Mushroom Lunch: Why Erin Patterson was sentenced to life

I'm Sarah Konoski, and I've got a special episode of Conversations to share.

Kathleen Folbeck telling her own story.

For two decades, Kathleen was locked up in prison, wrongly convicted of the deaths of her four children, until friendship and science set her free.

I'm in prison accused of murdering my children.

I didn't physically do it, but carried something that did.

Hear my interview with Kathleen Folbeek right now on the ABC Listen app: ABC Listen, Podcasts, radio, news, music, and more.

A life sentence for taking three lives.

And if Erin Patterson does ever see daylight, she'll be 82 years old.

I'm the ABC's court reporter Christian Silver.

And I'm investigative reporter Rachel Brown.

And I'm Stephen Stockwell.

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

Welcome to Mushroom Case Daily.

Just a week after four people sat down for a family lunch in rural Victoria, three of them were dead.

Homicide detectives are still piecing together what exactly happened at the lunch.

It's certainly looking like the symptoms are consistent with death cap mushrooms.

Erin Patterson said she bought the dried mushrooms at a supermarket and an Asian grocery store months earlier.

I cannot think of another investigation that has generated this level of media and public interest.

Aaron Patterson has been sentenced for murdering three people, Don and Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson, and for attempting to murder a fourth, Ian Wilkinson.

Today, Justice Christopher Beale handed down that sentence in the Supreme Court, looking directly at Aaron Patterson.

Please stand.

For the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson, I sentence you to 25 years imprisonment.

For the murder of Heather Wilkinson, I sentence you to life imprisonment.

For the murder of Gail Patterson, I sentence you to life imprisonment.

For the murder of Don Patterson, I sentence you to life imprisonment.

The total effective sentence is life imprisonment, and I fix a non-parole period of 33 years.

That is what unfolded in the Supreme Court this morning.

From 9.30, Justice Christopher Beale sentencing Aaron Patterson.

Christian, Christian, listening to that, sitting through that, what is your takeaway from the sentence of Erin Patterson?

I think the big thing is that non-parole period, which is the final thing that was played in that clip where Justice Beale says that there's the potential that Erin Patterson could one day walk free after serving 33 years.

Now she served about two years, so 2056 is the earliest she could walk free.

That's, of course, if she doesn't try her her hand at an appeal and have some success.

So it's a very, very long time.

Some people had questioned whether Patterson would get life without parole, which is effectively locking them up and throwing away the key.

And for part of that sentence, it was pretty damning and I thought he was heading that way.

But then

he did show her some mercy and give her that glimmer of hope.

Yeah.

Rach, what did you think of the sentence this morning?

It was interesting how many whys

still remain and that we will never know and the Patterson and Wilkinson families will never know.

And Justice Beale touched on a couple of them, you know, mentioning the motive and sometimes motives are only known to the offender.

Clearly, the jury was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that you committed the alleged offences.

Only you know why you committed them.

I will not be speculating about that matter.

And then he also wondered, and I've wondered this a lot myself, myself, whether doctors had administered psilobionin, which is the antidote to death cat mushroom poisoning earlier, whether that would have changed anything.

You showed no pity for your victims.

Instead of informing those treating the Pattersons and Wilkinsons that you had used forage mushrooms, which you could have done without having to admit that you had deliberately poisoned their meals,

you repeatedly denied foraging, insisting that the mushrooms for the Beef Wellingtons were sourced solely from Woolworths and an Asian grocery.

I'm really keen to take both of you through the entire sentencing today, unpacking all the aspects that we've heard about.

You know, some of the mitigating, some of the aggravating factors, some of the assessments that Justice Beale made on evidence we heard through the trial of Aaron Patterson.

So he has a lot to dive into.

This all unfolded, as I mentioned, in the Supreme Court of Melbourne, this grand old stone building in the middle of town.

There was a line of people out the front.

Rach, you and I were in that line getting in the building this morning as doors opened at 8.30, made our way through the building, sitting down in that court.

What was it like for you sitting in that room, Rach, in that moment?

Well, seating was at an absolute minimum.

We were just lucky enough to get in and we'd been there since, what, eight o'clock in the morning.

So, but sitting there at the culmination of two years of waiting for these two families who've lost loved ones and for the wider communities of Corranborough and Lee and Guther.

Supreme Court is this like really grand space.

