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'Fifth deception' · The Mushroom Trial: Say Grace

0:02
Speaker 1: Nine podcasts.
0:04
Speaker 2: The ground prosecutor finishes her closing arguments, telling the jury
0:08
Speaker 2: the accused killer engaged in multiple calculated deceptions, alleging she
0:12
Speaker 2: persisted with telling lies even when the lunch guests were
0:15
Speaker 2: gravely ill, and accusing her of trying to play the jury.
0:20
Speaker 3: Victoria's mushroom mystery, the mushroom lunch that claimed three lives
0:24
Speaker 3: an Australian family's meal is now the center of a
0:27
Speaker 3: homicide investigation.
0:29
Speaker 1: The bizarre tragedy now grabbing global headlines.
0:32
Speaker 3: Aaron Patterson's alleged victims died after eating a family lunch
0:35
Speaker 3: she'd serve them at her home.
0:37
Speaker 1: I cannot think of another investigation that has generated this
0:41
Speaker 1: level of media and public interest.
0:44
Speaker 2: Four of the guests of that lunch were much loved
0:46
Speaker 2: members of this church.
0:48
Speaker 4: Only one will ever return.
0:50
Speaker 1: People are feeling very heavy with having lost such wonderful people.
0:55
Speaker 2: Today, Aaron Pattison remained here inside her home.
0:59
Speaker 4: She's continued to plead her innocence in a court room
1:04
Speaker 4: in Country Victoria.
1:05
Speaker 2: Aaron Patterson is on trial accused of using death cat
1:08
Speaker 2: mushrooms to kill She's pleaded not guilty to murdering three
1:12
Speaker 2: of her former in laws and attempting to kill a
1:14
Speaker 2: fourth the town's church pastor. It's up to the jurors
1:18
Speaker 2: to decide what happened when Patterson's loved ones sat down
1:21
Speaker 2: to eat. The prosecution has now finished the closing arguments
1:27
Speaker 2: to the jury in this case, and initially Nnette Rogers
1:30
Speaker 2: told the jurors there were four calculated deceptions that she'd
1:33
Speaker 2: take them through. There was then a little surprise, an
1:36
Speaker 2: extra bit that came, which you'll hear a little bit
1:39
Speaker 2: later in this episode. But let's start off with what
1:42
Speaker 2: happened when Nannette Rogers got to her feet to make
1:45
Speaker 2: these final submissions.
1:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, she got to court pretty early, rearing and ready
1:50
Speaker 3: to go. As she took to her feet, she moved
1:54
Speaker 3: the lef turn in front of her to face directly
1:56
Speaker 3: to the jury, So she therefore had her back to
1:59
Speaker 3: Aaron Patterson, who is now in the dock and was
2:01
Speaker 3: facing directly to the jury. Penny, And at this point
2:04
Speaker 3: I noticed that she opened a red bind of folder
2:07
Speaker 3: and in it were pages and pages of printed notes
2:10
Speaker 3: in paragraphs, which is how we've seen her bring her
2:13
Speaker 3: notes to court throughout the whole trial. And she really
2:15
Speaker 3: started off with a bang straight away telling the jury,
2:19
Speaker 3: these are the four things that I'm going to take
2:21
Speaker 3: you through in particular. But it was in that fifth
2:23
Speaker 3: surprise element, Petty, that really had I guess everybody in
2:28
Speaker 3: the court room, the jurors, members of the public, and
2:30
Speaker 3: the media thinking, well, what's this. We thought that we're
2:33
Speaker 3: only going to have four, but essentially there was a fifth.
2:36
Speaker 2: Now, this closing has gone over multiple days, and we're
2:39
Speaker 2: going to take you through in chronological order and the
2:41
Speaker 2: topics that Nanette.
2:42
Speaker 4: Rodgers took the jury through.
2:44
Speaker 2: So to start off with, let's hear what she said
2:47
Speaker 2: about these initial four calculated deceptions.
2:50
Speaker 4: These are her words. It's voiced by an actor.
2:52
Speaker 1: Members of the jury. The twenty ninth of July twenty
2:55
Speaker 1: twenty three lunch was arranged by the accused. Each of
3:00
Speaker 1: the guests were thereby her invitation. She alone chose what
3:05
Speaker 1: to cook, obtained the ingredients, and prepared the meal. Despite
3:10
Speaker 1: the recipe being for a single dish intended to be
3:13
Speaker 1: cut into smaller serves, the accused made individual portions. That
3:18
Speaker 1: choice to make individual portions allowed her complete control over
3:24
Speaker 1: the ingredients in each individual parcel. It is a control
3:28
Speaker 1: the prosecution says that she exercised with devastating effect. It
3:34
Speaker 1: allowed her to give the appearance of sharing in the
3:37
Speaker 1: same meal whilst ensuring that she did not consume a
3:41
Speaker 1: beef Wellington parcel that she had laced with death cap mushrooms.
3:47
Speaker 1: Each of the deliberately poisoned parcels was served and consumed
3:52
Speaker 1: by only Header and Ian Wilkinson and Don and Gail Patterson.
3:58
Speaker 1: What are the reasonable possibility he can explain why all
4:02
Speaker 1: of the lunch guests became so gravely ill with death
4:06
Speaker 1: cat mushroom poisoning, but that the accused did not. At
4:11
Speaker 1: the heart of this case r four calculated deceptions made
4:15
Speaker 1: by the accused.
4:17
Speaker 2: Now, the first of these alleged four deceptions that make
4:21
Speaker 2: up this case that Nanette Rogers sc took the jury
4:24
Speaker 2: to is what the prosecution alleged is this cancer lie.
4:27
Speaker 2: And they say the reason why Aaron Patterson held this
4:31
Speaker 2: lunch in the first place and why she invited her
4:33
Speaker 2: loved ones over to her home.
4:35
Speaker 3: Yes, she said that the that Pattison's fake cancer diagnosis
4:38
Speaker 3: really gave her lunch guests a reason to attend what
4:42
Speaker 3: Annette Rogers says was otherwise a really unusual lunch and
4:47
Speaker 3: she started explaining in her words that the accused painted
4:51
Speaker 3: a picture of a gathering that wasn't just social. This
4:55
Speaker 3: wasn't just a social catch up. It was a catch
4:56
Speaker 3: up where the kids would be absent. And the prosecutor
5:00
Speaker 3: said that that alone emphasized the serious nature of the
5:03
Speaker 3: matter that the accused allegedly wanted to discuss.
5:07
Speaker 4: And we'll hear.
5:07
Speaker 2: Throughout the evidence as well as what we're talking about
5:10
Speaker 2: a lot of references to different witnesses and their evidence.
5:12
Speaker 2: That's how the prosecution is laying out their arguments. So
5:16
Speaker 2: as part of this element and this sort of subtopic
5:19
Speaker 2: that she was talking about with the jury, and Neette
5:21
Speaker 2: Rodgers noted that the daughter of Aaron Patterson, who's given
5:25
Speaker 2: evidence via the recorded video interview with police, had mentioned
5:28
Speaker 2: that her mum wanted to discuss adult things, yes, just
5:31
Speaker 2: with the adults at this lunch, and.
5:33
Speaker 4: She said that the jury should really consider.
5:35
Speaker 2: That and take on board that and some evidence from
5:38
Speaker 2: other witnesses, including Simon Patterson and Ian Wilkinson, that this
5:43
Speaker 2: was the purpose of the lunch, was to discuss something
5:45
Speaker 2: just for adults and something quite serious, and in her
5:48
Speaker 2: leaning towards this being something of a serious medical nature,
5:52
Speaker 2: and she touched on Ian Wilkinson's evidence of this being
5:55
Speaker 2: a life threatening diagnosis and a life threatening situation that
5:58
Speaker 2: she'd found herself in.
6:00
Speaker 3: Yeah. Rogers also reminded the jury that when Simon Patterson
6:03
Speaker 3: declined to attend Penny, the accused expressed irritation at this
6:09
Speaker 3: and telling him quote, I may not be able to
6:12
Speaker 3: host a lunch like this again for some time. The
6:15
Speaker 3: prosecution alleged that was sent in an attempt to change
6:17
Speaker 3: Simon Patterson's mind and get him to attend.
