Latest / The Mushroom Trial: Say Grace / ‘I just panicked’

Transcript

‘I just panicked’ · The Mushroom Trial: Say Grace

0:02
Speaker 1: Nine podcasts.
0:04
Speaker 2: Aaron Patterson has given evidence around how she made the
0:07
Speaker 2: beef Wellington meal, telling The Cord that she used a
0:10
Speaker 2: mushroom mix as part of a paste, and that she
0:13
Speaker 2: became concerned that mix could have contained foraged wild mushrooms
0:18
Speaker 2: around the time that her estranged husband approached her in
0:21
Speaker 2: hospital and she says accused her of using a dehydrator
0:26
Speaker 2: to poison his parents. From there, she says she panicked.
0:31
Speaker 3: Victoria's mushroom mystery.
0:32
Speaker 4: The mushroom lunch that claimed three lives.
0:35
Speaker 5: An Australian family's meal is now the center of a
0:38
Speaker 5: homicide investigation. The bizarre tragedy now grabbing global headlines. Aaron
0:42
Speaker 5: Patterson's alleged victims died after eating a family lunch she'd
0:46
Speaker 5: serve them at her home.
0:48
Speaker 4: I cannot think of another investigation that has generated this
0:51
Speaker 4: level of media and public interest.
0:54
Speaker 2: Four of the guests of that lunch were much loved
0:57
Speaker 2: members of this church.
0:58
Speaker 1: Only one will ever.
1:00
Speaker 5: People are feeling very heavy with having lost such wonderful people.
1:05
Speaker 2: Today, Aaron Pattison remained here inside her home.
1:09
Speaker 1: She's continued to plead her innocence in a court room in.
1:14
Speaker 2: Country Victoria Aaron Patterson is on trial accused of using
1:18
Speaker 2: death cat mushrooms to kill She's pleaded not guilty to
1:22
Speaker 2: murdering three of her former in laws and attempting to
1:24
Speaker 2: kill a fourth, the town's church pastor. It's up to
1:28
Speaker 2: the jurors to decide what happened when Patterson's loved ones
1:31
Speaker 2: sat down to eat. On her third day of evidence,
1:35
Speaker 2: Aaron Patterson has told the court details of how she
1:38
Speaker 2: says she made the beef Wellington meal. She's also told
1:41
Speaker 2: the court that she now believes that there could have
1:44
Speaker 2: been foraged wild mushrooms in the mushroom mix that she
1:48
Speaker 2: put into that dish.
1:50
Speaker 5: There's a lot to unpack from today, Penny. We are
1:55
Speaker 5: recording this podcast episode later than we normally would because
1:58
Speaker 5: there's been a lot to try process and a lot
2:01
Speaker 5: to break down and understand, double check quotes, all of
2:04
Speaker 5: these types of information to make sure what we are
2:05
Speaker 5: bringing our listeners is a real and true reflection of
2:09
Speaker 5: what happened in court today. When I was sitting trying
2:12
Speaker 5: to write my story for the Age before we've sat
2:15
Speaker 5: down to do this, it was quite difficult to figure
2:19
Speaker 5: out how much I could get into the first few
2:21
Speaker 5: pars there was line after line after line of information
2:24
Speaker 5: and the reason for that is this is Aaron Patterson's third
2:28
Speaker 5: day on the stand and she was answering questions from
2:30
Speaker 5: her barrister, Colin Mandy. Again, Aaron, I agree definitely with
2:34
Speaker 5: the you know, the crosses that I've done throughout the
2:36
Speaker 5: day for radio and TV as well. It's definitely there's
2:39
Speaker 5: been so many topics.
2:40
Speaker 2: Covered, particularly on this particular day, and the fact that
2:44
Speaker 2: we have the podcast where we can try and bring
2:46
Speaker 2: people large chunks.
2:48
Speaker 1: Of the evidence.
2:48
Speaker 2: We're really hoping, as we've said, that this gives people
2:51
Speaker 2: a real insight into what was going on in the courtroom.
2:54
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm looking at a notepad in my left hand
2:57
Speaker 5: at the moment with a little bit of scribble on
2:58
Speaker 5: it to remind me of different points to not forget
3:02
Speaker 5: and the order in which they were presented to the
3:04
Speaker 5: jury today and some of those. And we'll take you
3:06
Speaker 5: through all of the evidence that we heard today, but
3:09
Speaker 5: a quick recap, I suppose on where we got to
3:12
Speaker 5: by four o'clock this afternoon. We heard a little bit
3:14
Speaker 5: about a conversation between Aaron Patterson and Simon Patterson when
3:17
Speaker 5: they were left alone in a hospital room at Monash Hospital. Here,
3:21
Speaker 5: Simon Patterson asked questions of his estranged wife as to
3:24
Speaker 5: whether or not she'd use a dehydrator to poison his parents.
3:28
Speaker 5: We also heard a little bit about Aaron Patterson dumping
3:31
Speaker 5: some evidence, including a dehydrator during the aftermath of the lunch.
3:36
Speaker 5: We heard a little bit about Aaron Patterson admitting it
3:39
Speaker 5: she did wipe a mobile phone a number of times.
3:42
Speaker 5: She also said that she told some lies Penny to
3:45
Speaker 5: keep her children. There was also different things about her
3:49
Speaker 5: her diary and in her words, her illness continued to
3:53
Speaker 5: get worse and worse. But she also took us more
3:56
Speaker 5: importantly and the reason why we're all in court Penny
4:00
Speaker 5: through the lunch, what happened at the lunch, through in
4:03
Speaker 5: her mind what she recalled of that. And there was many, many,
4:06
Speaker 5: many questions that she answered to the jury today about
4:09
Speaker 5: that lunch.
4:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, and those included elements of the shopping, the preparation,
4:13
Speaker 2: the recipe, the serving up, the plating up, why she
4:16
Speaker 2: says she held this lunch. And we'll take everyone through
4:19
Speaker 2: as much as we can fit into one recording. But
4:24
Speaker 2: let's sort of start from some of the first parts
4:27
Speaker 2: of the evidence that the jury heard today, and that
4:30
Speaker 2: was when Aaron Patterson's barrister took Aaron Patterson through a
4:34
Speaker 2: number of photographs on the big screens and the court
4:37
Speaker 2: was told that these came from an SD card, so
4:40
Speaker 2: a memory card that had been recovered from the Gibson
4:43
Speaker 2: Street Lee and Gatha home during a police search. Now,
4:48
Speaker 2: Aaron Patterson was sort of going through these different photos
4:50
Speaker 2: with her barrister and what we saw in those photos
4:53
Speaker 2: was quite a few different mushrooms.
4:55
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think there was twenty odd pages that Aaron
4:57
Speaker 5: Patterson was taken through and asked did you take these photographs?
5:01
Speaker 5: Do you have any memory of taking these photographs? What
5:04
Speaker 5: is depicted in these photographs? And some of her answers
5:07
Speaker 5: were that there was mushrooms in those photographs that were
5:10
Speaker 5: taken in the wild. There was other mushrooms that had
5:12
Speaker 5: been picked and that were placed on newspaper and Aaron
5:15
Speaker 5: Patterson identified that particular picture as being one that was
5:18
Speaker 5: on her kitchen bench at the time at a previous
5:20
Speaker 5: addressing in corn Bara in Shelcotte Road. But she was
5:23
Speaker 5: also then asked to identify some other people that may
5:27
Speaker 5: have been in that photograph and that's when she got
5:29
Speaker 5: a little bit emotional. Penny for the first time on
5:31
Speaker 5: day twenty six of the trial, and that was when
5:34
Speaker 5: she was asked to identify, yeah, people in the background,
5:36
Speaker 5: and she said they were her children.
5:37
Speaker 2: Yeah. And part of what was shown to the court
5:40
Speaker 2: was some very small images which it was asked for
5:43
Speaker 2: them to be zoomed up, and it was explained by
5:45
Speaker 2: the barrister. He says that these were snapshots basically taken
5:48
Speaker 2: from a video, and Aaron Patterson.
5:51
Speaker 1: Told the court that she believed that.
5:52
Speaker 2: She had taken that video that her children had been
5:55
Speaker 2: riding their scooters on a rail trail.
5:57
Speaker 1: They're excited to do that, yeah, and she.
5:59
Speaker 2: Sort of she said, look, you can see that they're
6:03
Speaker 2: both in that image, and that's when she got a
6:05
Speaker 2: little bit emotional talking about those children.
6:06
Speaker 1: But she also noted to the jury that there was a.
6:09
Speaker 2: Child in that image wearing a red sort of top
6:13
Speaker 2: and that that was the same child. She said, you
6:15
Speaker 2: could then see in this other image that she said
6:18
Speaker 2: was taken at her kitchen bench. But through a lot
6:20
Speaker 2: of these photos, she seemed to be able to recall
6:24
Speaker 2: some parts of exactly when she'd taken them and why
6:28
Speaker 2: She says that was she noted some particular mushrooms, that
6:31
Speaker 2: they were sort of a brownie yellowy color to me,
6:34
Speaker 2: at least in grass, that she had picked those from
6:38
Speaker 2: the grass, and that she had been trying to identify those,
6:40
Speaker 2: she said, to find out if they were toxic.
6:42
Speaker 1: For her dog.
6:43
Speaker 2: She told the jury that she said that was an
6:46
Speaker 2: inner cybe mushroom and she'd come to know that that
6:48
Speaker 2: was a poisonous mushroom that she believed grew on her property.
6:52
Speaker 5: She was also taken to other screenshots that the prosecution
6:56
Speaker 5: had introduced as part of their evidence, and they related
6:58
Speaker 5: to a purchase at the corn Bar Top Pub. This
7:01
Speaker 5: was something that was happening around the same time as
7:03
Speaker 5: there was also a visit to a website II Naturalist,
7:08
Speaker 5: and Aaron Patterson said, yes, that could have been her
7:10
Speaker 5: that accessed the our Naturalist page. It made sense because
7:13
Speaker 5: at the time she was researching whether or not there
7:15
Speaker 5: was death cat mushrooms growing in South Gippsland. She said
7:18
Speaker 5: ultimately they weren't and she was then asked further questions
7:22
Speaker 5: about what else was going on at that time. She confirmed,
7:25
Speaker 5: as I said, this purchase at the Coronborough Middle pub,
7:28
Speaker 5: she said, yes, I remember doing that, I remember making
7:31
Speaker 5: that purchase.
7:31
Speaker 2: And she said that she did sometimes purchase dinner on
7:34
Speaker 2: occasion for her and her family there. When she was
7:38
Speaker 2: talking also about those sort of the use of her phone,
7:42
Speaker 2: she was sort of asked about when she was trying
7:44
Speaker 2: to identify mushrooms how she would do that. She said
7:46
Speaker 2: mostly she would use her phone because that was the
7:48
Speaker 2: device usually that was easiest when she had it with her.
7:51
Speaker 5: When she was asked as well about some of the
7:54
Speaker 5: our naturalist posts that we've heard during this evidence thus far,
7:58
Speaker 5: she was asked whether or not she'd ever seen posts
8:01
Speaker 5: that pinpointed that where deathcat mushrooms were believed to have
8:04
Speaker 5: grown from other witnesses, Tom May and another woman called
8:07
Speaker 5: Christine Mackenzie, and she said no, she had not, she
8:10
Speaker 5: did not ever recall seeing those posts. And well, when
8:13
Speaker 5: she was asked of her phone records and her travel
8:15
Speaker 5: was consistent with traveling to lock An Outram area and
8:18
Speaker 5: if she'd ever forage in those areas, she said.
8:20
Speaker 2: No, Yeah, she said she'd never foraged in either of
8:23
Speaker 2: those two particular locations.
8:25
Speaker 5: Yeah, we heard in June twenty twenty three, I think
8:27
Speaker 5: it was the twenty fourth of June, Penny that Aaron
8:30
Speaker 5: Patterson had a lunch with Don and Gale and her children.
