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The Horrific Mushroom Murders · The conspiracy

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: A small town in the south of Australia, a few streets,
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: a pub, a petrol station, hours from the nearest city,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: the kind of place where nothing really happens. And there
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: were five people and a quiet house at the end
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: of a long road, enjoying a few hours together. It
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: should have been a forgettable day, but it wasn't. This
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: is the story of the mushroom murders. Crime, conspiracy, cults,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: serial killers and murder, all things that I love to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: consume and I know you do too, you sick, twisted, beautiful,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: intellectually minded. Today we are talking about the mushroom murders.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: So without further ado, let's unbuckle our seatbelt, go macive
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: down the highway, slam on the bricks and bust to
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  Speaker 1: the windshield into this infamous Australian case together. All right,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: let's talk about something a little lighter for moment, and
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: that is blankets. Now. I am a die hard blanket person,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: as you guys know, but lately I have had a
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: problem and it is that the second I grab one
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  Speaker 1: of my Lola blankets, one of my seven dogs or
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: one of my four cats is on top of said
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Lola blanket. Okay, claiming it's theirs. I literally cannot get
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  Speaker 1: them off a most days, and turns out I'm not
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  Speaker 1: the only one, because pets everywhere are stealing Lola blankets,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: which is exactly why Lola made a full pet collection.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: And I have it all and I love it all,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: and so do my pets. Now, the Lola Pet bed
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: has that same ultrasoft faux fur, but with an orthopedic
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: foam base that supports their joints, and the cover is
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  Speaker 1: removable and machine washable, and it's completely shed free and
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: it's Oecotech certified, so it's safe for your pet and
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: your home. And my dog's and cat took to the
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  Speaker 1: beds instantly, and now the Lola blanket is mine again,
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  Speaker 1: So thank you so much, Lola Blankets. And for a
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: limited time, you can get forty percent off select products
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  Speaker 1: with CODECCCM at Lola Blankets dot com. Again, that's Lola
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Blankets dot Com using code CCCM for forty percent off.
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  Speaker 1: You deserve and your pet deserves to wrap yourselves in luxury.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you so much to Lola Blanket for sponsoring the
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: video and supporting the channel. And let's get back to it.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Aaron Trudy Scudder was born in nineteen seventy four in
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  Speaker 1: suburban Melbourne and she grew up in glen Waverley, a
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  Speaker 1: quiet residential neighborhood about nineteen kilometers southeast of the city center.
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  Speaker 1: Yes we're talking in kilometers today people, All right, we're
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  Speaker 1: in Australia. Also as a Canadian, I'm loving it. But
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: it was a kind of place where families put down
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  Speaker 1: roots and just never really left. And this suburb had
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  Speaker 1: undergone rapid growth in the nineteen sixties and by the
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  Speaker 1: time Aaron was a child, glen Waverley was home to
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  Speaker 1: nine primary schools and four high schools, and holmes sat
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: on big lots along organized streets, just a solidly middle
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  Speaker 1: class Australia and her family fit that mold because her father,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Eiiten Scudder, worked for the government and her mother, doctor
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  Speaker 1: Heather Scudder, held a position at Monash University as a
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: literature lecturer, and Heather specialized in children's literature, specifically Australian
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: studies and women's writing, and she authored an academic book
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  Speaker 1: called Displaced Fictions, a detailed study of contemporary Australian teen
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  Speaker 1: and young adult fiction. And Aaron's sister Canwin Ruth Scudder
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  Speaker 1: would study geology at Menash, following the family path. So
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  Speaker 1: with an academic mother, a public servant father, and two
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  Speaker 1: university bound daughters, the Scudders were a modern Australian family
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  Speaker 1: on paper, and by every measure, Aaron was right at
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  Speaker 1: home in it. She was bright, she was bookish, she
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: was quick with commitment, and her teachers would notice her
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  Speaker 1: really early. She had the kind of mind that picked
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  Speaker 1: things up faster than anyone in the room around her,
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  Speaker 1: and by the time she finished high school she had
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  Speaker 1: a place at the University of Melbourne waiting for her.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Just a bright, full life ahead of her, and Aaron
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  Speaker 1: had a mind that just didn't sit still. She kept
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: picking up new qualifications and new fields and new subjects
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: to dig into, and she started at the University of
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  Speaker 1: Melbourne in nineteen ninety two, where she earned a place
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  Speaker 1: in the science program, and science eventually gave way to accounting,
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  Speaker 1: which became her first job, which offered her a very stable,
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  Speaker 1: very conventional work. But she wasn't done collecting qualifications and
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  Speaker 1: in February two thousand and one, she joined Air Services
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  Speaker 1: Australia and began their air traffic control training program in
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  Speaker 1: Melbourne and the course ran ten months long and it
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  Speaker 1: was very competitive technical and not everyone made it through.
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  Speaker 1: It's very difficult. My grandpa used to do it and
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  Speaker 1: it's one of the most stressful jobs you can actually
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  Speaker 1: ever do ever, and air traffic control is one of
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  Speaker 1: those profect estions most people never think about until something
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  Speaker 1: goes wrong. Controllers managed the movement of aircraft in real time,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: sequencing takeoffs, landings and routing across packed airspace. Again just
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  Speaker 1: very stressful. You have hundreds of lives in your hands
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  Speaker 1: at every given moment, essentially, and a single miscommunication can
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  Speaker 1: end those lives. So by the time the program was finished,
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  Speaker 1: Aarin had earned her place in the tower. So she
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  Speaker 1: was a university graduate and a qualified air traffic controller,
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  Speaker 1: and a manager who worked with her remembered her this way, saying,
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  Speaker 1: quote colorful, smart, very smart. She was no dummy unquote.
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  Speaker 1: So Air Services Australia lasted less than two years and
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  Speaker 1: by November two thousand and two she would eventually move on.
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  Speaker 1: But her next stop was local government, and she picked
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  Speaker 1: up a position at the Minash City Council in Melbourne
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  Speaker 1: and the Royal Society for the Prevention of cruelty to animals.
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  Speaker 1: The RSPCA ran an animal management office inside the council,
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  Speaker 1: and by two thousand and four, Aaron was there as
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  Speaker 1: an administrative assistant, filing paperwork basically and handling the unglamorous
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  Speaker 1: daily rhythm of local government, a world away from the
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  Speaker 1: control tower, which again is like an extremely stressful job.
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  Speaker 1: So I don't blame her for switching jobs, but the
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  Speaker 1: fact that she can just toss around all these high
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  Speaker 1: qualifications and just kind of pick and choose whatever she
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  Speaker 1: wants to do because she's so smart, is very impressive.
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  Speaker 1: So Aaron's government job turned out to matter more than
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: even the title suggested, because also working at the City
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  Speaker 1: of Minash was a civil engineer named Simon Patterson, and
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  Speaker 1: a group of council employees had formed what Simon described
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  Speaker 1: as quote unquote a fairly eclectic circle of friends, and
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  Speaker 1: Aaron found her way into that group, and by July
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  Speaker 1: two thousand and five, Aaron and Simon were together, but
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  Speaker 1: she'd met his parents even before the relationship had really begun.