6:20
Speaker 2: Nannette Rodgers also spoke about in this part of her
6:23
Speaker 2: closing address that it was the planting of a seed,
6:26
Speaker 2: that there was a research that Aaron Patterson had conducted.
6:30
Speaker 2: She said this was pre planned, but that in the texts,
6:32
Speaker 2: particularly that the jury have been shown between Gail Patterson
6:36
Speaker 2: and Aaron Patterson, that there was evidence, she says, of
6:41
Speaker 2: this seed being planted of I'm getting a biopsy, yes,
6:44
Speaker 2: algo biopsy, and then I'm going to get an MRI,
6:47
Speaker 2: and that Gail had then written in her diary. As
6:49
Speaker 2: the jury has been taken through on this particular date,
6:52
Speaker 2: around a month before Aaron Saint Vincent's and the evidence
6:56
Speaker 2: that they've been shown through medical appointments and things that
6:59
Speaker 2: were conveyed to family to plant this seed that something
7:02
Speaker 2: was really seriously wrong with her health.
7:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then another part to that as well was
7:07
Speaker 3: this making sure that the children weren't their penny. The
7:11
Speaker 3: way that Ninette Rogers explained it to the jury today
7:14
Speaker 3: was their case is that this was done to ensure
7:17
Speaker 3: that they wouldn't be harmed, to ensure that there was
7:19
Speaker 3: no way that they could eat this poisoned lunch. And
7:23
Speaker 3: we heard a little bit more about the kids and
7:25
Speaker 3: they what they said in their statements throughout the prosecution closings,
7:29
Speaker 3: but essentially it was wrapped up and summarized this particular
7:35
Speaker 3: chapter almost of the closings as being an elaborate lie.
7:38
Speaker 1: You heard the evidence of Professor Andrew Burston, the intensive
7:42
Speaker 1: care specialist who examined her medical records and found no
7:46
Speaker 1: evidence that she had received a cancer diagnosis. And of
7:51
Speaker 1: course here in court the accused agreed she had never
7:55
Speaker 1: been diagnosed with cancer. You might be wondering why on
7:59
Speaker 1: earth would she tell such a lie. Well, the prosecution
8:03
Speaker 1: says that the accused never thought she would have to
8:07
Speaker 1: account for this lie. She did not think her lunch
8:10
Speaker 1: guests would live to reveal it. Her lie would die
8:14
Speaker 1: with them.
8:15
Speaker 2: Now, the next topic that the Crown prosecutor took the
8:18
Speaker 2: jury to was the fact that the prosecution alleged Aaron
8:22
Speaker 2: Patterson deliberately sawce deathcap mushrooms and that she then placed
8:26
Speaker 2: them into this pre planned, organized special meal that she
8:31
Speaker 2: wanted to have her family members come and eat with her.
8:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's been referred to throughout the trial as the lunch,
8:37
Speaker 3: but this was one of the ways that Nannette Rogers
8:40
Speaker 3: described this particular alleged deception as well as being the
8:43
Speaker 3: lunch and being the second deception. She was explaining to
8:47
Speaker 3: the jury that it's the lethal doses of poison that
8:50
Speaker 3: the prosecution say Patterson sought out and then disguise in
8:54
Speaker 3: this beef Wellington that really made up this particular category.
8:57
Speaker 3: And she started off by explaining to the jury that
9:00
Speaker 3: it was Aaron Patterson who chose the meal, who chose
9:04
Speaker 3: to serve this particular style of the meal that deviated
9:09
Speaker 3: from the recipe book, and that she was solely in
9:12
Speaker 3: charge of sourcing the ingredients as well. We have heard
9:16
Speaker 3: earlier from the parts of the trial that Aaron Patterson
9:20
Speaker 3: had said that she wanted to cook something special, something fancy.
9:24
Speaker 3: But Rogers maintains that despite this, and despite getting on
9:28
Speaker 3: the standard and saying this to the jury, that at
9:31
Speaker 3: no point did Aaron Patterson tell her guest that wild
9:33
Speaker 3: mushrooms would be in the meal, and that she really
9:37
Speaker 3: didn't follow that recipe book the way that it was
9:40
Speaker 3: explained to her.
9:42
Speaker 2: In touching on that, the Crown prosecutor mentioned that Aaron Patterson,
9:46
Speaker 2: she alleges, sought specifically out the individual stakes to make
9:51
Speaker 2: individual portions of beef Wellington rather than the Logs style
9:55
Speaker 2: larger piece of meat than the recipe tin eats recipe
9:58
Speaker 2: actually called for, and she noted in her closing that
10:02
Speaker 2: Aaron Patterson, she says, not only sought out that meat,
10:05
Speaker 2: but so that she could create these individual parcels and
10:08
Speaker 2: so that she could be certain that there would be
10:10
Speaker 2: a parcel for her to eat, that the prosecution alleges,
10:14
Speaker 2: wasn't poisoned and that's that so.
10:16
Speaker 3: She got avoid poisoning herself.
10:18
Speaker 2: To go a step further, they say the reason Aaron
10:21
Speaker 2: Patterson was or the way they say Aaron Patterson was
10:24
Speaker 2: ensuring she wouldn't eat that was with a different colored plate,
10:27
Speaker 2: and to explain that, they went back to the evidence
10:29
Speaker 2: of Ian Wilkinson. These are some of the words of
10:31
Speaker 2: Nnette Rogers.
10:32
Speaker 1: Sc Ian Wilkinson told you that the accused plated the
10:36
Speaker 1: food by herself. He gave clear evidence of four matching
10:41
Speaker 1: large gray dinner plates, not dark or light gray, but
10:44
Speaker 1: a sort of middle gray color was his evidence. And
10:48
Speaker 1: then a fifth smaller orangey tan colored plate. Under cross examination,
10:54
Speaker 1: he conveyed no doubt about what he had seen. There
10:58
Speaker 1: were four plates that the same, they were gray, and
11:02
Speaker 1: there was one smaller, different colored plate. Ian Wilkinson was
11:07
Speaker 1: a compelling witness who was able to recall a substantial
11:10
Speaker 1: amount of detail about the lunch. You might recall him
11:14
Speaker 1: describing the discussions at the house about a sick looking
11:17
Speaker 1: tree and the accused pantry. He had a clear memory
11:20
Speaker 1: of where everyone sat at the dining table during the lunch,
11:23
Speaker 1: and you will remember the photo where he marked where
11:26
Speaker 1: people were sitting at the dining table. He had a
11:29
Speaker 1: clear memory of exactly what was served at the lunch.
11:33
Speaker 1: The individual wholly encased pasty type beef wellington, mashed potato
11:38
Speaker 1: and green beans. You will have no trouble in being
11:43
Speaker 1: satisfied that he is a reliable witness, and you can
11:48
Speaker 1: confidently accept what he told you about the details of
11:50
Speaker 1: the lunch, including the four gray plates and the fifth
11:55
Speaker 1: odd plate. Of course, as you have heard, Ian was
11:58
Speaker 1: not the only person to know not the different plate.
12:01
Speaker 1: Heather Wilkinson said to Simon Patterson on the Sunday morning
12:05
Speaker 1: that she noticed Aaron served herself her food on a
12:09
Speaker 1: colored plate which was different to the rest. This was
12:12
Speaker 1: clearly something that's stuck in Heather's mind.
12:15
Speaker 2: It was noteworthy the prosecutor put to the jury that
12:20
Speaker 2: this website I Naturalist, then they've heard a lot about
12:23
Speaker 2: She alleges that Aaron Patterson had the knowledge to use
12:26
Speaker 2: that website, that she'd visited that website back in May
12:30
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two, bit over a year before the lunch
12:32
Speaker 2: was put to the jury. This evidence that they've seen
12:35
Speaker 2: a number of times of the particular search for I
12:39
Speaker 2: Naturalist and then the narrowing in on a map of
12:41
Speaker 2: Victoria for deathcap mushroom sightings.
12:43
Speaker 4: At the same time that there was a.
12:46
Speaker 2: Search for the curran Borough Middle Pub and that purchase
12:49
Speaker 2: that was made with Aaron Patterson's details for a family
12:52
Speaker 2: dinner at that time.
12:53
Speaker 4: The prosecutor really put to the jury.