8:34
Speaker 5: She said she'd become a little worried that there might
8:36
Speaker 5: have been some distance growing between her and her in
8:38
Speaker 5: laws at the time. The way she remembered it when
8:41
Speaker 5: she was expressing this to the jury was that it
8:43
Speaker 5: was a really, really good time and her children really
8:45
Speaker 5: really enjoyed it, and she said that's one of the
8:47
Speaker 5: reasons why she planned the lunch again a month later
8:50
Speaker 5: on the twenty ninth of July. It was at this
8:52
Speaker 5: time as well, Penny, that she was taken back to
8:54
Speaker 5: an exhibit called Exhibit fifty one, and this was a
8:57
Speaker 5: string of text messages or messages that had been sent
8:59
Speaker 5: between her and Gail Patterson, and this was a discussion
9:02
Speaker 5: about her medical appointments.
9:04
Speaker 2: Here's a little bit of what Aaron Patterson told the
9:06
Speaker 2: jury while she was being questioned by her barrister, Colin Mandy.
9:10
Speaker 2: It's voiced by actors.
9:11
Speaker 3: The message is from Gail to you, Is that right?
9:15
Speaker 4: Yes?
9:16
Speaker 3: And it says hi, erin just wondering how you got
9:20
Speaker 3: on in your appointment today.
9:21
Speaker 4: Yep.
9:22
Speaker 3: What was Gail referring to.
9:25
Speaker 4: I must have told him I was having a medical
9:27
Speaker 4: appointment that day.
9:28
Speaker 3: And do you remember when you told them that?
9:30
Speaker 4: It may have been at the lanch or maybe slightly
9:33
Speaker 4: before it. I think it was slightly before.
9:35
Speaker 3: And what did you say about that medical appointment?
9:38
Speaker 4: I think I just said I was I was having
9:41
Speaker 4: a problem or a lump on my arm checked out?
9:44
Speaker 3: Did you have a lump on your arm?
9:46
Speaker 4: I thought I did at one point.
9:47
Speaker 3: Your response, on twenty ninth of June to that message
9:51
Speaker 3: is Hi, Gail, the appointment when? Okay? Thanks for asking.
9:55
Speaker 3: I had a needle biopsy taken of the lump and
9:58
Speaker 3: I'm returning for an MRI next week and we'll know
10:01
Speaker 3: more after the results of those two things. Yeah, I
10:04
Speaker 3: wrote that had you been to an appointment?
10:07
Speaker 4: No?
10:07
Speaker 3: Had you had a needle biopsy taken of the lump?
10:10
Speaker 5: No?
10:10
Speaker 3: Were you returning for an MIRI the next week?
10:13
Speaker 4: No?
10:14
Speaker 3: And were those lies? Yes? And why did you tell
10:17
Speaker 3: those lies?
10:18
Speaker 4: So some weeks prior, I had been having an issue
10:21
Speaker 4: with my elbow with pain, and I thought there was
10:25
Speaker 4: a lump there and I had told Gail and Don
10:27
Speaker 4: about that when I saw them or spoke to them,
10:29
Speaker 4: and they had shown quite a lot of care about that,
10:32
Speaker 4: which felt really nice, and the issue started to resolve,
10:36
Speaker 4: and I felt a bit embarrassed that I'd made such
10:38
Speaker 4: a big deal about it, and I didn't I didn't
10:41
Speaker 4: want their care of me to stop, so I just
10:43
Speaker 4: kept it going. I shouldn't have done it.
10:45
Speaker 2: And this is where Aaron Patterson explained that she while
10:49
Speaker 2: she had thought that she had this particular issue with
10:52
Speaker 2: her arm that had sort of resolved by then, that
10:54
Speaker 2: she was actually thinking and planning, she said, to have
10:58
Speaker 2: a different procedure, that she was planning to undergo gastric
11:01
Speaker 2: bypass surgery to help her, she said, get control of
11:06
Speaker 2: her weight, and she felt she didn't really have control
11:08
Speaker 2: of her body at that time.
11:09
Speaker 5: She remembers she told the jury thinking that she didn't
11:12
Speaker 5: want to tell anybody, and she didn't want anybody to
11:14
Speaker 5: know what was going on, and she was really embarrassed
11:16
Speaker 5: and thought that at this point, maybe by allowing that
11:20
Speaker 5: lie to go on, her in laws will be able
11:23
Speaker 5: to help her with the care of her care of
11:24
Speaker 5: her children.
11:25
Speaker 1: Now.
11:25
Speaker 2: As another part of the evidence, she was taken to
11:29
Speaker 2: the particular meal, this particular lunch that her barrister has
11:34
Speaker 2: noted as part of this evidence is what this trial
11:36
Speaker 2: is all about. And as part of that, Aaron Patterson
11:39
Speaker 2: noted that she'd invited both Gail and Heather while they
11:42
Speaker 2: were at church, that she wanted to make this sort
11:45
Speaker 2: of connection with both of them, and she felt that
11:48
Speaker 2: Ian and Heather had been good to her in the past,
11:50
Speaker 2: and so it would be nice to extend and invite
11:53
Speaker 2: to them, because she said that Gail had previously said
11:56
Speaker 2: when she'd spoken to her about having her guard and
11:58
Speaker 2: done that she thought that that's something that Heather might
12:01
Speaker 2: really enjoy seeing.
12:02
Speaker 5: She said that when she invited her lunch guests her
12:04
Speaker 5: in laws, she didn't give them a reason for the lunch,
12:07
Speaker 5: but she did acknowledge that when Simon Patterson canceled and
12:11
Speaker 5: said and texted her to say he wasn't coming shortly
12:13
Speaker 5: before the lunch, that she revealed to him that there
12:16
Speaker 5: were some health concerns that she wanted to talk about.
12:18
Speaker 5: She said she grew she grew really frustrated that he
12:21
Speaker 5: wasn't coming, and that she really wanted him to be there.