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  Speaker 1: And it was March or April two thousand and five,
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  Speaker 1: and she and Simon had gone camping with a group
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  Speaker 1: of friends and Somewhere along the way, they swung by
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  Speaker 1: the family Patterson home. Now the Pattersons lived in Cornborough,
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  Speaker 1: a small town in the green hilly country of South Gippsland,
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  Speaker 1: roughly nineteen minutes southeast of Melbourne, and that afternoon was
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  Speaker 1: the first time Aaron met Don and Gale Patterson. Now
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  Speaker 1: Don and Gale's lives had followed similar paths from the
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  Speaker 1: very beginning. Both were in Scouts and guides as children,
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  Speaker 1: both took up piano and tennis, and both spent holidays
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  Speaker 1: at the same beachside towns on the Morington Peninsula, Rosebud
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  Speaker 1: and Dremana, and their paths first crossed at Sunday School
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  Speaker 1: in Hughesdale, a suburb east of Melbourne Center. And Don
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  Speaker 1: came out of Melbourne University with a science degree and
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  Speaker 1: he had the foundation for a research career in Australia,
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  Speaker 1: but he and Gale decided on a different direction and
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  Speaker 1: the couple just packed up and moved abroad Botswana first,
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  Speaker 1: then China, and both stints centered on mission work and teaching,
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  Speaker 1: and when they eventually returned, Don took a position at
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  Speaker 1: Cornborough Secondary College, where he taught for twenty five and
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  Speaker 1: at one point served as deputy principal, and Richard Collier,
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  Speaker 1: who taught alongside him, described Don as a man who
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: earned deep respect from students, parents and staff. In the
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: exchange program he helped create sent Quorumborough students to China,
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  Speaker 1: which of course, was a country he and Gail had
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  Speaker 1: already poured years of their lives in two and Gail's
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: contributions ran just as deep. In Botswana, she'd homeschooled their
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  Speaker 1: children using lessons materials sent from Australia, and Simon liked
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  Speaker 1: to joke that he quote reached his academic peak in
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  Speaker 1: grade four, which he insisted was quote no reflection on
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  Speaker 1: the teachers that followed, but on mom's ability as a
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  Speaker 1: teacher unquote. And back in Cuorunborough, she worked in the
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  Speaker 1: school office at the Secondary College, alongside down now beyond
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  Speaker 1: the school. Her volunteer work was described as quote unquote
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  Speaker 1: quietly extensive. Bible study groups, use events, community meals, producing
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  Speaker 1: the borough of Flyer newsletter, reading newspapers aloud for people
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  Speaker 1: who couldn't see, welcoming overseas, visitors and newcomers to the town,
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  Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. These people are Saints. It seems,
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  Speaker 1: doesn't it Like they're just given everything they have to
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  Speaker 1: everyone around them. And when a fire destroyed the secondary
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  Speaker 1: colleges records in nineteen ninety three, Gail helped piece them
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  Speaker 1: back together. So it was said of the couple, quote
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  Speaker 1: they just got on with living generous lives, quietly and
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  Speaker 1: without fanfare unquote. And Gail's younger sister was Heather Wilkinson
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  Speaker 1: born Heather Young, and her husband was Ian Wilkinson, and
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  Speaker 1: together they raised four children, David, Luke, Ruth, and Elizabeth.
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  Speaker 1: And Heather taught English to adult migrants, and she never stopped,
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  Speaker 1: and she was called a gifted teacher. And under her influence,
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  Speaker 1: more parents started volunteering at the school than ever before.
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  Speaker 1: And one friend who had known Heather her entire life said,
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  Speaker 1: quote unquote, the spirit of God was always evident in
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  Speaker 1: Heather and quote peaceful, grateful, calm, joyful. She is kind, friendly,
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  Speaker 1: even tempered, and with a quirky sense of humor unquote.
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  Speaker 1: And Ian had been the pastor of Korumborough Baptist Church
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  Speaker 1: for more than two decades, marking his twenty fifth year
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  Speaker 1: in the role in February of twenty twenty four. And
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  Speaker 1: for these families, faith wasn't something they set aside after
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  Speaker 1: Sunday service. It really just shaped the way they lived
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  Speaker 1: every single day. So when Aaron and Simon married on
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  Speaker 1: June two, two thousand and seven, at the Kormborough Anglican Church,
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  Speaker 1: they chose that church deliberately, and Aaron said they wanted
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  Speaker 1: Ian and Heather quote to be able to come and
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  Speaker 1: relax with guests unquote, rather than working the ceremony at
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  Speaker 1: their own Baptist church, and the reception was held under
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  Speaker 1: a marquee in Dawn and Gale's backyard in Korumburgh, but
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  Speaker 1: Aaron's parents weren't able to be there, so the person
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  Speaker 1: who walked her down the aisle was David Wilkinson, which
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  Speaker 1: was Ian and Heather's son. But faith hadn't always been
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  Speaker 1: part of Aaron's world, and she actually said she'd actively
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  Speaker 1: tried to convert him away from beliefs, saying, quote, I
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: was trying to convert him into being an atheist, but
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  Speaker 1: things happened in reverse unquote, And then around two thousand
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  Speaker 1: and five, she walked into Kumberra Baptist Church for the
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  Speaker 1: first time and something shifted. Ian Wilkinson stood behind the pulpit,
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  Speaker 1: and up to that point faith had been nothing more
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  Speaker 1: than an intellectual puzzle to her. But something hit her
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  Speaker 1: in that room. It quote unquote quite overwhelmed her, and
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  Speaker 1: it pulled her into the orbit of the very people
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  Speaker 1: sitting in those pews, the Patterson's, the Wilkinsons, and the
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  Speaker 1: small town faith community they'd spent a lifetime building. And
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: after the wedding, Aaron and Simon didn't settle down right away,
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  Speaker 1: and instead they would use money from Aaron's inheritance and
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  Speaker 1: buy a Nissan Patrol Patrol petrol, sorry if I'm saying
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  Speaker 1: that wrong, and drove into outback Australia. Sorry, I couldn't
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  Speaker 1: help it. I had to do it once. Okay, I
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  Speaker 1: won't do it again. But Simon described those months as
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  Speaker 1: a quote unquote meander through the country's vast interior, and
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  Speaker 1: from there they flew to Africa, traveling through South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: and Namibia and Butswana, as you may recall, was one
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  Speaker 1: of those places where Don and Gail had lived decades
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  Speaker 1: earlier as missionaries, and by September two thousand and seven,
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  Speaker 1: they'd settled in Perth and their first child, a boy
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  Speaker 1: arrived in January of two thousand and nine, and the
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  Speaker 1: birth was pretty rough. Four steps failed during delivery and
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  Speaker 1: the doctors had to perform an emergency CEA section, and
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: their newborn ended up in the intensive care unit. But
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  Speaker 1: even before the doctors cleared her, Aaron signed herself out.
