Everything you need to know about Erin’s messages: Our Friday Wrap

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It was slow and painful.

Once the lunch guests ingested death cap mushrooms, their slide towards death was almost impossible to stop.

I'm the ABC's court reporter Christian Silver, and I'm Stephen Stockwell.

It is Friday, the 23rd 23rd of May.

We've just finished the fourth week of Erin Patterson's murder trial.

Just a warning, there is some strong language in this episode.

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 recovered.

I love them.

Christian, we've wrapped up the final day of the fourth week of Aaron Patterson's murder trial.

Very keen to talk through some of the bigger moments of this week as we get into the episode.

But before we do that, can you take us through what we heard in court today?

The key witness up today was an intensive care specialist from the Austin Hospital in Melbourne.

This was the doctor who was in charge when the lunch guests were in a critical condition.

And he was there when three of the four died.

He outlined the steps doctors took as they desperately tried to save their lives.

We did hear, however, about Ian Wilkinson's story of survival.

Thank you, Christian.

It was a shorter day in court today, as you mentioned, hearing from the doctors who cared for the lunch guests.

The length of the hearing kind of belies the weight, I guess, of what we heard today, though.

Fridays are typically shorter court days, but what we heard today, the evidence from Dr.

Stephen Worrillo, was incredibly sad and it was a piece of the timeline that we hadn't quite got to yet.

We'd heard previously about how the four lunch guests fell really sick and some of the hospitals that they went to, but we hadn't got to the final hospital, which is the Austin in Melbourne.

And this witness was called to talk about that.

He really took us through those kind of like the final moments, really.

He charted us through their slow decline to death.

And this is part of the trial, the evidence in the case.

You've got to go through it.

But it was really sad to hear how these people suffered in their final days.

And basically, he said once they'd come to hospital and they'd done the testing and they kept monitoring, It really didn't matter what they did.

It was just never going to stop this slide into death.

The doctors sounded like they tried everything.

So three of the four guests died and he spoke about Ian Wilkinson who quite seemingly pulled off a miraculous recovery.

Yeah, he spoke about how close he got.

He was, you know, pretty much on the edge there, right?

Yeah, what Dr.

Warrillo said about Ian Wilkinson was, we thought he was going to die.

He was very, very close.

We can go through a bit of this timeline.

So this lunch happened on a Saturday and within about three days these guests had made it to the Austin.

And the story for four of them is incredibly similar according to this doctor.

They all came with what appeared to be liver damage, organ failure.

They were put on some liver-saving medications.

One was called NAC, NAC.

There was another one called silabinin and also activated charcoal was also used.

They were hooked up to machines, machines, but the doctors said that these injuries were basically irreversible.

Don Patterson underwent a liver transplant, but that didn't do anything.

And with Don's wife, Gail,

she was just too sick to even have a transplant.

And Gail's sister, Heather, was also there.

similar position and the two sisters actually died within about three hours of each other on the 4th of August 2023.

So this is about five days after the lunch.

And Don Patterson died the following day, the 5th of August.

Yeah, yeah, the three deaths.

The reason that we're going through this trial of Aaron Patterson, accused with murder and attempted murder.

The attempted murder referring to Ian Wilkinson, who did recover.

He did.

And when you're hearing about the deaths of people, naturally it's really sad.

And I think the only sort of positive that you could draw from hearing this very sad story was that the one guy who did survive was actually actually in the courtroom and it felt nice to see him there.

He's the guy who pulled through and Ian Wilkinson listened as the doctor talked about his recovery.

So he also came in incredibly sick just like all the others.

After four or five days he was not looking good but he turned a corner and very very slowly recovered.

And eventually he was released from hospital about six weeks later and he made it home.

And we've seen Mr.

Wilkinson during the trial.

He actually gave evidence early on.

So, yeah, it was nice to see him there.

Just a reminder that someone made it.

Yeah, yeah, positive moment in what was, yeah, some quite sad evidence that we heard in the court today.

