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Guilty: Why the jury convicted mushroom cook Erin Patterson · The Front

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: From the Australian. This is the Front. I'm Claire Harvey with.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: A special episode on the verdict in the mushroom trial.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Aaron Patterson has been convicted. After more than two months,
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: the blockbuster Mushroom trial has finally come to an end.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: It was a.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Dramatic moment in the Victorian Supreme Court and I'm joined
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: by our Legal affairs correspondent Ellie Dudley to break it
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: all down.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Ellie, are you surprised? Frankly, no, I'm not. From the
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: get go.
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: I feel like if you spoke to anyone about this,
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: you know, And of course when you're spending two months
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: in a court in Victoria and a lot of people
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: asking me what I thought, and sort of all throughout
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: the evidence just was stacked against her, the lies that
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: she told, the disposing of the d hydrader, all of the.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Issues with her case.
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: I think from the get go it was obvious that
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: she was going to have to mount a pretty stunning
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: defense if she was going to get away with this.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: She had a very talented lawyer in Colin Mandy s,
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: didn't she. He really gave it his best shot.
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: Oh, he really did. And there were times where I
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: went the other way, and I thought, Oh, she's going
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: to get off.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: He raised all kinds of doubt around did she accidentally
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: just pick the wrong mushrooms things like that. So she
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: really did have a fantastic defense team. And there were
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: also times where I thought the prosecution weren't getting at
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: what they needed to get at. And it wasn't really
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: until the closing arguments that Crown Prosecutor Nnette Rodgers, I thought,
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: really drew together the case and showed that the evidence
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: was just too much.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: To let Aaron Patterson go. Ellie.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: One of my favorite things about big trials is what
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: the jury didn't know, and what the jury didn't know
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: in this matter is that Aaron Patterson has been in
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: jail for two years and was in custody throughout this trial.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Where was she sleeping and how did they keep that
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: a secret from the jury.
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: So she was staying in the cells beneath the courthouse
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: during the week and then she'd be taken back to
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: prison for the weekend. So every day she came in
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: she was dressed in a sort of a rotation of
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: different blouses. She had a spotty blouse, a Paisley Boughs
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: she had a black, gray colored one a pink striped one,
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: and so she'd get changed into that and would sit
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: up the back of the courtroom unless, of course, she
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: was giving evidence and she was in the witness box,
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: and then she would be transported back down to the
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: cells if she needs to be back down there, or
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: on the weekend she'd go back to prison. There was
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: a mad dash every Monday and Friday of photographers because
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: of course we wanted photos of Aaron Patterson during that period,
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: and that was the only time that you could really
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: get her was when she was being transported from the
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: cells in the courthouse to the prison that she was
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: staying in and had been staying in for two years, so.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's where she was.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Of course, those photographs couldn't be published, and it was
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: part of the campaign that the judge was waging, as
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: judges always do, to make sure that Aaron Patterson got
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: a fair trial. The jury wasn't allowed to know that
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: she was in prison, and that meant we weren't allowed
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: to publish any of those photographs.
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, And a couple of media outlets got in
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: trouble on day one of the trial for publishing photos
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: of Aaron Patterson shown in handcuffs in prison greens and
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: being transported out of a prison van into the court.
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: So that was something that the judge was not happy about.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: And then from then on you might have noticed on
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: our website we had very tight crops around Aaron Patterson's face.
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: That's because we couldn't show that she was in handcuffs
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: or that she was being handled by prison officers.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: And of course the reason for that is that the
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: jury might think that she was regarded as dangerous or
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: that the system had already found her guilty, right.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, of course.
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: And I think that's something that stands out whenever you
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: cover a criminal trial is it's innocent until proven guilty.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: You don't want a jury.
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: Sitting there thinking that this woman has done anything wrong
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: because at this stage we couldn't definitively say that she
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: had done anything wrong, and so the judge was very,
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: very sensitive to that.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Let's get into the facts of this case.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: Simon Patterson Erin Patterson's husband they are still married, but
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: he gave evidence against her, and there was a really
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: amazing moment early in his testimony where the judge said
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: to him, mister Patterson, are you aware that you don't
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: have to give evidence against your wife. You could feel
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: the oxygen gets sucked out of the courtroom when that happened,
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: couldn't you.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you could.