The The court that we were in today caught for, you know, this wooden paneling all around the outside, really quite high ceilings.

There's a public deck, like a second level sort of looking over people.

And, you know, when we get there, we're sitting around, there's this idle chit-chat.

Christian, I was sitting quite close to the family.

It was really interesting that the conversations that I was overhearing at the start, you know, didn't seem like the sort of conversations I would expect to hear.

at the sentencing for the murderer of your parents, uncles, aunties, something like that.

It was classic just extended family chit-chat, the sort of thing you would have at a barbecue or when you would bump in somewhere else.

I mean, it just really took me by surprise.

It's pretty normal, actually, on the sentencing day for there to be an unusually relaxed atmosphere.

beforehand and I have seen this in many cases involving horrific crimes.

But as soon as the judge steps onto the bench, the mood changes like that.

And that's what we saw.

Everyone went silent.

Every single person was looking at Patterson as she was marched through the room and taken up a few sets of steps and into that elevated court dock.

Patterson was dressed in the sort of paisley top and this dark brown cardigan slash jacket thing.

I'm not a fashion expert, but it was one of the sort of regular outfits that we'd seen her wearing.

And throughout the hearing,

at first

the body language was familiar body language where we've seen her kind of look a bit glum and blink really quickly.

But then as the sentence progressed and Justice Beale really started calling out some of her actions, Patterson just shut her eyes.

It was as if it was too much for her to take in or she didn't want to acknowledge it.

Yeah, we had,

you know, a reasonably kind of straightforward process.

There's no theatre around this, right, Christian?

Justice Beale pretty much straight into the room, looks straight at Aaron Patterson, says, you sit down, I'll tell you when to stand up next.

And that was the moment we heard at the start, but yeah, really kind of got straight into it, talking through his sentencing remarks, all done in 45 minutes.

Yeah, Justice Beale, very efficient.

Sometimes these sentencing remarks can go for a very long time, but I think it was clear that this judge had really thought about what he wanted to include in his sentencing remarks, which were actually being broadcast live around the world.

In the past, you know, it's been common for high-profile cases for them to allow the TV cameras in to record it, but usually not to broadcast it out to the world.

So I think Justice Beale was very conscious of that fact.

And this was a sentence that was really well crafted in terms of taking everyone through the narrative, the timeline of

this horrific case.

And he was damning of Erin Patterson's conduct.

He was also very sympathetic towards the victims and made sure he paid an adequate tribute to them.

He spoke in language that I think people at home would clearly understand.

He put the legal jargon away but then referred to some technical aspects when he needed to.

The ending was quite abrupt though.

I think we're all a little bit surprised when it sort of came to an end and he called Erin Patterson to stand and sentenced her.

But it was efficient but really well-rounded.

Rach, you know, you mentioned MODIB before.

We heard Justice Beale talking a bit about how Aaron Patterson's the only person who really knows.

And I mean, we've spoken about that a lot on the pod.

What else stuck out to you from his sentencing this morning?

Christian mentioned the very deftly crafted sentence, and I think that really shone through.

And he did a really good job of balancing the facts of the offending that we'll go into in this episode with reasons for his decision, which was a large reason why this was broadcast, which we'll also speak about, and insights from victim impact statements, for example, Ian Wilkinson's, where he reminded Erin

of Ian's offer of forgiveness.

Quote, in regards to the many harms done to me, I make an offer of forgiveness to Erin.

I say harms done to me advisedly.

I have no power or responsibility to forgive harms done to others.

However, I encourage Erin to receive my offer of forgiveness for those harms done to me with full confession and repentance.

I bear her no ill will.

That offer of forgiveness presents you with an opportunity.

You would do well to embrace it in the manner he suggests.

And it was interesting at this point, Erin had had her eyes closed for a long time, but she opened them at this point.

when

Justice Beale said, you know, I suggest that you do well to embrace this in the manner that he suggests.

For the most part, she had her eyes closed, hands folded, no emotion, which we saw largely during the trial.

And it was interesting watching Justice Beale, too.

Like he was reading from his sentence, but he was talking to her.

Like he kept making sure he put his head up and spoke straight to Erin Patterson.

The layout of this courtroom has the dock directly in the eye line of the judge.

It's not even slightly off-centre.

It's looking straight at them.