Christian, it's been a very busy week as we've gone through the fourth week of Aaron Patterson's trial.

One of the things that we've spent a lot of time with this week is basically, you know, the tracking of locations using devices a lot of electronic evidence we've heard as well of um you know about what was recovered from aaron patterns home by police and you've been doing uh a little bit of work to try and you know collate some of the devices that we've been hearing about this week what can you kind of tell us about this what can you break down for us before i get into trouble i must stress not additional research just looking through transcripts

not not doing anything that the jury is uh told not to do yeah reviewing the evidence better way to phrase it reading the reading over the transcripts just like the jury is able to um

so yesterday i think we were talking about phones and messages and it can get really confusing because there's a few different devices in the case so i'll try to step through um some of these devices and cross-reference it to our previous episodes so if we start with computers So when police searched Aaron Patterson's home, they seized a number of computers and phones, and there's a tablet as well.

So there's a computer which has been called the Caller Master computer.

Now I actually think the right term for this is Cooler Master.

The judge has been calling it Caller Master.

Anyway, that doesn't really matter.

This was a computer which had three hard drives on it, which was checked by police.

And this is the computer where police say there were searches in 2022 for the iNaturalist website.

Now the iNaturalist website is the same website where about five to six months later, people have made online posts saying that they've spotted death cat mushrooms near Aaron Patterson's house.

So police so police allege that on this computer

somebody went to the iNaturalist website and looked up a page about death cat mushrooms

in 2022.

So that's that device.

There was a Samsung mobile phone seized from Aaron Patterson's house.

The court was told this is the device which contains some Facebook messages that

Aaron Patterson had with some online friends.

And we'll get to that later.

We mentioned it yesterday as well.

So that's a Samsung mobile phone.

There's a Samsung tablet.

This is a device that was also seized from Erin Patterson's house by police.

And on this tablet, Police said that they found photos of mushrooms that were on some kitchen scales and they also found some screenshots of what appeared to be Google searches or you know Bing searches or something like that,

searches for cancer diagnosis.

We know from earlier in this trial the topic of Erin Patterson

allegedly claiming she had cancer came up.

So that's on that device.

There's another phone too.

And this is a phone which has been nicknamed Phone B.

But this is also another Samsung phone.

And this is the phone that was factory reset three times in the week after the lunch, according to police.

Prosecutors said earlier in this trial that this phone was used by Erin Patterson from about January 2023, so about six months

before.

the lunch.

I went back to the transcript of the prosecution openings and I actually found references to two more phones.

There's a phone which has been dubbed dubbed Phone A.

Prosecutors say this phone was never recovered, and they say that Erin Patterson also used this in 2023.

And there's another phone which has been called a Nokia handset.

This phone was used by Erin Patterson after

the lunch.

It was used about a week later.

I'm pretty sure we haven't heard about Phone A or the Nokia handset since the opening day of this trial.

Okay, and so just to quickly recap, we've got the computer with the iNaturalist searches for death caps in 2022.

We've got the Samsung phone with the Facebook messages that we'll talk about in a second.

We've got a Samsung tablet with photos of mushrooms,

screenshots, I should say, of searches of cancer diagnoses.

And then the phone that was reset plus these other two phones that we're seeing if we're, that might pop up at another point.

Yeah.

I'm keen to talk about the phone with these Facebook messages on because this is a moment yesterday afternoon.

It came out quite late.

We were working towards the last hour of the day.

And so this was something that, you know, if you listen to Thursday's episode, the entire structure of that and the order of that changed as soon as we heard these things because we realized it was the most compelling part of that day.

And these are messages, Christian, with some of Aaron Patterson's Facebook friends.

And these are some of the women that we heard from earlier in the trial, right?

Yeah, the likes of Danielle Barclay and Jenny Hay.

Yeah, yeah.

And this conversation, there's there's messages over the course of about three days.

This happened in December 2022, so about eight months before the lunch.