12:55
Speaker 2: That they should take on board this evidence as being
12:58
Speaker 2: an example of Aaron Patterson, they say, being able to
13:01
Speaker 2: use that website, using that website to look for death
13:04
Speaker 2: cat mushrooms at that particular occasion, and they said that
13:07
Speaker 2: she also had the knowledge to blitz these mushrooms up,
13:12
Speaker 2: as heard through the evidence of her estranged husband, Simon Patterson,
13:16
Speaker 2: in a conversation they had at the hospital with their
13:19
Speaker 2: children of how she had hidden mushrooms before in muffins
13:23
Speaker 2: for their daughter to taste test. Nanette Rogers sc referred
13:27
Speaker 2: to that as being a knowledge base for Aaron Patterson
13:30
Speaker 2: and an example of her blitzing up mushrooms before, and
13:33
Speaker 2: that this was something she knew how to do well
13:35
Speaker 2: at this time.
13:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then she explained a little bit further about
13:39
Speaker 3: the fact that any suggestion that wild mushrooms were added
13:42
Speaker 3: accidentally should should be rejected, not only for the reasons
13:46
Speaker 3: that you just said, Penny, but also that we heard
13:48
Speaker 3: from this expert witness, Tom May and he'd said that
13:51
Speaker 3: he'd dried death cat mushrooms in the past as part
13:54
Speaker 3: of his job, and he recalled them smelling very, very unpleasant,
13:59
Speaker 3: and that was unlikely then that somebody would put something
14:03
Speaker 3: that smelt really, really unpleasant deliberately into a meal that
14:06
Speaker 3: was supposed to be special In connecting these dots here
14:10
Speaker 3: as she was doing today, that's when she spoke a
14:12
Speaker 3: little bit more about the fact that because they would
14:15
Speaker 3: have smelt very unpleasant, it's a prosecution's case that it's
14:18
Speaker 3: unlikely that deathcat mushrooms would have then just been chopped up.
14:21
Speaker 3: They would have had to have been blitzed into a
14:23
Speaker 3: powder to be then hidden into the food. And this
14:27
Speaker 3: is something the accused had told her online friends as
14:29
Speaker 3: well that she'd done before, as she mentioned with the
14:32
Speaker 3: muffins as well, that experimentation and it was another type
14:36
Speaker 3: of experimentation as well that Nanette Rogers put to the
14:40
Speaker 3: jury was part of this particular deception, and that was
14:44
Speaker 3: within days of purchasing a food dehydrator we know happened
14:48
Speaker 3: in April twenty twenty three. The prosecution say that Patterson
14:53
Speaker 3: undertook a test run with button mushrooms and then took
14:55
Speaker 3: photographs with the device and then sent them to her
14:58
Speaker 3: online friends. Test run it was another part of that
15:02
Speaker 3: experimentation that the prosecution allege happened before deathcap mushrooms were
15:06
Speaker 3: actually picked forage and then put into the dehydrator before
15:10
Speaker 3: going into the meal.
15:11
Speaker 2: Now, the third point that the prosecution took the jury
15:14
Speaker 2: through as part of these closing arguments sort of subheadings,
15:17
Speaker 2: was that they say Aaron Patterson was attempting to make
15:20
Speaker 2: herself look sick so that medical professionals and other people
15:24
Speaker 2: would think she had ingested the deathcap mushrooms, because they
15:28
Speaker 2: allege if she wasn't seen to be sick like her
15:30
Speaker 2: lunch guests, that would be suspicious.
15:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, the prosecution maintained that Aaron Patterson wasn't sick, and
15:36
Speaker 3: so these attempts to make it look so were to
15:40
Speaker 3: try and cover her tracks a little bit or to
15:41
Speaker 3: disguise her crimes. Is the way that the prosecution explained it.
15:46
Speaker 3: And as part of this third deception, the prosecution said
15:49
Speaker 3: the accused of different accounts of when she became sick
15:52
Speaker 3: to different people. There was lots of different ways the
15:55
Speaker 3: prosecution alleged the evidence contradicted itself, and there was a
16:00
Speaker 3: lot of back and forth about these different things. But yeah,
16:02
Speaker 3: one of those elements of this being unwow was when
16:06
Speaker 3: was she sick? How sick was she before she even
16:09
Speaker 3: made it to the hospital.
16:11
Speaker 2: And one of those points that the prosecution went back
16:13
Speaker 2: to a number of times, as you said, was that
16:15
Speaker 2: Aaron Patterson, their prosecution alleged, through Simon Patterson's evidence, initially
16:21
Speaker 2: told him that she'd become ill about this four four
16:24
Speaker 2: thirty time on the Saturday afternoon. Now that's about an
16:26
Speaker 2: hour and an hour and a half since the gun
16:28
Speaker 2: lunch guests left her home. The other lunch guests all
16:32
Speaker 2: became ill sort of after eleven thirty around midnight one
16:35
Speaker 2: am following that lunch, and the jury was told some
16:38
Speaker 2: evidence that had come through one of the doctors at
16:40
Speaker 2: one of the hospitals that this was an initial flag
16:43
Speaker 2: for some of these medical professionals, that this may have
16:46
Speaker 2: been a mushroom poisoning incident rather than regular food poisoning,
16:49
Speaker 2: because the prosecution says in the evidence that the jury
16:52
Speaker 2: has heard from these witnesses, usually food poisoning sets in
16:56
Speaker 2: within a couple of hours, which it appeared with what
17:00
Speaker 2: Patterson was talking about with her symptoms, that they were
17:02
Speaker 2: relatively soon to having eaten the meal, but that it
17:05
Speaker 2: was these lunch guests who became gravely ill and three
17:08
Speaker 2: of whom lost their lives. Actually, they had become sicker
17:13
Speaker 2: much later in terms of the onset of their particular symptoms.
17:17
Speaker 3: Two to three hours for the onset of sort of
17:19
Speaker 3: gas stro or food poisoning related symptoms, but twelve hours
17:23
Speaker 3: typically round about four deathcat mushroom poisoning. And it was
17:26
Speaker 3: the on call toxicologist at the dating On hospital. The
17:30
Speaker 3: jury were reminded today that was the one that put
17:32
Speaker 3: those pieces together, along with the doctor who was working
17:36
Speaker 3: at lean at the hospital. The two of them had
17:38
Speaker 3: a foreign conversation and that's when deathcat mushroom poisoning was
17:42
Speaker 3: really put on their radar for the first time. But
17:46
Speaker 3: we also then heard a little bit about what happened
17:50
Speaker 3: the day after the lunch Penny and the prosecution was saying,
17:53
Speaker 3: this is another example of why Aaron Pattison couldn't have
17:56
Speaker 3: been as ill as she was telling health officials and
17:59
Speaker 3: friends and family she really was, and that was a
18:02
Speaker 3: long two hour round trip. We heard that she was
18:05
Speaker 3: taking her son to a flying lessons in tai Ab,
18:09
Speaker 3: but it was at this time she also had told
18:11
Speaker 3: later on a health Department official that she had explosive diary.
18:14
Speaker 3: During this time, Sonette Rodgers was explaining to the jury
18:18
Speaker 3: that there was these different versions of events happening. Could
18:21
Speaker 3: somebody with explosive diary driver to our around trip and
18:25
Speaker 3: not have an accident, and that these were the different
18:29
Speaker 3: pieces of evidence that we'd heard over the last month
18:32
Speaker 3: or so that Nenette Rogers was really putting together and
18:35
Speaker 3: trying to convince the jury why they should side with
18:37
Speaker 3: the prosecution in this case.
18:39
Speaker 2: And as some of this, what the prosecution was also
18:41
Speaker 2: touching on was the Saturday night trip in taking the
18:44
Speaker 2: friend's son home after the lunch that Aaron Patterson had
18:47
Speaker 2: told Simon Patterson and other people that she had taken
18:50
Speaker 2: this boy home at around seven seven thirty, that she'd
18:53
Speaker 2: then taken her son to subway, And the prosecution was
18:56
Speaker 2: putting to the jury why would she have made that
18:59
Speaker 2: stop when she'd also told other witnesses that at that
19:02
Speaker 2: point she was really worried that she wasn't really well
19:05
Speaker 2: enough and she wouldn't really make it through other sort
19:08
Speaker 2: of trips without an accident. Why is that she was
19:10
Speaker 2: then stopping to get a takeaway meal? But the jury
19:13
Speaker 2: was then taken to another day after the lunch, being
19:16
Speaker 2: the Monday, the thirty first, the day Aaron Patterson first
19:19
Speaker 2: presented at the Lee and Gatha Hospital, and they were
19:22
Speaker 2: told that when she first presented that she seemed, on
19:26
Speaker 2: the prosecution's allegation, reluctant to have treatment, but reluctant even
19:31
Speaker 2: to come.