12:25
Speaker 5: She really wanted to feel like the family was getting
12:27
Speaker 5: around her at that time. And then the questioning turned
12:31
Speaker 5: to more about the beef Wellington penny and why Aaron
12:34
Speaker 5: Patterson decided to cook that particular meal.
12:36
Speaker 2: She's told the court through her evidence that she made
12:38
Speaker 2: a shepherd's pie for the previous family lunch. She said
12:41
Speaker 2: that Donnegale seemed to really enjoy that, but she felt
12:44
Speaker 2: it wasn't really a special enough meal for what she
12:47
Speaker 2: wanted to this particular lunch occasion to be. And she
12:51
Speaker 2: told the court that she remembered that her mum used
12:53
Speaker 2: to make beef Wellington's on really special occasions, and she
12:57
Speaker 2: said she'd actually never made a beef wellington herself, but
13:00
Speaker 2: that she had this memory and she thought, well, she
13:02
Speaker 2: might try and give that a go. And she gave
13:05
Speaker 2: evidence that she used the recipe Tin Eats.
13:07
Speaker 1: Cookbook YEP as the basis for this recipe.
13:10
Speaker 2: She also was taken through her shopping history quite a
13:13
Speaker 2: bit on the days that came before this lunch, so
13:17
Speaker 2: particularly it was touched on the twenty third of July
13:20
Speaker 2: and the twenty seventh and multiple purchases for pastry, and
13:24
Speaker 2: there was also multiple purchases for mushrooms there as well
13:27
Speaker 2: as phil Att's steak. And she told the jury a
13:30
Speaker 2: little bit about why she said that she was making
13:32
Speaker 2: these different purchases.
13:34
Speaker 5: Her recollection of the events at that time was she
13:38
Speaker 5: saw in the recipe books, in the recipe Tin Eats book,
13:41
Speaker 5: that the beef Wellington was made in a log shape.
13:43
Speaker 5: And at this time during her evidence, she was using
13:45
Speaker 5: her hands penny to demonstrate the size of the beef
13:48
Speaker 5: Wellington log to the jury as she was answering questions
13:51
Speaker 5: from her defense barrister, and she explained that when she
13:54
Speaker 5: was out shopping, yes, she bought pastry shalots, these types
13:58
Speaker 5: of ingredients for the meal. When she was trying to
14:00
Speaker 5: find meat to fit this log style beef Wellington, she
14:04
Speaker 5: couldn't find anything big enough, so she changed her mind
14:07
Speaker 5: and decided to buy steaks. And she said that's when
14:09
Speaker 5: she started to adapt the recipe a little bit and
14:12
Speaker 5: make them individual beef Wellington's. And it was at this
14:14
Speaker 5: point she was looking up up to her right up
14:17
Speaker 5: to the roof, and she appeared to be remembering other
14:20
Speaker 5: changes that she made to the meal as well.
14:22
Speaker 1: At that time, she was.
14:24
Speaker 5: Saying that because she made the individual beef Wellington's penny,
14:27
Speaker 5: she needed more mushroom paste because there was more surface
14:31
Speaker 5: area that needed to be covered.
14:33
Speaker 2: She gave evidence that she had also bought this extra
14:36
Speaker 2: filo pastry because she felt there was a step in
14:38
Speaker 2: the recipe involving a crepe that was a little bit difficult,
14:41
Speaker 2: so she was trying to sort of replace another item there.
14:44
Speaker 2: She also said the recipe called for proscuto, but that
14:46
Speaker 2: she didn't use that because don didn't eat any pork.
14:50
Speaker 2: So she took the court in quite a lot of
14:52
Speaker 2: detail through what she says she did to make this
14:55
Speaker 2: particular meal, and she said that as she was sort
14:58
Speaker 2: of making this meal, she'd used her thermo mix to
15:02
Speaker 2: condense down or chop up those already sliced fresh mushrooms.
15:07
Speaker 5: These were fresh sliced mushrooms she said that had been
15:09
Speaker 5: prepackaged that she bought from the supermarket that were covered
15:13
Speaker 5: in clear plastic. And she added those two garlic and
15:16
Speaker 5: shalots that were already cooking in the pan.
15:18
Speaker 2: And she said that's when she tried this particular sort
15:22
Speaker 2: of mixture, and she felt that it was actually a
15:24
Speaker 2: little bit bland. So she told the jury through her
15:28
Speaker 2: evidence that she had then gone and got decided to
15:31
Speaker 2: add some dried mushrooms to this to try and sort
15:34
Speaker 2: of add to that particular flavor, and in her evidence
15:38
Speaker 2: she said that she was getting some dried mushrooms that
15:41
Speaker 2: she remembered purchasing from a grosser in Melbourne back a
15:46
Speaker 2: few months before this lunch. But what will take you
15:48
Speaker 2: to now is Colin man dys as he's questioning his
15:51
Speaker 2: client about this particular element of the preparation.
15:55
Speaker 1: It's not anyone's real voice.
15:56
Speaker 3: You said, he told the jury yesterday about the topperware
16:01
Speaker 3: container that was in your pantry. Yeah, at that time,
16:05
Speaker 3: to your knowledge, what was in that tupperware container?
16:09
Speaker 4: At that time, I believed it was just the mushrooms
16:12
Speaker 4: that I'd bought in Melbourne.
16:14
Speaker 3: And now what do you think might have been in
16:17
Speaker 3: that tupperware container?
16:19
Speaker 4: Now, I think there was a possibility that there were
16:21
Speaker 4: foraged ones in there as well.