Christian, can you paint me a picture of what is happening in Erin Patterson's life at this point?

So this is a period where there's great tension between Erin Patterson and her husband, Simon.

This is according to evidence we've heard in this trial.

The two of them were arguing over things like child support payments.

They were arguing over other finances.

And

what these messages show is that Erin Patterson was pretty frustrated with Simon and also with his parents.

And there's, like I mentioned before, three days of messages.

So I think we can sort of step through the day.

So the first one is on December 6th.

And so we know Erin has these, you know, concerns and frustrations around child support and her relationship with Simon.

And it sounds like she has raised them with Don and Gail Patterson, who's Simon's parents.

And she's had a call with them.

And it sounds like that Don and Gail spoke to Simon and he just didn't engage.

He didn't agree with what Aaron was saying.

And Aaron was basically told that, look, if he doesn't talk to, you know, Don and Gale, his parents, a bit more about it, they're not going to be able to help.

And they offer this suggestion that

maybe they should pray about it.

And as Aaron is sort of recapping this in this group chat, there's three emojis that go in.

And then a language warning, there's the line, this family, I swear to fucking God.

I mean, that language is quite strong.

The context that I think is sort of missing a bit from this as well is that there are these emojis.

Do we know what these emojis were?

Good question.

I think we couldn't really work out what they were.

So when this was flashed up on the screens in the courtroom, the lawyers and the judge seemed to not understand what that emoji displayed.

And we quickly moved on and it was sort of accepted that we'd just skip over whatever the emoji is.

Now in the media overflow room, we also have a screen and we all sort of rushed up to the screen to try to see what the emoji was.

And honestly, I can tell you I couldn't tell what it was either.

It

wasn't the common emojis that we normally see and that we use in our everyday texting life.

So yeah, I think it's fair to say that between the lawyers and even many of the reporters, we couldn't quite work out.

what it meant.

So it was kind of the emoji was kind of disregarded and people just focused on the text.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And these are messages that yeah, Erin is sending in a Facebook chat with some of her friends, clearly frustrated with not just Simon Patterson, her husband, but also his parents, Don and Gail Patterson.

And then there's another message where the person messages says that, you know, Don and Gail don't want to adjudicate anything.

And then there's a kind of frustration that they don't want to help.

And then there's another quote, you know, basically saying the family is a lost cause.

Yep.

And this is important because again, it's getting to this child support conversation, right?

So there's another question

where there seems to be this kind of ask for Erin to withdraw a claim for child support because she's applied for child support at this point, right?

What it sounds like is that Erin is retelling this story to her friends.

And these messages are pretty long in the group chat.

Yeah.

Yeah, they go for ages.

And as she's talking about this fight over child support payments, she calls Simon's conduct unconscionable.

Then again, another language warning, she says, I'm sick of this shit.

I want nothing to do with them.

Fuck them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is again after a kind of suggestion from Dom Patterson, her father-in-law, the father of her husband, Simon Patterson, kind of again saying, look, we can't really, you know, mediate this.

You know, again, maybe you should just pray about it, this kind of frustration that she sees again with that.

And it continues for the next couple of days.

Yeah, yeah, there's another one.

So December 7, you know, she jumps back into the group chat, an update saying that she got a message from Don and Gale overnight and then another one from Simon as well.

These are separate messages that she gets.

And she says she's actually just not going to read them because she knows that Simons will be gaslighting and abusive and will ruin her day.

And that Don and Gale's will be weasel words and basically says, I don't need anything more from these people.

They say they don't want to take sides, but by their very actions here, she seems to think that they have.

And she carries on and she she said that if this was relating to Don and Gail's actual daughter, not their daughter-in-law, they'd act differently.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then there's a day break.

So, you know, we're talking over the course of three days.

So we've had messages on December 6th, another one, another couple on December 7th that we've just gone through.

And then there's a day break.

And on December 9, there's this final message talking about how Gail Patterson, who is Simon Patterson's mother, saying that she was horrified that Aaron Patterson had claimed child support and then saying, why wasn't she horrified that her son is a deadbeat?