And the way the television cameras were positioned, they were literally just behind Erin Patterson above her head.

So what people at home were looking at is practically the view that Patterson had as she was learning her fate this morning.

Yeah, I was just behind and to the left of where Justice Beale's eyeline was.

So just behind and to the left of where Erin Patterson was through that as well.

And yeah, it felt at times like he was talking straight at me through as we were going through it.

Christian, what stuck with you from your sentencing rikes?

Was there any moments that you'll come back to?

I think we touched on this in our last episode where Justice Beale gave some hints about his assessment of the case because up until now he's had to be a very neutral umpire

letting the evidence play out in front of the jury and then he's seen the jury deliver the verdict to now it's his job to do the sentence and he shared his own thoughts about the evidence and he was damning of Patterson's actions actions and Patterson's cover-up.

Everything from inviting the lunch guests over a couple of weeks before the fatal Beef Wellington was served up to what Patterson did in the aftermath,

steps that she took to cover up her tracks, dumping a dehydrator, hiding phones from the police, a whole bunch of steps that he was incredibly critical of as he summed up this case.

And he made it clear that he believed some of the evidence given from the likes of Ian Wilkinson, who told the trial that Patterson ate off a different coloured plate to everyone.

And that was something that Erin disputed.

And those plates were never found.

But Justice Spiel made it clear that he believed the sole survivor of the lunch.

I accept the evidence of Ian Wilkinson that you served your guests their meals on four grey plates.

while your individual beef wellington was on a smaller orangey tan coloured plate.

A fact that Heather also commented on to Ian and Simon the next day.

I find that you did this to ensure that you did not mistakenly consume a poisoned meal.

I also accept the evidence of Ian Wilkinson that at the conclusion of the meal, you falsely told your guests that you had been diagnosed with cancer.

Yeah, it's incredible to hear him, I guess, making these assessments of the evidence.

I mean, yeah, the plates is one example.

The other one, we mentioned it briefly, the story about getting mushrooms from an Asian grocer.

This is something that we spent so much time on during the trial, so much time talking about on the pod, and Justice Beale basically coming out and saying, I think that was a lie.

Is it unusual to get that kind of like candor from a judge in a moment like this?

Not when it comes to sentences, but it's so interesting to finally hear it.

Like he's so guarded during the whole trial as he needs to be.

So when you hear judges come out with things like the Asian grocer was a lie, you know, that stuff does stick in your brain.

He said, you know, when you realize death cat mushrooms can't be cultivated commercially, you had to change tack and you concocted the story.

And sometimes with sentencing remarks, judges will say that while a jury has found somebody guilty, there are elements to the story that still don't quite add up.

But that's not what we heard from Justice Beale today.

It sounded like he

agreed with most, if not all, of the prosecution case that was put forward against Erin and Patterson.

Yeah, and you know, we've heard, you know, the sentence has been handed down, life imprisonment, non-parole period of 33 years.

Rach, you know, we heard a lot in the plea hearing about the aggravating and the mitigating factors.

What were some of the aggravating factors that Justice Beal was considering when, you know, deciding on that sentence?

Justice Beale, when he was reading them out, was almost a staccato bang, bang, bang.

You know, there was an elaborate cover-up by yourself.

The plates Justice Beale mentioned, the different coloured plates.

You said that you fed the children leftovers, you feigned illness, you disposed of the dehydrator.

He just, like, was just, wasn't it, machine gun fire of all these things that she did, Justice Speal said, to cover up her actions.

And then finally, he said he landed on what was an enormous betrayal of trust.

Your victims were all your relatives by marriage.

More than that, They had all been good to you and your children over many years, as you acknowledged in your testimony.

Not only did you cut short three lives and cause lasting damage to Ian Wilkinson's health, thereby devastating the extended Patterson and Wilkinson families, you inflicted untold suffering on your own children, whom you robbed of their beloved grandparents.

Hearing the framing of

the trust was one thing, as he was talking through this today, Justice Beale pointing out that

the harm that this had done was not just

resulting in the deaths of these people and the harm that it had caused the you know the various victims, not just those who've died, but their family members and all that as well.

But that erosion of trust, the breach of that trust was something you could feel Justice Beale was very aware of as he was giving his sentencing.

And he repeated that again today.

He spoke in the pre-sentence hearing about the tsunami of pain, not just ripples.

but the tsunami that continued through four generations of the Pattersons and Wilkinson families and the local communities as well.