16:23
Speaker 5: Now I've got in my notes here, Penny. It was
16:25
Speaker 5: at this point that I looked up from where I
16:28
Speaker 5: was seated in the courtroom and I could see Aaron Patterson,
16:30
Speaker 5: who appeared to be sobbing at this point. And it
16:33
Speaker 5: was as she was also talking about how she introduced
16:36
Speaker 5: those mushrooms into the meal. This was all part of
16:39
Speaker 5: the same line of questioning, and she was also using
16:41
Speaker 5: her hands again to express how she was cooking and
16:44
Speaker 5: adding these dried mushrooms to the meal. And she said
16:46
Speaker 5: that she used a little strainer with a handle and
16:49
Speaker 5: she used that to roughly pour some water, allow some
16:52
Speaker 5: water to be poured over them to get the crispness out,
16:55
Speaker 5: chop them up, and then sprinkled them over what she
16:57
Speaker 5: said was her duct cell. Then she said, you quote
16:59
Speaker 5: push them in with an egg flip.
17:01
Speaker 2: She gave evidence that she made six of these different
17:04
Speaker 2: beef Wellington six parcels yep, and that she'd sort of
17:07
Speaker 2: cooked them, and she also talked through some processes around
17:11
Speaker 2: browning off the meat, putting that into eventually sort of
17:14
Speaker 2: the entire process to cook these.
17:15
Speaker 5: And then we got to a bit of a timeline
17:18
Speaker 5: of the lunch and what happened and who was standing
17:20
Speaker 5: where and receiving what, and that's when the questioning switched
17:24
Speaker 5: to the plates that we used, and Aaron Patterson was
17:27
Speaker 5: asked what plates that she had, and she took the
17:29
Speaker 5: jury through that she think that it was a couple
17:31
Speaker 5: of black ones, a couple of white ones. There was
17:34
Speaker 5: one that was red on the top and black underneath,
17:35
Speaker 5: and also one that her daughter had made her at kindergarten.
17:38
Speaker 5: But then she was asked by Colin Mandy, do you
17:42
Speaker 5: own any other dinner plates, and her response was no,
17:44
Speaker 5: I did not. Then he asked did you own any
17:47
Speaker 5: gray plates, and she also said no. Then she was
17:49
Speaker 5: explaining as she was dishing up what food was going where,
17:52
Speaker 5: and who was grabbing which plates, these types of things,
17:55
Speaker 5: And then the conversation or then the evidence turned to
17:58
Speaker 5: the conversation that was happening at the lunch table. She
18:02
Speaker 5: was explaining that the other guests were sharing with her
18:05
Speaker 5: the news that a family member had just had a baby,
18:08
Speaker 5: and she was really excited about that, and later even
18:10
Speaker 5: sent off a text message congratulation to this woman. And
18:14
Speaker 5: then there was a little bit more information about whether
18:17
Speaker 5: or not she saw her lunch guests take the plates,
18:20
Speaker 5: and she said no, Penny. At that time, she turned
18:23
Speaker 5: and she was heating up some gravy when the plates
18:26
Speaker 5: were picked up and her recollection was By the time
18:28
Speaker 5: she turned back around, four of the plates were already
18:31
Speaker 5: being carried to the table, so she took the one
18:33
Speaker 5: that was left on the bench.
18:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, she said, there was no assigned seats at this
18:36
Speaker 2: particular lunch and when she was doing that gravy. She
18:39
Speaker 2: said it was a packet gravy, that it was perhaps
18:42
Speaker 2: two packets, that she'd heat it up relatively quickly in
18:45
Speaker 2: a saucepan. She noted it didn't take long, and she
18:48
Speaker 2: said that's the last thing that she did before she
18:50
Speaker 2: came and got her plate. She was asked a few
18:53
Speaker 2: questions about if she could remember exactly who had eaten.
18:56
Speaker 1: What and how much people had eaten.
18:59
Speaker 5: She said that, yeah, that there was a conversation about
19:02
Speaker 5: one of the lunch geest seating a little bit more
19:04
Speaker 5: of somebody else's lunch, But she really remembered that there
19:06
Speaker 5: wasn't much left on the plates afterwards, maybe a couple
19:08
Speaker 5: of beans and a little bit of potato mash. But
19:11
Speaker 5: she was asked why she didn't eat all of her meal,
19:14
Speaker 5: and she explained to the jury that she'd been talking
19:16
Speaker 5: a lot and eating quite slowly, and quote, that's about
19:18
Speaker 5: all I can say about that. Then we heard a
19:22
Speaker 5: little bit more about when the children returned to the house.
19:25
Speaker 2: But we'll let the listeners hear this through the words
19:28
Speaker 2: of Aaron Patterson and her barrister, Colin Mandy.
19:31
Speaker 1: This is voiced by actors.
19:32
Speaker 3: Now, during the course of the meal, what was the discussion,
19:37
Speaker 3: as best as you can remember it from the beginning
19:39
Speaker 3: sitting down? What did you talk about?
19:42
Speaker 4: We talked about what we'd been up to, what had
19:44
Speaker 4: been happening in the family, probably a bit of politics
19:48
Speaker 4: and current affairs, about what the kids were doing. They
19:52
Speaker 4: all asked a lot of questions about the kids, or
19:55
Speaker 4: at least Heather and Gail did. At one point, I
19:59
Speaker 4: remember Don talking about his brother that was battling throat cancer.
20:03
Speaker 4: I think it was his brother Bobby.
20:07
Speaker 3: And what happened with that conversation about cancer? Did it
20:11
Speaker 3: move on to other topics?
20:12
Speaker 4: It stayed at that topic at that point?
20:16
Speaker 3: What did you say about your health?
20:17
Speaker 4: So it was right at the end of the meal,
20:20
Speaker 4: and I mentioned that I had maybe not scare is
20:23
Speaker 4: the right word, but I had an issue a year
20:26
Speaker 4: or two earlier where I thought I had a varying
20:29
Speaker 4: cancer and had various scans about and related to that.
20:33
Speaker 4: And I'm not proud of this, but I led them
20:36
Speaker 4: to believe that I might be needing some treatment in
20:39
Speaker 4: regards to that in the next few weeks or months.
20:43
Speaker 3: Can you remember what you said about that in any
20:46
Speaker 3: more detail?
20:47
Speaker 4: Not specifically. I do remember I referred to upcoming treatment
20:52
Speaker 4: because primarily in my mind was thinking I might need
20:54
Speaker 4: help with getting the kids too and from the bus
20:57
Speaker 4: or activities, and I might need to explain why going
21:00
Speaker 4: out to hospital for a day or two. So that
21:02
Speaker 4: was really the focus of what I was talking about.
