr.

Rogers SC putting certain arguments to Justice Beale that he will have to carefully consider.

That is right.

And yeah, when the jury came back after lunch,

yeah, Justice Beale basically going, Look, there's some things you need to work through.

I think the line he used or the word he used was in some detail, nodding to the fact that it had been a couple of hours.

And then conversations quickly moved to the temperature of the courtroom,

which he thought quite cold.

Rachel, you were in the room.

Temperature of the courtroom.

I was in a dress in there.

So puffer outside, dress inside.

It fluctuates quite widely.

The back of the room felt quite hot.

Colin Mandy, SC, the front of the room said he was freezing.

I offered him my puffer jacket.

He said, No, I don't think I'm allowed.

Oh, well, look, it's a lovely gesture of yours, Rach.

So, thank you for that.

And once they sorted out the temperature of the courtroom, Rach, we dived into basically a kind of recap of some of the digital evidence that we've heard through this trial.

Yeah, Justice Christopher Beale in his judges' directions, just reminding the jury of a few things that they heard during the evidence of Sharman Fox Henry from the Victoria Police.

The Cooler Master, which is not an air conditioning unit, it's a computer.

So the three

devices that Sharman Fox Henry gave evidence on that are important in this trial was a Cooler Master computer, a Samsung tablet, and then an iPhone, which we know to be Phone B, which the prosecution has been calling the dummy phone.

And Sharman Fox Henry from Victoria Police, I think a digital forensics officer, was that his name?

That's the proper title?

That's right, digital forensic analyst.

Right.

So we'll start with the cooler master.

That's important in this case because the prosecution alleges in May 2022, Erin Patterson used this computer to visit the iNaturalist website, the citizen science website that we've heard so much about.

Now, the jury was reminded of Erin's evidence regards to that.

She doesn't remember visiting that site.

She says it's possible that she did, but she didn't use Internet Explorer or Bing.

So she doesn't remember ever using the iNaturalist website.

She agrees that someone did navigate to the Corranborough Middle Pub site soon after that iNaturalist site was done.

She says, I'm not suggesting my children did that.

They did live with me at the time.

So that was a bit ambiguous, but she says she doesn't remember using that iNaturalist site.

And Justice Christopher Beale kind of made the point that the prosecution's, you know, claiming that the visit of those iNaturalist sites and the pub order kind of indicate that it's an adult that's using the computer, right?

Correct, because

there was an order of two palmers and a garlic bread and a Coke and some other things.

Yeah, some children's meals, yeah.

And her details from her credit card were auto-input into that, so that forms part of that argument.

But the prosecution alleged that a search was done of the iNaturalist website and that someone navigated through to see where death caps were in Victoria and that they had a look at a post,

a place in Morabban Ricker Reserve, where death caps were growing.

Now Now that's in Melbourne.

So the jury has heard that there was no death caps growing in South Gippsland at the time and that Erin Patterson says if I did use, I don't remember using the site, but if I did use it, I would have been looking to see whether death caps were growing.

This was around the COVID time.

At the time of that alleged search, May 2022,

there were no death caps, the courts heard, growing in South Gippsland.

And the other thing I want to point out too is that the jurors were reminded that this search was apparently 21 to 28 seconds.

So the jury heard that that's not necessarily evidence of a deep and abiding interest in death cat mushrooms.

And Justice Beale reminded the jurors that there's no evidence of Erin Patterson accessing posts by Christine Mackenzie and Tom, Dr.

Tom May.

Yeah, and these were posts about death cat mushrooms growing in the Gippsland area.

That's right, in Lock and in Outram, where she's alleged to have visited.

The other important thing, there's no evidence Erin Patterson returned to the iNaturalist site since May 2022.

So basically, Sharman Fox Hendry's search found that someone visited that site for about 21 to 28 seconds in May 2022, but didn't.

visit that site, at least on this Cooler Master computer again.

Yeah, there was also a bit of a chat about Samsung tablet.

We went through some of the stuff from Phone B, which is, yeah, as you mentioned, Rach, the phone that the prosecution alleges is a dummy phone.

I'm not going to say that Justice Christopher Beale didn't do this in the most exciting and compelling way that you could do it.

But what I would say is, if you were interested in hearing

some of the evidence from Sharman Fox Henry, jump into some episodes of Mushroom Case Daily from about a month ago when he was giving evidence in this trial.

If we're talking about what was found on computers, things like that, there's titles that allude to those things.

I don't actually have them in front of me, so I can't be exact.

I think it was around the 21st of May, from memory.

Yeah.

And Rach, as we got to the end of the kind of like the wrap-up of Sharman Fox Henry, Justice Beale reminded the jury that, you know, the expert opinion evidence they hear, you know, it's up to them if they take this on, if they decide they want to listen to it, if they decide they want to use that in deciding whether or not Aaron Patterson is guilty or not guilty.

Justice Beale reminded them of the evidence of Dr.

Matthew Sorrell, the base station guru, the mobile phone coverage expert.