Yeah.

Christian, we have seen a non-parole period set for this, which means that after that period elapses, Erin Patterson will be able to apply for parole.

What were some of the mitigating factors that Justice Beale was considering when making that decision, when deciding to allow that?

Because again, we've spoken about this.

The alternative is that she's never out, that it is just an effective life sentence throwing away the key.

It really comes down to Erin Patterson's conditions in prison.

She's not a regular prisoner.

In fact, she's been given a maximum security rating.

And that's not because the prison authorities think she's going to attack other people.

It's because they're worried that Paterson herself will be a target in prison.

Justice Beals said because of the notoriety of this case,

she's had to be separated from other prisoners.

The only person she's allowed to talk to in prison is a fellow inmate who's in for terrorism offences.

And Patterson has said that she's never spoken to this person.

She's effectively alone in a prison cell for anywhere between 22 and 24 hours a day with very little access to things like an exercise yard.

So in the eyes of the law, these are overly onerous conditions that have to be taken into account by judges.

And that is a key reason why she was granted this non-parole period.

I mean

it's possible that her notoriety may fade over time,

but it will be quite some time you'd think before Paterson could ever be considered to be allowed to mix with a regular prison population.

And Christian, you know, we haven't seen, you know, Justice Biel even highlighted this during the sentencing today, we haven't seen any kind of testimony in support of Aaron Patterson through this process.

No personal references, no psych evaluations, nothing.

Yeah, or not even talking about physical health conditions, which is often something that convicted killers like to try to highlight to see if they can cut a little bit of their sentence, but none of that from Patterson.

I do wonder what the strategy is from her legal team.

Maybe it's because they are working on an appeal, but I also question

if they had done those psych evaluations, what would that have turned up?

And could it have possibly made things worse for Paterson?

I don't know.

In what sense?

What do you mean, as though it would have demonstrated something that doesn't justify the behaviour?

Or what do you mean?

Well, it's become clear through the course of this trial that Patterson is a liar.

But what if a psychiatrist said, you know, she's a psychopath and I put her chances of re-offending as moderate to high, which is the kind of assessments that they do make when they look at offenders.

What if a psychiatrist had said that?

That could have been disastrous for Patterson.

So maybe it was in her best interest to stay silent.

Only Patterson and her legal team know.

And just on the non-parole period, basically is, you know, it's not an option for 33 years, and then after 33 years, it becomes a possibility.

Am I right in thinking that's how this works?

Yeah, Patterson will have to go before

the parole board or whatever is existing at that time that fulfills that duty

and have to make a case that she should be released.

So it's by no means a guarantee.

There are several convicted killers who are still serving their sentences well after their their parole periods have come up.

Something I found really interesting as we were listening to all this today, you know, we're talking about Erin Patterson's situation in this isolation unit, in the Gordon unit.

And that is something that is not done because they're worried about her being a risk to other prisoners.

It's them worrying about the risks to her because of her notoriety, basically, the amount of publicity around that.

And I realize that, you know, the publicity around this, the interest in this case, Justice Beale today referencing, you know, the books, the documentaries and all of that that will be published, you know, following this sentence all feeds into that.

I mean, is this quite an unusual situation that Erin finds herself in here, Rach?

It's interesting that he made that comment, and all these things feed in and off each other.

We were talking about media behaviour and the spectrums of that that we've seen in this case.

Some good, some very bad.

And for Justice Beale to actually call that out, I think it's really helpful because the wheels of justice grind slowly, but we got to see it in action today, which we don't usually get to see.

And that also is a, I mean, could that contribute to her notoriety even more, perhaps?

Justice Beale made a comment last time at the pre-sentence hearing about Martin Bryant, the Port Arthur gunman.

And the prosecution said a lot of the younger generations wouldn't even know who he is.

But Justice Beale made the point, well,

he mightn't have had as many Netflix documentaries made about him.

So it's interesting for me from a cultural perspective that all these things do feed in and off each other.

And yes, her notoriety is heightened because of the media.

But then that's also led to a change that we saw today: that the courts, like Justice Beale, saying to the Supreme Court staff, I think we need to broadcast this so people can see justice in action, so people can make their own decisions about whether it's working or not.

