Maybe? Likely? Probably? Defence's final bid to the jury

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The closing of the closings.

I'm ABC Investigative Reporter Rachel Brown.

And I'm Stephen Stockwell.

It is Thursday, the 19th of June.

We've just finished the 34th day of Aaron Patterson's triple murder trial.

Welcome to Mushroom Case Daily.

The small town mystery that's gripped the nation and made headlines around the world.

On the menu was Beef Wellington, a pastry filled with beef and a pate made of mushrooms.

At the heart of this case will be the jury's interpretation of Erin Patterson's intentions.

Erin Patterson has strongly maintained her innocence.

The tragedy were perfect.

I love them.

Rach, we had our

last day of,

I guess, the arguments from the defence today.

We've already heard the end of the arguments from the prosecution.

I spent a bit of time sitting in the court today, looking out of the giant picture window at the almost cartoon-like clouds that were floating through the Gippsland sky.

And it's kind of a big moment, right?

Yeah, we are definitely on the home straight now, Stocky.

There's a lot to get through with the defence finishing their closing arguments today.

Before we get there, can you just give us a wrap-up of what we heard throughout the day?

Sure.

So during the trial, the prosecution has put forward these balloons, shall I say, of so-called deceptions of Aaron Patterson.

And Colin Mandy, in his closing, has been trying to put little needles in these balloons, so popping these so-called deceptions.

So he continued with that today.

He also spoke about incriminating conduct, which the jury will have to do a lot of thinking on, and they'll be given directions by the judge, Justice Beale, on that when it comes time for their deliberations.

But Colin Mandy said to the jury, there is no rule of human behaviour and you can't take the things that she did after the lunch as guilt.

And then he also spoke about her as a witness in the witness box and reminded the jury she didn't have to be there, she didn't have to give evidence.

And she subjected herself to some very scrupulous cross-examination by the prosecution.

And then we ended the day, Stocky, with a little present from Justice Beale to the jury.

Thank you, Rach.

The way you've described the kind of the popping of balloons of deception there is a wonderful way, I guess, of kind of explaining where Colin Mandiercy has kind of been.

We spent most of this morning, right?

Because he was covering a lot of ground.

He was walking us through all of these different bits and pieces, you know, taking his time at moments, really sort of explaining the different evidence that had been presented, what the prosecution had said about certain things, kind of like a real wonder.

I'll just remind you what the four alleged deceptions are said to have been.

One, that Erin fabricated the cancer claim as a ruse to get guests to the lunch.

Two, that she put lethal doses of poison deliberately into Beef Wellington's and individual portions that she chose for that act.

Three, that she attempted to make it seem like she also suffered poisoning.

And four, the sustained cover-up that the prosecution says she embarked on to conceal the truth.

So a lot of today's Stocky Colin Mandy, ESC, was going through some of the points that the prosecution has made, some of these balloons, and just trying to spike them down.

So I'll give you some examples.

I'm not going to go through them all because there were a lot.

There was a lot for the jury to take in today.

But on this idea, Stocky, that Erin is duplicitous.

You know, we've heard that one of the Facebook friends, a Ms.

Hunt,

gave evidence that Erin wasn't an atheist.

Now, Colin Mandy yesterday made a point of saying we should put inverted commas around the word friend when it comes to Facebook,

that this woman, Ms.

Hunt, wasn't even part of the inner chat group, that they never spoke on the phone, that that's not someone you should count as a friend.

That's one example.

What else?

The Sunday after the lunch, we've heard a lot about how her son doesn't remember Erin pulling over, as she says, by the side of the road where she says she has diarrhea.

Colin Mandy's told the jury, well, he also doesn't remember the stop of the BP service station where he got food, which is what a teenager normally would remember.

So those are the types of things, you know, apparently she was reluctant to get medical treatment.

Colin Mandy said, if it was a ruse

to get medical treatment.

Colin Mandy says if this was a big play to make Erin look as sick as the other guests, she would have been, hook me up, pump me full of drugs because I'm very, very sick.

So things like that, there was a lot of them, and I'm not going to go through all of them, but trying to deflate the prosecution arguments that have been put up, you know, lobbed up for the jury to think about when they retire.