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: It's sort of the untold moment of when the trial
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: almost tanked. We almost needed to start all over again.
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: Because if you're the spouse of an accused person, you
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: don't have to give evidence against them.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: You have a right to say no.
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: And he clearly didn't know that, and so when the
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: judge said to him, Hey, Simon.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: Do you know that you don't need to give evidence?
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: He said no.
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: Everyone in the media overflow room, which is where I
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: was at the time, gasped, sort of grabbed each other
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: and went like, is this hit or we're gonna have
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: to start again. We're already, you know, a week or
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: so into it. And then the judge said, well, do
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: you want to continue? And he said yes, I'm happy
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: to continue, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief and
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: we continued on with the trial.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: That was the sense from him that he was ready
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: to have his say, although he managed not to seem
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: in any way vitriolic or nasty about Aaron Patterson.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Did he no, He seemed lovely. He seemed really lovely,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: which I think is it's so.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: Challenging, right, You can't even imagine the sort of situation
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: this man finds himself in. He's still got two kids
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: with this woman. She's in prison for allegedly murdering his parents,
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: his aunt, and attempting to murder his uncle, and yet
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: he seemed quite joyful. He spoke quite positively about Aaron
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: ninety nine.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Percent of the time.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: He spoke about how she was witty and funny and
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: the things that initially attracted him to her when they
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: were working in the Monach City Council together.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: He was quite likable.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: He also painted a picture of someone who was not
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: very ill after this mushroom lunch, did he That was
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: the real import of his evidence that on the day
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: after the lunch, when he was rushing his parents and
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: his aunt and uncle to hospital and being by their
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: bedsides while they really fought for their lives, she wasn't
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: that sick.
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And he didn't give any evidence about her being
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: particularly unwell. He spoke about times when she said to him, oh, yeah,
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: I've been experiencing diarrhea since the afternoon of the lunch.
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: But he more strikingly, I guess, spoke about how she
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: didn't appear to inquire after his parents or his aunt
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: and uncle upon learning that they were seriously unwell, And
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: that was something that I think he said was quite
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: interesting about his conversations with Erin after the lunch.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: He also painted a picture of a very sad marriage
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: really they had after this initial period of romance and
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: love and big drives around Australia together, it had all
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: come to a crashing halt when they were in Townsville
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: and one of their big drives, and she decided to
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: fly back to Perth alone, leaving him to drive back
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: to Perth with their three month old son.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: It was sad, wasn't it.
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: It was sad, and it was a marriage that was
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: by brief periods of separation until they separated for good
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: in twenty fifteen. The court heard about that time when
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: she flew back from Townsville to Perth to be by herself.
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: She ended up renting a cottage that she lived in
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: with their young son, while Simon Patterson lived in a
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: sort of permanent home in a caravan park. They eventually
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: moved back to Victoria together, but again brief periods of
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: separation until they split in twenty fifteen. But at that point,
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: he said they split amicably. They quite still enjoyed each
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: other's company. They would engage in banter over text. They'd
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: talk about politics, current affairs, that sort of stuff until
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: the end of twenty twenty two, in December, when he
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: spoke about attention that formed in their relationship in regards
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: to child support after he listed himself as separated for
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: the first time on his tax return.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he described her being very upset about that, and
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: then her trying to draw his parents into the negotiations
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: about money, trying to get them to help her have
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: simon see reason from her point of view. And that's
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: kind of as close as the crown got to coming
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: up with a motive.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Isn't it. Yeah, exactly.
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: And that was the big question that anybody was asking
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: around this time when the trial was happening, was well,
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: if she did it, then why did she do it?
