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The Mushroom Cook Killer: How the Story Unfolded | John Ferguson · Real Crime with Adam Shand

0:05
Speaker 1: Appoche Production. Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shanned. I'm
0:15
Speaker 1: your host, Adam Shan. Thanks for joining me today. I
0:18
Speaker 1: feel like our content. Please hit the like and subscribe
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Speaker 1: buttons and share the show with your friends, family, enemies,
0:23
Speaker 1: passing strangers. That doesn't matter, It's all about continuing to
0:26
Speaker 1: produce this independent crime journalism. The Mushroom Cook Aaron Patterson
0:31
Speaker 1: was back in the news last week as her pre
0:33
Speaker 1: sentencing hearing began.
0:35
Speaker 2: Three people have now died and another is fighting for
0:38
Speaker 2: life after being poisoned by wild mushrooms at a lunch
0:42
Speaker 2: with friends in Gippsland.
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Speaker 1: She's facing a long lagging after being convicted of three
0:47
Speaker 1: counts of murder and one of attempted murder over that
0:51
Speaker 1: deadly lunch at her home and len gather.
0:53
Speaker 3: In twenty twenty three.
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Speaker 1: Aaron Patterson waking up a convicted triple murderer. Her beef
1:00
Speaker 1: Wellington's laced with death cap mushrooms killed her ex husband's parents,
1:04
Speaker 1: Don and Gale Patterson, along with Gail's sister, Heather Wilkinson.
1:08
Speaker 1: Heather's husband, Pastor Ian Wilkinson, survived to tell the story
1:13
Speaker 1: of this most bizarre and seemingly egregious crime.
1:17
Speaker 2: In Wilkinson told the court the greatest impact of Aaron's
1:20
Speaker 2: actions on me has been to deprive me of Heather's company.
1:23
Speaker 2: The silence in our home is a daily reminder I
1:26
Speaker 2: only feel half alive without her.
1:29
Speaker 1: In Victoria, the maximum jail sentence for murder is life
1:33
Speaker 1: imprisonment twenty five years with a minimum non parole period
1:36
Speaker 1: of thirty years, and I suspect Patterson will serve every day.
1:40
Speaker 3: Of that and it will be hard time.
1:42
Speaker 1: Indeed, it's only now after her conviction that we're seeing
1:46
Speaker 1: the extent of Patterson's conduct, the evidence of her long
1:50
Speaker 1: term premeditation of this ghastly act, which, according to her
1:53
Speaker 1: sentencing judge, puts her offending in the worst possible category.
1:58
Speaker 1: Most of us have had to piece together our impressions
2:00
Speaker 1: of Patterson from court reporting.
2:03
Speaker 4: I come fath them what has happened.
2:06
Speaker 1: But the media covering the nine week trial, we're able
2:09
Speaker 1: to observe the killer up close and to compare and
2:12
Speaker 1: contrast their impressions of her with the evidence they were
2:15
Speaker 1: hearing and seeing, and also the evidence that the jury
2:18
Speaker 1: did not see. My guest today, John Ferguson of the
2:21
Speaker 1: Australian newspaper has been on this from day one. He
2:25
Speaker 1: broke the story that has now gone around the world.
2:28
Speaker 1: It's my pleasure to welcome John, the Pride of Narrow Court,
2:31
Speaker 1: South Australia to the real crime stitio Gidey.
2:33
Speaker 4: Fergh my mates in Aracle, I love that. Thank you.
2:38
Speaker 4: How are you going?
2:39
Speaker 1: I'm very well mate. Amazing story and you were there
2:43
Speaker 1: from day one. How did it begin for you?
2:46
Speaker 4: Well, I suppose it began in a sense for Aaron
2:50
Speaker 4: as well. On August five, twenty twenty three, I was
2:53
Speaker 4: at home. I was about to take my youngest child
2:57
Speaker 4: to football and I got a tip off that there'd
3:00
Speaker 4: been a mass poisoning at LeAnn Gatha. There are potentially
3:04
Speaker 4: a large number of people dead. And I've got to say, Adam,
3:09
Speaker 4: it was a Saturday. We don't have a newspaper on Sunday,
3:12
Speaker 4: so really was should I file for the web? And
3:15
Speaker 4: thankfully I did? Rang police and very quickly. It was
3:19
Speaker 4: a bit unusual. Usually with Victoria Police things can move slowly,
3:23
Speaker 4: particularly on a decent story, and bang, almost immediately a
3:28
Speaker 4: detailed statement outlining how yes, they were investigating this mass
3:34
Speaker 4: poisoning at LeAnn Gatha. Essentially, they sort of said they
3:38
Speaker 4: had an open mind from memory what the statement said,
3:40
Speaker 4: but there was nothing to go, oh, this is interesting.
3:43
Speaker 4: So I quickly, and I'm not joking, rattled out, probably
3:46
Speaker 4: in about eleven minutes a story. It went up and
3:50
Speaker 4: then it just went off like a forty four gallum
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Speaker 4: drum of kerosene put on the barbecue. It just the
3:56
Speaker 4: story exploded.
3:58
Speaker 1: And I guess at the beginning, people are looking at
4:02
Speaker 1: this story, she's not a crim It doesn't seemed to
4:05
Speaker 1: be a strong motive. We'll talk about motive later, but
4:07
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem to be a strong motive here. So
4:09
Speaker 1: I guess you're prepared to give it the benefit of
4:12
Speaker 1: the doubt. But this is a terrible accident perhaps, But
4:15
Speaker 1: what was your impression?