Yep.

Speaking of the prosecution, I mean, Colin Mandy spent a long part of the day, a lot of the day, talking about the prosecution, you know, kind of making this point or highlighting what they they didn't say or what evidence they didn't draw the jury to at various points.

So, you know, we're talking about, Erin Patterson not being as sick as the other guests, the prosecution saying she wasn't as sick as the other guests.

You know, the defence is saying, look, she was sick, she had diarrhea.

We heard evidence.

And we had, you know, Columandy pointing the jury to evidence from Dr.

Burston, who did say in his evidence that there was some evidence of a diarrheal illness there.

There may have been some evidence of a diarrheal illness there.

And Columandy saying, well, look, you don't see the prosecution pointing you to that evidence.

Another example was around, again, Aaron Patterson not being as sick as the other guests at the lunch.

Columandy pointing the jury to the evidence of Dr.

Geros Demoulos and the severity index of Amanita Folloy's poisoning, these sort of four grades, it's a lower grade, and Columandi saying, well, look, you know, you don't see them pointing to that and highlighting this piece as well.

So, yeah, this sort of, you know, there's all these things they're not telling you and they're not highlighting, they're leaving out was a big part of what Columandi SC was doing today.

And to be fair, that's not the prosecution's job.

It doesn't have to do the defence's work for it, but that is what Colin Mandy was trying to say today.

They've been very selective.

They've cherry-picked.

They've told you some bits of, or they've reminded you in the closing of some bits of witnesses' evidence, but not other bits.

So he was very carefully going through all those other bits.

Yep, yeah.

Again, you know, like he was saying, sort of popping the balloons, if you will.

Colin Mandy also spoke about Aaron's actions following the lunch.

Now, this is something that we've heard kind of referred to, I think, as incriminating conduct, right?

Post-defence behaviour, it's also called, but yeah, we know it as incriminating conduct.

And Colin Mandy said, by Tuesday afternoon, Erin was being treated as responsible.

She's cooked this lunch, four people are seriously ill, she was freaking out, people blaming her, any way you look at it, it was her fault.

So he says she was feeling isolated and left out of the loop.

And he says some people might ask lots of questions in that situation.

Some might shrink away and withdraw into themselves.

And Colin Mandy said to the jury, nothing that Erin said or did was going to make any difference at all at that point, that they're already, the guests are already in hospital, they're already being treated for suspected death cat mushroom poisoning.

And he used the word fulcrum, that August the 1st was the fulcrum.

That's when things shifted.

That was kind of like a Rubicon in this whole series of events.

And this is when she's in hospital, am I right?

That's right.

And she has a conversation, allegedly, with Simon Patterson.

I say allegedly, he's denied it in court, where Simon is said to have said to her, they were discussing the dehydrator.

She was also talking to her daughter about muffins, using the dehydrator to blitz mushrooms that eventually went into muffins.

And Simon allegedly says to her, oh,

is that what you use to poison them?

And so Colin Mandy is said today, that's the fulcrum.

That's when in Erin's mind

that she might have accidentally done this.

Yeah, this kind of realization moment of like, oh, maybe the mushrooms, and this is Aaron Hatterson's evidence at this point, where she says, you know, this is the realization that, oh, well, hang on a second, maybe the mushrooms from the container that I've taken from my cupboard weren't just the ones from the Asian grocer.

Maybe there were some foraged ones in there as well.

And maybe those ones could have been poisonous.

Yeah, he said, you know, this is when she's confronted with this terrible realization that she might have caused the illnesses that her loved ones are facing.

And he said, none of the things that she did after can change her intention.

So he's saying to the jury, don't use her actions after the lunch as evidence of guilt, that this is a woman who panicked.

He said to the jury, think about that Erin might have had other reasons to do the things she did other than guilt.

The prosecution want you to use the absence.

of evidence to fill the gaps.

For example, she used the iNaturalist website.

So then, therefore, she must have seen the posts from Christine Mackenzie and Tom May, even though there is no evidence of that on any of her devices.

So it'll be a big one the jury has to mull over.

Justice Beal will give them a steer on how to decide post-defence conduct and incriminating conduct and how that will factor into their deliberations.