And then that's the kind of run of those messages.

Now, Christian, we just saw these messages from Aaron Patterson, or these are the ones that I'm kind of across.

Were there replies from the group chat?

Was there conversation going back and forth?

We were shown some conversation and some replies from a group member.

I'm not entirely sure whether we saw all of the replies, but I think what's worth remembering is that with this evidence that's been presented, the prosecution's job is to present evidence that's relevant to the case.

So if there's some belief that some of these replies, potential replies, don't know if they exist, but if it's unrelated, then maybe it doesn't need to go in there.

At the end of the day, all the evidence that's put before the court is stuff that has been deemed admissible by the judge.

So it's appropriate for the jury to see it when they consider this entire case.

And this was during someone's evidence in chief, so that was under questioning from the prosecution.

So the prosecution is the one who's presenting these messages to the jury so they can have a look at them, right?

Correct.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Also, just a reminder, this isn't the first time that we've spoken about group chats and messages in the trial.

And we heard earlier in the trial when Simon Patterson was on the stand that there was a signal group chat.

Signal is a messaging app that they used.

So we heard about that chat that the family would use to communicate.

And that Simon claimed at one point that Erin used to send abusive and accusatory messages.

And we didn't see that message, though.

That wasn't able to be produced when someone was asked about it.

And for clarity, it's not this set of messages either because this is Erin's group chat with her friends.

It doesn't involve members of the Patterson family.

Yep, yeah, this is a private group chat.

Christian,

as well as this, we have had quite a bit.

of other stuff going on this week.

We've also heard a lot about

location data, prosecution alleging that a phone belonging to Erin was near places that death mushrooms have been spotted.

You can hear more about that on Monday and Tuesday.

We also saw CCTV footage of Erin Patterson entering a petrol station just after, I think a day or two after the lunch.

A day after.

Yeah, this is a time where she said she was feeling very sick.

She was suffering from diarrhea.

And I just want to note that we have received your emails about Erin Patterson wearing light-coloured pants on that day.

Christian, is there anything that I've missed?

You've done a good job.

That is a key summary of the evidence we saw this week.

Great.

Thank you, Christian.

That's all I was after, really.

Just fishing for compliments.

What was the moment this week that has kind of stuck with you that you've found yourself thinking back to or reflecting on?

This week really felt like it was all about tiny little details.

We saw so many charts, diagrams, tables flashed up in court and we had to try to make sense of them.

Like the previous weeks have often been people talking about their recollections or their memories or we've seen pictures of Beef Wellington leftovers.

This has been really drilled down to the micro level.

And I guess what sticks with me is how I consumed that information.

So in the courtroom, there are some seats for the media and members of the public, and there are some screens where you can see these exhibits put up.

But some of these tables, they're zoomed out so much that it's impossible to read the text.

So what we've actually done on some occasions is we've gone to the media overflow room where there's also a screen where you can see these exhibits.

And what I think I'll remember from this week is when some of Dr.

Sorrell's mobile phone reception charts were put up, how all the reporters would run to the front of the room, to the screen and frantically write down all the metadata and all the details that we could make sense of from these reports because sometimes they only flash up on the screen for a few seconds.

This is information that the jury has by the way, but they've got it on their iPads.

They can refer to them.

They can zoom in.

We unfortunately don't have that luxury.

So just the sight of 10 to 15 reporters sitting really way too close to a screen with their legs crossed and laptops typing frantically will be something that remains with me because that's not something we do normally.

And it really felt like I was taken back to grade two.

But one thing that's different is, man, my legs are sore from that cross-legged sitting.

It's in the media overflow room.

It is quite a sight because that's where I will often spend a bit of time working because I can work on scripts and other things in there while watching the proceedings.

And it's like seeing everyone crowded around a little campfire, just all, you know, tight-knit little group,

all peering up earnestly at the screen.