19:31
Speaker 4: Into the hospital.
19:32
Speaker 2: That the prosecution put to the jury that it was
19:35
Speaker 2: this point when she arrived that it was put to
19:37
Speaker 2: her that there might be mushroom poisoning. That that was
19:39
Speaker 2: the first time she, they alleged, realized that there was
19:44
Speaker 2: a concern about deathcat mushroom poisoning and that there was
19:46
Speaker 2: a concern that perhaps she may have something to do
19:49
Speaker 2: with that, and that's why the prosecution alleged that she
19:51
Speaker 2: left the hospital at.
19:52
Speaker 3: That time and for almost two hours.
19:53
Speaker 2: Penny, Yeah, they say that that one hour and thirty
19:55
Speaker 2: eight minutes that she left for that she had done
19:57
Speaker 2: that because she realized what the doctors and nurses were
20:01
Speaker 2: thinking and therefore didn't want to be in that place.
20:03
Speaker 2: So the prosecutor touched on some evidence from some of
20:06
Speaker 2: the nurses, one who said that she couldn't get Aaron
20:09
Speaker 2: Patterson to come in and initially get her observations taken properly.
20:12
Speaker 2: She'd said that it was to prepare things for her children.
20:16
Speaker 2: She'd said it was to prepare things for her animals.
20:18
Speaker 2: She'd also said that it was to pack her daughter's
20:20
Speaker 2: ballet bag. But it was touched on quite a bit
20:23
Speaker 2: by the prosecutor that she'd also said to her estranged husband,
20:26
Speaker 2: Simon Patterson, on his evidence that when she went to
20:29
Speaker 2: her home at land Gatha, that she'd laid down on
20:32
Speaker 2: the floor for around forty five minutes and fallen asleep,
20:35
Speaker 2: and the prosecutor put to the jury that even if
20:37
Speaker 2: that was the case, the prosecutor says that she feels
20:40
Speaker 2: that's an unlikely thing for someone to do in this
20:42
Speaker 2: situation when they knew other people were sick in hospital
20:45
Speaker 2: and they themselves had these symptoms, but that even if
20:48
Speaker 2: she did lay down for forty five minutes, that doesn't
20:51
Speaker 2: account for the entire space of time. And that's when
20:55
Speaker 2: the prosecutor also said to the jury that they had
20:57
Speaker 2: seen CCTV some security footage of Aaron Patterson leaving that hospital,
21:02
Speaker 2: and she put to the jury that there was nothing
21:05
Speaker 2: to indicate that she was weak or unable to walk
21:07
Speaker 2: in that particular footage that she'd driven away from the
21:09
Speaker 2: hospital and eventually after that hour and thirty eight minutes
21:12
Speaker 2: she drove herself back.
21:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Nnette Rogers took quite a bit of time
21:16
Speaker 3: comparing who said what at one point as well explaining
21:19
Speaker 3: to the jury that it was this witness that said
21:21
Speaker 3: this in contradiction to what the accused were saying, and
21:24
Speaker 3: that at this point this other witness had said this
21:27
Speaker 3: really painting a picture of the prosecution case in fine detail.
21:31
Speaker 4: And she also spoke.
21:32
Speaker 2: About as part of that what Aaron Patterson was doing
21:35
Speaker 2: at different times compared to her lunch guests who were growing,
21:38
Speaker 2: as the prosecution says, sicker and sicker.
21:40
Speaker 4: Here's some more of the words as the jury heard it.
21:43
Speaker 1: Nurse Miriam Sespond did one on one nursing care for
21:46
Speaker 1: Heather Wilkinson, while another nurse did the same one on
21:50
Speaker 1: one care for Ian. This is the same morning that
21:53
Speaker 1: the accused drove her to children to the bus stop
21:56
Speaker 1: and then drove herself to hospital on that say, day
22:00
Speaker 1: thirty one July. By the time Ian and Heather Wilkinson
22:04
Speaker 1: were also transferred to Dandenong Hospital. Ian was reported to
22:08
Speaker 1: be extremely nauseated and constantly vomiting. That was the evidence
22:13
Speaker 1: of doctor Mark Douglas. This is around the time that
22:17
Speaker 1: the accused had discharged herself from lean Gatha Hospital and
22:21
Speaker 1: drove home. She said to pack her daughter's ballet bag.
22:26
Speaker 1: You saw for yourselves how she appeared on the CCTV
22:29
Speaker 1: shortly after eight five am as she was discharging herself
22:34
Speaker 1: from Leanngatha Hospital. Don and Gale Patterson were both transferred
22:39
Speaker 1: to the Austin Hospital on thirty one July. At two
22:43
Speaker 1: thirty pm that day, Don Patterson was critically ill and
22:47
Speaker 1: in multiple organ failure. He was on life support ventilation
22:52
Speaker 1: with a tube down his windpipe. At this time, the
22:56
Speaker 1: accused was being transported by ambulance to Modash Medical Center
23:01
Speaker 1: and was calm and chatty. By August first, twenty twenty three,
23:05
Speaker 1: all four of the lunch guests had been conveyed to
23:08
Speaker 1: the Austin Hospital ICEE you on life support and in
23:12
Speaker 1: an advanced state of multiple organ failure with their organs
23:17
Speaker 1: essentially shutting down. Gail Patterson was in an advanced state
23:21
Speaker 1: of shock. That was the evidence of Professor Warrillo. This
23:25
Speaker 1: is the day the accused was discharged home from the
23:29
Speaker 1: Modash Medical Center with no clinical or biochemical evidence of
23:33
Speaker 1: Amanita mushroom poisoning or any other toxic substance, and no
23:39
Speaker 1: liver damage.
23:40
Speaker 4: Here's more of what the prosecutor went on to say.
23:43
Speaker 1: It is inexplicable about why four of five people who
23:48
Speaker 1: ostensibly ate the same meal fell fatally ill and only
23:53
Speaker 1: one person, the person who prepared the meal, did not.
23:57
Speaker 2: We'll be back after this with more of the prosecution
24:00
Speaker 2: closing arguments. The fourth deception topic allegation Penny that the
24:06
Speaker 2: jury were taken through was the sustained cover up, a
24:09
Speaker 2: sustained cover up to conceal what the prosecution alleged really
24:13
Speaker 2: was the truth at that time, and this included lying
24:16
Speaker 2: about feeding her children leftovers, lying about the source of
24:19
Speaker 2: the mushrooms, disposing of the food dehydrator, and then allegedly
24:23
Speaker 2: deliberately concealing her usual mobile phone from police. These were
24:27
Speaker 2: the elements that the prosecutions say make up this last deception,
24:32
Speaker 2: this sustained cover up. Yes, so sort of dot points
24:35
Speaker 2: or subheadings within subheadings that and Nannette Rodgers she really
24:39
Speaker 2: signposted these for the jury, and then she went through
24:42
Speaker 2: them in detail, and we'll try and do that for
24:44
Speaker 2: you now as well. So beginning with feeding her the
24:47
Speaker 2: leftovers to the children. Now, the prosecution alleged Aaron Patterson
24:50
Speaker 2: never fed leftovers from the lunch to the children, that
24:54
Speaker 2: what she fed to the children was something else entirely
24:57
Speaker 2: that night, despite the fact that they've given evidence that
25:00
Speaker 2: it was the leftovers from the lunch. And what the
25:03
Speaker 2: Crown prosecutor pointed to as part of this was some
25:06
Speaker 2: of the different things that Aaron Patterson had said or
25:09
Speaker 2: had said to her by different witnesses at different times,
25:12
Speaker 2: and what they say was her reluctance to have her
25:14
Speaker 2: children initially medically assessed.
25:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, this was one of the first lies that the
25:21
Speaker 3: prosecution say Aaron Patterson told as part of this whole case,
25:24
Speaker 3: and that was that her children had been fed some
25:28
Speaker 3: of the leftovers. Now, the prosecution agree that the children
25:31
Speaker 3: did eat steak and that they would have eaten mashed
25:33
Speaker 3: potato and beans, which is the evidence that we've heard
25:35
Speaker 3: during this trial. But they maintained it certainly wasn't the
25:38
Speaker 3: steak that had been cooked in the mushroom paste and
25:41
Speaker 3: with the pastry over it the day before, and there
25:44
Speaker 3: was a number of different reasons. She said that was
25:47
Speaker 3: the case and why they should be able to satisfy
25:49
Speaker 3: the jury beyond reasonable doubt. That this particular part was satisfied,
25:54
Speaker 3: and that was because when remnants of the lunch ended
25:56
Speaker 3: up with scientists, she was explaining that even they were
26:00
Speaker 3: struggling to separate the mushroom paste from the meat in
26:03
Speaker 3: their testing. The prosecution's cases, it would make absolutely no
26:07
Speaker 3: sense for a mother to feed her child something that
26:10
Speaker 3: she could have believed could have made the lunch guest sick.
26:13
Speaker 3: And when she fed her children this meal on the
26:15
Speaker 3: Sunday night, Penny, we know at that point Aaron Patterson
26:20
Speaker 3: already knew that a number of the lunch.
26:22
Speaker 4: Guests had got sick.
26:23
Speaker 3: And it's the prosecution case that there is no way
26:25
Speaker 3: that a mother would feed their beloved children anything that
26:29
Speaker 3: could potentially make them sick.
26:31
Speaker 2: Let's hear a little bit of that scientific evidence, as
26:34
Speaker 2: Annette Rodgers sc put it to the jury.
26:36
Speaker 4: This is voiced by an actor.
26:38
Speaker 1: The accused attempted to explain why the children would not
26:41
Speaker 1: be sick despite eating the leftovers by repeatedly stating that
26:45
Speaker 1: she'd scraped the mushrooms off their serves because they didn't
26:48
Speaker 1: like mushrooms. However, the scientific evidence in this case strongly
26:54
Speaker 1: suggests that simply scraping the mushroom paste away would not
26:58
Speaker 1: have been enough to prevent the children from ingesting amatoxins
27:02
Speaker 1: had they also eaten the leftover beef Wellington. You might
27:06
Speaker 1: remember mister Mandy Cross examining doctor Jeris de Mulus about
27:10
Speaker 1: the leftover meat sample and how tiny pieces of mushroom
27:14
Speaker 1: or mushroom paste were still stuck to it inside the
27:17
Speaker 1: small glass vials. Mister Mandy may argue that the toxins
27:21
Speaker 1: did not really penetrate the meat. The meat sample was
27:24
Speaker 1: simply unable to be separated from the poisonous mushroom paste,
27:29
Speaker 1: and that is why the specimen tested positive for beta amaneton.
27:33
Speaker 1: Maybe that is so, Maybe the toxin penetrated the meat,
27:37
Speaker 1: or maybe the mushroom paste just could not be separated
27:41
Speaker 1: so that the sample tested positive for beta amaneitan. But
27:45
Speaker 1: it doesn't really matter. The result is the same. The
27:48
Speaker 1: meat from that dish carried beta amaneitan in it. Even
27:52
Speaker 1: when a forensic toxicologist tried to extract the meat portion
27:56
Speaker 1: for analysis, it could not be entirely separated from the
28:00
Speaker 1: mushroom paste. It is impossible, we suggest to you, that
28:05
Speaker 1: the accused could have served up a piece of leftover
28:08
Speaker 1: steak with all of the poisonous mushrooms or mushroom paste removed.
28:12
Speaker 1: Not even a forensic toxicologist managed to do that in
28:15
Speaker 1: an laboratory.
28:17
Speaker 2: So as you touched on before, then erin as well
28:19
Speaker 2: as we've just heard in that evidence that prosecutions say
28:23
Speaker 2: that physically Aaron Patterson could never have removed the toxins
28:27
Speaker 2: from the meat if she was to feed it to
28:28
Speaker 2: those children. There was a lot of what they were
28:31
Speaker 2: putting to the jury, these words of the beloved children,
28:35
Speaker 2: the doting mother, that they've heard a lot of evidence
28:37
Speaker 2: that Aaron Patterson really was those things and that she
28:40
Speaker 2: really did protect her children. And that's why they say
28:43
Speaker 2: that they really wouldn't have been put in a situation
28:45
Speaker 2: where they ate this meal, nor where they could have
28:48
Speaker 2: possibly been at the particular lunch. But what they also
28:52
Speaker 2: say the prosecution as part of this is that while
28:55
Speaker 2: the leftover showed there was the toxin, they say that
28:58
Speaker 2: this was from the sixth beatf Wellington, this beef Wellington
29:01
Speaker 2: that ended up in the outside bin at Aaron Patterson's home,
29:04
Speaker 2: and the Crown Prosecutor has put to the jury in
29:06
Speaker 2: the closings that this sixth beef Wellington was on their case,
29:10
Speaker 2: intended for Simon Patterson. That while he had texted to
29:13
Speaker 2: say he wouldn't be attending to the meal, the last
29:15
Speaker 2: words that he and Aaron Patterson had exchanged on text
29:18
Speaker 2: before the lunch itself was her saying I hope to
29:21
Speaker 2: see you there. And that the prosecution say these shows
29:26
Speaker 2: that she had this meal prepared ready to go for
29:28
Speaker 2: Simon Patterson, but that she'd got rid of that, put
29:31
Speaker 2: it in the bin, and that's the leftovers that were
29:33
Speaker 2: eventually tested. It's not the leftovers that the children were
29:36
Speaker 2: actually eating.
29:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, And the prosecution also said that it would, in
29:41
Speaker 3: their mind more readily help people believe that this whole
29:45
Speaker 3: ordeal was just a big shocking accident. If Aaron Patterson
29:49
Speaker 3: had in fact fed this beef Wellington leftover to her children,
29:54
Speaker 3: a lie helped cover her tracks. Is a quote I
29:57
Speaker 3: remember from today. I looked at the jury as they
30:00
Speaker 3: were being taken through this particular deception chapter and it
30:05
Speaker 3: was quite lengthy and it was quite complicated, but they
30:07
Speaker 3: seem to be following every single word. There wasn't a
30:10
Speaker 3: lot of eyes darting around the room other than to
30:12
Speaker 3: look at Aaron Patterson herself in the dock. It was
30:15
Speaker 3: a jury who were all really fixed on Whatnette Rogers
30:19
Speaker 3: was saying to.
30:19
Speaker 2: Them, and Aaron Patterson, as we've mentioned, is back in
30:22
Speaker 2: the dock. She's no longer in the witness box where
30:24
Speaker 2: she was for quite a few days giving her evidence,
30:26
Speaker 2: but she was sitting behind us erin and looking back
30:29
Speaker 2: at her a couple of times. She was very much
30:32
Speaker 2: watching Nenette Rogers sc as you mentioned, She's sort of
30:35
Speaker 2: moved her positioning slightly so that she's very much presenting
30:38
Speaker 2: to the jury and her back is entirely to the public,
30:41
Speaker 2: to the media.
30:42
Speaker 4: And to Aaron Patterson. And Aaron Patterson.
30:44
Speaker 2: She was certainly watching with a lot of interest and
30:49
Speaker 2: very much fixed on what the prosecutor was saying, with
30:51
Speaker 2: her glasses sort of right down her nose and keeping
30:55
Speaker 2: her direction of her gaze fixed right in that area
30:59
Speaker 2: of the prout and the jury box.
31:01
Speaker 3: She was also taking a lot of notes today, Penny.
31:03
Speaker 3: I saw a blue pen in her right hand as
31:06
Speaker 3: she was looking down her nose through her glasses. She
31:09
Speaker 3: was frantically taking notes at some stage, other times pausing
31:14
Speaker 3: to reflect on what the evidence was or reflecting on
31:17
Speaker 3: what the prosecution had to say. And once again we
31:20
Speaker 3: had a number of family members in court. There was
31:23
Speaker 3: about ten members I counted from the Wilkinson and Patterson families.