4:17
Speaker 4: Well, from day one it was hard to say, but
4:20
Speaker 4: by the month, so that was a Saturday, so on August,
4:23
Speaker 4: and that actually happened to be when we published, police
4:27
Speaker 4: raided her house for the first time. So they've worked out, well,
4:30
Speaker 4: the meet is on to it, so we're going to
4:32
Speaker 4: have to move and so they went in and took
4:34
Speaker 4: her down to thank you for that first record of
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Speaker 4: interview on the Monday, the head of the homicide squad
4:41
Speaker 4: came out, Dean Thomas, and he basically named Aaron Pattison
4:46
Speaker 4: as a suspect. Now that's when everyone started going, okay, well,
4:51
Speaker 4: we thought somebody might have just cooked up a really
4:54
Speaker 4: dun spaghetti marinara or something that had gone off, but no,
4:58
Speaker 4: this was actually the police were seriously looking at her,
5:02
Speaker 4: and as events started to unfold, it obvious while they
5:06
Speaker 4: were looking at her, because by that point, Simon Patterson
5:10
Speaker 4: had been telling people that, well, hang on, this is
5:13
Speaker 4: my ex wife I believe had been trying to poison
5:16
Speaker 4: me several times. So that was the big underlying, I suppose,
5:20
Speaker 4: vibe of the story.
5:22
Speaker 1: And this was the whole crux of the story, wasn't
5:24
Speaker 1: it that there was a long term premeditation of this
5:28
Speaker 1: crime that had begun with the breakdown of her marriage
5:31
Speaker 1: to Simon Patterson. They've got two kids together, and this
5:35
Speaker 1: incredible story that she tried to poison him before.
5:39
Speaker 3: What was the story about that?
5:42
Speaker 4: Well, so basically she was actually charged with several attempt
5:46
Speaker 4: to murder charges which were later dropped, but basically he
5:49
Speaker 4: accused her. He actually kept a spreadsheet of this he'd
5:53
Speaker 4: got really really ill a couple of times, quite seriously
5:57
Speaker 4: critically ill. After what he said was Aaron Patterson had
6:01
Speaker 4: cooked him meals. That was the link. The link was
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Speaker 4: he went through, did a spreadsheet AND's gone on, hang on,
6:08
Speaker 4: every time I've got sick, Aaron's cook food for me.
6:12
Speaker 4: So that was the sandwich wraps, the chicken, corma curry,
6:16
Speaker 4: the stew, the pasta.
6:18
Speaker 1: You know.
6:19
Speaker 4: So there were four occasions. She was only charged with
6:22
Speaker 4: three attempted murger. But so that detail is swirling around
6:27
Speaker 4: the background, and so police clearly would have known about
6:30
Speaker 4: this by the time Dean Thomas came out, and it
6:33
Speaker 4: was a major factor in setting the perception of the story.
6:36
Speaker 1: And he was really crooked and he had to go
6:38
Speaker 1: to hospital. He had part of his intestine taken out.
6:41
Speaker 1: I mean that having happened, surely there was some concern
6:46
Speaker 1: about accepting another invitation to lunch later on. I don't
6:50
Speaker 1: want to make light of this, but it certainly should
6:53
Speaker 1: have sent alarm bells through the family.
6:54
Speaker 3: Was there any evidence that people were on guard?
6:57
Speaker 4: Well, Simon discussed it with his father, Don, who died beforehand,
7:02
Speaker 4: explained he wouldn't be going, and Simon Patterson told his
7:05
Speaker 4: father previously before the lunch that he suspected Aaron of
7:09
Speaker 4: trying to kill him, and his father had said, well,
7:13
Speaker 4: I don't know. Paraphrasing, he said, well, I don't suggest
7:16
Speaker 4: you go around telling people that. So this was a
7:19
Speaker 4: classic old school country response. Reputation is everything, we don't
7:24
Speaker 4: I'm paraphrasing, and I'm thinking it through as to what
7:26
Speaker 4: might have been going through Don's head. She's the mother
7:30
Speaker 4: of your kids and et cetera, et cetera. But there
7:33
Speaker 4: also had been before then. There'd been discussions with a
7:37
Speaker 4: doctor in a fifty seven minute consultation in the February
7:40
Speaker 4: of twenty twenty three, whereiggs I think she's trying to
7:45
Speaker 4: kill me, she told the doctor. And there had also
7:48
Speaker 4: been a discussion with In fact, one of his cousins
7:51
Speaker 4: had suggested, well, is Aaron trying to do something to you?
7:53
Speaker 4: This is beforehand, And there was also a discussion Simon
7:57
Speaker 4: had with a brother at a music concert or in Melbourne,
8:01
Speaker 4: all prior to the lunch, so it wasn't a secret.
8:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course the family had attended another lunch prior
8:09
Speaker 1: to this, when nothing had happened.
8:10
Speaker 3: How do you interpret that lunch.
8:12
Speaker 1: Now, was it possibly a throwoff that she was now
8:16
Speaker 1: trying to re establish trust in terms of her long
8:20
Speaker 1: term plan to murder them?
8:23
Speaker 4: Yeah, Look, it's really hard to One of the things
8:25
Speaker 4: about Aaron Patterson, she is a terminal liar. Basically, if
8:29
Speaker 4: she opens her mouth, that's probably a lie. And that
8:32
Speaker 4: was the thing that happened in court. That's what the
8:35
Speaker 4: jury saw up close and personal over those six or
8:39
Speaker 4: eight days that she was in the stand. That's what
8:42
Speaker 4: they saw. So that the fact that she had there
8:46
Speaker 4: was another lunch is probably, frankly, not that unusual because
8:50
Speaker 4: the family, even though Simon and Aaron were estrange, they
8:53
Speaker 4: did still meet at times and do things together.
8:58
Speaker 1: But because the media and I guess the broader public
9:02
Speaker 1: has spent a long time trying to understand motive for
9:06
Speaker 1: this crime, and that seems to be central to our
9:08
Speaker 1: understanding and why this happened. Of course, the lawyers don't
9:11
Speaker 1: think that way. It's simply all about criminal intent. Once
9:14
Speaker 1: she puts the death cap mushrooms in the beef wellingtons,
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Speaker 1: she has now decided to kill these people. But motive
9:22
Speaker 1: is certainly important to us and the prosecution. I guess
9:24
Speaker 1: he uses it to throw a bit more fuel on
9:25
Speaker 1: the fire to her offending. But these are ordinary people,
9:30
Speaker 1: nice country folk. This is a story that gets played
9:34
Speaker 1: out in thousands of breakdowns of marriages. It doesn't seem
9:38
Speaker 1: to be any motive for murder. How did you approach
9:42
Speaker 1: that question as you were trying to relate this to
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Speaker 1: your readers in these times?