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  Speaker 1: She wanted to be at her baby's side, and Don
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  Speaker 1: and Gail came to help with the new baby, and
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  Speaker 1: Aaron said she felt quote out of my depth unquote,
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  Speaker 1: and was quote really relieved that Gail was there unquote,
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  Speaker 1: so she had that support system, and she described her
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  Speaker 1: mother in law as quote really supportive and gentle and
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  Speaker 1: patient unquote. And Gail told erin to quote just relax
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  Speaker 1: and enjoy baby, and those words landed deeply first stretch
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: in twenty eleven. In twenty twelve, the family was living
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  Speaker 1: in Pemberton, a tiny timber millingtown in the southwestern region
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  Speaker 1: of Western Australia, and Aaron opened a second hand bookshop
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  Speaker 1: there and it became kind of a hub for serious
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  Speaker 1: readers in a place where you wouldn't necessarily expect one.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: And eventually after their first child, a daughter would follow
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: in twenty fourteen, and as it turned out. Simon's sister
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Anna Terrington was also expecting, so the two babies were
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: born within three days of each other, so the family
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: started affectionately calling them the twins, and that same year,
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  Speaker 1: Aaron and Simon bought a house in Cornborough so they
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: could be closer to Simon's parents, and this was the
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: town where Dawn taught, where Ian preached, and where Gail
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: had spent decades quietly holding the community together. So the
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: entire family was putting down their roots, but trouble arrived
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: with their first child, and even with a baby, Simon
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: wanted to keep road tripping. The family headed north along
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: the Gibb River Road, a remote track through Western Australia's
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  Speaker 1: Kimberly region and somewhere around Queensland. The trip fell apart
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: and Aaron booked a flight to Perth and left, and
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Simon had no choice but to drive back with the baby,
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  Speaker 1: so it was a week on the road just him
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: and his infant, and when he finally got back, she'd
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: already arranged a rental cottage for herself and Simon wound
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: up at a caravan park nearby, so this would be
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: the first time Aaron would leave and they were apart
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: roughly two to three months before getting back together, and
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: it kind of became a pattern. From two thousand and
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  Speaker 1: nine to twenty fifteen. The couple separated and reconciled multiple times,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: and Simon felt that she was the one who always
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: left despite his desire to have a solid marriage. Quote
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: what I understood from Arin was that she was struggling
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: inside herself unquote. Now Aaron framed the problem differently, saying, quote,
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  Speaker 1: if we had a disagreement or any kind of conflict,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: we didn't seem to be able to talk about it
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  Speaker 1: in a way where either of us felt hurt or
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  Speaker 1: understooduote And eventually she told him the way they related
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  Speaker 1: to each other was toxic. And the marriage drifted through
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: towns along the way, and they would try counseling and
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: patch things up together and would actually move to York,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: which is in Western Australia, and then came the tiny
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: timber settlement of quinnin Up and they came back to
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Victoria in twenty thirteen, a short stop in Bena, then
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: a house in Quorumburgh, and the final split came in
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: November of twenty fifteen and she picked up a place
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  Speaker 1: of her own in Quorumburgh, and the family home was
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: behind her quote. I didn't want to be separated, but
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: I felt there was no choice unquote. But still through
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: it all, they never divorced, And what made the split
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: unusual was how little seemed to change on the surface.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Custody was split, but they continued texting regularly, and they
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: still sat in the same pews on Sunday, and they
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: even traveled together as a family. Noted that Don and
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: Gail never changed after the separation. Quote they just continued
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: to love me unquote, she would say, and they treated
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: her quote like their own daughter unquote. And Simon confirmed
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Aaron saying, quote got along very well with his parents,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: especially with Dad unquote. So in February of twenty twenty two,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Don reached out to offer video call tutoring for Aaron's
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: eldest child, telling her he was happy to help with
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: any subject he had some competence in, and both Aaron
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: and Don had what Simon described as inquiring minds, and
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: the two of them bonded over shared curiosity. Financially, Erin
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: was pretty well off because her grandmother's death in two
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: thousand and six had left behind a substantial estate, and
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Aaron's cher was evaluated at around two million Australian dollars
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: parceled out over eight years, and her father had died
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: of cancer in twenty eleven, and when her mother died
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: of cancer some years later, another inheritance followed, and Simon
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: called her very generous with his family, and the numbers
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: backed that up. She lent hundreds of thousands of dollars
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: to each of his three siblings, and his brother Matt
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: alone received three hundred to four hundred thousand dollars Australian
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: dollars to help build a home, and she would buy
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: property of her own, a unit in Mount Waverley and
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: a place on Gibson Street in Lee, and Gotha still
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: being finished when she moved in. So pretty generous, I'd say,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: And she called Gibson Street her final house, the place
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: where her children would grow up and she'd grow old.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: But they lived with her only part time under the
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: shared custody agreement, and she wasn't working at that time,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: and she had actually deferred a place in a nursing
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: and midwifery course because she was pretty comfortable from her assets,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: saying quote, I could afford to go to university and
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: I didn't need to work a job at the same
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: time unquote teached their own. If you got it, why not.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: So on Mother's Day of twenty twenty three, Gail sent
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: Aaron a text saying, quote happy Mother's Day, Erin, May
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  Speaker 1: God bless you, love Don and Gale unquote, and Erin
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: wrote back, quote thanks Gail, Happy Mother's Day to the
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: best mom in law anyone could ask for. Xxoo. So,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: regardless of Simon and Aaron's separation, the family was still
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: really close knit. But something awful was about to take place.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: So on Saturday, July twenty ninth, twenty twenty three, Erin
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: invited five people to lunch at her home on Gibson Street, Simon,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: his parents, Don and Gail, and Gail's sister Heather, along
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: with Heather's husband Ian. So just that whole close knit
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: family and it was to be an adult's only gathering,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: and Erin's kids were spending a day with a friend,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: so it was really just all the adults getting together
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: for a nice lunch. But Erin had some news for
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: the family, and the purpose of this gathering was medical
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: because Aaron told the family she was dealing with a
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: health scare and needed help figuring out what to say
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: to her children. The night before, Simon texted to say
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: he wouldn't be coming, and he would tell her he
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: felt too uncomfortable to attend, but he offered to have
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: the conversation over the phone if she still wanted his input. Now,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: Aaron wrote back at length, because she had spent the
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: entire week getting prepared mentally and getting the house ready
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: and the meal and just everything, and she would say
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: to him, quote, the work had been exhausting in light
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: of the issue I'm facing unquote. And she even said
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: she'd put quote a small fortune toward beef I filet
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: to make beef Wellington's because she wanted it to be
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: a special meal. I may not be able to host
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: a lunch like this again for some time. She would add, quote,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: it's important to me that you're all there tomorrow. I
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: hope you change your mind unquote. But Simon would never reply,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: and he would stay home and his chair at the
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: table would sit empty. But the remaining four guests arrived
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: that Saturday, Down and Gail, Heather and Ian, and for
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: the Wilkinsons especially, the invitation had carried re weight They
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: were very happy to be invited, and Ian had taken
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: it as a hopeful signal, a sense that maybe our
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: relationship with Aaron was going to improve unquote, because the
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: family was still close, but the separation had caused some