21:05
Speaker 3: Did you mislead them?
21:07
Speaker 1: I did?
21:07
Speaker 3: How did that conversation conclude?
21:10
Speaker 4: They all showed a lot of compassion about that. And
21:13
Speaker 4: then we saw Simon's car driving into the driveway coming
21:17
Speaker 4: back with the kids, and so Ian said, why don't
21:20
Speaker 4: we pray for Erin? And so that's what we did.
21:23
Speaker 3: I asked you, did you mislead them? Did you lie
21:25
Speaker 3: to them?
21:26
Speaker 4: I did lie to them.
21:28
Speaker 3: Why didn't you tell them the truth about what you
21:30
Speaker 3: were intending?
21:30
Speaker 4: I was really embarrassed. I was ashamed of the fact
21:34
Speaker 4: that I didn't have control over my body or what
21:36
Speaker 4: I ate. I was shamed of that and embarrassed, and
21:38
Speaker 4: I didn't want to tell anybody and intern I shouldn't
21:41
Speaker 4: have lied to them.
21:42
Speaker 5: Aaron Patterson then explained to the jury Penny that after
21:46
Speaker 5: her lunch guests left, she recalled her son coming in
21:49
Speaker 5: and helping her clean up, and she remembered him putting
21:51
Speaker 5: some stuff on the sink, and then he went to
21:53
Speaker 5: the computer room with his friend.
21:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, she said that the two boys had sort of
21:58
Speaker 2: gone to a bit of a computer room it and
22:00
Speaker 2: gone straight on the computers. But she noted that her
22:02
Speaker 2: son was normally really quite good at helping clean up,
22:05
Speaker 2: so she thought that he probably would have done that,
22:07
Speaker 2: and that she recalled there'd been a conversation at least
22:10
Speaker 2: between him and his grandfather about some flying related things,
22:14
Speaker 2: and that the friend had also had a bit of
22:16
Speaker 2: a chat she thought to the grandparents because this friend
22:18
Speaker 2: had had previously met them before. But she said that
22:21
Speaker 2: then once once they were sort of gone that I
22:24
Speaker 2: and she remembered she thought had some sort of meeting
22:27
Speaker 2: to do with the church, so then they had to
22:29
Speaker 2: go to And then she was there in the home,
22:31
Speaker 2: she said, cleaning up after this lunch.
22:34
Speaker 5: Yeah, She said that the lunch guest had left behind
22:36
Speaker 5: a fruit platter and also an orange cake. Now, she
22:39
Speaker 5: explained the orange cake had about three quarters of the
22:41
Speaker 5: cake left, and it was at that point that she
22:43
Speaker 5: recalled to having a piece of the cake. She then
22:46
Speaker 5: said she had another piece, and another piece, and another
22:49
Speaker 5: piece penny until there was no pieces left. And at
22:51
Speaker 5: this point she said she was feeling sick, she felt
22:54
Speaker 5: over full, and that's when she went to the toilet
22:56
Speaker 5: and brought it all up again.
22:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, And Aaron Patterson had given some evidence throughout her
23:02
Speaker 2: time being questioned that she throughout her life, she says
23:06
Speaker 2: had had low self esteem and issues with her weight,
23:08
Speaker 2: and that at times throughout her life she would binge
23:12
Speaker 2: and overeat and then then she may bring this back up. Now,
23:15
Speaker 2: she said at different times. Sometimes this would happen multiple
23:19
Speaker 2: times a week, other times it was much less than that.
23:21
Speaker 2: But she's previously given this evidence and then she was
23:24
Speaker 2: taken to what had happened with this cake.
23:27
Speaker 1: We'll be back with more of.
23:28
Speaker 2: Aaron Patterson's evidence after this and what she said her
23:31
Speaker 2: estranged husband asked her about a dehydrator while she was
23:35
Speaker 2: in hospital.
23:35
Speaker 1: Following the lunch.
23:37
Speaker 2: Aaron Patterson has given evidence that she presented to the
23:41
Speaker 2: Landgatha Hospital and was then taken on to the Monash Hospital. Now,
23:45
Speaker 2: she was taken to a particular time when she was
23:49
Speaker 2: at the Monash Hospital where she'd confirmed that she did
23:53
Speaker 2: have a bit of contact with Simon Patterson. Her strange
23:56
Speaker 2: husband at that time, that the children had also been
23:58
Speaker 2: brought into the hospital and that they'd had a few
24:01
Speaker 2: different conversations, one being about She said while the kids
24:05
Speaker 2: were in the room, that one of the children had
24:07
Speaker 2: asked basically about what was going on, and she said
24:10
Speaker 2: that she'd explained she thought that a few people had
24:13
Speaker 2: become sick, and that perhaps they'd become sick from the
24:15
Speaker 2: meal that she'd made.
24:16
Speaker 1: But she said that.
24:18
Speaker 2: One of the children then asked, well, why are we
24:20
Speaker 2: here because we didn't come to the lunch, and she explained, well,
24:24
Speaker 2: you ate the leftovers. She said previously in her evidence
24:27
Speaker 2: that this sixth beef Wellington that she'd talked about, that
24:29
Speaker 2: she'd cooked it but put it straight in the fridge,
24:31
Speaker 2: she says before she actually served up the rest of
24:34
Speaker 2: this meal for the guests, and she told the jury
24:37
Speaker 2: that she gave the children that that for dinner, but
24:39
Speaker 2: had scraped off the mushrooms and said she said that
24:41
Speaker 2: to that child, But then there was a further discussion
24:44
Speaker 2: about mushrooms that went from there.
24:46
Speaker 5: This was a point in her evidence where she explained
24:48
Speaker 5: to the jury that Simon Patterson and herself had been
24:51
Speaker 5: left alone in that hospital room.