So Colin Mandy left the jury with this idea that there is no rule.

of human behavior, you know, not to assume that the things that Erin engaged in after the lunch, she was only engaged in because she's guilty of murder.

As Colin Mandy was sort of drawing to the end of his closing today,

he started talking a bit about Erin Patterson

taking the witness box, walking into the witness box and giving evidence in her own triple murder trial.

He was making the point that she didn't have to do this.

She made a choice to do it.

And I think he even, you know, it was quite specific in language, like she did this as an innocent woman.

And he said, you know, she subjected herself to very lengthy cross-examination at the hands of a very experienced barrister.

So that's a little hat tip there to Dr.

Nanette Rogers, SC.

And he said, you know, the way she answered the questions was careful, even pedantic, as I think that was Erin's final words in her re-examination.

I do do that.

You know, I am pedantic.

Colin Mandiasi said she's come under an incredible amount of scrutiny.

You know, you wouldn't have had the impression that she was trying to charm you or persuade you.

She was very honest, you know, even when the truth was quite embarrassing or when she was admitting to you that she told lies.

You know, she said, I was wrong.

I'm ashamed of myself, things like that.

And he said she exposed herself and her account to very close examination and came through unscathed.

he says, which is a hard thing, he argues, to stick to a consistent account day after day after day, you know, even in the face face of rapid fire from multiple angles.

So he said to the jurors, you know, it's not enough that if you prefer the prosecution case to her evidence, you know, it's, and he said, nah, the prosecution case is a little bit better than Erin.

He said, that's not good enough.

The prosecution has to prove each facet of its case beyond reasonable doubt.

As he again sort of edged closer to the conclusion of his closing address,

he drew us back to a point that the prosecution had made in their closing.

And it was a point that we reflected on on the pod and we spoke about on the pod about a jigsaw.

And the prosecution was making the point that, you know, when you're, you know, you've got all the evidence in a case, you've got all the pieces, you're putting them together, you're getting a bigger picture and you're assessing that bigger picture.

Colin Mandy SC today making the point that a jigsaw is a flawed analogy in this sense because when you get a jigsaw, there is a picture on the box that you're working towards.

And if you are putting the pieces together to get to that picture, potentially you've assumed the direction that you're going in.

And he was saying that basically the prosecution's picture on the box is a picture of guilt.

And they have put the evidence together in a way that presents that picture of guilt instead of proving beyond a reasonable doubt, using the evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Aaron Patterson is guilty of

the crimes that she's been accused.

So I thought that was a really interesting juxtaposition of something that, you know, we'd spoken about about out on the pod and and and that's as he as he worked his way uh towards kind of like moved into the the final moments of addressing the jury yeah he took the prosecution's puzzle and threw it off the table it was interesting that he borrowed from their playbook but flipped it you know in this idea that they're trying to have this picture and work backwards and he also used the analogy of you can't force puzzle pieces together you can't force evidence to fit a theory and he's arguing that the the prosecution is stretching interpretations ignoring alternate explanations when they don't fit with the prosecution narrative.

And he said to the jury, you cannot fill gaps with guesswork, speculation and theories.

Columandy did mention that, you know, the trial might seem like a competition, but it's not a boxing match or a football match.

He said it's more like a high jump.

and only the prosecution has to clear the bar.

The defence doesn't have to do anything.

Erin doesn't have to do anything.

Erin is innocent and that's your starting point.

So he came back to a point that he made to the jury at the very beginning in his opening.

He also walked them through this spectrum, shall we say, of how they can land on not guilty.

So he said, if you think it's possible that she deliberately poisoned the meal,

you have to rule not guilty.

If you think maybe she poisoned the meal, Not guilty.

You think she probably deliberately poisoned the meal?

Not guilty.

And he did the same with intending to kill the lunch guests, you know, possibly, maybe, probably, that all of those would still have to end in a not guilty verdict.

And he hits that point, and that is the end, right?

That's the conclusion of Colin Mandy's closing address to the jury.

It'll be the last time he speaks to the jury.

And these are the moments in the courtroom that I'm expecting this kind of high drama.

Like, there's all this tension, there's all of this work.