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: friction in the family, so everybody was just happy to
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: be getting together. So before they sat down to eat,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Aaron took her guests on a tour of the house.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: And then once lunch was ready, Heather and Gail offered
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: to bring the food out, so Aarin would plate the
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: portions and all the women would bring out the food together.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Then they would bow their heads and say grace before
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: the first bite, and the conversation over the meal was light,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: family talk, easy laughter. No one was in any sort
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: of rush. The Wilkinsons ate their meal, and Gail got
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: through about half her portion before pushing the plate over
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: to Dawn to finish, and between his own plate and
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: hers don ate close to a serving and a half,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: and there was the teasing around the table about quote
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: husbands helping their wives out by eating extra food unquote.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: The lunch was going really well, and then dessert was
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: already waiting, and it was a cake Gail had baked
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: and a fruit platter Heather had prepared, and the group
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: managed a little of each, but after the wellingtons, there
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: wasn't much appetite to go around. But once the plates
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: were cleared, the mood of the afternoon changed, and Aaron
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: told the group she discovered a lump on her elbow
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: and she'd said it had been diagnosed as cancer quote
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: very serious, life threatening unquote. And Ian said she'd appeared
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: quote very concerned unquote about what the diagnosis meant, and
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: she asked for the guidance on whether to tell her children,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: and if so, how till the news would settle over
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: the room. A little cancer diagnosis in this circle wasn't
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: something anyone would carry alone. And Don was the first
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: to respond, and he told her quote that the best
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: approach was to be honest quote, And then they prayed,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: asking for God's blessing on Erin and they held her
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: in that prayer the way they'd held each other through
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: every hard chapter for nearly twenty years. And the afternoon
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: wound down quietly after that, and the guest left sometime
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: in the late afternoon, and Heather said that the food
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: had been delicious and beautiful, so by every measure available
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: to the people sitting at that table. It had been
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: a warm Saturday. Let's take a quick pause to talk
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: about something that is really hard and that is trying
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: something new. It can be pretty terrifying. I know when
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: I launched this podcast and when Caleb and I launched
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: Sour Boys, it was pretty daunting, just not knowing if
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: it was going to work or not. But honestly, having
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: a partner like Shopify has made the whole journey so
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: much easier. And the Shopify, for those of you who
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: don't know, is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: around the world, about ten percent of all e commerce
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: in the US in fact, from household names like All
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Birds and Skims to brands just getting started. And you
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: get a full design studio with hundreds of ready to
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: use templates, AI tools that write your product descriptions and
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: even enhance your product photos, and to that iconic purple
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: shop pay button, which is why Shopify has the best
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: converting checkout on the planet. There's less abandoned carts and
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: more sales. So it's time to turn those what ifs
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: into with Shopify, So sign up for your one dollar
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: per month trial today at shopify dot com slash CCCM
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: go to Shopify dot com, slash CCCM, thank you so
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: much to Shopify for sponsoring the video and supporting the
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: channel and helping with all of our businesses, and let's
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: get back to it. But by nightfall, every one of
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: them would fall ill. Diarrhea and vomiting started to set
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: in after dark and it wouldn't stop. Both couples spent
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: long hours assuming it would pass, but by Sunday morning
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: it was clear it wouldn't. The Patterson's and the Wilkinsons
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: compared symptoms by phone and realized all four of them
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: were sick. Don and Gale actually called the ambulance and
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: they arrived at Corumborough Hospital at ten ten am on
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: July thirtieth, and between the two of them, Don had
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: taken the harder hit and Simon drove the Wilkinsons to
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: le and Gotha Hospital at ten fifty seven am, a
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: different hospital roughly twenty minutes away, because Cornburah didn't have
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: the capacity for all four patients. But at both hospitals
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: the initial assessment was the same, suspected food poisoning or
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: gastro entitis, which essentially is an inflamed stomach and intestine,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: often from infection, but all four patients were conscious and
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: alert and able to talk, and from his hospital bed,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Don walked the doctors through everything that happened at Saturday's lunch.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: But as he went on, he kept going downhill, and
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: his lactate levels climbed dangerously high, and his liver began failing,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: and signs of sepsis started to set in, and doctors
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: realized that gastro enteritis alone couldn't explain what they were seeing,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: so toxicologists were consulted, and the symptoms pointed toward a
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: specific culprit ammanita falloids death cap mushrooms. Now death caps
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: are behind more than ninety percent of fatal mushroom poisonings worldwide,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: and they contain amatoxins which are heat stable or in
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: other words, cooking does nothing to neutralize them. So the
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: poison makes its way to the liver after ingestion, and
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: it locks onto the cells there and kills their ability
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: to produce proteins. So the cells literally die and the
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: organ follows, and the poisoning follows a very cruel pattern. First,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: violent stomach symptoms hit within six to twenty four hours
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: of eating, then the patient seems to rally for roughly
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: a day, and then three to five days after ingestion,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: the liver collapses along with other major organs afterwards, in
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: other words, sepsis, and it takes remarkably little to have
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: a devastating effect. Just zero point one milligrams per kilogram
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: a body weight can be fatal, and one mushroom can
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: take down a grown person. And in light of this discovery,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: the decision was made to move all four patients to
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: major hospitals in Melbourne because the rural facilities could not
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: manage what was coming now. Aaron had told Simon she'd
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: also been sick since Saturday night, and she arrived at
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: leon Gotha Hospital on Monday morning at eighth five and
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: then was transferred to MNASH Clayton later that day, but
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: she would be discharged the next day and six days
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: after the lunch on August fourth, Gail and Heather would
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: pass away. And Gail was seventy years old at the
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: time and Heather was sixty six years old, and she
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: had still been teaching that week, working with her English
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: students right up until the end, and doctors listed the
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: cause as liver dysfunction and cascading organ failure all trace
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: to m and need a mushroom toxicity, and by the
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: time they died, their medical teams had already accepted that
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: there was nothing more that they could do, and Don
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: would receive a liver transplant in a last ditch effort
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: to help save him, but unfortunately it wouldn't be enough,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: and Simon would say, quote sadly, the rest of his
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: body was already too sick to go on past that point, unquote,
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: and Ian nearly suffered the same fate, and he had
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: spent weeks in an induced coma, and he would also
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: receive a liver transplant of his own, and he was
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: taken off the ventilator on August fourteenth, So fifty four
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: days passed between his admission and his release on September
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: twenty third, and when news came of his release, his
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: family spoke publicly for the first time, calling it a
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: moment of immense relief and gratitude, and the following Sunday,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: the Baptist Church congregation gathered to support each other and
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: pray for Ian's recovery, and local mayor Nathan Hersey spoke
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: for the town and the three who died, he said,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: were or quote exceptional people who had given generously to
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: the local community unquote, and Councilor Jenny Currie said, quote
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: We've lost a great store of kindness in Corumburgh this weekend.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: So on August thirty first, the memorial service for Dawn
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: and Gale was held at Cornborough Memorial Hall and hundreds
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: of mourners filled the space, and tribute letters arrived from China,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Botswana and the United Kingdom, all saying Don and Gale