Yeah, while it does look a bit silly, the reason we do it is we want to get these small details to people at home.

And sometimes things are not said out loud.

So it's that information that you can pull off the screen and we'll do whatever it takes to get it within the law.

I think my highlights for this week are a couple of small things and then one medium-sized thing.

So

the small thing was Troy from the Monash Council's spreadsheet.

I love a spreadsheet.

You mentioned that a few times.

Just so about it.

I've got some for this as well, don't worry.

But the way that he sort of methodically worked around the Asian grocers that he was looking at, the way he kind of put it on a spreadsheet, love that.

Also, yesterday, when we were hearing about Aaron Patterson's stool samples, the thing that I found fascinating about that was the way they gather the stool samples.

We heard about the basically like an upside-down witch's hat that goes in the toilet and is designed so it can either sit at the front or the back of the toilet.

I just thought that was a very clever depends on what kind of sample you're trying to collect.

Exactly, whatever they're collecting.

And then the kind of medium-sized thing this week that I found really, really quite interesting to watch is Colin Mandy, the defence barrister who's working for Aaron Patterson, kind of really going to work a bit more this week.

He was doing a lot of cross-examination, particularly of Dr.

Sorrell, really kind of questioning him about the methods, what all of that data meant.

And the accuracy, most importantly, the accuracy of his mobile phone tower evidence.

and whether his analysis can precisely pinpoint Aaron Patterson's movements and activity.

I thought it was very interesting too.

Yes.

And also, I mean, I know I said only two small things.

I do have another small thing that I found,

you know, really sort of did catch my imagination this week.

When we were hearing about the searches done on a computer seized from Aaron Patterson's house, I just can't stop thinking about the fact that they were done on the Bing search engine, but through a Chrome browser.

That just, the chaos of that has captured my imagination.

But enough of that.

We're welcoming back Rachel Brown, the ABC's Investigative True Crime Reporter, because I'm very keen to find out what has been sticking in your mind this week.

Rach, have you been finding yourself gathered around the TV and the media overflow room, gazing forlornly at exhibits displayed on the screen?

No, my quads aren't sore like Christians.

I've been in the courtroom for most of this week, Stocky.

And how has it been?

in that room what has the emotion been like what's the energy been like because it has been look it's been dense we're getting through a lot of very technical evidence this week in terms of energy it's been a roller coaster week because we've gone from the mechanics of cell tower evidence and computer evidence which is so dense which Christian has walked you through to the human pain and fractures of a family so I find that roller coaster really interesting and the lengths of human extremes really.

Have you found the same thing?

It's been, you know, the wide range of what we get.

You know, you have a whole day day of dr matthew sorrell uh kind of giving you the particulars of how phone network works and then you have days like today where you're hearing about someone's final moment so as you say it is this kind of roller coaster but i find that over the course of a week i guess kind of easier to manage i think that i find the days very distinct i think probably because we're doing this podcast daily right so like all the days to me get kind of quite compartmentalized so it's broken apart a little bit more yeah i know you like your structure you mentioned spreadsheets and we have seen a lot of them and i should say tip for you you should watch the docko in the world spreadsheet championships.

I will.

It's on the list, don't worry.

Spreadsheets are your thing.

No, but it is interesting that we go from that dense

evidence to

what we have seen in the messages, the text messages with Erin Patterson's Facebook group of friends and the insight into her family, the Patterson family, and the fractures.

You know, we've just heard about

her frustration at Simon's parents, Don and Gail, refusing to adjudicate on whether she should claim child support or not.

Now, I'll just read you one of those messages.

I wonder if they've got any capacity for self-reflection at all.

I mean, clearly the fact that Simon refuses to talk about personally choosing parts stems from the behaviour of his parents and how they operate.

According to them, they've never asked him what's going on with us, why I keep kicking him out, why his son hates him, etc.

It's too awkward or uncomfortable or something.

So that's his learned behaviour.

Just don't talk about this shit.