And Sharman Fox Henry, he said, you know, you're not required to accept their opinions, merely pieces of evidence like all the other pieces of evidence that you've heard yes consider their qualifications and experience but if you don't want to incorporate them in your thinking or your findings fair play yeah you know he he also made the point to

you could look where evidence is disputed and so he mentioned a couple of points where the defence challenges the inferences so not necessarily the testimony that these experts gave but the inferences that can be be drawn from the evidence.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And once we worked through all of that,

we got to alleged incriminating conduct.

This is basically Justice Beale taking the jury through what Aaron Patterson was doing following the lunch.

So, kind of going, look, these are the things that,

you know, the prosecution says, you know, a bit sketchy and that the defense argues there are reasons for, right?

Correct.

So the prosecution relies on a series, I think there's about 14 that I've counted, series of events after the lunch

that it alleges is implied admissions of guilt.

You know, that

the only reasonable explanation why she did certain things is that she knew she was guilty of the offences of which she's been charged.

The defence, however, argues there are other reasonable innocent explanations.

Right.

What's the list?

Yeah, do you want me to run through?

Yeah, yeah, I think

it wasn't a huge list.

I think we can, yeah, we've got time for 14.

So

the prosecution's list of alleged incriminating conduct is one, she lied about being unwell and faked death cat mushroom poisoning.

Two, she lied that she used dried mushrooms from an Asian grocery in the Beef Wellingtons.

Three, she refused treatment on her first presentation at Lee and Gather Hospital and left against medical advice.

Four, she was reluctant to receive treatment on her second presentation.

Five, reluctant to obtain treatment for her children on the Monday.

That's the Monday after the lunch.

Six, she lied when she said she fed her children leftover beef wellingtons with mushroom paste scraped off.

I'm just going to run through the rest of them, that she reset phone B multiple times.

She disposed of the dehydrator at the local tip.

During the police search of her home, she gave police phone B instead of phone A, which was the phone that she'd been using more often that year.

She lied to police that her number ended in 835 instead of ending in the one that she'd used most of that year, which ended in 783.

That she lied about never foraging.

She lied about never dehydrating food.

She lied about never owning a dehydrator and then lied that she may have owned a dehydrator years ago.

Yeah.

What confused me about this list was that he, Justice Beer went through this list of 14 things and then started number three, which was the presentation to Lee and Gatho Hospital and the decision to leave against medical advice.

And, you know, more or less, as he's kind of recapping these things, he's kind of just, you know, like he was yesterday with some of the disputed evidence, basically taking us through the evidence of the people who were there, like almost reading from a transcript to recap in the jury's mind what has actually happened and what people have said about those instances.

That's right, recapping the main testimonies from the people involved at those particular chapters in time.

And

for example, the one that you just mentioned, number three, leaving hospital against advice.

The prosecution's argument with that: well, the only reasonable explanation that she refused treatment is that she knew she hadn't consumed dead cat mushrooms.

She knew she didn't consume those toxins, that she deliberately poisoned her guests but ensured that she didn't eat a poisoned one.

The defence, however, says that she didn't come to hospital prepared to be admitted overnight.

She had to pack her daughter's ballet bag, she had to feed the animals, and the jury was also reminded of other times that that she had checked herself out of hospital discharged herself essentially and

were reminded of why that might have happened because of incidents in the past that she's had with her children and medical practitioners that has left her sometimes doubting or second guessing medical advice

um which we have another um 13 of these to go.

Is this kind of how it's going to roll through all of them?

You know, the prosecution versus the defense on each one of these as we pull them apart.

That's right.

The next topic is, you know, on that prosecution list of alleged incriminating conduct is that she lied about using dried mushrooms from an Asian grocery in the Beef Wellingtons.

And that's, of course, a point that the defence hasn't conceded.

And a lot of that list, I should point out that I read to you those 14 points.

She's admitted to lying.

on some of those occasions, but the defence certainly is not conceding those 14 points.

So we will be kind of trying to split all of them and see where the prosecution stands compared to the defense.

Yeah, Justice Beale, obviously, really keen to make sure the jury understands the kind of the key moments.

Like, you know, we've done disputed evidence.

Now, this is the kind of the post-defense conduct thing, what he was describing as alleged incriminating conduct.

He was very careful with the use of the word alleged today, I noticed, in a few of these instances.

So, yeah, he's really just kind of making sure that the jury is recapping and has all this stuff in their mind.

Rach, yesterday, as we neared the end of the day, as the jury was leaving the room, Justice Beale Beale said to the jury, no need to bring your toothbrush tomorrow.

Basically, a nod to the fact that they are not going to be retiring to deliberate on the verdict today.

Any toothbrush updates?

Any other packing advice for the jurors for tomorrow?

Yes, he says he won't be completing his charge tomorrow.

So no toothbrushes required tomorrow either.

It looks like the charge will be going into Friday.

He wanted the wind at his back, but he's also had some legal argument to wade through.

So no toothbrush tomorrow.

He He said, we live in hope.

Oh, look, it's an important time of the trial, like this moment, the judge's charge.

It is critical for the jury to understand what they need to go and think about and talk about.

So, you know, he's obviously being very careful in how he goes through this.

And that's why they got those binders yesterday.

There is so much evidence, rivers of it.