One other thing to add, too, by acknowledging the media's involvement in all of this,

What it does is it also makes his sentence slightly more appeal-proof.

Patterson's lawyers will be looking for any way to appeal not only this sentence, but this verdict.

And they could point to the judge not factoring in the media attention.

So by putting

this statement in his sentence, by saying he's factored it in, that effectively knocks that potential ground out of any appeal.

Now, Beale hasn't said, you know, the media attention is worth two years or one year, but he's factored it in, and that's going to make it slightly harder for Patterson to appeal.

There may be other grounds that she'll go down, but citing the media is going to be a tough one now.

Yeah, I'm keen to talk a little bit more about appeal prospects a little bit later in this episode, so we'll come back to that one.

The thing I want to talk about now, though, is just how significant this sentencing being

not just live streamed, but broadcast live around the world is.

Christian, has this ever ever happened before?

To my knowledge, the Supreme Court hasn't allowed TV cameras in to

broadcast a sentence live.

It could be wrong, but I don't think it's happened.

In the past, they have allowed TV cameras in to film stuff and then it's played out later.

But there's always that proviso that, you know, if something goes wrong, the judge could stop.

that getting out there.

But this being live, there was contingencies.

There was a 10-second delay that was set up, but that was about it.

And as we all found out, when the judge, to our surprise, dropped an F-bomb.

Two.

Two.

Three, maybe.

We didn't know that was coming, and I presume that was played live around the world.

Yeah, Justice Beale referring to some of the messages that were exchanged between Erin Patterson and a group of Facebook friends.

Yeah, talking about a disagreement she'd had with her estranged husband, Simon Patterson.

And yeah, there's some strong language.

You were scathing in your remarks about both Simon and his parents, Don and Gail Patterson.

Amongst other things, you derided your father-in-law's suggestion that you and Simon get together and pray for your children, commenting, quote, this family, I swear to fucking God, you called them, quote, a lost cause.

You wondered whether they had, quote, any capacity for self-reflection at all.

You said, quote, fuck them.

And that you

suspected the best thing you could do was, quote, just to forget about all of them and live your life.

It was interesting too that broadcasters who decided to take the feed had to take the whole feed.

They couldn't just cherry-pick.

Really?

So it had to be played out in full.

It wasn't something you could just take 30 seconds of here or there.

You needed to have the whole thing.

That was the expectation that the court set out.

Now, I think they know that they can't control what is broadcast, but I think the expectation was made clear.

I'd be interested to see how closely that was followed

if it was the other full 45 minutes of the sentencing.

I mean, we're talking about how unusual it is for something like this to be broadcast live.

Rach, why do you think this was done?

Because

this was something that Justice Beale wanted to do, right?

He approached the court, by my understanding, and said that this is something that he'd like to do.

And kudos to him, because we put in application after application after application for every big trial to film the sentence.

It's nearly always a no.

And not only did we get to film this but it was played out pretty much live.

So it goes to the principle of open justice and justice not just being done but being seen to be done and I think that's really important and as you guys know from all the emails that we've got to the Mushroom Case Daily special email address, people are genuinely curious about the system and how it works.

Christian, this is one of the reasons why

your idea behind this podcast was because there's a lot of ostracism in the court system.

Not a lot of people understand it.

So this was a way of demystifying it, having that email system there for this podcast.

But the courts recognised that too

and thought, well,

we'll start letting people in, whether this opens the gates for more of this.

What do you think, Christian?

Yeah, I think it's a great advertisement for open justice.

Let's be clear, though, there were some pretty strict parameters still put on this broadcast.

The camera wasn't allowed to pan around the room.

It was very much just fixed on the judge.

There was absolutely no way that the media was going to be allowed to film Erin Patterson, who was sitting just in front of that camera there.

So it was still quite controlled, but look, hey, it's better than nothing.

And I think Justice Beale

probably

wanted the community to get a good idea of why he was imposing this non-parole period.

Maybe that was behind his thinking as to why he asked for the entire thing to be shown in full so that people at home could understand why Patterson would be given that 33-year non-parole period and an opportunity to one day walk out.

I heard an ex-judge commenting on News 24 earlier that Justice Beale, you know, took...

in his sentence that went through the principles of sentencing like denunciation or protection of the community and that's really important too to help the community's understanding about the way our system sentences the way it does.

I turn then to a number of relevant sentencing principles and rules.