And like, he just stops.

And then

Justice Beale just sort of turns to the jury and goes, okay, cool.

Well, look, that's him, and like now there's a couple of other points to get.

There's no like theater or drama or tension or release around any of this.

It's just like, boom, here we go.

Next thing.

I think you've been watching too many court dramas, Stocky.

I actually don't watch a lot of court dramas.

I just think I've got a sense of drama and storytelling.

There's no, you can't handle the truth.

There was none of that at all.

I've been lied to.

Anyway, someone who hasn't lied to me is Justice Christopher Beale.

And he, you know, he kind of had the, well, he had the last word to the jury today as, you know, he was sort of sending them on their way.

He did.

He gave them a lovely surprise that his charge, his judge's charge to the jury, won't start until Tuesday, which means they get Monday off as well as tomorrow.

So he said, think of it as a second Easter.

And they all looked wrapped with that.

He said, look, I've been working hard to try to compress it, his charge.

He said, you know, he's going to try to aim for two days if he has the wind at his back, as we heard the other day.

But he said, I can't make any promises.

you know working hard to try to compress it and one of the jurors said I can imagine you know so we're back to jury interactivity

it's I mean it's nice they've obviously feel quite comfortable in front of Justice Beale he's made them feel very comfortable but Justice Beale continued and he said look you know there might be a certain impatience to get to this point, to get to deliberations.

It's the final and most critical point of this trial, but he said it's important not to just get to that stage, but to also do things right every step of the way.

So there are certain legal arguments that need to be had first, and he wants to give some very considered thought to his judge's charge.

Yeah, we've heard quite a bit of talk about the judge's charge this week, just kind of in the

conversational, the closing arguments from both the prosecution and defence.

They'll be talking about, you know, a type of evidence a certain point, how much weight a jury can place on one witness over another or another piece of evidence over another.

And they've kind of referred to the judge's charge, which you know is what we're going to get to

Tuesday, Wednesday, maybe Thursday next week.

And the other thing I will remind you of as you're listening to this pod, especially over this week as we're doing the closing arguments and covering them, it is going to sound like we are coming from either one side or the other as we talk through them.

It's because we are kind of retelling the arguments from.

quite literally, one side or the other.

We've had the defense over the last couple of days.

We've had the prosecution earlier in the week.

And so if you're interested in kind of, you know, where the arguments are going and what they both want the jury to be thinking about, I'd highly recommend just going through the episodes from this week to catch up on

where everything is going.

Next week we'll be getting to the judge's directions, as you mentioned, Rach.

And he said that too, Stocky.

He said, you know, and what listeners should also do, maintain an open mind.

You know, Justice Beale said to the jury, you've heard the evidence, you've heard the closings, but you haven't heard my charge.

So, you know, he said, part of that will be legal principles that you have to apply.

Some I've told you, some I haven't.

And then he gave them a very important second point to to remember, which was, it's more important than ever that you have a good weekend.

I want you fresh here on Tuesday.

And then he said, that's not a threat, by the way.

So I know Justice Bill probably doesn't care if you and I are fresh on Tuesday, Stocky, but I'm very grateful to him also.

That's very thoughtful.

I also appreciated, you know, speaking of an interactive jury,

as he, you know, sent them on their way, not, you know, sort of like, you know, dismissively, sort of let them leave.

There was a thank you, Your Honor, from the jury box as well, which I appreciated.

Rach, as we get to the end of the episode, we do have a correction that we need to make from yesterday's episode, something that was in that episode.

This is from Colin Mandy.

He spoke to the jury this morning and updated something he said in his closing address.

Yeah, yesterday we spoke about this.

He said that Erin Patterson was stirring and tasting the duck sell, the mushroom paste, the morning of the lunch.

He said that's perhaps why she became sick hours before anyone else because she was doing the tasting in the morning.

He wanted to qualify.

He said, look, Erin Patterson did not say she'd actually tasted the duck sal after adding dried mushrooms, but he said, using common sense, you'd expect that would happen because that's what she was doing.

She was testing for how flavoursome or bland the duck sal was.

Yeah, thank you, Rach.

Thank you, Colin Mandy, SC.