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: were the most capable, kindness and generous people they had
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: ever met. And Simon stood before the crowd and read
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: Glee's final words, and she had typed them from her
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: bed at dandinghung Hospital. One last message to the family
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: group chat quote unquote lots of love to you all.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: And on October fourth, Heather had her own memorial service
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: and more than four hundred people came to say goodbye,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: and Ian stood among those mourners, frail and still deep
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: in recovery. And it was his first public appearance since
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: that lunch, and the Victoria Police assigned its homicide squad
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: to the case. On August fourth, twenty twenty three. The
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: same day Gale and Heather had passed away, and Detective
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: Sergeant Luke Ferrell led the search of Patterson's Lee and
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Gotha home the following morning, and over the next three months,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: investigators pulled at every single thread and what they found
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: dismantled the picture piece by piece. Now, the first alarm
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: had sounded at the hospital when doctor Chris Webster told
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: Aarin that death Cat mushrooms may have been involved in
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: her guests poisoning, and he asked what kind of mushrooms
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: she'd used in the meal, and she said Woolworths, the
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: supermarket chain, and death Cat mushrooms are not sold in
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: supermarkets obviously, And those kind of contradictions kept coming, and
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: Aaron's medical results showed no clinical or biochemical evidence of
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: Amanita poisoning. She had claimed to have eaten the same
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: meal as her guests and to have become ill, but
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: her blood work didn't reflec anything close to what the
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: others were showing, and even her presence at the hospital
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: began to look strained in retrospect. Nurse Cindy Monroe had
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: treated the other lunch guests and was now treating Arin,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: saying quote she didn't look unwell. Like Ian and Heather.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: I recall Ian being so unwell he could barely lift
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: his head off the pillow. Aaron was sitting up in
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: bed in the trolley unquote. And Aaron had stayed about
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: five minutes that Monday morning, despite her doctor's objections. She
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: had gotten up and just walked out, saying she needed
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: to feed the dogs and pack her daughter's ballet bag.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: And when she failed to return in an agreed twenty
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: minute window, a concerned doctor at the hospital contacted police.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: And that was the first time anyone in a position
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: of authority had treated the lunch as something other than
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: a medical event, and investigators began to suspect that her
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: brief hospital appearance had never been about getting treatment. It
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: had been about being seen as sick. In her behavior
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: the day before only reinforced the suspicion. So on Sunday,
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: while Donn and Gale were on their way to Cornberg Hospital,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: while the Wilkinsons were arriving at Lee and Gatha, Aaron
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: had told Simon she'd had diarrhea since Saturday night. That
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: same afternoon, she had loaded her son into the car
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: and driven him to a flying lesson in Taiab and
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: the drive was more than an hour each way. So
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: after her transfer to Mnash Clayton, Simon's sister in law, Tanya,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: came to visit and Tanya told Aaron the others were
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: going downhill quickly, and Aaron pivoted, and she asked about
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: taking her children on a boat cruise. And Simon would
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: later say that through all of it, Arin quote unquote
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: never actually asked about how his relatives were doing. And
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: then there was the question of the children. And at
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: the hospital she had told staff her kids had eaten
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: leftover Wellington's, but she said she'd scraped off all the
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: mushroom before giving it to them. The nurse mon Roe
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: warned that tocsins could have seeped straight through the mushroom
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: room into the beach, and Aaron resisted bringing the children in, saying,
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: quote they did not eat the mushrooms. I just don't
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: want them to be panicked and stressed unquote. She eventually agreed,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: and the children were kept overnight and found not to
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: be ill. Luckily, so the implication landed quietly. Aerin, by
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: her own account, had already known which part of the
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: food was dangerous, and she had scraped it away from
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: her children's portions, and she went public with a story,
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: and Aaron told the media that beef Wellington's had contained
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: store bought mushrooms along with dried ones from an Asian
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: grocery shops somewhere around Mount Waverley. Quote I am now
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: devastated to think that these mushrooms may have contributed to
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: the illness suffered by my loved ones unquote, she told
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: the media. And she also addressed reporters in a doorstep
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: interview at the Lean Gotha home after police described her
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: as a suspect, saying, quote unquote, I didn't do anything,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: she said, I loved them, and health authorities moved quickly.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: Over the course of a couple days, a City of
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: nash public health officer named Troy Shanconnect hit every Asian
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: and Indian grocery store he could find in Oakley and
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: Clayton and Mount Waverley, and not one sold anything matching
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: her description. And she had no name for the shop
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: and no address and no way to send investigators anywhere
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: near it, so it looked like the shop didn't really exist.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: And then the footage surfaced and CCTV showed Aaron pulling
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: into the Koonwara Transfer Station on August tecond four days
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: after the lunch so her guests were fighting for their
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: lives in intensive care units across Melbourne, and she was
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: at the local tip carrying a Sunbeam food dehydrator into
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: the electronics waste shed and police would recover it from
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: the dump two days later, and her fingerprints were on
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: the device and forensic testing found traces of death cap
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: mushroom inside, and her first response to the detectives was
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: flat denial. She said she didn't own a food dehydrator,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: never had, but her own friend had already given police
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: screenshots from a Facebook group conversation, and the photos showed
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: bushrooms arranged across the trays of a dehydrator. Maybe if
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: you're doing something bad, don't post it on Facebook, or
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: do you know it's good that it's good that she did?
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: That's crazy, And she would eventually have to admit the truth, saying, quote,
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: I knew that there were photos in there of mushrooms
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: and the dehydrator, and I just panicked unquote. The detectives
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: identified two phones in Patterson's possession. The first was the
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: device she'd been carrying in the weeks leading up to
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: the lunch, and the last time it appeared on any
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: footage was a hospital security camera on July thirty first,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: and by the time investigators got inside the Gibson Street
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: house on August fifth, the simcard had already been pulled
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: from that phone and dropped into a no Kia, and
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: the movement log put the swap at one forty five pm,
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: which was while detectives were still working their way through
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: the rooms, and the physical phone was never actually found,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: and the phone she did hand over had been factory
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: reset four separate times during twenty twenty three, a little
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: bit suspicious, I'd say, sorry, that's I'm old. That's the
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: last time I'm gonna do it, I swear, And once
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: on August second, the same day she drove to the
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: tip with the dehydrator, and once again August fifth, while
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: police were conducting the search, and then once more after
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: investigators already had it in their possession, someone triggered a
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: remote wipe while it was sitting in an evidence room.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: The detectives also seized her desktop computer. A forensic officer
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: ran keyword searches including death cap, death cap, mushroom, and poison,
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: and the cash data turned up eye Naturalist, a citizen
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: science site and people log where they've spot a different
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: speeds of plants and fungi in the wild, including death caps.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: The trail stretched back more than a year before the lunch,
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: and someone using that machine had gone looking for death
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: cap mushroom sightings around Morabin back in twenty twenty two,
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: and when confronted, Patterson said she couldn't recall visiting the
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: site and then added, quote, well somebody did, and that
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: somebody could have been me unquote why why even saying
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: just say you did it? What do you put the kicking?