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: What motive did she have to kill the relatives of
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: her estranged husband. And you're right, Claire, that's the only
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: thing really that the crown pointed to that could be
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: a motive was in December twenty twenty two, Don and
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: Gail Patterson became involved in the marriage of Simon Patterson
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: and Aaron Patterson. Aaron was frustrated with them that they
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: weren't getting their son to see reason and see her
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: side of the story, and she vented about that to
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: her online friends, her friends that she made through true
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: crime Facebook groups, so she never met in person and
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: was only friends with online. She vented to them her
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: frustrations about the fact that Don and Gail Patterson suggested
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: her and Simon gather together and pray when they were
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: having issues about you know, child support and finances and
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: you know, sent emojis which the crowd said were I
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: rolling emojis.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: She referred to Simon.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: Patterson as a deadbeat, referred to Donn and Gale as
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: a lost cause. So that tension in December twenty twenty
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: two was the only tension really that the Crown came
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: up with between Aaron and the Pattersons.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: The next really bombshell witness was the man who lived,
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: Ian Wilkinson, the only survivor of the Mushroom Lunch. On paper,
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: he is the perfect witness for the Crown.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: He was a minister of the church, a man of
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: God seemed like a lovely older man that should have
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: been a game changer for the Crown, shouldn't it. Did
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: he live up do you think to their expectations of
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: what he would say?
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: He was so joyful, and I think that the jury
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: would have loved him, They really would have. He came in,
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: he didn't seem bitter, he didn't seem upset. There were
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: times where he was sitting in his chair, in his
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: chair kept sinking down in the witness box and it
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: was kind of humorous, and you know, he said something like, oh,
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: I thought you were.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Sending me down to the dungeon.
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: And Hiss's chair was slowly sinking down in the witness box.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: And he gave quite clear evidence. He wasn't a bombshell witness.
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: I don't think in the way that the Crown would
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: have expected him to be. He did give clear evidence about,
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: for example, how he believed that the lunch guests ate
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: off of large gray plates while Aaron Patterson ate off
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: a small tan colored plate. He gave an account of
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: Aaron Patterson being reluctant to allow the women who were
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: present at the lunch to tour her pantry.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: He spoke about how she.
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: Rejected help from the women when they offered to help
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: plate up the meal.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: But it wasn't a clincher.
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: It wasn't a oh, therefore she must have done it moment,
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: But it did give us a really clear picture of
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: what happened at the lunch and the first account that
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: we've really heard from Ane Wilkinson about exactly what he
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: recalled occurring.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Elliot, it's so great.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: To see you in person, because we've been talking remotely
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: for the of months that you've been in country Victoria
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: in the cold.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: For this trial.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: You've been stepping out of court after the big moments
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: to record your initial impressions. It must have been helpful
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: to try and sort of pin onto moments that were
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: important as the trial went on.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: Oh totally.
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: And there were quite a few of those moments, Claire,
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: where things would happen and you would.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: Just go, oh, my gosh, that's a moment.
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: That's a thing our readers are going to love to
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: read about. This is this moment in this trial, whether
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: it was something that the prosecution we're clinging.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: To or something the defense were going to cling to.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Like all murder trials in the modern era, there was
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: a lot of forensic evidence in this matter, And by
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: forensics I mean digital forensics. So Aaron Patterson's devices, her computer,
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: tracking of her movements by her phone ping off various towers.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: Did that seem at points as though it might overwhelm
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: the jury with information?
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: I think it depends on which digital evidence we're talking about.
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: So things like the messages, messages that she exchanged with
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: don and Gale, or with her online friends where she
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: was complaining about Donn and Gail, or talking about these
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: financial disputes. I think that was all quite straightforward for
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: a jury. The other evidence that I think was quite
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: compelling and quite straightforward for a jury were searchers that
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: were made from Aaron Patterson's devices to the eye Naturalist
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: online nature sharing platform, where she made searches for death
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: cap mushrooms in May twenty twenty two, so a full
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: year before the lunch.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: Although she said she couldn't remember having done that.
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, she said she couldn't remember having done
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: that at all. But then her defense councils stand up
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: in their closing and they say, sort of ignored that
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: she said that.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: We accept that that was that was her.
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: But things like that I think would stand out in
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: the mind of a jury. But then when we got
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: to things like the telecommunications data evidence that was given
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: by a telecommunications expert called Matthew Sirell. He spoke about
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: how Aaron Patterson's device possibly visited areas where deathcapt mushrooms
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: had been spotted in the weeks and months before the lunch,
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: and I think that might have overwhelmed your That was
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: quite technical. The other thing that was quite technical was
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: the swapping of the phone. So even I was sitting
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: there at times being like, hold on, how many phones
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: did she have? She had there was phone A, there
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: was Phone B, and then there was a couple of
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: other phones, so at one point we had to label
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: them phone C. And then there was a fourth phone,
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: which I don't think we labeled phone D. But there
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: is a fourth phone, and that.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Drew a flow shot, but check it out. I'll take
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: a look.