Before we wrap up for the day, Rach, I want to jump into some questions.

These are coming through to mushroomcase daily at abc.net.au.

You can send us all sorts of questions.

We love getting them.

There's even just some lovely feedback or some notes on things we've said, things we can clarify, which is all great.

Just people saying they're big fans of the pod, which is also nice.

I want to start today with a question from Mandy and Robin.

Rach.

They say, dear Rachel and Stocky, thanks for your great work.

We are two very keen listeners, both artists working away in our separate studios, Robin in Batlow in the Snowy Mountains and Mandy in Blackheath in the Blue Mountains.

They listen intently and discuss every day.

A couple of emojis here, Rach, Friends of the Pod will know.

A little face with the love hearts around it and a face with love heart eyes.

It's very nice.

The big question that keeps coming up for them is: why would Erin or anyone for that matter dehydrate and store death cat mushrooms in their food cupboard, especially with children in the house?

Good question.

The defence would argue she didn't do it deliberately, that it was an accidental mix-up with foraged mushrooms and the dried mushrooms that she bought from the Asian grocer, they say, in Glen Waverley in April 2023.

So that's the basis of their case that this thing, this tragedy was all a terrible accident.

She didn't realise until that day of the fulcrum that we spoke about today, the Tuesday, when Simon brings up the dehydrator and the defence says that's the moment when Erin thinks,

oh no, has this, I think I know what might have happened.

Yeah.

Thank you, Rach.

Thank you to Mandy and Robin.

They also have a follow-up point here.

They say thanks very much and congratulations to Christian and his wife and family.

A huge welcome to Baby Silver.

There's actually, I think, two emojis there as well, but they're all question marks, so they haven't come through.

You can only assume they are the eye-rolling emoji.

We have another question here from Marsha Rach.

Marcia says, hi there.

Thanks for a great podcast.

It's the first thing I listen to each day.

I have a question regarding Erin's friends.

It seems from the evidence presented that the only friends Erin has are the ones on the Facebook group, which have been discussed at length.

Does she have any other friends?

Has this come up at all?

Thanks, Marcia.

I can only tell you what the jury has heard, and the jury has only heard from three witnesses that were part of the Facebook chat group.

Keep in mind, Colin Mandy told the jury yesterday he should put inverted commas around some of those people

called friends.

I'll leave it at that.

Make of that what you may.

He said it wasn't like she was talking on the phone to them at night.

It was just a you know, group chat message kind of thing.

And one of the women that gave evidence, he says, wasn't in the inner sanctum of this chat group.

As for

who may or may not be in the room during the trial, I'm sorry, Marcia, I just can't say.

Yeah.

Thank you, Rach.

Thank you, Marsha, for that question.

And Rach, final question here from Stacey.

Stacey says, hey, Christian and Rachel.

So close, Stacey.

It's Stocky and Rachel.

But you love the pod, so I'm going to let you off.

Stacey says, I started listening a month in and binged to catch up.

I was wondering if defence closing is wrapping up today and the judges' charges and directions aren't until Tuesday.

What do you?

Stacey said Monday, because that's what we thought until today.

It's now going to be starting on Tuesday.

Stacey's wondering what the other days will be.

So we will have no court on Friday, Rach.

We'll have no court on Monday.

What are those days?

It's a holiday, Stacey.

So the jury can be fresh when it comes back Tuesday and so we can too.

Thank you Justice Beale.

We will still be doing our Friday wrap episode so when you are hanging around in the ABC Listen app you can you can still catch us dropping in your feed on Friday afternoon as we wrap up the closings from both the prosecution and defence, go across some of the key themes, talk through some of the big moments of the week so you've got something to keep you company on the weekend.

But yeah, thank you so much for hanging out and listening to Mushroom Case Daily.

Mushroom Case Daily is produced by ABC Audio Studios and ABC News.

It's presented by me, Rachel Brown, and producer Stephen Stockwell.

Our executive producer is Claire Rawlinson and a huge thanks to our true crime colleagues who keep helping us out.

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

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

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Coming to ABC Listen on July 2nd, Expanse, Nowhere Man.

In the meantime, catch up on all the previous seasons, search for Expanse on the ABC Listen app.