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: Her phone records pointed in that same direction and cell
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: tower data placed her device near the town of Outrim
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: on May twenty second, twenty twenty three, and the day before,
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: a mushroom specialist had flagged a death cap sighting on
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: Nielsen Street through eye Naturalist. The puzzle pieces are puzzling together,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: and her phone also connected to towers near the town
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: of Locke. On April twenty eighth, around the same time
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: she purchased the dehydrator, and photographs were pulled from her
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: tablet with photos of death caps sitting right there on
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: her kitchen scale and it was photographed like someone was
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: measuring out portions and as a cherry on top or
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: should I say mushroom, The cancer she disclosed to her
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: guests that Saturday afternoon was also fabricated. Doctors went through
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: her medical records and an intensive care specialist couldn't find
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: a single thing pointing to cancer, no diagnosis, nothing, Aaron's
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: name was absent from the Victorian Cancer Registry, a database
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: that captures every cancer diagnosis in the state. And the
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: lump on her elbow, the very serious life threatening condition,
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: the request for her family's guidance, the prayer they had
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: said over her, all of it built on a story
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: that had zero foundation. So the lunch itself began to
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: look pretty different too, and Simon told investigators that Aaron
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: almost never posted. He called guests at the Gibson Street
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: property very rare, and Heather and Ian had never set
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: foot there before that Saturday, hence why she gave them
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: a tour of the house. And if the family ever
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: got together, it was at somebody else's place. So the
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: effort she had poured into the meal, a week of preparation,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: beef eye filet individual Wellington's now stood out against the
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: backdrop of someone who never had people over, and Ian's
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: account of that house tour came back to Heather had
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: been particularly eager to see the pantry, and she had
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: a pantry project of her own at home and wanted
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: to see Aaron's layout, But according to Ian, Aarin had
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: been very reluctant about the visit to the pantry. And
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: then there was the plating. Heather and Gail had both
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: volunteered to help serve, and Aaron had turned them away,
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: and she plaited every dish herself, but let them take
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: it out after she was done. And the plates became
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: evidence in their own right, because the four guests had
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: been served on large gray plates, and Erin had carried
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: her own plates separately to the table, and hers was
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: a different color. It was like an orange tan color,
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: and Heather actually made note of it in the car
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: on the way to the hospital that that was kind
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: of odd. So as the investigation widened, the woman behind
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: those clues began to come into focus, and almost nothing
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: about her matched what the Patterson family had thought they knew.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: Investigators recovered private Facebook messages she'd sent to a circle
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: of online friends, and the childhood she had presented as
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: quietly middle class. She had described very differently in those messages, saying, quote,
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: Mum was essentially a cold robot unquote, she had written
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: and quote it was like being brought up in a
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: Russian orphanage where they don't touch babies unquote. And she
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: described her father as a man who quote wanted to
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: be warm and loving to us, but Mum wouldn't let
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: him because it would spoil us. So he did as
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: he was told, and she would shout at him if
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: he did the wrong thing. So he became very meek
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: and compliant. And my sister and I would hide in
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: our room most of the time so we couldn't do
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: anything wrong unquote. And a neighbor who had known Heather
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: Scudder for years described her differently, saying, quote a lovely woman,
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: as was her husband unquote. So there's those two portraits,
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: the public one and the private one. They didn't match,
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: and old details took on a new way because remember
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: Aaron's parents hadn't attended her wedding to Simon in two
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: thousand and seven, and when asked at the time, she
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: had said they were on a train in Russia, and
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: there was no other explanation other than that. So we
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: could safely assume she was not remotely close with her parents.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: And then there was also a documented history of deception
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: that almost no one close to her had heard about,
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: because in two thousand and two, during her brief career
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: as an air traffic controller at Air Services Australia, management
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: had grown suspicious of her hours and they had reviewed
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: security cameras in the employee car park and she had
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: actually been clocking full shifts on paper while routinely walking
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: out early, which is horrifying to think about because she's
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: an air traffic controller in charge of hundreds of lives,
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: and when confronted she just flat out denied it, and
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: then management ran her through the timestamps from the footage
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: one by one and she couldn't really say anything otherwise,
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: and by November two thousand and two she no longer
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: worked there, and in two thousand and four she had
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: been convicted of property damage and multiple traffic offenses, using
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: an unregistered vehicle on a highway, failing to stop after
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: an accident and driving thirty five kilometers per hour over
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: the speed limit, and her former coworkers from the air
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: Traffic Control tower, who had been guarded in their earlier
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: statements began to speak more openly. Now the woman they
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: described was far sharper edge than the earlier impressions had
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: let on, and one former colleague called her a ritual,
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: habitual and pathological liar who would just say anything just
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: to get away with anything, and others were less measured,
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: saying quote a bit strange or a loner, someone who
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: didn't engage with anyone, very secretive about her family, and
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: multiple men in the tower had once been smitten with her,
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: and she managed to get guys wrapped around her little finger,
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: as one of them would put it. And during her
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: time at Air Services Australia, she had earned a nickname
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: among staff which was quote unquote Scutter the Nutter after
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: her maiden name, and the manager who once called her smart,
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: very smart, as we talked about before, had added something
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: to his fuller statement, almost too smart. And then there
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: was the bookshop, because for a stretch in twenty eleven.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: In twenty twelve, Aaron had run a secondhand bookshop in Pemperton,
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: a tiny timber milling town in western Australia, and the
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: shop had fed a long running personal fascination of hers
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: true crime, and she had been deeply interested in the
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: genre for years, reading widely immersing herself in cases long
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: before she ever found herself at the center of one.
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: And finally there was a relationship she had told everyone
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: was loving and warm, and investigators recovered another cluster of
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: Facebook messages, and these ones were about Dawn and Gale.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: And in late twenty twenty two, a dispute over child
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: support had cracked the surface of the family, and Simon's
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: tax return had listed him as separated, something he blamed
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: on a mistake from his accountant, and Aaron quote unquote
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: took great exception and the change triggered a formal process
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: that upended the formal arrangements they had kept for years
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: around school fees and family expenses. So the numbers made
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: the sting feel worse, and Simon's child support was assessed
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: at thirty eight dollars a month. And meanwhile, the change
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: in status cost Aarin her eligibility for government family tax
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: benefit payments roughly fifteen thousand dollars a year, because her
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: inheritance put her above the threshold. Once the formal process
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: kicked in, and even Simon recognized the gap, and he
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: acknowledged though the low assessment was likely why Aaron had
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: become so upset. And there had also been the matter
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: of Gail's seventieth birthday lunch at the Top Pub in Corumburgh,
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: and Aaron said the invitations she received had felt like
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: it came as an afterthought. So Don had picked up
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: the phone afterward and called her to talk it over,
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: and he called it in oversight and said he genuinely
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: wanted her at the table. And when the school fees
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: fight intensified, Aaron had gone over Simon's head and she
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: had actually taken it directly to Don and Gail, asking
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: them to help the two of them talk it out. Quote.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: I thought that if Simon knew that Don and Gil
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: knew how he was behaving, he might change his behavior unquote.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: And Don had suggested she pray with Simon and withdraw
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: the child support claim. And Aaron's reaction, as she told
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: her Facebook friends, quote, my head nearly exploded and I
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: was like what. And Don and Gale had eventually told
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: her they quote and didn't want to get involved in
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: financial mattersquote. And by December twenty twenty two, the friction
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: had escalated to what Simon called an extremely aggressive exchange
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: and to the point that he considered bringing in a mediator,
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: and in private messages to friends on Facebook, her frustration
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: was unfiltered, saying, quote this family, I swear to think God.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: I thought his parents would want him to do the
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: right thing, but it seems their concern about not wanting
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: to feel uncomfortable and not wanting to get involved in
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: their son's personal matters are overriding that. So from unquote,
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: and she would later insist the messages were nothing more
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: than venting quote I had a good relationship with Don
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: and Gale unquote. And Simon's brother Matthew, had also noticed something,