Section 5 of the Sentencing Act 1991 declares that the only purposes for which sentences may be imposed are just punishment, specific and general deterrence, rehabilitation, denunciation, and protection of the community.

I have had regard to all of these sentencing purposes in formulating my sentences, but rehabilitation has taken a backseat because of the gravity of your offending.

Christian, when we are looking at this sentence that's been handed out to Aaron Patterson, how does that compare to other sentences that we've seen handed down to murderers in Victoria?

A life sentence with 33 years non-parole is definitely at the higher end.

And it does sound weird and It's a bit awful, isn't it, when you start talking about cases and you have to rank one murderer as being worse than another, but that is how the system works.

And this is up there among Victoria's worst murders.

If you're just going by the sentences, there have been worse.

But to put it in a bit of context, people will remember the horrible case involving ABC staffer Jill Ma, who was abducted and raped about 15 years ago.

Adrian Bailey, her killer, got a pretty similar sentence.

There's another case involving a woman called Chai Sia Lao, and apologies if I've butchered that pronunciation.

She used garden shears to stab a grandmother and a 10-year-old to death.

So she got a similar sentence to this that Patterson got.

And of course, famously, Robert Farquasson, a man who drove his three sons into a dam in 2005.

All these people have been given that opportunity for parole.

You know, it's a similar timeframe frame to Patterson.

Yeah.

Rachel, what sort of reaction have we seen to Anne Patterson's sentence from, you know, the people who've been affected by this crime?

I was watching some family members, and there wasn't a great deal of reaction from them, but I think we all predicted today that she would get life.

You know, even the defence conceded it needed to be a head sentence of life, so the question was only about a non-parole period.

What I was surprised by, though, is Ian Wilkinson decided to talk outside court.

He hasn't spoken to date.

He's attended so much of the trial but hasn't said anything and we've seen him show such grace as I've mentioned numerous times during the trial.

I'm not sure there are other others capable of that level of grace that he's shown.

And he stood on the stairs of the court surrounded by just this enormous pack,

but respectful.

They weren't pressing in.

He was on the top step and he spoke about his thanks and gratitude for the Victoria Police Force, for the OPP and for the community as a whole.

We're thankful that when things go wrong there are good people and services and systems available to help us recover.

I'd like to encourage all those involved to keep turning up and serving others.

Our lives and the life of our community depends on the kindness of others.

I'd like to encourage everybody to be kind to each other.

Finally, I want to say thank you to the many people from across Australia and around the world

who, through their prayers and messages of support, have encouraged us.

My takeaway from Ian Wilkinson's statement is, Rachel, you talk about his grace.

You know, in his victim impact statement, he talked about how he forgave Aaron Patterson.

And today on the steps of the Supreme Court, just around the side of the building, he finishes that statement by thanking the media who were there and then telling everyone to have a nice day.

He says, I hope you have a nice day.

And to me, that just shows, you know, how caring a man he is who's had to bear, you know, this whole, this weight for so long.

As you say, Rach, he shut up every day to this trial.

And he gave a cute little smile at the end too.

You know, he was solemn for most of the time that he was saying what he needed to say, but there was a cute little smile at the end and told the community to be kind to each other.

Christian, were you surprised to see Ian Wilkinson speaking today?

I think it was nice that he did speak publicly.

The whole world has been wondering what he thinks, and he's absolutely entitled to his right to privacy.

Hopefully he's granted that.

That public acknowledgement of the healthcare workers, the police, the prosecutors that secured justice, I think was

very gracious.

Yeah.

Ian Wilkinson talking on the steps, probably about 30 meters from where there was a huge crowd of photographers and cameramen at the gates where the prison van will leave the Supreme Court with Aaron Patterson taking her to Dame Phyllis Frost where she'll return to the Gordon unit and start her life sentence, basically.

Christian, what does that look like for her?

As we chatted about earlier, it's probably going to be a lot of solitary confinement.

We heard about Patterson's prison conditions in this specialised unit, and it does sound pretty awful, to be honest.

You're basically by yourself, heavily restricted.

The idea of being allowed to chat to a terrorist as your only

fellow inmate isn't that appealing and clearly not appealing to Patterson.

She's got time to crochet in her cell,

watch TV, but it's going to be a very lonely existence.