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: And so that was quite I think overwhelming for the
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: jury at times, as it was for me. But I
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: think towards the end, particularly in her summing up, Jeannette
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: Rogers did a really clear job of explaining.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, so while police were searching.
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: Aaron Patterson's home, we believe as the Crown that she
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: swapped a SIM card out of this phone and into
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: this phone, and she performed factory resets, wiping the data
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: off of this phone, and she handed a dummy phone
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: to police while concealing her real phone, which we still
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: haven't recovered. So she did do a good job of
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: summing it up at the end, but there was plenty
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: of forensic digital evidence.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: Aaron Patterson didn't deny I have done any of that.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: And in fact, one thing that she tried to explain
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: to the jury in a way that I don't think
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: really landed was she was asked why she did a
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: factory reset remotely of Phone B, her secondary phone, after
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: it was in the custody of police while it was
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: sitting in the lead homicide detective's locker at one Faggy
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: police station after midnight.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: She said, well, I thought i'd.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: Just see if they would have been silly enough to
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: leave it turned on, and in fact they had.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: I wondered if that was going to.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: Impress the jury or if they would think you shouldn't
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: be trying to treat the police totally.
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: I think her tone, even the tone that you just
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: gave us then, Claire, that I wanted to see if
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: they were silly enough to not have put it in
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: aeroplane mode or whatever.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: She said.
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: I didn't think that was particularly impressive for a jury.
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: I don't think that a jury would have liked to
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: have seen her, yeah, trying to trick the police or
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: acting like she was cleverer than the police, because of
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: course she would have known to put it into airplane
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: mode if it was taken by the cops.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: So yeah, it was odd from her.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: The lead detective in the case was Stephen Eppingstall, a
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: country cop from Victoria.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: He was charming, wasn't and he charmed the jury.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he was beautiful. He stood up the entire time
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: he gave evidence. He didn't sit and one point I
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: judged the reported next to me. I was like, can
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: he sit down, the poor guy. I can't hear him properly,
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: he's too far away from the microphone. And she said, no,
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: it's a sign of respect. They do it out of respect.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: I was like, that's lovely, and I think the jury
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: would have loved that. He also kept saying sir and ma'am.
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: At one point it was either judge or Mandy pulled
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: him up and said, you don't have to say that
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: after every answer and he goes, sorry, sir.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: It was lovely. It was really lovely.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: And I think that he would have been quite convincing
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: to a jury, or quite a solid witness to a jury,
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: because he's got nothing to gain through any of this
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: other than he's done diligent detective work to try and
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: prove if a crime occurred.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: Coming up Aaron Patterson's momentous decision to step into the
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: witness box.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: That's after the break.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: Late in the trial, Aaron Patterson surprised everyone by giving evidence.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: This is something she did not have to do, and
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: it was something in discussion.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: While the jury was out.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: Throughout the trial, Colin Mandy had played very close to
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: his chest. At one point he was directly asked by
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: the judge is your client going to give evidence? And
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: he said, I don't want to answer that question, which
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: put us all.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: All on the edge of us. See did Yeah, it
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: absolutely did.
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: I said earlier that the one question I was asked
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: about the trial was well, what's the motive? The other
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: question is is Aaron Patterson going to give evidence? Because
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: you're right, she doesn't have to, and a lot of
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: people would be advised against it, right, because if you
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: are going to give evidence to give your side of
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: the story, you're open to cross examination. You know, the
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: prosecutor can come through and ask you everything you know.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: Nannette Rogers came through and asked her all about why
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: she lied about having cancer, asked her about her relationships
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: with these people, asked her about her religion, her weight, all.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: Of these things. But she did. She was called to
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: give evidence.
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: There were gasps amongst the media overflow room because I
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: don't think anybody really expected that she was going to
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: do it.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a reason why most accused don't give evidence,
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: and that's that you will be cross examined by the crown.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: So the pressure was on Nanett Rodgers to deliver a
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: good cross examination.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: In her evidence.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: Aaron Patterson came up with two new explanations that the
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: jury had not heard before.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: The first was that.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: She was suffering from bulimia and had vomited after the lunch.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: This was never quite linked directly by her, but it
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: was implied as an explanation for why she didn't suffer
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: death cat mushroom poisoning.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she never used the word bulimia, but she just
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: went so close to it. She spoke about binge eating.