31:28
Speaker 3: Ian Wilkinson again was there seated in the back row,
31:31
Speaker 3: seated today between one of his daughters and his son
31:33
Speaker 3: in law. This was at a time, Penny where the
31:38
Speaker 3: jury were really being reminded of what happened in those
31:41
Speaker 3: final days as well, including to Ian Wilkinson himself, and
31:46
Speaker 3: how their illnesses really got worse and worse over a
31:49
Speaker 3: number of days. While Aaron Patterson was experiencing one thing,
31:53
Speaker 3: these four lunch guests were going into organ failure and
31:56
Speaker 3: there wasn't a lot of reaction from those in the
31:58
Speaker 3: court room. I think every was really focused on what
32:02
Speaker 3: Neette Rodgers had to say.
32:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, and as part of what Nanette Rodgers was talking
32:06
Speaker 2: about with this organ failure and the progressive decline of
32:10
Speaker 2: the lunch guests, she spoke to the jury about that.
32:13
Speaker 2: At the same time Aaron Patterson was being asked about
32:17
Speaker 2: where these mushrooms had come from, and the prosecution allege
32:20
Speaker 2: at this point she came up with, they say, another
32:23
Speaker 2: elaborate lie regarding the source of the mushrooms and started
32:27
Speaker 2: to tell people they'd come from an Asian grocer. But
32:30
Speaker 2: the prosecution put to the jury that this story about
32:33
Speaker 2: the Asian grosser and the details became broader over time
32:35
Speaker 2: and more complex.
32:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, she said that on their case, Aaron Patterson sat
32:40
Speaker 3: on her hands as her loved ones were growing more
32:44
Speaker 3: and more unwell, and she really sent the Department of
32:47
Speaker 3: Health and also the City of Monash on a wild
32:50
Speaker 3: goose chase to find what they say was a fictional
32:53
Speaker 3: Asian grocer store. With something we've heard a lot about
32:55
Speaker 3: in this trial and was again mentioned today at length,
32:59
Speaker 3: was whether or Aaron Patterson somebody who used to work
33:02
Speaker 3: and used to live in this particular part of Melbourne
33:04
Speaker 3: many many many years earlier, would have known the areas
33:08
Speaker 3: and would have known the suburbs. And as you said,
33:10
Speaker 3: this lie, the prosecution say, grew bigger and bigger as
33:14
Speaker 3: time went on, and more suburbs they say, were added in.
33:18
Speaker 3: More broad descriptions of things then followed, and they say
33:23
Speaker 3: this was all not as somebody who was panicking, but
33:25
Speaker 3: somebody who was caught in their own lives. Yeah.
33:28
Speaker 2: And the one of the words that Nnette Rodgers used
33:30
Speaker 2: that really stuck out for me was she called it
33:32
Speaker 2: a frolic. She said that they had been sent on
33:34
Speaker 2: a frolic the Health Department. And then she also went
33:38
Speaker 2: through how the Monash Health investigators were also involved in
33:41
Speaker 2: this foot on the ground search going through all of
33:44
Speaker 2: these different local businesses looking for any source of mushrooms.
33:48
Speaker 2: The three hundred and forty photos that were taken by
33:50
Speaker 2: that environmental officer and sent to the Department of Health
33:53
Speaker 2: because there was this major concern that as well as
33:56
Speaker 2: this one family was really unwell in hospital, that there
33:59
Speaker 2: could be a big part public health emergency. At the
34:01
Speaker 2: same time, Nannette Rodgers, as part of the closings and
34:04
Speaker 2: this part of her address, she took the jury through
34:07
Speaker 2: eleven times. The prosecution allege between when Aaron Patterson first
34:12
Speaker 2: spoke with doctor Chris Webster on the thirty first of July,
34:15
Speaker 2: that Monday that she first presented at Leanngatha Hospital, through
34:19
Speaker 2: to a couple of days after the lunch on the
34:22
Speaker 2: second of August, when she was visited by a Child
34:25
Speaker 2: Protection worker and she had a speakerphone conversation with a
34:28
Speaker 2: public health official.
34:29
Speaker 4: The prosecution says.
34:30
Speaker 2: There's eleven times there and they signposted them there to
34:33
Speaker 2: the jury of the things Aaron Patterson said and they
34:36
Speaker 2: say didn't say regarding where these particular mushrooms came from,
34:40
Speaker 2: beginning with that first doctor saying that the mushrooms, they
34:44
Speaker 2: say on the evidence of him, and with what the
34:46
Speaker 2: prosecution alleged that she just replied Woolli's and that despite
34:50
Speaker 2: the defense saying that she had said, he had asked
34:53
Speaker 2: where the ingredients came from, the prosecution said that the
34:56
Speaker 2: jury should consider that he asked where the mushrooms had
34:59
Speaker 2: come from, and that that doctor, doctor Chris Webster, was
35:02
Speaker 2: very much focused on mushrooms at the time, not on
35:04
Speaker 2: the ingredients.
35:05
Speaker 4: As a whole.
35:06
Speaker 2: All the way through to these different suburbs and the
35:09
Speaker 2: different descriptions that they say Aaron Patterson gave these particular
35:13
Speaker 2: public health officials and investigators. But what they also touched
35:17
Speaker 2: on was the prosecution say that it was Aaron Patterson
35:21
Speaker 2: not always responding or not always being forthcoming with information
35:26
Speaker 2: that the jury should also look at here that towards
35:28
Speaker 2: the end of Sally Ann Atkinson needing to get information
35:31
Speaker 2: from her. In those later days, Aaron Patterson wasn't always
35:34
Speaker 2: returning her calls or her voicemail messages.
35:37
Speaker 3: At other times text messages were responded to, but they
35:41
Speaker 3: didn't answer the questions of Sally Ane Atkinson from the
35:43
Speaker 3: Department of Health was asking, now we do know this
35:46
Speaker 3: time Aaron Patterson gave evidence and the jury were reminded
35:49
Speaker 3: of this today that in one of the messages she
35:52
Speaker 3: did right back, well, I'm a bit busy, I'm dealing
35:54
Speaker 3: with my children. I've got a bit of my plate
35:56
Speaker 3: at the moment, essentially, but that it was some of
35:59
Speaker 3: those other phone calls that followed that she was so
36:02
Speaker 3: difficult to get hold of. And this is something as well.
36:05
Speaker 3: The jury reminded that was the complete opposite to what
36:09
Speaker 3: Aaron Patterson said in her police interview. She told police
36:12
Speaker 3: that she was very, very helpful with the Department of Health,
36:14
Speaker 3: where Asnette Rodgers said that really wasn't the case.
36:18
Speaker 2: Here's a little bit of what Nenette Rogers told the jury.
36:20
Speaker 2: It's voiced by an actor.
36:22
Speaker 1: Even if you could accept it is something you might
36:24
Speaker 1: not remember. You would think that if you were in
36:27
Speaker 1: a situation like this, for the sake of your very
36:30
Speaker 1: ill family members, and for anyone else who might be exposed,
36:35
Speaker 1: you would do everything you could to try and remember
36:38
Speaker 1: the store. But the accused sat on her hands while Don,
36:42
Speaker 1: gail Ian and Heather were all in comas. She was
36:47
Speaker 1: slow to respond to the Department of Health, even totally
36:50
Speaker 1: non responsive at times, and as time passed, her description
36:54
Speaker 1: of the Chinese food store shifted and grew broader. You
37:00
Speaker 1: noticed that when the accused was giving the evidence that
37:02
Speaker 1: she appeared to have a remarkable memory. She could recall dates, evidence,
37:07
Speaker 1: and details easily, as she was being asked questions over
37:11
Speaker 1: many days. Even now in June twenty twenty five, she
37:15
Speaker 1: could recall that April twenty eighth, twenty twenty three was
37:19
Speaker 1: a Friday and not a Monday, as I had suggested
37:22
Speaker 1: to her in cross examination. Yet in August twenty twenty three,
37:27
Speaker 1: she could not recall the shop or even the suburb
37:29
Speaker 1: where she purchased the mushrooms from an Asian grosser in
37:33
Speaker 1: the same April of twenty twenty three. It's simply beggar's belief.
37:39
Speaker 1: How were the mushrooms packaged? Not only did the locations
37:42
Speaker 1: of the supposed Asian grosser spread across more and more suburbs.
37:47
Speaker 1: The story about the mushrooms from the Asian Grosser also
37:51
Speaker 1: became more complex when professionals asked the accused about the packaging,
37:56
Speaker 1: She said she didn't have it, then came up with
37:59
Speaker 1: an elaborate ex explanation for why that would be the case,
38:02
Speaker 1: given that she had only prepared the meal a few
38:05
Speaker 1: days earlier.