9:47
Speaker 4: Well, I've always said that it was revenge, that basically
9:52
Speaker 4: she hated her husband, her estranged husband, to such an
9:56
Speaker 4: extent that she was prepared to potentially and some of
10:00
Speaker 4: these charges were thrown out, potentially killing, try to kill him,
10:03
Speaker 4: and certainly loathing enough that she would take on the
10:08
Speaker 4: four elderly guests. I think it's very straightforward in my
10:11
Speaker 4: mind that it's complete and not a revenge.
10:14
Speaker 1: You say that now, but let's look at the arc
10:17
Speaker 1: of this story as you've covered it and the first
10:19
Speaker 1: time you clapped eyes on there, and what are your
10:21
Speaker 1: impressions of her?
10:24
Speaker 4: She's really, really bright, she's clearly intelligent, well read, she's
10:29
Speaker 4: got a nasty streak, she struggles to communicate with people,
10:35
Speaker 4: she makes things up. All these things I've seen and
10:38
Speaker 4: it was a very consistent story, very consistent the whole
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Speaker 4: way through. And that's an interesting part about us being
10:45
Speaker 4: a journalist is that you get to test things out,
10:47
Speaker 4: and if you talk to enough people, you either get
10:50
Speaker 4: a consistent or an inconsistent picture of someone. And it
10:53
Speaker 4: can happen either way, as you know, but there was
10:55
Speaker 4: a fairly consistent picture of her. The other two things,
10:58
Speaker 4: I would say, she had a sense of humor, and
11:01
Speaker 4: this is what people told me, a caustic sense of humor.
11:04
Speaker 4: She was a cynical woman. But also she was a
11:07
Speaker 4: good mother. And I don't think anyone I haven't found,
11:11
Speaker 4: although the question is if you kill someone's grandparents, are
11:14
Speaker 4: your good mum? Well, clearly not. But in the sort
11:16
Speaker 4: of observation of her, everyone I've spoken to say she
11:21
Speaker 4: was a good mum.
11:23
Speaker 3: Yeah.
11:23
Speaker 1: I guess most of us formed our opinion of her
11:26
Speaker 1: from the early appearances before the cameras, where she was
11:30
Speaker 1: tearfully saying this is all a terrible tragedy and accident.
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Speaker 1: And I guess we're looking at and saying, well, this
11:36
Speaker 1: would have to be the dumbest murder plot of all
11:38
Speaker 1: time because the finger would only be pointed at Aaron,
11:42
Speaker 1: and you make the point about her own children, she's
11:44
Speaker 1: murdered their grandparents. And I think a lot of people
11:48
Speaker 1: were sort of saying, there must be more to this story,
11:51
Speaker 1: there must be some piece that we're not seeing. But
11:54
Speaker 1: you were, I guess, behind the scenes of this story
11:56
Speaker 1: early on, talking to police, talking to people in the area.
11:59
Speaker 1: And how long before you formed the view that she
12:04
Speaker 1: was a killer.
12:06
Speaker 4: I hate to say it, but fairly reasonably quickly. I
12:09
Speaker 4: had my doubts. I just have my doubts about her,
12:12
Speaker 4: and I'd sort of tapped into some people who knew
12:16
Speaker 4: her well, and I had a lot of doubts about her.
12:20
Speaker 4: I certainly thought that she had the capacity to do
12:25
Speaker 4: something like this, But look, this is hindsight, and you
12:28
Speaker 4: always have an open mind until the pre trial, which
12:33
Speaker 4: was all suppressed. When the detail around the allegations against
12:37
Speaker 4: Simon came out, then things started. I suppose in everyone's mind,
12:41
Speaker 4: you're going, well, there's a lot going on here. So
12:45
Speaker 4: I suppose I was sixty forty YEA, she could have
12:49
Speaker 4: done it. I suppose it's probably I'm being very loose here.
12:52
Speaker 4: I'm not. This is not a scientific debriefing, psycholostic briefing.
12:56
Speaker 3: It's your personal impressions.
12:58
Speaker 4: Yeah, look, she's not a very nice person, Adam, and
13:03
Speaker 4: that we know that because she's killed three people, but
13:07
Speaker 4: she's actually just not very nice. And the other thing
13:09
Speaker 4: that I did do is I really tried to drill
13:12
Speaker 4: down into Simon Patterson's family and the Wilkinson's and got
13:18
Speaker 4: the same thing, very very consistent picture that they're all
13:22
Speaker 4: really good people, particularly Don Patterson, you know, fantastic bloke. Now,
13:28
Speaker 4: it wasn't as strong around Simon because the defense, obviously
13:32
Speaker 4: in pre trial, were testing him, and there was a
13:35
Speaker 4: lot of text messages and Facebook messages that were well
13:38
Speaker 4: leaked behind the scenes of Aaron talking about things. So
13:43
Speaker 4: you read those and that informs your view of where
13:46
Speaker 4: it's at. But none of the criticisms I've seen of
13:50
Speaker 4: Simon Patterson, none of them add up to anything other than,
13:55
Speaker 4: you know, it's really low level stuff and that he's
13:58
Speaker 4: a decent bloke.
13:59
Speaker 1: That's why it's so perplexing, I think, to people to
14:02
Speaker 1: understand what had Simon done? Aaron just break up, you know,
14:06
Speaker 1: it happens every day, But where was the motivation? Where
14:10
Speaker 1: was the hurt for this outsized, disproportionate act of revenge.