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: and Aaron had stopped coming to some family events entirely,
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: and at others she would barely stay. And the warm
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: Mother's Day text from May twenty twenty three, sent three
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: months before that devastation lunch, had been delivered against a
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: backdrop the Pattersons never knew existed. She was starting to
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: try to build up that relationship again to make them
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: want to come to a lunch that she was eventually
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: going to host. So it was just a long game
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: for Aaron. So on the morning of November two, twenty
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: twenty three, police arrived at Aaron's door with technology detecture
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: dogs trained to locate hidden electronics like us BE drives.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: I didn't know these existed. That's awesome, and Aaron was
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: placed under arrest and Homicide Squad Detective Inspector Dean Thomas
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: acknowledged the case had been subjected to incredibly intense levels
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: of public scrutiny, and she was charged with three counts
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: of murder for the deaths of Don Patterson, Gail Patterson,
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: and Heather Wilkinson, and five counts of attempted murder were
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: filed alongside them. Two related to that July lunch, one
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: for Ian Wilkinson, who had survived, and one for Simon,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: who had been invited but stayed home and now he
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: realized why he stayed home because they were not getting
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: along at all, and the other three alleged she had
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: attempted to murder Simon on separate occasions across twenty twenty
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: one and twenty twenty two. Let's take a hook pause
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: to talk about something that nobody really talks about, scammers
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: and protecting yourself from said scammers. Now, I travel a lot,
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: and I will not touch hotel or airport Wi Fi
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: without surf Shark turned on. One time, I logged into
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: my bank account in a coffee shop without it and
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: panics the entire afternoon because somebody can get access to
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: that if you're using public Wi Fi. But never again,
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: because now surf Shark is the first app I open.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: And here's why I love it, because one subscription covers
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: unlimited devices, so my laptop, my phone, my husband's phone,
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: all of it. It runs on basically everything PC, Macios, Android,
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: smart TV's, even Xbox, and the email scam checker has
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: flagged sketchy phishing attempts in my inbox more than once,
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: and they're strict no law bugs policy means none of
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: your data is stored ever, which is incredibly important. Serf
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: Shark is also the only VPN with coverage in one
• 48:08
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• 48:11
  Speaker 1: you want to reap all the rewards of having surf Shark,
• 48:14
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• 48:17
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• 48:20
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• 48:23
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• 48:26
  Speaker 1: four extra months of surf Shark VPN. Thank you so
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: much to serf Shark for protecting me on the internet
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: and for sponsoring the video and supporting the channel. And
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: let's get back to it. So the trial opened on
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: April twenty ninth, twenty twenty five, inside the Supreme Court
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: of Victoria, sitting at the Latrobe Valley Courts in Morwell,
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: and the courtroom sat in a small town. The home
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: where the lunch had taken place was less than an
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: hour's drive away, and Justice Christopher Biale presided, And before
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: the first witness was called, the charges had already shifted
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: and prosecutors dropped every count connected to Simon Patterson, and
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: the three attempted murder charges alleging she had poisoned him
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: on separate occasions in twenty twenty one and twenty twenty
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: two were now gone, and so was the charge that
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: she had tried to kill him at the July lunch.
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: But what remained was the three counts of murder for
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: Don Patterson, Gail Patterson, and Heather Wilkinson, and one count
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: of attempted murder for Ian Wilkinson. And Aaron pleaded not
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: guilty to all charges. Because she's an evil piece of shit,
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: as we now know. And the evidence phase alone consumed
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: seven weeks, followed by six days of closing arguments and
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: six and a half days behind the jury room door,
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: and over those weeks, the courtroom heard two entirely different
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: versions of the same woman. And prosecutor Nnette Rogers s C.
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: Built her case around what she called four calculated deceptions. First,
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: a fabricated cancer diagnosis invented to lure the victims to
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: a table. Second, death cap mushrooms placed into the beef
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: Wellington's in quantities meant to kill, and Rogers pointed to
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: the photographs recovered from Patterson's tablet, which were death caps
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: on a set of kitchen scales. Doesn't get much more guilty.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: Net and fungi specialist Tom May had examined them and
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: identified the mushrooms as Amanita falloids quote unquote with a
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: high level of confidence, and Rogers argued Patterson had weighed
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: the mushrooms to calculate the weight required for the administration
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: of fatal dose for one person and the weight required
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: for five fatal doses for five people unquote. And the third,
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: a staged hospital visit meant to mimic poisoning symptoms she
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: never had, and fourth weeks of deliberate evidence destruction designed
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: to keep anyone from finding out what she had done,
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: the definition of premeditation and post tampering. And then Aaron
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: took the stand and she testified for eight days. She
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: gave ground where she had to death cap mushrooms must
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: have been in the meal because she had foraged for
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: wild mushrooms since twenty nineteen, and she had bought the
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: dehydrator then dumped it while her guests fought for their lives,
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: and the cancer announcement was a fabrication, and she had
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: factory reset her phone to hide photos of mushrooms and
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: the dehydrator, and the hostile Facebook messages about Don and
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: Gale were hers, though she dismissed them as simply venting,
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: But on everything else she held firm. She had never
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: deliberately sought out death cat mushrooms, and she had never
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: traveled to Locke to collect them, and she had never
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: used eye naturalists to track where they grew, and she
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: never weighed them to calculate a fatal dose. And on
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: the cancer claim, she offered an alternative. She had led
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: the group to believe she might be needing some treatment,
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: she said, but to the real issue had been an
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: embarrassment over a gastric bypass consultation. And Prosecutor Rogers pressed her,
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: and she suggested Aaron had never planned to account for
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: the cancer story because she had never expected to need
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: to quote, because you thought that the lunch guests would
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: die quote and quote unquote, that's not true, Aaron would answer,
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: but it is. Yeah. I mean you felt like you
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: didn't have to account for any of this because you
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: thought all of your victims would die. But luckily one
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: did not, and thank goodness he didn't. And the prosecution
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: also called Simon Patterson to the stand, and he walked
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: the jury through the crumbling marriage, the private hostility, and
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: the night he had turned down the lunch invitation. And
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: then Ian Wilkinson testified as well, the only person who
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: had eaten the mushrooms at that table and survived, and
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: he recounted the gray plates, the odd colored plate Aaron
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: had carried to her own seat, and the offer to
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: help serve that she had turned away, and you described
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: Erin as someone who quote just seemed like a normal
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: person unquote, and the relationship had been quote unquote friendly
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: and amicable, but without quote much depth, more like acquaintances.
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: And he told the court what he had told the police.
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: He had been happy about the lunch invitation, hopeful it
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: might improve the relationship with Erin the defense counsel Colin
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: Mandy sc offered a simpler story. What happened was a tragedy,
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: a terrible accident. Aaron's lies, he argued, had been born
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: from shock, not planning. She panicked because she was overwhelmed
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: by the fact that these four people had become so
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: ill because of the food that she'd served them, not
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: buying it but keep going. And on motive, he pointed
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: to its absence. She had no money issues, lived in
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: a big house, and had almost full time custody of
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: her two young children. But in the closing Rogers, the
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: prosecutor told the jury they did not need to know why.
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: Quote You do not have to be satisfied what the
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: motive was, or even that there was one unquote. The
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: why was unnecessary to vict because guilty beyond a reasonable
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: doubt doesn't necessarily mean that they have to have a motive,
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: if they just needs to be evidence as to if
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: they did it right. Motive helps, but it is not necessary.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: So on July seventh, twenty twenty five, the jury came
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: back and all twelve members were in agreement, guilty on
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: every count. Just a round of applause for that jury,
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: three murders, one attempted murder, and media crews flooded the
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: courthouse within minutes, and by then the trial had become
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: an international story. And sentencing came on September eighth, and
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: Justice bial handed down three concurrent life sentences for murder
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: and twenty five years for attempted murder, and the non
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: parole period was thirty three years. And Aaron at this
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: point was fifty years old and she won't be eligible
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: for parole until twenty fifty six, when she'll be in
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: her eighties. And Biale called her crimes quote an enormous
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: betrayal of trust. I have no hesitation in finding that
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: your offending falls into the worst category. And he identified
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: five aggravating factors, substantial premeditation, an elaborate cover up, a
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: lack of pity, and the suffering of her victims, and
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: the betrayal of trust. And she had said nothing to
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: the doctors of fighting to save her guests, and never
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: once she revealed what she had put in their food.