38:06
Speaker 2: Now, another point that Nanette Rodgers sc has taken the
38:09
Speaker 2: jury too in part of her closings were the claims
38:13
Speaker 2: around that Aaron Patterson says she read hydrated the Asian
38:17
Speaker 2: grosser mushrooms and added them into this particular meal. Now,
38:22
Speaker 2: she went back to some of Aaron Patterson's evidence that
38:25
Speaker 2: she said while she was on the stand that she'd
38:27
Speaker 2: noticed how crisp things were when they came out of
38:30
Speaker 2: her dehydrator, and she felt these particular Asian mushrooms, which
38:33
Speaker 2: previously the jury had heard evidence from other witnesses that
38:37
Speaker 2: she'd told them, smelt a bit funny or a little
38:39
Speaker 2: bit strange, and that's why she hadn't included them in
38:42
Speaker 2: other foods at the time. That she felt that those
38:44
Speaker 2: mushrooms were a bit rubbery in the tupper where she'd
38:47
Speaker 2: put them in, so at some point she couldn't remember
38:49
Speaker 2: exactly when, but she'd taken them out, she'd popped them
38:51
Speaker 2: into the dehydrator and that was to crisp them up.
38:54
Speaker 2: And what Nanette Rogers told the jury was that in
38:58
Speaker 2: telling the taught this in her evidence that she was
39:02
Speaker 2: telling a ridiculous lie. That was Nnette Roger's words, that
39:06
Speaker 2: she was trying to show that there could still be
39:09
Speaker 2: some contamination with the Asian grosser mushrooms. But that really
39:13
Speaker 2: all along, Aaron Patterson knew. The prosecution alleges that she
39:17
Speaker 2: had dehydrated deathcat mushrooms in her own sun Beam dehydrator,
39:20
Speaker 2: and they suggest that she bought that dehydrator for the
39:23
Speaker 2: exact purpose of dehydrating those mushrooms.
39:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, Rogers said that it wouldn't make sense to purchase
39:29
Speaker 3: dried mushrooms to then rehydrate them, to put them in
39:32
Speaker 3: this meal, to then chop them up to then redry
39:37
Speaker 3: them again. And that was at a point where there
39:41
Speaker 3: was a few of us are a little bit confused
39:43
Speaker 3: trying to make sense of this. But the way she
39:45
Speaker 3: broke it down was, yes, Aaron Patterson's evidence was, when
39:48
Speaker 3: I took these mushrooms out of the pantry, I rehydrated
39:52
Speaker 3: them with a little bit of water, I chopped them up,
39:54
Speaker 3: and then I added them to the meal. But why
39:56
Speaker 3: and then and how has remnants of death cat mushrooms
39:59
Speaker 3: then made their way onto the dehydrator. So and Nette
40:03
Speaker 3: Rogers was saying essentially that that is another lie, it
40:06
Speaker 3: doesn't make sense, and that Aaron Patterson did in fact
40:10
Speaker 3: source dry and add mushrooms deathcat mushrooms to the meal.
40:14
Speaker 2: It's a little bit more from what Nannette Rogers told
40:18
Speaker 2: the jury regarding the dumping of the dehydrator.
40:20
Speaker 1: The defense may argue that this was part of a
40:23
Speaker 1: wild panic, that the accused did this because she was
40:27
Speaker 1: worried she would be falsely accused of deliberately poisoning her
40:31
Speaker 1: lunch guests. You should completely reject that position. Her story
40:36
Speaker 1: about Simon accusing her in the hospital of using the
40:40
Speaker 1: dehydrator and this sending her into a panic is nonsense.
40:44
Speaker 1: Simon Patterson categorically denied to you ever saying such a
40:48
Speaker 1: thing to the accused. You will use your common sense
40:51
Speaker 1: when you're considering the evidence in this case, including this
40:55
Speaker 1: piece of evidence. If there was nothing incriminating about the
40:59
Speaker 1: deh hydrator, why hide it? And there is only one
41:03
Speaker 1: reasonable explanation. She knew it would incriminate her. She knew
41:09
Speaker 1: that she had dehydrated death cap mushrooms in that appliance
41:13
Speaker 1: and that she had deliberately done so, and she knew
41:17
Speaker 1: that keeping it was going to be far too risky.
41:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, this dumping of the dehydrator, Rogers said, was one
41:24
Speaker 3: of the first things that Aaron Patterson did as soon
41:28
Speaker 3: as she was released from that Monash hospital. And she
41:31
Speaker 3: then took the jury through a number of other things
41:33
Speaker 3: that they say she did that prove she was covering
41:37
Speaker 3: her tracks after she attempted to kill some of her
41:40
Speaker 3: lunch guests. And this next thing that they say she
41:43
Speaker 3: did was the dumping of what Nanette called the dummy phone.
41:46
Speaker 3: We've heard during some of this evidence that there was
41:48
Speaker 3: fhone A in phone B, but she really used different
41:51
Speaker 3: terminology during her closings and explained that Aaron Patterson had
41:55
Speaker 3: a usual phone and she had a dummy phone. And
41:57
Speaker 3: their case is that Aaron Patterson handed police the dummy phone,
42:01
Speaker 3: a phone that she knew that had been wiped and
42:03
Speaker 3: then was later wiped again while it was in the
42:05
Speaker 3: locker of the police informat and that she didn't actually
42:08
Speaker 3: hand over her usual phone. Now, Neett Rodgers reminded the
42:12
Speaker 3: jury that the defense case was this other phone, this
42:15
Speaker 3: usual phone was just left on the window sill in
42:18
Speaker 3: there in Patterson's house and police had missed it. And
42:21
Speaker 3: Rogers really encouraged the jury to reject that suggestion and
42:25
Speaker 3: said that the police had been there for four hours.
42:27
Speaker 3: They're searching for all of the devices that they could find,
42:31
Speaker 3: and it wouldn't make any sense for them to have
42:33
Speaker 3: missed or looked over a phone that was now sitting
42:37
Speaker 3: on a window sill in air in Patterson's house.
42:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, and for the listeners that have been listening along
42:42
Speaker 2: we have referred to in previous episodes, like the prosecution
42:45
Speaker 2: and the defense have that what the prosecution now alleged
42:49
Speaker 2: is a dummy phone, that is Phone B and the
42:52
Speaker 2: phone A, that phone that police never recovered is what
42:56
Speaker 2: Nenette Rodgers is referring to there as well.
42:59
Speaker 4: Toward the end of.
43:00
Speaker 2: Her final submission her closing arguments, Nanette Rodgers spoke a
43:04
Speaker 2: lot about the relationships within the family and why she
43:08
Speaker 2: says there may have been while there doesn't need to
43:11
Speaker 2: be a motive in this particular case, but there may
43:13
Speaker 2: have been some animosity in this particular family. And she
43:17
Speaker 2: touched on what she says is evidence that these particular
43:21
Speaker 2: relationships had changed over time and changed around the time
43:23
Speaker 2: of the lunch.
43:24
Speaker 3: She reminded the jury when she was speaking about this
43:26
Speaker 3: that the prosecution doesn't need to prove a motive to
43:30
Speaker 3: prove murder. It's not one of the full elements of
43:32
Speaker 3: murder that a jury needs to be satisfied beyond reasonable
43:36
Speaker 3: doubt that they have reached to find somebody guilty of murder.
43:40
Speaker 3: But the way it was explained was that sometimes the
43:42
Speaker 3: reasons are obvious as to why somebody might kill somebody,
43:45
Speaker 3: in other times they're not. And so that was part
43:48
Speaker 3: of the explanation about what was going on then with
43:51
Speaker 3: the family at the time. And she noted that on
43:54
Speaker 3: the surface, it may have seemed like the accused was
43:56
Speaker 3: in this really loving family, this loving relationship, yes, but
44:00
Speaker 3: perhaps the truth was that what was really going on
44:03
Speaker 3: with Don and Gail Patterson and Aaron Patterson at that
44:06
Speaker 3: time was that things weren't always really harmonious.
44:10
Speaker 2: Hiss a little bit of what the jury was told
44:13
Speaker 2: about the situation within the family at the time of
44:16
Speaker 2: the lunch.