14:17
Speaker 4: So Aaron Patterson had received quite inherited quite a lot
14:20
Speaker 4: of money. Let's say it's around three million, it could
14:24
Speaker 4: actually be more than that, and she was very generous
14:28
Speaker 4: with it. With Simon's family. She gave away, not gave away.
14:32
Speaker 4: She got the money back eventually, but hundreds and hundreds
14:35
Speaker 4: of thousands of dollars to her in or so they
14:38
Speaker 4: could buy houses now she got the money back or
14:41
Speaker 4: they got the money back. Everywhere through the narrative of
14:44
Speaker 4: her she was generous with the money to the point
14:47
Speaker 4: where I would have gone, I wouldn't manage my money
14:50
Speaker 4: the way she did. So the moment where the evidence
14:53
Speaker 4: was that things really blew up was in around November
14:56
Speaker 4: twenty twenty two, when Simon Patterson's accountant, according to his evidence,
15:01
Speaker 4: changed his business affairs, stating that he tax affairs single.
15:06
Speaker 4: Now that had an impact on basically family payments that
15:10
Speaker 4: Aaron Patterson may or may have been eligible for. And
15:13
Speaker 4: then really up and that's where the evidence would say
15:18
Speaker 4: Aaron went into killer mode. But of course, you know,
15:22
Speaker 4: if you think it through, she was up to no
15:25
Speaker 4: good before that as well. But that's when their relationship
15:28
Speaker 4: really soured.
15:29
Speaker 3: It comes back to a simple lack of gratitude.
15:32
Speaker 4: Maybe yeah, I think she's Aaron Patterson's an incredibly arrogant woman,
15:38
Speaker 4: incredibly arrogant, and yes, well she's gone, well, hang on,
15:42
Speaker 4: what are you doing to me? And then this there's
15:44
Speaker 4: a blow up in the family about it. She tried
15:46
Speaker 4: to get help from Don and Gale Patterson to try
15:49
Speaker 4: and mediate but that didn't get very far. And I
15:53
Speaker 4: suspect too if you think it through logically, if Simon
15:57
Speaker 4: Patterson's starting to think around this point that Aaron had
16:01
Speaker 4: tried to kill him up to four times, then he
16:04
Speaker 4: wouldn't be very happy with her either. So you can
16:06
Speaker 4: be absolutely sure that the relationship that's around the point
16:09
Speaker 4: of the relationship.
16:14
Speaker 3: Now.
16:15
Speaker 1: I think the sixty four million dollar question in all
16:17
Speaker 1: this is, given the overwhelming evidence that you've just laid
16:23
Speaker 1: out there, why there wasn't a consideration of pleading guilty
16:27
Speaker 1: or even pleading up to a lesser charge of manslaughter.
16:30
Speaker 1: And we interviewed Philip Dunkc for the show. You can
16:33
Speaker 1: find that in the archive, and he didn't say this directly,
16:36
Speaker 1: but I got the idea from talking to him that
16:39
Speaker 1: maybe he could have introduced the idea of pleading up.
16:44
Speaker 1: And that was the reason she didn't go ahead with
16:46
Speaker 1: him as her barrister in the trial.
16:51
Speaker 4: Yes, and you and I both talked to lawyers and
16:55
Speaker 4: it was definitely chatter around that as to why if
16:58
Speaker 4: she had been convicted of manslaughter, she might have been
17:00
Speaker 4: out in ten years rather than thirty. And you can
17:04
Speaker 4: only speculate on that. I don't have the inside word
17:07
Speaker 4: on it, but I can say that everything that I've
17:09
Speaker 4: seen Patterson court, she didn't look like a person who
17:13
Speaker 4: was going to admit to having killed those people. And
17:18
Speaker 4: so maybe it's just a simple case of I didn't
17:21
Speaker 4: do it. And look, maybe she even thinks that, you know,
17:24
Speaker 4: she may be in that space where she's convinced herself
17:27
Speaker 4: she didn't do it, or certainly literally I.
17:30
Speaker 1: Mean you had a chance to look at her both
17:32
Speaker 1: in the box but also while listening to all the
17:35
Speaker 1: damning evidence. Yes, and I think that's the way this
17:38
Speaker 1: went around the world. There was a feeling that this person,
17:41
Speaker 1: she must be deranged, delusional, completely crazy. But when you
17:45
Speaker 1: look at her life to that point is cohesive.
17:50
Speaker 3: She's had a.
17:50
Speaker 1: Career, worked as an air traffic controller, meet Simon Pattison,
17:54
Speaker 1: has the kids, raises her family, and gets to this
17:58
Speaker 1: point where this mad act of revenge suddenly becomes a
18:02
Speaker 1: viable plan for her. What would you say about her
18:06
Speaker 1: state of mind as you could observe it, both through
18:08
Speaker 1: the evidence and observing her.
18:11
Speaker 4: That's a really good question. I think that she's extremely
18:15
Speaker 4: odd and there could be a whole heap of things
18:18
Speaker 4: going on in the background with her mind that she
18:22
Speaker 4: doesn't understand and others don't understand. There was discussion around
18:27
Speaker 4: her having Aspergers in pre sentence and the judge said, well,
18:32
Speaker 4: it's basically there's not the evidence for her. But there
18:34
Speaker 4: was a lot of chatter around that she claimed to
18:37
Speaker 4: her online friends that Chad Asperg's. Now. That doesn't make
18:41
Speaker 4: it kill three people, of course, but it might explain
18:44
Speaker 4: some of her oddness though, And she is strange. Like
18:48
Speaker 4: towards the end of the pre sentencing hearing a week ago,
18:52
Speaker 4: she was meditating in the dock and look, you know,
18:56
Speaker 4: she would have been completely distressed about what she was
18:59
Speaker 4: looking at, and people can do odd things. But there
19:02
Speaker 4: she was, eyes closed, you know, breathing, which she had
19:06
Speaker 4: done Danny Morwle during the Supreme Court trial. So I
19:11
Speaker 4: just I look at her and go, is she completely bad?