And so that's, you know, it's a really, I mean, it's, it's, you know, we've spoken about this before, but it's such a detailed insight into someone's life that you would never expect to be kind of broadcast to, you know, not just that room, but, you know, to everyone through podcasts like this.

And all these messages, I've been wondering, you know, would I react like this?

Would you react like this?

Would my friends, you know, would listeners do the same?

Maybe.

You know, it's interesting the reactions I've heard from different colleagues, but also through different gender gender optics as well, what the different responses are.

You know, one is like, well,

she didn't like the hand that she'd been dealt, so she went to someone else to complain about it, as in, you know, don't like mum's decision, so you go to dad, that type of thing.

But it does illustrate the very human need to vent to friends.

And I wonder what...

people would find if they went through my phone or you know our reactions to things when we're under pressure you know like would you like to hand over your phone right now like maybe living in close quarters with me for a week has driven you crazy.

Well, luckily, my phone's in the other room.

So unfortunately, I actually can't hand it to you at the moment.

Sorry, Rach.

But it's just, it's this stark reminder.

I spoke to you, I think, the first week of this podcast about the human detritus we're seeing.

You know,

these bones of relationships that we're all now picking over and making judgments about, rightly or wrongly.

And I wonder whether the jury will read them as a woman who wants nothing to do with her in-laws or will they read it as a woman who is isolated and lonely?

Because here's another one I want to read to you.

They've had Simon for tea every night for three months and never once picked up the phone to me since the separation and asked if I'm okay and need help.

So that tells me their choices.

So I guess to answer your question, I've spent a lot of time wondering about things we might never know.

Yeah.

Because the courtroom is a house of facts, not feelings.

And so, but nonetheless, I've been wondering where was Erin Patterson's mind at?

You know, I wonder how her kids are doing.

I wonder how Ian Wilkinson dealt with today, listening to things like a doctor saying we thought he was going to die.

You know, I wonder what he was thinking about Heather, his wife, we lost.

You know, there's just so much pain being laid bare in that courtroom.

And even when the verdict comes, whatever it ends up being, there will be certain absolutions that might never come.

Yeah.

Yeah, it reminds me of what we heard Justice Beale talking about to the jury at the start of the trial, that this is something that you make decisions with your head about.

You know, you're basing this on the facts that are being presented, not the feelings that you're feeling at any point throughout.

And that is so important.

That's all they have to go on and should go on.

But as he said, you need to push aside empathy, you need to push aside prejudice.

We're dealing with cold, hard facts here.

And it's really interesting because a lot of the time that does feel really kind of like, you know, unhuman, very, very unemotional.

Yeah.

Rachel, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you on Mushroom Case Daily.

Rachel Brown is the ABC's true crime investigative reporter, is the brains and the voice behind the fantastic Trace podcast series.

You can find it on the ABC Listen app.

Go and track that one down.

It is a wonderful series.

Christian, we continue to hear from so many of the Mushroom Case Daily listeners listening from all over the world.

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

If you have a question, you can send it to us.

And that is what these people have been doing.

I would like to start with a question from Ebony.

She asks, does Erin know what evidence is being presented prior to the commencement of the trial with her lawyer?

Or does she find that out during the trial?

Love the podcast.

Thank you, Ebony.

Thanks, Ebony.

Broadly, yes, Erin Patterson does have some idea.

The prosecution is obliged to provide the defence with its what's called a brief of evidence, which contains the information that they plan to use or potentially use in the case.

Great.

Thank you, Christian.

I have another question here from Kate in Greensboro in Victoria.

She listens to the pod as she's driving around in the evening while her two-year-old falls asleep.

So apologies for the swear words, Kate.

Kate says, we're in week four of what I understand is set down as a five-week trial.

When will the defence get its chance to call witnesses?

What happens if they run out of time?

We all go home.

Just kidding.

Just kidding.

Thanks, Kate.

It is a five to six week trial, but don't worry.