44:17
Speaker 1: The accused professed her love for Don and Gail in
44:20
Speaker 1: her police interview. Even Simon told you that they got
44:24
Speaker 1: on well, that is, the accused and his parents, and
44:27
Speaker 1: that the accused seemed to love his parents. On the surface,
44:31
Speaker 1: perhaps it seemed that way even to the family members themselves,
44:36
Speaker 1: but you have heard evidence which shows that the relationship
44:39
Speaker 1: between the accused and Don and Gail was not always
44:43
Speaker 1: a harmonious one, particularly in the nine months or so
44:47
Speaker 1: leading up to the lunch. Don and Gail were dragged
44:50
Speaker 1: unwillingly into the conflict between the accused and Simon over
44:55
Speaker 1: child support.
44:56
Speaker 3: And this is what Annette Rogers told the jury about motive.
44:59
Speaker 1: Motive is not an element of the crime of murder
45:02
Speaker 1: or the crime of attempted murder, and it is only
45:06
Speaker 1: the elements of the offense that you must find proven
45:09
Speaker 1: beyond reasonable doubt that makes sense. People do different things
45:14
Speaker 1: for different reasons. Sometimes the reason is obvious enough to others.
45:19
Speaker 1: At other times, the internal motivations are only known by
45:24
Speaker 1: the person themselves. You don't have to know why a
45:27
Speaker 1: person does something in order to know they did it.
45:32
Speaker 2: Now, this is the part that we have alluded to
45:34
Speaker 2: earlier in the episode that there was a surprise for
45:38
Speaker 2: the jury, for us sitting in the courtroom as well
45:40
Speaker 2: and the members of the public when it came to
45:43
Speaker 2: the number of calculated deceptions that the prosecution alleged Aaron
45:46
Speaker 2: Patterson took part in.
45:48
Speaker 4: Initially, Annette Rodgers.
45:50
Speaker 2: As you heard outlined in what she told the jury
45:53
Speaker 2: earlier in this episode, said there were four calculated deceptions.
45:56
Speaker 4: Then she said there was a fifth calculated deception.
46:00
Speaker 2: She says, this deception is Aaron Patterson herself saying that,
46:04
Speaker 2: in Nnette Roger's words, that Aaron Patterson tried to play
46:07
Speaker 2: the jury.
46:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, Nenette Rogers was facing the jury at this time,
46:12
Speaker 3: and the jury, as they really had behaved throughout all
46:15
Speaker 3: of her closing submissions, they couldn't be seen taking any notes,
46:19
Speaker 3: they weren't looking at their iPads. Their eyes were really
46:21
Speaker 3: fixed on Nett Rogers as she was speaking. And this
46:24
Speaker 3: was a moment where there was surprise across the faces
46:28
Speaker 3: of some of the jury members, and one of the
46:30
Speaker 3: male jurors as well, almost smirt He had a smile
46:33
Speaker 3: on his face. When they were told that there would
46:35
Speaker 3: be this fifth element, and then all of a sudden
46:39
Speaker 3: we heard net Rodgers say, this is the lies that
46:41
Speaker 3: we say. Aaron Patterson told you the juror as while
46:44
Speaker 3: she was here in the courtroom. Now, I was sitting
46:46
Speaker 3: in the courtroom like I have been every day of
46:48
Speaker 3: this trial, Penny, and I looked around to see Aaron Patterson.
46:52
Speaker 3: She seated in the dock behind where the media is sitting,
46:55
Speaker 3: and she had been taking notes throughout both days, and
46:58
Speaker 3: that was happening again today. Glasses on the end of
47:00
Speaker 3: her nose, and she was continuing to take notes, and
47:03
Speaker 3: there wasn't a lot of reaction to what was happening
47:05
Speaker 3: at that point.
47:06
Speaker 2: So what Nanette Rodgers told the jury is that Aaron
47:09
Speaker 2: Patterson didn't have to give evidence, that she made the
47:11
Speaker 2: choice to give evidence off her own bat, and that
47:14
Speaker 2: therefore she opened herself up to cross examination just like
47:17
Speaker 2: any other witness. And there were a number of those
47:20
Speaker 2: points that you mentioned that Nanette Rogers put to the
47:23
Speaker 2: jurors saying, we put to you that she lied about this,
47:27
Speaker 2: that she lied about this, that she lied about this,
47:29
Speaker 2: And she started off with the cancer diagnosis, quoting from
47:32
Speaker 2: what she'd told police what she'd told different witnesses, and
47:35
Speaker 2: then what she'd said on the stand, and she said
47:37
Speaker 2: every time we asked her questions about that that her
47:40
Speaker 2: story seemed to be changing.
47:42
Speaker 3: She mentioned that Aaron Patterson seemed to have a really
47:45
Speaker 3: good memory for some things, particularly dates and the day
47:48
Speaker 3: of the week. She explained that in other parts Aaron
47:51
Speaker 3: Patterson was unable to explain certain elements, but also didn't
47:55
Speaker 3: answer or give full some answers to other questions. And
47:59
Speaker 3: that was the reason or part of the reason why
48:01
Speaker 3: Anette Rogers said the jury should not put a lot
48:04
Speaker 3: of faith into what Aaron Patterson was saying, and to
48:07
Speaker 3: really put that aside and focus on what evidence it
48:10
Speaker 3: is that the prosecution brought to the table.
48:12
Speaker 2: Now, the prosecution has anticipated in some of what they've
48:15
Speaker 2: told the jury, they expect the defense will say in
48:18
Speaker 2: their closings. You'll hear a little bit in these words
48:21
Speaker 2: of Nannette Rogers that were about to play you. This
48:25
Speaker 2: begins with her talking about the fact that the defense
48:28
Speaker 2: may try to suggest that a lot of these things
48:31
Speaker 2: happened because of an innocent panic.
48:33
Speaker 4: This is voiced by an actor.
48:35
Speaker 1: It might be suggested to you that some of the
48:37
Speaker 1: accused behavior after the lunch was the result of panic,
48:41
Speaker 1: innocent panic about the prospect of being blamed, and that
48:45
Speaker 1: this is why she disposed of the dehydrator and why
48:49
Speaker 1: she told some of the lies I have already referred to.
48:53
Speaker 1: We suggest you can reject those suggestions why, because panic
48:58
Speaker 1: does not explain the extent and prolonged efforts that the
49:02
Speaker 1: accused went to in order to cover up what she'd done.
49:06
Speaker 1: It does not explain why the accused chose to persist
49:10
Speaker 1: with lies even when the lives of the lunch guests
49:14
Speaker 1: were at stake. And you might also remember that the
49:17
Speaker 1: accused volunteered some of those lies to someone who she
49:21
Speaker 1: had absolutely no reason to lie to.
49:25
Speaker 2: From then innet, Rogers took the jury through a few
49:27
Speaker 2: more bits of evidence of different witnesses. What she says
49:31
Speaker 2: that Aaron Patterson told Jenny Hay, one of her online friends,
49:35
Speaker 2: regarding elements that had happened after the lunch with the
49:38
Speaker 2: leftovers and where she says she got the mushrooms. And
49:41
Speaker 2: after these two days of closings that the jury has
49:45
Speaker 2: heard from Nannette Rogers, it was time for her to
49:48
Speaker 2: sit back down and say she had finished these closing submissions.
49:51
Speaker 3: She actually thanked the jury. She said thank you for
49:54
Speaker 3: your time and sat back down. And we know what
49:57
Speaker 3: happened next, Penny. Is that Colin Mandy. It was his
50:00
Speaker 3: turn at the lectern. He did the same. He came
50:03
Speaker 3: in and moved it so it was facing the jury
50:05
Speaker 3: and we'll bring you some more about what he has
50:08
Speaker 3: to say in our next episode.
50:10
Speaker 4: Thank you for listening to this episode of Say Grace.
50:13
Speaker 2: Please press the follow button in your app to get
50:15
Speaker 2: our next episodes as soon as we publish.
50:17
Speaker 3: For more reporting on the case, check out the Age
50:19
Speaker 3: of nine News in your browser or app store.
50:22
Speaker 2: We'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land
50:24
Speaker 2: that this podcast was recorded on and wherever you're listening
50:27
Speaker 2: to it now.
50:28
Speaker 4: Say Grace is created and hosted by me Penelope Leash
50:31
Speaker 4: and me Aaron Pearson. This podcast is produced by Genevieve Rule.