19:16
Speaker 4: And that's the question. Quite possibly, Is she a little
19:19
Speaker 4: bit mad? Quite possibly, that would be my I think
19:22
Speaker 4: there's a mix of bad and a little bit mad,
19:23
Speaker 4: would be my take on it.
19:25
Speaker 1: Adam, Yeah, I think we're still trying to work out
19:28
Speaker 1: mad or bad. I think if Asperger's was I voted
19:31
Speaker 1: for murder, half our journal mates would be in jail
19:33
Speaker 1: now for murdering people. So that doesn't necessarily provide an answer.
19:38
Speaker 1: One of the reasons we were talking today is that
19:40
Speaker 1: once you listened to Phil Done and you heard him
19:42
Speaker 1: talk about the media portrayal of Patterson, and he related
19:46
Speaker 1: it to other famous female defendants in Australia where there
19:50
Speaker 1: has arguably blend a rush to judge them based on
19:53
Speaker 1: their demeanor, based on what they do or don't say.
19:57
Speaker 3: Do you think that's fair? Do you think that?
19:59
Speaker 1: And Phil Done the barrister said that there was an
20:03
Speaker 1: archetype portrayed. She was the witch, the evil, the fat, evil,
20:08
Speaker 1: murdering witch. How fair do you think that was in
20:11
Speaker 1: terms of the way she was portrayed? And I guess
20:14
Speaker 1: your impressions of her before the trial began.
20:18
Speaker 4: No deepest respect for Philip's fantastic Bloken is a tremendous lawyer.
20:23
Speaker 4: I don't think her appearance had anything to do with
20:27
Speaker 4: any perceptions at all. I think, as we discussed privately,
20:31
Speaker 4: I think had she been you know, like, it's sort
20:35
Speaker 4: of the suggestion to me was that the story got
20:37
Speaker 4: a life of its own because of the way Aaron
20:40
Speaker 4: Patterson looked. Well, no, I mean an amazing story, but
20:42
Speaker 4: it would have been even more amazing if she had
20:46
Speaker 4: been a six foot Scandinavian model like that. Now, wat's
20:50
Speaker 4: the story really go off? If that happened. So I
20:53
Speaker 4: don't think the looks really had much to do it.
20:55
Speaker 4: I think though she defined herself in that first media
21:00
Speaker 4: interview she did at her house where you know, she
21:04
Speaker 4: said I loved on and she confused who was dead
21:06
Speaker 4: and who was alive.
21:09
Speaker 3: That's devastated by what's happened, but the loss of Don
21:16
Speaker 3: is still in hospital.
21:17
Speaker 4: Boughsome Ian and Heather and Gail. To me, I'm maybe
21:23
Speaker 4: I'm a bit naive, but I thought she looked distressed
21:26
Speaker 4: to me, but other people set afterwards that's really odden.
21:30
Speaker 4: And the police, I know when they saw that interview
21:34
Speaker 4: that they really they really clicked into that. They sort
21:37
Speaker 4: of thought, oh, that's really strange response. And the suggestion
21:40
Speaker 4: is she didn't actually have any tears when that happened.
21:42
Speaker 4: I had really had an open mind, and because grief
21:46
Speaker 4: is a weird thing, and you know that the Linda
21:48
Speaker 4: Chamberlain thing about whether or not she was grieving when
21:51
Speaker 4: it all started. Now, just a friend of mine actually
21:55
Speaker 4: got the first interview with Lindy Chamberlain Michael and the
21:58
Speaker 4: photograph of Zarah on the It was like a bassinette,
22:01
Speaker 4: remember lying back on the so and I spoke to
22:05
Speaker 4: him probably about six years after Lindy was child I
22:10
Speaker 4: think it was in eighty two. So do you think
22:13
Speaker 4: Lindy did it? And his response was I'm not sure,
22:16
Speaker 4: which is really interesting because sometimes we just get overloaded
22:20
Speaker 4: with information and it makes it hard. You know, it
22:23
Speaker 4: just can swamp your mind. One thing I would say
22:27
Speaker 4: for your listeners is that a lot of the evidence
22:30
Speaker 4: that we talked about before wasn't heard by the jury.
22:33
Speaker 4: So none of the allegations in relation to Simon's alleged
22:38
Speaker 4: attempts to kill him, for instance, was heard by the jury.
22:41
Speaker 4: So the jury didn't have the totality of the information
22:45
Speaker 4: the jury had basically, and the defense had worked really cleverly.
22:49
Speaker 4: Colin Mandy s C. I think did a really he
22:53
Speaker 4: was very very good. He got quite a lot of
22:56
Speaker 4: stuff struck out, so the jury didn't hear it. So
22:59
Speaker 4: what the jury heard was a watered down version of
23:02
Speaker 4: the totality of the evidence. So that made it pretty
23:05
Speaker 4: interesting in a way down anymore, because those of us
23:07
Speaker 4: that sat through a pre trial knew a whole lot
23:10
Speaker 4: more than the jury did. But you know, after seven
23:14
Speaker 4: days was the jury going to convict? And I wasn't
23:16
Speaker 4: necessarily convinced all of the jurors would fall that way.
23:21
Speaker 3: We'll get to that.
23:21
Speaker 1: It's interesting these defense barristers, they often bring up this
23:24
Speaker 1: thing about, oh, my client can't get a fair trial
23:26
Speaker 1: because of perceptions and so forth. But of course when
23:29
Speaker 1: they get up in jury trials, they say, there we
23:32
Speaker 1: go the strength of the jury system once more.
23:34
Speaker 3: They get it. And I think juries do get it right.
23:37
Speaker 3: And you had a chance to view the jury.