It's interesting though, Stocky, because some people I've talked to in Victoria Police wonder whether Erin secretly has enjoyed all of this attention.

She is a true crime genre fanatic who is now the protagonist in the biggest story in a long time when it comes to true crime.

But

the shine of that is going to wear off if it hasn't already because eventually

she's going to be forgotten.

Yeah, and I mean, that's where she's going to be for the, you know, the foreseeable future, right?

You know, until we get to any appeal or anything like that.

And I mean, the thing that I noticed, you know, I didn't have a clear view of Aaron Patterson from where I was sitting, had a very clear view of Justice Beale.

You know, I'm working sound.

And so, you know, the only way I could tell that Aaron Patterson was leaving the court after her sentence had been handed down by Justice Beale, and he basically kind of dismissed her, was this like gentle clinking, you know, what sounded like someone's bangles on their wrists.

And I guess they were, but it would have been handcuffs and the chains of that.

You know, the room was so quiet in that moment that you could hear this like this tinkling as she shuffled through the courtroom and out that door and into the waiting van and yeah to prison where she will be, I guess, until

she dies.

realistically or gets parole and unless Rachel there's an appeal.

What do we know about that at this stage?

It's my understanding Erin Patterson will be appealing.

That hasn't formally happened yet.

She has 28 days to launch those papers, so I think that brings us to about October 6th.

October 6th, but the courts are pretty generous if you go over time.

Yeah, and when we're saying appeal in this situation, is it an appeal of the sentence?

Is it an appeal of the conviction in the first place?

What are we looking at here?

Do we know?

It's usually both.

She may as well.

I mean, life sentence with a 33-year non-parole.

She's not getting out until she's 82 at best.

Why not

roll the dice?

Nothing to lose.

Yeah, it'd be interesting to see what comes up around that.

We'll keep you in the loop here with what the developments are.

Nearing the end of today's pod, but we are still getting questions sent to both Mushroom Case Daily at abc.net.au and our new inbox, the caselob at abc.net.au.

So I thought I'd run through a couple of them while I've got you both in the studio with me now.

I want to start with one here from Pam.

Pam says, hi team, Absolutely loving your guys' work.

Thank you.

What would happen if Aaron Patterson decided to plead guilty at this stage in the game?

Obviously, sentencing would happen still, but has anything like that ever happened?

And what would be the ensuing legal slash court proceedings?

This thought randomly popped into my head after listening to the victim impact statement episode.

I thought maybe she was moved by it.

And would that push her to confess?

Christian?

Hmm.

Pam, I've actually seen this exact thing happen where

the mother of a murder victim gave a very moving victim impact statement, and about 20 minutes later, the killer, who'd maintained his innocence the whole time, despite being found guilty, told the judge, oh, yeah, actually, I did do it.

And the judge did not take it well, and he did not receive any discount.

The plea came too little too late.

And I imagine if Patterson did confess now, that would be the case.

She has had ample opportunity to make some form of confession and hasn't done so.

Yeah, great question, Pam.

Thank you, Christian.

Another one here from Caroline.

In our last episode when we were talking about the victim impact statements, there were a number read out in court, but there were also a number provided just to Justice Beale himself.

So they weren't presented to the court on that day.

Caroline's question is relating to that.

Caroline asks, does the public have access to the victim impact statements that did not get aired in court?

From memory, there was quite a lot, right?

24 or so.

But we only heard some read out.

But no, Carolyn, I'd like to read them too, but the ones that weren't read out in court, court the public do not have access to.

No these things are usually at the judge's discretion and if the judge chooses not to release them publicly they won't see the light of day.

Yeah thank you both.

Thank you Carolyn.

And a triumphant return of more of a statement in today's episode with a note here from June.

Now it's a bit of a longer one but I think it's worth it so stick with me.

June writes congratulations Rachel, Christian and Stocky on your successful podcast series of the mushroom case.

I don't have a question but a massive shout out to everyone who served on the jury and to all who have served or will serve on a jury.

I served on a jury for a 13-week trial and was elected four-person.

I'll never forget the feeling as my number was drawn out, walking the walk to the jury box, and feel like I was the accused.

Looking back, it was the most rewarding and interesting time of my life.

Many people fear jury service with the hope they never get called.

Your podcast, I believe, has given a very positive insight into this most worthwhile community service, and I'm hopeful that your honest and open review will help change people's views on jury service.