24:53
Speaker 2: And let's hear a little bit about how this was
24:55
Speaker 2: presented by Aaron Patterson and her barrister, Colin Mandy.
24:58
Speaker 3: And did you and Simon have any conversation?
25:01
Speaker 4: Yeah, so during that conversation with the children about the
25:05
Speaker 4: taste tests, and you had discussed in that conversation that
25:08
Speaker 4: I had dried the mushrooms. And I don't remember if
25:12
Speaker 4: it was Simon or I that had initiated it, but
25:14
Speaker 4: there was a conversation about how I had used a
25:17
Speaker 4: dehydrator or to do that, and he said to me,
25:21
Speaker 4: is that how you poisoned my parents using that dehydrator?
25:25
Speaker 3: And what was your response?
25:26
Speaker 4: I said, of course not.
25:27
Speaker 3: Did that comment by Simon cause you to reflect on
25:30
Speaker 3: what might have been in the meal?
25:33
Speaker 4: It caused me to a lot of thinking about a
25:35
Speaker 4: lot of things. Yeah, well, it caused me to reflect
25:38
Speaker 4: a lot and what might have happened.
25:39
Speaker 3: Okay, well, can you explain to us what crossed your
25:43
Speaker 3: mind then and what you were thinking about?
25:45
Speaker 4: So it got me thinking about all the times that
25:47
Speaker 4: i'd used it. And I had used the dehydrator, that's right,
25:50
Speaker 4: And I had dried forage mushrooms in it weeks earlier
25:53
Speaker 4: and I was starting to think, what if they'd gone
25:56
Speaker 4: in the container with the Chinese mushrooms, Maybe maybe that
25:59
Speaker 4: had happened. Yeah, I was thinking, maybe that's how this all.
26:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, how did that make you feel scared?
26:09
Speaker 4: Responsible, really worried because child protection were involved, and Simon
26:13
Speaker 4: seemed to be of the mind that maybe this was intentional,
26:15
Speaker 4: and I just I just got really scared.
26:18
Speaker 1: Yeah.
26:19
Speaker 2: So Aaron Patterson, as the listeners have just heard through
26:21
Speaker 2: that evidence. Around this time, she said that they had
26:25
Speaker 2: been in touch with child Protection at the hospital, that
26:27
Speaker 2: there'd been some conversations with some workers while they she
26:31
Speaker 2: and the children were at that medical facility.
26:34
Speaker 5: Yeah, she said in the coming days as well, after
26:36
Speaker 5: she left hospital, she met and spoke to employees from
26:40
Speaker 5: the Department of Health and also child Protection, and it
26:42
Speaker 5: was at this point she explained that she started to
26:44
Speaker 5: feel worried that they may remove her children, and she
26:47
Speaker 5: said this was when she made the decision to dump
26:49
Speaker 5: the dehydrator at the tip. And then there was also
26:52
Speaker 5: a little bit more evidence from her about the fact
26:55
Speaker 5: that she recalled with holding information about the fact that
26:59
Speaker 5: she had gone and forage mushrooms at some point. She
27:02
Speaker 5: said though that she really believed what she was telling
27:06
Speaker 5: these officials was true. She really believed at that time
27:09
Speaker 5: that the vast majority of mushrooms in the meal were
27:12
Speaker 5: from Woolworths and from this Asian grosser, and she recalled
27:14
Speaker 5: that her mind started to shift in and think about
27:17
Speaker 5: whether or not there may have been other mushrooms that
27:19
Speaker 5: could have made their way into the meal.
27:20
Speaker 2: As you mentioned, with the dumping of the dehydrator, she
27:23
Speaker 2: said that she did, she panicked, and that she made
27:27
Speaker 2: that decision because she was concerned she was going to
27:29
Speaker 2: have her children taken away from her. And she also
27:32
Speaker 2: said that because she knew Child Protection were going to
27:35
Speaker 2: be coming to her home for this home visit. In
27:37
Speaker 2: her words, she thought that perhaps they might start asking
27:40
Speaker 2: questions about this dehydrator, so she'd gone through the process,
27:43
Speaker 2: she said, of going to the tip and removing it
27:46
Speaker 2: before that visit.
27:48
Speaker 5: One of the next and final topics of questioning that
27:51
Speaker 5: Colin Mandy was asking his client during her third day
27:54
Speaker 5: of evidence Penny was something.
27:56
Speaker 1: Called Exhibit fifty six.
27:58
Speaker 5: Now Exhibit fifty six, the jury were told, was a
28:01
Speaker 5: document that shows a number of factory reset records relating
28:05
Speaker 5: to a phone that it was in Aaron Patterson's possession
28:07
Speaker 5: in twenty twenty three, and there was a number of
28:10
Speaker 5: factory resets we heard in the lead up too and
28:12
Speaker 5: after the lunch, and she said that the first one
28:15
Speaker 5: of those factory resets occurred in February twenty twenty three
28:18
Speaker 5: when she was changing phones with her son. There was
28:20
Speaker 5: a string of factory resets, Penny, that were then asked
28:24
Speaker 5: about that happened in August twenty twenty three. She said that, yes,
28:28
Speaker 5: they were mine. I did those factory resets, and she
28:31
Speaker 5: did them, she said for a couple of different reasons. Now,
28:34
Speaker 5: one of those was that she was concerned that around
28:39
Speaker 5: the fifth of August, this is at a time when
28:41
Speaker 5: police were raiding her property. Around this time, she was
28:45
Speaker 5: concerned that there was an app on her phone, a
28:47
Speaker 5: Google account which had photos in it. In Google photos
28:51
Speaker 5: that she knew depicted mushrooms in her dehydrator. And this
28:54
Speaker 5: is another occasion, Penny. She said, she panicked and she
28:56
Speaker 5: did not want the detectives to see them.