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: Quote not only did you cut short three lives, Beale
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: would say you inflicted untold suffering on your own children,
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: whom you robbed of their beloved grandparents unquote. And her
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: complete absence of remorse. He added, quote, pour salt into
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: all the victim's wounds unquote. And the hearing ran almost
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: fifty minutes and was broadcast live, and the court received
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: twenty eight victim impact statements. Seven were read aloud, and
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: Simon was absent from the hearing, and a relative read
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: his words to the court quote, his children have been
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: robbed of hope for the kind of relationship with their
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: mother that every child naturally yearns for unquote. And Ruth
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: du Boy, one of the Wilkinson's daughters, named the broader victims,
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: medical staff, investigators, shop owners, mushroom growers, the health department,
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: and taxpayers all pulled into the aftermath. Quote, I am
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: horrified that our family is even associated, through no choice
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: of our own, with such destructive behavior towards the community unquote.
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: And Aaron gave almost nothing away, and for most of
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: the hearing her eyes were closed, and when they were open,
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: she looked at nothing, because she is nothing. She's just
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: an evil shit stain in this world who I hope
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: is having a terrible time rotting at jail. And Ian
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: Wilkinson may have survived the lunch, but his body never
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: came back to the way it had been before, and
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: his liver function remains diminished, and respiratory problems followed him
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: out of the hospital and never left. And he lives
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: in Victoria, supported by the same church community that had
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: held him up for decades. And he lost his wife
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: of forty four years, and he lost the couple he
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: had described as the closest people to him after his
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: wife and family, and quote, my life is greatly impoverished
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: without them, And he told the court quote it's a
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: truly horrible thought to live with that somebody could decide
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: to take her life. I only feel half alive without her. Unquote.
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: Oh yes, Oh my god, this is just so heartbreaking.
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: I just I don't understand how someone could take somebody
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: away like that. It's just it's so devastating. And when
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: given the chance to speak about the woman who poisoned him,
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: he chose an unexpected path, and that path was forgiveness,
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: and he offered it publicly and carefully, but only what
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: was his to give. Because he could forgive the harm
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: that was done to him, what had been done to
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: the others, he said, was beyond his power to absolve.
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: And he had one prayer for Erin, and that was quote,
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: that she will use her time in jail wisely to
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: become a better person unquote. And outside the courthouse after
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: it was done, he spoke to the press, and he
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: thanked the police and the hospital workers for their efforts,
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: and then he said what mattered to him most quote,
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: I'd like to encourage all those involved to keep turning
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: up and serving others. Our lives and the life of
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: our community depends on the kindness of others unquote. And
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: Aaron and Simon's two children live under a legal suppression
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: order and their identities are sealed from public view, but
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: they're believed to be in their father's care, and court
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: records noted they had quote settled into a new school
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: better than expected unquote, And Simon's victim impact statement noted
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: that his children live in an irreparably broken home with
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: only a solo parent, when almost everyone else knows their
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: mother murdered their grandparents, and the media hasn't let them breathe,
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: and the Patterson and Wilkinson family still carry the lasting
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: damage of what happened in One of the victims impact
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: statements came from Don Patterson's mother. She was one hundred
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: years old. She outlived her own son. So Aaron is
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: serving her sentence at the Dame Phyllis Frost Center, a
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: maximum security women's prison in Melbourne, and she spends at
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: least twenty two hours of every day inside her cell.
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: But the case isn't over and two appeals sit before
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: the Victorian Court of Appeal and Aaron filed them on
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: November third, twenty twenty five, seeking to have the guilty
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: verdicts quashed and a retrial ordered. The point at the
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: center of her case is during deliberations, the jury panel
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: was booked into the same accommodation where police and members
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: of the prosecution team were also staying, and she argues
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: that arrangement alone constituted a fundamental irregularity that fatally undermined
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: the integrity of the verdicts. And she raised multiple grounds
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: challenges to the phone tower evidence and i naturalist data
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: linking her to death cap mushroom locations, claim that Facebook
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: messages from her private group should have been excluded from
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: the trial, and an argument Justice Piel aired by refusing
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: to admit images and videos from an SD card found
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: at her home, and an allegation of unfair and oppressive
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: cross examination by the prosecutor, and a charge that the
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: prosecution shifted its position on motive between its opening and
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: closing addresses, having opened with no motive and then implied one.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: The prosecution filed its own appeal earlier on October six,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, arguing the sentence was manifestly inadequate and
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: prosecutors can tend. Justice Spiel aired in finding a substantial
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: chance Erin would remain in solitary confinement for years, and
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: that this finding infected his assessment of the non parole period.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: Both sides must first seek leave to appeal. Three Court
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: of Appeal judges will hear both. If leave is granted,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: and if Aarin's appeal succeeds, the court may acquit her
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: or send the case for a retrial, which is insane
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: to think, And if the prosecution's appeal succeeds, the court
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: can impose a longer non parole period or order a
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: re sentencing which would probably be good because I feel
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: like her sentencing was inadequate enough. But as of early
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty six, no date has been set, and after
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: the verdict, a gag order was lifted. In testimony Simon
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: had given at pretrial hearing became public, and he said
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: he had turned down the lunch invitation because he believed
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: she would poison him, and described falling severely ill after
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: eating food she had prepared on prior occasions, a penne
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: bolonaise pasta, a chicken corma curry, and a vegetable curry wrap.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: But the jury never heard any of it. And then
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: there's the question that sits at the center of everything
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: and has no answer, which is why prosecutors never offered
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: a motive, and they told the jury they didn't need one,
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: which they don't, and Justice Biel wouldn't speculate. But there
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: were frustrations, there were financial disputes, the slow erosion of
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: a marriage, and the sharper edges that followed, but none
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: of it explains the leap from resentment to poisoning an
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: entire family. But she planned for months, as we saw
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: tracked where death caps grew online, drove to the locations,
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: bought a dehydrator, weighed the mushrooms on a kitchen scale,
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: and folded them into a meal for people who loved her.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: Justice Biale found she intended to kill Simon two had
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: he shown up five intended victims, and when they started dying,
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: she said nothing. She has never explained it, and she
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: may never explain it. But Ian Wilkinson asked the only
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: question worth asking, which was quote, foolishness possesses a person
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: to think that murder could be the solution to their problems,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: especially the murder of people who have only good intentions
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: towards her, A question no one can answer. And with
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: that that is the end of the mushroom murder case.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: As always, my heart goes out to the family and
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: I hope true justice is served and the prosecution's appeal
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: goes forward. But let me know what other cases you
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: would like me to dive into. I always read the comments,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: and until next time, please stay safe out there and
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: I will see your beautiful face in the next one. Okay. Bye,