23:40
Speaker 1: And particularly as the courts dealing with the post offense
23:44
Speaker 1: conduct the lies, which I think was the most stunning
23:49
Speaker 1: evidence and also will probably ultimately weigh against her as
23:53
Speaker 1: she tries to get some sort of lenient sentence which
23:56
Speaker 1: she won't because she had an opportunity to correct things,
23:59
Speaker 1: to tell the police, tell the hospital, while her loved
24:04
Speaker 1: ones you could call them, were gravely ill what she'd done,
24:07
Speaker 1: but she chose not to. How important do you think
24:11
Speaker 1: those lies were in her final.
24:14
Speaker 4: I think utterly central. I think, you know, because having
24:19
Speaker 4: listened to what everything that the jury did, some things
24:23
Speaker 4: that I sort of thought, well, it's heavily circumstantial, For example,
24:27
Speaker 4: the phone tower evidence, where I basically said she might
24:31
Speaker 4: have been in these places like lock an outrum searching
24:34
Speaker 4: for deathcap rushians. But I can tell you, Adam, she
24:37
Speaker 4: might not have been too She could easily to me
24:39
Speaker 4: that stuff like that sort of jarred with me a
24:42
Speaker 4: little bit, I have to say. But the lies were
24:45
Speaker 4: so breathtaking that you know, she got up before the
24:49
Speaker 4: jury and said on the morning after the lunch she
24:53
Speaker 4: drove to our return trip and at one point went
24:56
Speaker 4: off the side of the road and had explosive diarrhea
25:00
Speaker 4: while she was wearing white pants. Right now, I camp
25:05
Speaker 4: a lot. I could tell you that that that you
25:07
Speaker 4: white pant. No, I can if you want, but no,
25:14
Speaker 4: and I've just got oh my god, and I know
25:17
Speaker 4: feel done. Thinks what does that mean, but those sorts
25:20
Speaker 4: of things when you've got country people. Now this this
25:22
Speaker 4: is another another point. So it was Patterson chose to
25:25
Speaker 4: have the trial in Marble. The thing about country people's
25:29
Speaker 4: lot liars. Liars get nowhere because everyone knows the liar
25:35
Speaker 4: the like once someone tells one lie, they will always
25:38
Speaker 4: be known in the community as a liar. This is
25:41
Speaker 4: in country areas. Now that's your reputation, because if you're
25:45
Speaker 4: the sort of person that would say, commit a fraud
25:48
Speaker 4: or whatever, that's your reputation. If you're steal twenty sheep,
25:52
Speaker 4: you could go and help mother Teresa for twenty years,
25:55
Speaker 4: you still always be the blokeer stole the marinos. So
25:59
Speaker 4: and I think the jury, having been just exposed to
26:04
Speaker 4: all these that were admitted to the outset, that just
26:07
Speaker 4: would have smashed her credibility in their eyes. And there
26:11
Speaker 4: was a pretty dramatic moment when she was giving evidence
26:14
Speaker 4: where it was introduced that she may have had bulimia
26:19
Speaker 4: or something like that and suffered that over the long term,
26:21
Speaker 4: and that after the lunch guests left, she ate a
26:26
Speaker 4: whole stack of Gail Patterson's orange cake and then purged afterwards.
26:32
Speaker 4: Now it didn't seem at all real again and another
26:36
Speaker 4: sort of in my mind anyway, a fake medical diagnosis
26:41
Speaker 4: that she just made up. And I think the more
26:44
Speaker 4: the jury looked at that, the worse it got for her,
26:48
Speaker 4: you know, the benefit of the doubt.
26:51
Speaker 1: Well, that's right, And I thought one of the dramatic
26:52
Speaker 1: moments I wasn't in the court at all, I have
26:54
Speaker 1: to say, but one of the dramatic moments for me
26:56
Speaker 1: was when Colin Mandy chose to put her on the stand.
26:59
Speaker 1: In these cases, it's up to the crown to prove
27:01
Speaker 1: their case, not for the defense to disprove it, so
27:05
Speaker 1: there was a calculated risk there, and I think she
27:08
Speaker 1: did reasonably well. I think there were some people thinking
27:11
Speaker 1: she would just break down and it'd be so obvious.
27:14
Speaker 1: But how did you rate her performance in the box?
27:17
Speaker 4: I just didn't think they would put her up and
27:21
Speaker 4: from everything that I knew, and I think she performed
27:23
Speaker 4: eight out of ten compared with what I expected. I
27:27
Speaker 4: thought she would fall apart pretty quickly and that didn't happen.
27:31
Speaker 4: But her credibility was eroded by her lies they you see,
27:36
Speaker 4: So yeah, I was surprised how well she did invert
27:40
Speaker 4: a commas clearly not that well because she's in Dane
27:44
Speaker 4: Field's frost. But yeah, I think she did better than
27:47
Speaker 4: I thought she would, is my Yeah, I suppose my
27:51
Speaker 4: answer right.
27:52
Speaker 1: So you're sitting there, you had the pre trial proceedings,
27:55
Speaker 1: you got the nine week trial. What's it like covering
27:58
Speaker 1: that sort of a case? And over the journey did
28:01
Speaker 1: your impressions change at all? With there were moments where
28:03
Speaker 1: you doubt any earlier impressions or was it tended to
28:07
Speaker 1: be a situation where they were being reinforced as it
28:10
Speaker 1: went along.
28:12
Speaker 4: No, I think because a lot of key evidence was
28:16
Speaker 4: excluded from the trial. To me, that changed the way
28:20
Speaker 4: I looked at it because you have to look at
28:22
Speaker 4: it what the jury's hearing, not what you know or
28:24
Speaker 4: you think you know. Journal as we think we know everything.
28:26
Speaker 4: We don't know everything, but we often think we do.
28:28
Speaker 4: So you're listening to what the jury's hearing my take
28:34
Speaker 4: on it, and I said, this is done recentably well
28:37
Speaker 4: known in the dying sort of moments before the jury
28:41
Speaker 4: came back, I thought it would be hung because I
28:43
Speaker 4: just thought there would be an overwhelming majority would go
28:46
Speaker 4: it's guilty, But then there'd be a smaller smallish rump
28:49
Speaker 4: of people would go, ah, well, I think there's enough
28:52
Speaker 4: doubt there for me. So that was where my head
28:55
Speaker 4: was at.
28:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, because often in these long term trials, the media
28:59
Speaker 1: forms are kind of relationship with the jury. You're looking
29:03
Speaker 1: at their reactions to things as you go, they're looking
29:06
Speaker 1: at you, and there's a kind of relationship going on.
29:09
Speaker 3: Describe what that's like in this trip.
29:12
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, you obviously try not to. You just want
29:16
Speaker 4: to know, I suppose very carefully, because you're just sitting
29:20
Speaker 4: there wanting to know, well, getting a feel for where
29:23
Speaker 4: you think the jury is at. It's impossible not to
29:26
Speaker 4: do that, and to listen how to the way they speak,
29:30
Speaker 4: and you get a feel for where you think people
29:33
Speaker 4: are going by their responses, like if, for instance, there's
29:38
Speaker 4: looks on faces and all that sort of stuff. I mean,
29:40
Speaker 4: it's very precise, like you've got absolutely no idea. It's
29:43
Speaker 4: like the old saying about you don't know what's going
29:46
Speaker 4: on inside someone's head or behind their bedroom door. And
29:49
Speaker 4: it's the same thing with the jury.
29:51
Speaker 3: People.
29:51
Speaker 4: I remember during the Pell case, people were coming back
29:54
Speaker 4: with these detailed analysis are where the jury was at
29:57
Speaker 4: and well no, so I think, yeah, it's a bit fraud.
30:01
Speaker 4: But yeah, you're sort of interested because you get bored
30:04
Speaker 4: as well at him. It's a long time to be
30:06
Speaker 4: sitting listening to the same evidence. A lot of the
30:09
Speaker 4: evis you've heard before, so you get bored. You look around,
30:11
Speaker 4: you want to know what everyone's You sort of get
30:14
Speaker 4: a view of almost everyone in the court, including Aaron Patterson,
30:18
Speaker 4: who had to put up with people gawking at her
30:22
Speaker 4: the whole time. It's brutal the legal system. It's brutal,
30:26
Speaker 4: and I get it why defense lawyers get protective of
30:30
Speaker 4: their clients, because it is just brutal what the defendants
30:33
Speaker 4: go through. And I know quite a bit, quite a
30:36
Speaker 4: lot about the Victorian prison system. It always you know,
30:41
Speaker 4: you just want the jury gets it right because prisoner's prison.
30:46
Speaker 4: There's no fun to be had.
30:48
Speaker 1: Oh no, she's going to do it very tough in
30:50
Speaker 1: their first offender. She's very arrogant in titled. People will
30:52
Speaker 1: sort her out. I think she will have to spend
30:54
Speaker 1: a lot of time in seclusion there. It'll be tough
30:57
Speaker 1: for her. And she's she's not going to see the
30:59
Speaker 1: lot of the least until she's eighty. So this is
31:01
Speaker 1: the what a disaster, blown up everything, up everything. I mean,
31:06
Speaker 1: you have sat through these long term trials, and you've
31:09
Speaker 1: also you also feel the gravity of what's happened. As
31:12
Speaker 1: a journal you're hearing the evidence, you're hearing the technical evidence,
31:15
Speaker 1: the forensic evidence of what was done to these people,
31:18
Speaker 1: and you start to naturally your view hardens against the defendant.
31:24
Speaker 1: But were there any moments in this proceeding where you
31:27
Speaker 1: felt some sympathy for her, or some empathy at least.
31:31
Speaker 3: Oh?
31:32
Speaker 4: Look, I have to say there was a couple of things.
31:34
Speaker 4: One was that really graphic photo of her in the
31:37
Speaker 4: back of the prison van that was the defining picture
31:40
Speaker 4: of the trial that the AFP photographer took, very very unflattering.
31:45
Speaker 4: Photographer sort of thought, aren't that's that's brutal. I have
31:50
Speaker 4: to say last Monday in hearing, what we saw on
31:56
Speaker 4: Monday was a completely destroyed person and in my mind
32:01
Speaker 4: just looks totally destroyed. And she's clearly in what the
32:06
Speaker 4: judge described as what seemed to be unsatisfactory conditions at
32:10
Speaker 4: Dane Phillips Frost that she's basically not seeing the light
32:13
Speaker 4: of the day or maybe an hour a day out.
32:15
Speaker 4: I mean that just destroys people, So I feel sorry
32:18
Speaker 4: for anyone who's in that predicament. Sure she inflicted terrible
32:23
Speaker 4: pain on the people before they died, but I don't know. Yeah,
32:27
Speaker 4: I feel compassion. I've spent a lot of time in
32:29
Speaker 4: the prisons several to know that as the resident mind you, No, no,
32:35
Speaker 4: not yet, but I'm sure he'll catch me at some point.
32:43
Speaker 1: On your Facebook it does say often excessive, I.
32:45
Speaker 3: Think, doesn't it.
32:46
Speaker 4: So that's that's the thing.
32:49
Speaker 3: You know.
32:50
Speaker 4: I'm very old school, so I'm probably probably one of
32:53
Speaker 4: the last of the old school. Well you're me, you're
32:56
Speaker 4: me both really five?
32:58
Speaker 3: I was one year later.
32:59
Speaker 1: I think you must have become you're about twelve, you know,
33:02
Speaker 1: child labor in the rippet Medley.
33:04
Speaker 3: But you're still going. Well it was fantastic.
33:06
Speaker 4: Five am to five pm mate.
33:09
Speaker 3: Yeah.