28:58
Speaker 2: So she said that in the first reset that she
29:01
Speaker 2: said she was responsible for in that August time, that
29:04
Speaker 2: she'd been sort of looking at changing her handset. She
29:06
Speaker 2: also gave some evidence that at one point she thought
29:08
Speaker 2: she might change her number because she said she'd been
29:11
Speaker 2: concerned about what Simon Patterson had said to her at
29:14
Speaker 2: the hospital regarding the allegation about his parents, and that
29:18
Speaker 2: she didn't really want him to necessarily be able to
29:20
Speaker 2: call her now. Ultimately, she said she didn't end up
29:22
Speaker 2: changing her number, but that she was looking at different
29:25
Speaker 2: phones at that time, So she said she'd done that reset,
29:28
Speaker 2: then she'd done the one that she thought in regards
29:31
Speaker 2: to panicking about photos that were on that device, and
29:33
Speaker 2: then there was this other reset once she had handed
29:36
Speaker 2: that phone over to police.
29:38
Speaker 1: We'll hear a little bit of how this.
29:39
Speaker 2: Was explained in the courtroom with Aaron Patterson and Colin Mandy.
29:43
Speaker 3: Then these records show that at some stage on around
29:46
Speaker 3: the fifth of August, there was another factory reset of
29:49
Speaker 3: that phone. Yes, what data was on that phone at
29:54
Speaker 3: the time of that factory reset, just.
29:56
Speaker 4: All the apps had put on it since the third
29:59
Speaker 4: And why were.
29:59
Speaker 3: We factory resetting at that time? Well, because sorry, I
30:03
Speaker 3: shouldn't say, at that time, at about that time, on that.
30:05
Speaker 4: Date, I had put all my apps on it, including
30:08
Speaker 4: my Google account, which included my Google Photos and I
30:12
Speaker 4: knew there were photos in there of mushrooms and the dehydrator,
30:15
Speaker 4: and I just panicked.
30:16
Speaker 1: I didn't want them to see them.
30:18
Speaker 3: When you say them, who do you mean?
30:20
Speaker 1: The detectives.
30:21
Speaker 3: And then the last of those resets is on or
30:25
Speaker 3: about six August. Yes, what data was on that phone
30:28
Speaker 3: on the sixth of August?
30:30
Speaker 1: Nothing?
30:31
Speaker 3: Did you do that factory reset?
30:32
Speaker 1: I did?
30:33
Speaker 3: And why did you do that?
30:34
Speaker 2: One?
30:35
Speaker 4: So at some point, after the search of my house
30:38
Speaker 4: and the interview and the detectives have brought me home,
30:40
Speaker 4: I remember thinking, I wonder if I could log onto
30:43
Speaker 4: my Google account and see where all my devices are.
30:46
Speaker 4: So I did that, and I could see my phone
30:48
Speaker 4: and my son's phone and my daughter's bus tablet. And
30:52
Speaker 4: it was really stupid, but I thought, I wonder if
30:55
Speaker 4: they'd been silly enough to leave it connected to the internet.
30:59
Speaker 4: So I hit factory reset to see what happened, and
31:02
Speaker 4: it did.
31:03
Speaker 5: At this point, Penny, I looked to my right and
31:06
Speaker 5: in the front row, that's where the police informant was sitting.
31:10
Speaker 5: And this is at a point where she was explaining,
31:13
Speaker 5: as we just heard in her quotes, that she wanted
31:17
Speaker 5: to see if they were silly enough to leave it
31:18
Speaker 5: on now. Stephen eppings Stall, the detective leadings and your
31:21
Speaker 5: constable in this case, the police informant had his left
31:25
Speaker 5: hand over his mouth at that stage. He was turned
31:28
Speaker 5: and looking at Aaron Patterson, but I didn't see much
31:30
Speaker 5: of a reaction from him.
31:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it was really a lot of heavy device evidence.
31:36
Speaker 2: Towards the end of this evidence, people who've been listening
31:39
Speaker 2: to the podcast for a while will probably know that
31:41
Speaker 2: there has been multiple elements of phone data and things
31:45
Speaker 2: that have been explained through multiple different devices, and Aaron
31:48
Speaker 2: Patterson has taken through a number of photos from the
31:51
Speaker 2: searches of her home and explaining where she said that
31:54
Speaker 2: things were laptops, that things were phones, and sort.
31:58
Speaker 1: Of where they had been and where.
32:00
Speaker 2: So, while they talked about these multiple different phones through
32:02
Speaker 2: Aaron Patterson's evidence and went through different devices, she was asked,
32:07
Speaker 2: particularly at the end of her evidence, what had happened
32:09
Speaker 2: to phone A as it's been referred to.
32:11
Speaker 1: In the courtroom. And here's a little bit of what
32:13
Speaker 1: the jury heard.
32:14
Speaker 3: Where was phone A at this time on the second
32:18
Speaker 3: of November.
32:20
Speaker 4: Well, I don't know where it was on second of November,
32:23
Speaker 4: But towards the end of September. I got a skip
32:26
Speaker 4: brought to Gibson Street and it went in there with
32:28
Speaker 4: a lot of other broken stuff.
32:30
Speaker 3: And why did you get a skip at the end
32:32
Speaker 3: of did you say the end of September?
32:34
Speaker 4: The end of September?
32:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, why was that?
32:36
Speaker 4: It was something I did roughly once a year, just
32:38
Speaker 4: to do a clean out of the house and garage.
32:41
Speaker 5: Now a reminder to our listeners that this is day
32:43
Speaker 5: three of Aaron Patterson being in the witness box, but
32:45
Speaker 5: she's still being questioned by her defense barrister Colin Mandy
32:49
Speaker 5: as a defense witness. It will next be the prosecution's
32:52
Speaker 5: decision if they would like to ask questions of her,
32:54
Speaker 5: but at this stage the evidence that we've brought you
32:57
Speaker 5: from Aaron Patterson has come by questioning from her defense barrister.
33:02
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to this episode of Say Grace.
33:05
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33:07
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33:09
Speaker 5: For more reporting on the case, check out the Age
33:11
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33:13
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33:16
Speaker 2: that this podcast was recorded on and wherever you're listening
33:19
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33:21
Speaker 1: By me Penelope Leash, and me erin person. This podcast
33:25
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