And you're right,

this is crunch time.

So they need to get it right.

And they need to understand.

the big elements that they need to consider.

Yeah.

Thank you, Rach.

We are getting so many questions to the Mushroom Case Daily inbox.

Mushroomcase Daily at abc.net.au is how you can reach us.

We read them all, especially on days where there's a legal argument in the morning.

And I have time to go through quite literally every single one that we got in the last day or so.

So that was a real treat this morning.

One of the ones that we got was from Gwyneth.

Gwyneth has emailed and said, hello, Stephen and Rachel from beautiful Brighton in Brisbane's north side.

In yesterday's podcast, a listener asked about the weighing of the proven lies Aaron Patterson had told.

And if I understood your response correctly, the judges instructed the jury to disregard them, as it is not a court of morals, rather a court of law.

At the same time, he stated in another instruction that the jury could take the evidence of Erin's good character with the family previously into account and also talked about tendencies regarding the mushroom foraging.

Could you please clarify why her lies are not considered relevant to the case/slash evidence?

Thanks, Gwyneth.

Yeah, I can see how that might be confusing that the jury is told you can consider the good, but if

you don't believe her, then set aside the lies.

I just want to drill down into that a bit more.

So remember that the jury has been reminded that Erin Patterson didn't have to give evidence.

She has the right to remain silent.

It's not for her to prove her innocence and interestingly we heard that the jury shouldn't give less weight to her testimony because she's the accused.

Because you've got to remember where the burden of proof lies in this.

It sits with the prosecution.

So I think when that helps hopefully explain your question that the jury can take into account the good behaviour because that's come from a lot of other witnesses, but you can't give her testimony any less credit.

And they were told, look, if you decide you don't believe her account,

not to be prejudiced against her, because as you said, it's a court of law, not a court of morals, to kind of put them aside and

come back to the four elements of murder that the prosecution has to prove.

It's the prosecution's job here, not Aaron's.

So come back to those four elements and decide,

has the prosecution, beyond reasonable doubt, proven them?

Yep.

Thank you, Rach.

Thank you, Gwyneth.

Wonderful question.

I've got another one here from Dylan, emailing from Newport in Melbourne.

His email starts with, bloody cold, isn't it?

I saw the weather report for East Gippsland last night.

Yes, Dylan, it is, as you put it, bloody cold.

Don't worry, the thermals, as you suggest, are working a treat.

Rach, his question is about the jury.

He thought that he heard that the verdict for the jury had to be unanimous, but also thought that he heard that it had to be a majority.

Which of his memories, not under oath, he clarifies, is correct?

Dylan, it has to be unanimous.

And you might, I'll take you back to the directions that the jury was given when it was first selected.

Justice Beale told the jurors that it has to be unanimous either way.

So you all must agree that the accused is guilty of murder, or you all must agree that she's not guilty of murder.

But interestingly, he said, it doesn't mean you all have to reach your verdict in the same way.

You may get there in different ways.

You know, you might rely on quite different reasoning for making your decision.

You might rely on different parts of the evidence or different aspects of the evidence, but on the eventual verdict, you must agree.

Great.

Thank you, Rach.

Thank you, Dylan, for the lovely question and making sure that we are staying warm.

Final question for today, Rach, is from Penny in Canberra.

Penny says, thanks for the wonderful coverage.

You are very welcome.

Penny, grateful that you are continuing through to the end, whenever that is.

Yes, we would also, you know, like to know, but very happy to be here continuing to update you as we get to that point.

Penny asks, sorry if I missed this in my binging catch-up, but you only share what is presented to the jury, so would they be able to listen?

Yeah, good question, Penny, but no, definitely not.

They have been told, do not read newspapers, don't listen to podcasts.

If you hear family or friends talking about it, walk away.

You know, they have to be quarterised from any white noise from the outside world.

I know we've only been careful to give you what the jury has heard, but remember that we're also choosing which bit to share, you know, and which bits to leave out.

So even being objective, some subjectivity enters that realm as Stocky and I decide what to give you in the half hour that you listen to us of a night time.

So no, jurors should not be listening to us.

Yeah.

Thank you, Rach.

Thank you, Penny.

And hopefully you trust us when we decide what, you know, not to fill your feed with.

You know, there's some things that we'll pick up later in the week.

You know, yesterday I know we did run over quite quickly some of the disputed kind of evidence in this trial, and we'll pick up some of that on Friday to kind of run you through it.

But, you know, trust us when we say.

We're doing you a favor.

Anyway, thank you for your questions.

If you do have one, please get in touch, mushroomcase daily at abc.net.au.

If there's a question you have sent that you think is really easy and really obvious and a really good question to answer, and we haven't answered it, there may be a very good legal reason for why we haven't done that.

We have a list of questions that have been excellent that we can't answer during the trial that we will get to when the verdict is handed down and we'll update you on all of that.

So if you've got questions, please get in touch.

Mushroomcase Daily at abc.net.au.

Rach, back tomorrow to go through some more alleged incriminating conduct with Justice Beale.

13 more points, Stocky.

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 just keep helping us out.

You know, all the way into week nine.

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

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

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