33:09
Speaker 1: The moment for me in the pre sentence hearing was
33:13
Speaker 1: when Ian Wilkinson got up there and he was doing
33:15
Speaker 1: his victim impact statement and he talked about giving her
33:20
Speaker 1: the offer of forgiveness if she makes a confession, and
33:23
Speaker 1: his quote was, my prayer for her is if you
33:26
Speaker 1: will use her time in jail wisely to become a
33:28
Speaker 1: better person. Now I'm no longer Aaron Patterson's victim, and
33:33
Speaker 1: she's become a victim of my kindness.
33:36
Speaker 3: Wow.
33:36
Speaker 4: Heavy, yeah, really heavy. It was at another moment during
33:42
Speaker 4: the moral trial for me, was when Nan Wilkinson walked
33:44
Speaker 4: in to give evidence. He turned over, turned around and
33:48
Speaker 4: looked straight at Aaron Patterson on the way in. It
33:51
Speaker 4: was it was a very it was understandably a look
33:55
Speaker 4: of disdain. He's a man who's been who's had his
33:58
Speaker 4: life beyond upended. And I thought I thought his choice
34:02
Speaker 4: of words were really interesting because he was basically saying,
34:05
Speaker 4: I forgive you, but I really makes it harder for you,
34:08
Speaker 4: not easier. And there was a really interesting peace on
34:13
Speaker 4: seventh Spotlight the other night with the bloke from Western
34:16
Speaker 4: Sydney who killed those four kids several years ago as
34:20
Speaker 4: a driver, and the father came in and has pledged
34:24
Speaker 4: total forgiveness. What Ian Wilkinson did wasn't as nearly as
34:29
Speaker 4: strong as that. He was a man who's clearly just
34:34
Speaker 4: devastated by what's happened, loved his wife, loved Don and
34:38
Speaker 4: Gale Patterson. And you know, you'd have to give him
34:42
Speaker 4: eleven out of ten for his victim impact statement. And
34:45
Speaker 4: you'd give him twenty out of ten for his resilience
34:48
Speaker 4: for turning up every day and marble to court. He
34:50
Speaker 4: was pretty astonishing really.
34:53
Speaker 3: Anyway. You're a sporting gentleman.
34:55
Speaker 1: But I don't think you're going to get odds, decent
34:58
Speaker 1: odds that she's going to get anything less than the
35:00
Speaker 1: full whack.
35:01
Speaker 3: What's your prediction for the sentence.
35:05
Speaker 4: I think my prediction is she will get a non
35:08
Speaker 4: parole period. I think the judge is really unhappy with
35:13
Speaker 4: the conditions that Aaron Patterson has been kept in and
35:17
Speaker 4: I think there'll be a little bit of a discount.
35:19
Speaker 4: I think he'll give her a little bit of glimmer
35:21
Speaker 4: of something, but she'll she'll do the minimum thirty. She's
35:26
Speaker 4: not going to walk quickly. And the problem she has, Adam,
35:29
Speaker 4: and you'd know this that with poisoning intent is writ
35:34
Speaker 4: large because you've got to go out and source the mushrooms.
35:37
Speaker 4: You've got to put them in the dehydrated, you've got
35:40
Speaker 4: to cut them up, you've got to going by the steak,
35:42
Speaker 4: you've got to go and get the pastry. You've got
35:45
Speaker 4: to at so many points, as Ruth Dubois, who is
35:49
Speaker 4: Aman Wilkinson's daughter said at so many points she had
35:52
Speaker 4: months where she could have called this ridiculous plot off,
35:56
Speaker 4: but she didn't, and it was interesting. There was another
36:00
Speaker 4: interesting moment when Ruth Duboire said that she had months
36:03
Speaker 4: to call this off. Aaron Patterson just shook her head slightly,
36:07
Speaker 4: you know, And that to me suggests that Aaron Patterson
36:10
Speaker 4: doesn't think either she doesn't think she did it deliberately,
36:13
Speaker 4: or it was an accident, or I think that's probably
36:17
Speaker 4: where Aaron Patterson's head is at.
36:19
Speaker 1: John Ferguson, thank you so much for your time today.
36:21
Speaker 1: It's been fascinating to get that inside view of this
36:25
Speaker 1: extraordinary proceeding.
36:26
Speaker 3: And I think you're right.
36:26
Speaker 1: The lack of contrition, the lack of taking those opportunities
36:30
Speaker 1: to turn away from this plot. I mean, we've all
36:33
Speaker 1: had moments of thinking about revenge against people who wronged us.
36:36
Speaker 1: But in the light of day, you say, oh goodness,
36:39
Speaker 1: the consequences, and you look at the consequences in this
36:41
Speaker 1: person's life and you say, wow, unbelievable.
36:46
Speaker 4: And this very quickly. And what makes it this story
36:50
Speaker 4: so compelling, is that she is very well educated, came
36:54
Speaker 4: from a very well educated family, She was a multi millionaire.
36:59
Speaker 4: She had a you know, not a house I'd built,
37:02
Speaker 4: but it was a really nice house in Gaffa. She
37:06
Speaker 4: had two kids living with She had more than ninety
37:11
Speaker 4: nine percent of the world on her side then and
37:13
Speaker 4: then here you were talking about how she kills three people.
37:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, unbelievable. Thanks your time, John, Thank you.
37:22
Speaker 1: That's John Ferguson of The Australian there on Aaron Patterson
37:26
Speaker 1: and her disastrous decision to murder her in laws. What
37:30
Speaker 1: did you think as you watch this thing go through?
37:32
Speaker 1: Do you think she got a fair trial? A lot
37:33
Speaker 1: to hear from you, but your thoughts on this you
37:35
Speaker 1: can send me an email at Adam Shanned writer at
37:38
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. You also send me stories send him
37:41
Speaker 1: there before John Ferguson gets them. By the way, he's
37:43
Speaker 1: a snoop master, this fella. But thanks for joining us today.
37:47
Speaker 1: If you have any information about a crime, make sure
37:49
Speaker 1: you call crime Stoppers one. It had a triple three,
37:51
Speaker 1: triple zero. This has been real crime with Adam Shanned.
37:54
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38:04
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38:08
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