We will not have a situation where we run out of time and the trial has to be called off for time limitation reasons.

That is just an estimate that the judge gave.

And once the prosecution has gone through all of its evidence, the defence will then get the chance to call their witnesses if they would like.

After that, we go through the process of what's called closing arguments, where both sides get to sum up the case again.

The judge will give what's called the charge, but it's basically another set of legal instructions, and then the jury goes out to deliberate.

Great.

Thank you, Christian.

Thank you, Kate.

I have a question here from Tashara.

They say, hi, Christian and Stephen.

Thank you for your hard work on the podcast.

Thank you.

They also appreciate the little details that we share about the day-to-day happenings, like the Beatles and the temperature.

Just so you know, it's warmed up a bit.

15 degrees today.

Yeah.

Balmy.

One of the things, their question is basically around Aaron Patterson.

They say earlier this week we mentioned there might be the possibility that a police interview with Aaron Patterson will be used as evidence.

They were wondering if the prosecution is allowed to call Aaron Patterson to the stand as part of their case, or is this generally not done?

The prosecution can't call the defendant as a witness for their case, but what they may choose to do is play a record of interview.

Now, the prosecutors did say earlier on in this trial that there was one of those.

It hasn't come up yet,

but we know that the prosecution case isn't finished yet, so there's more to come.

Yeah, and if anyone can call Erin Patterson, the defence can call her, but

we don't know if that will happen yet, and there won't be any any adverse inference if Erin Patterson doesn't step up and give evidence in this trial.

That's right.

The onus of proof is on the prosecution.

The prosecution has got to satisfy the jury that Erin Patterson is guilty if that's all there to rule.

If the prosecution can't do that, she's not guilty.

Yep.

Yep.

We have a question here from Tanya.

Tanya thanks us for our reporting of this case.

And their question is whether or not a juror can seek clarification from the judge or from the representing parties via the judge.

For example, if they don't understand terminology or

scientific detail.

Great question.

So what happens is the jury has appointed a four-person, one of their own, who's effectively the captain of the jury.

If there's some questions, they can write a note, which the four-person will then pass on to Mr.

Hastings, the tip staff, who will then inform the judge.

And this is actually what Justice Christopher Beale told the jury jury about this very issue on day one.

He said that

he will discuss any notes they provide with lawyers in the absence of the jury and he said they'll formulate the appropriate answer or response.

We did see one moment, I think earlier on in the trial when one of the members of the jury might have yelled out a question though.

I think this was quite early.

I think this was maybe in the first or second day.

We were talking about the Signal group messaging app and it was just being referred to as Signal and a juror said, excuse me, what's Signal?

Not quite following the proper protocol, but they did get an answer.

And it was clarified that it was a messaging app.

So it is working and we are seeing that clarification made when they have questions.

The only note we have seen, I believe, is when there was a Monday where the jurors were given off and then they passed a note very quickly after asking if it would be every Monday.

Every Monday, do we still have to go to work?

And unfortunately, it was not every Monday and they have been back.

They have been back.

A question here from Sarah.

Thanks for the covering, thanks for our coverage of the case.

They are wondering about how things work with members of the public who may be in the courtroom listening to the details of the case regarding obligations to treat the information with the same sensitivity that we're obligated to.

For example, what is preventing them from disclosing further details externally?

Are they treated like the jury with the same rules around not discussing the case with others?

What happens to them during times when the jury is not in the room during legal discussions?

Thanks, Sarah.

It is an open justice system and as we've talked about earlier, it's not completely open to the point where things are broadcast on T V, but it's definitely open to the extent where people can come in and watch proceedings.

So this is like a fundamental part of our justice system.

Now obviously when it comes to things that happen when the jury's not in the room, they certainly shouldn't be going around and telling other people what occurred in the absence of the jury, just like we wouldn't do either.

And members of the public certainly would be ill-advised to go and post things online about what happened in the courtroom while the jury was not there.

Obviously, they're not allowed to interact with the jury or with the parties or go up to Aaron Patterson either.