So, a lovely note there from June, and I just wanted to say to both of you a huge thank you for coming on this journey to demystifying the court process through what has been an incredibly high-profile court case, but an incredible opportunity to help people understand how our justice system works.

I hope that is one of the legacies that comes from this case.

It's an awful case and it's hard to think about what good comes from this.

Sometimes you have cases where it results in a systematic change or it shines a light on an issue that's been swept under the rug.

But I don't know what this is.

I mean, this is an awful family crime.

So if there's anything that good that comes from it, hopefully it's that increased attention on the legal system.

There are so many interesting and important cases that come through Australia's courts every day.

You know, think about topics like domestic violence or youth crime, corporate greed, destruction of the environment, Indigenous deaths in custody, all these types of things.

And imagine if the attention that was shown to this Paterson case was put onto some of those cases.

Maybe it would result in, you know, calls for action or a fairer and better society.

Because I do question really the long-term legacy of this and who stands to benefit from the media frenzy.

I think there's some justification for talking about how we're covering an ongoing court case, but now that it's all over, well,

what comes next?

Who stands to benefit from that?

And of course, I say all of that knowing that

that's going to sound pretty hypocritical coming from us.

We set out to do this podcast to try to give people an insight into the legal system, but if it has fueled a frenzy

that has impacted the family in a bad way,

unfortunately, I think we have to take some responsibility for that.

Not our intention, but

it may have happened.

Yeah, and of course, that's never been the intention of what we've been doing here.

The whole process has been to help people understand that.

And I mean, you know, the podcast will continue.

You know, that's the case of we're going to be looking at other cases and trials as a way to kind of like help people understand that.

And I think the balance we'll need to remember, and I think, Christian, this is something that you mentioned to me very early on in this process was, you know, thinking about the victims of this crime and, you know, centering victims of crimes when you're doing this reporting.

I think that is a key and something that we'll always make sure we continue to do when making this podcast.

I think, as you've said, we've tried to do it as respectfully as possible by not letting the victims get lost in this story, which isn't a story for them.

It's their living nightmare, which I've said a couple of times.

But you're right, and even having those thoughts read out during the victim impact statements, like Ruth Dubois, for example, saying that our trauma has revoltingly been turned into entertainment for the masses with some people profiting.

She's right.

And we do need to call this stuff out when it happens because, as respectfully as you can do these things, you are still adding fuel to the fire and to the sensationalism.

Yeah, and I mean I think a lot about what Ian Wilkinson said in his victim impact statement was how the people who commit commit terrible acts have more attention and more light shone on them than those who do good.

And I think that's, you know, that's something I'm going to be thinking about a lot when we are telling stories and I'm working in the future because, yeah, look, in this situation, you know, there's a huge amount of attention that has been put on someone who has done an awful thing, you know, has murdered three people, has tried to murder a fourth, and yeah, just caused this tsunami of grief in this situation.

Rach, thank you so much for being a part of this and taking us on this journey.

Thank you.

And I echo Christian's sentiments there.

I've been so heartened by all the people that have written in with their curious questions and most of them are so very kind and it's just been nice to have that relationship with audiences that we don't usually get.

Usually we do stories and they go out into the abyss and this was a really important story.

I'm with Christian.

I don't think these poor families will ever have closure and I'm not sure what kind of change it can possibly affect.

But if it helps us look at how we tell stories and how we involve communities in telling those stories, then that's a small win.

Speaking of telling stories, Simon Patterson was also absent from court today.

He didn't come to the pre-sentence hearing either.

We're hearing he will break his silence at some point in his own podcast.

Well, look, there is no news yet on whether that podcast will be available on the ABC Listen app.

But tell you what, there's a lot of other wonderful ABC podcasts available on the ABC Listen app.

So highly recommend grabbing yourself that, going to your favourite app store or whatever app store you are contractually obliged to use, grabbing that and having a listen to not just this podcast, but all the other wonderful podcasts that the ABC makes.

Christian, Rach, thank you so much.

Thanks.

Thanks, mate.

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 Parry.

A big thank you to senior lawyer Jasmine Sims, who has been here for almost every single episode of this podcast, helping us out every day, and also to the Victorian newsroom and audio studios manager Eric George.

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

Hi, I'm Sam Hawley, host of ABC News Daily.

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