It's the same rules that apply to the rest of us.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The rules around reporting on stuff like this are actually the same for kind of everyone.

We're just more aware of them as the media because it's stuff that's specifically kind of applied to us as we're the ones that are usually doing it, but everyone else has to follow the same rules as well.

And we have another entry in our more of a statement category.

It is from Natalie.

It is an excellent statement because Natalie is a lawyer working in the criminal justice system in Australia.

And she just wanted to highlight one thing.

Me and a number of listeners sending in questions often refer to witnesses as taking the stand.

This is an Americanism.

In Australia, witnesses give evidence from the witness box.

They do not take the stand.

Natalie, that is a fantastic point to make because I am very guilty of doing that.

So I appreciate the clarification and from here I encourage anyone to email if I say take the stand again.

I think you've been put into your box.

I've been put into my box.

I have.

Thanks Natalie.

Thank you so much for all of your questions.

If you have one that you would like to send in, you'd like us to answer, you can get it to mushroomcasedaily at abc.net.au.

Now Christian, as well as all of these questions, we've got people listening from all over the world that have been writing in.

I'd love your help going around the grounds to some of these far-flung listeners.

I'll start.

We've got a few listeners in the UK, Sarah in Norwich, Violet on the England-Wales border, Manisha in Manchester.

We've got Steph and Simon listening from Kilmartin Castle in Scotland.

We've got Itzaso listening from Donozia in Spain.

Also, Ivan Kat, who have been walking the Camino de Santiago Portuguese, they wrote in from Padon in Spain.

They only had 25 kilometres left as well when they emailed on Monday.

So, Ivan Kat, I hope you have finished your walk now.

Congratulations.

And in the US, Christy in Philadelphia and Jessica in San Diego.

And finally, Adrian from Geelong is listening in.

Christian, am I right and saying from Mannheim, Germany?

That is what is written here.

Fantastic.

Anyone you'd like to say hello to before we wrap up the pod today?

Yes, I'd like to give a small shout out.

Someone came up to me in court today and told me about one of our listeners.

who lives in London.

Her name is Abby.

I'm told she listens to the podcast every morning when she wakes up.

Thank you, Abby.

But the interesting thing that got me was Abby's 10 years old.

And listening to a daily podcast about a triple murder trial.

Thank you, Abby.

Yeah.

Look, if Abby, thank you very much for listening.

We really appreciate it.

Thank you to Abby's parents for letting her listen to it as well.

Hopefully to all the other parents who are letting their children listen to this as well.

It is just as an educational activity as it is for Abby in the UK.

And sorry for swearing for the last couple of episodes, too.

Yes, apologies about that.

We'll clear that up next week.

That's actually not a promise.

Speaking of next week, Christian, where are we going?

Well, the prosecution case isn't over yet.

And you'll remember to our episode yesterday, we talked about the digital forensic analyst, Sharman Fox Henry.

So the prosecution actually finished with his evidence today.

It was all of one question.

But we didn't get to his cross-examination.

So that will inevitably happen next week when Colin Mandy, the barrister for Erin Patterson, quizzes Sharman Fox Henry.

Thank you so much for joining us on Mushroom Case Daily.

I highly recommend getting your hands on the ABC Listen app and following Mushroom Case Daily there.

It's the best way to listen.

If you are listening on a different podcast platform though, please give us a review, leave us a rating.

It makes it much easier for other people to find us.

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

It's presented by me, court reporter Christian Silver and producer Stephen Stockwell.

Our executive producer producer is Claire Rawlinson, and many thanks to the Victorian Newsroom and Audio Studios manager Eric George.

Also, to our true crime colleagues, Tim Roxborough.

Today's guests, Rachel Brown, and Yasmin Parry, for helping make this show a reality.

Also, shout out to Jasmine Sims, our legal queen.

There is no way that this happens without you.

Thank you, Jazz.

And finally, thank you for listening.

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

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