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: In days in a lead up to her, we had
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: heard about her self esteem issues. We'd heard about diet
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: books she had purchased, and we're all sitting there thinking,
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: where's this going.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: Why do we need to care that this woman had
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: low self esteem?
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: And then it came that she said that she had
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: issues with binge eating. She spoke about how when she
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: was a kid, her mum weighed her, and then she
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: gave this sort of stunning account.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: Of when her lunch guests left her home.
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: She said she cleaned up for a bit, and then
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: she had one piece of cake, and then she had
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: another piece of cake, and then she had another piece
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: of cake. And as she was saying it, you were going, oh,
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: my gosh, she threw up the meal, because before this
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: we had no other proper explanation for why she didn't
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: fall as sick as the rest of the other lunch
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: guests did. But all of a sudden there was this
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: moment of clarity of oh, she threw up the meal.
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: But even that was the undercross examination, doctor Rogers said
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: to her, is it your case that you threw up
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: the beef? Wellington that you know, she spoke about eating
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: all the cake and then making yourself vomit, and she said,
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: I don't know it was vomit. How could I know
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: what was in there unless you can see a bean
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: or a piece of potato. How do you know what
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: you actually vomited up.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: I thought that was a missed opportunity by Nanette Rogers
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: to really grill her on why she hadn't said to
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: anyone at the hospital, her children, her.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Husband that she had thrown up after this lunch.
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: Oh you'd think so, right, And there was the defense
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: put forward this sort of idea that she was very
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: ashamed of her weight, that she was sort of this sad, overweight.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: Middle aged woman.
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: And so I guess the explanation would be, oh, well,
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: I was ashamed and you know, binge eating and eating
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: disorders as such humiliating things that I didn't want to
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: tell anybody about it. But when four of your lunch
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: guests are dying, surely at that stage you say, oh yeah,
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: I may mess off from it.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: Even if you say I vomited. It's really bizarre.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: Shame was central to the other part of her explanation,
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: and this is her explanation for why don and Gel
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: Patterson thought that she had cancer. In text messages tended
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: to the jury, she had hinted to Gail Patterson that
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: she had a very serious medical issue, that she needed
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: them to come over to the house and discuss so
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: that the children wouldn't be there, that she wanted to
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: have an adults conversation about it. I Wilkinson said that
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: at the lunch she told them she had ovarian cancer.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: She denied that she ever said specifically that she had cancer,
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: but her story was that she did have surgery coming up.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: She was going to need help looking after the children.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: But it wasn't cancer surgery. It was a gastric band.
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: She was sort of fumbly on the detail. She's like, oh,
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: I think it's called a gastric bypass. She said that
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: she had booked in a pre assessment consultation with a
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: clinic called the Enriched.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Clinic in Melbourne, which turned out to be a dermatologist.
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she had a dermatologist and you know, perhaps maybe
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: offered life posuction but doesn't offer life perstruction anymore, but
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: did at the time that she booked her appointment. So
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: it was all kind of confusing evidence there. But that
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: was another shock, right. It was the explanation that she
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: put up for why she loved died about needing treatment
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: for ovarian cancer. And the other part of that was
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: her explanation that she just really appreciated the love that
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: she had received from Don Gale when she had told
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: them that she was getting these medical tests. She said
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: that she appreciated the attention that she got from them
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: and she wanted to get more of that from them.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: So a couple of interesting explanations from Erin. Well.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: The trial's over, Ellie, and next will be sentencing. Aaron
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: Patterson's being convicted. These are serious offenses. She will face
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: a long custodial sentence. She'll perhaps never see daylight again.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: And the sentencing hearing itself will be fascinating, won't it.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: Will We'll be getting witness impact statements from all of
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: the people who have been impacted by Aaron Patterson's crimes.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: It'll be terribly sad, I'm sure, but yeah, she's going
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: away for a long time.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: The Australians, John Ferguson broke the story of the Mushroom debts,
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: and we've led this story at every twist and turn.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: You can read John's eye popping inside story, Ellie's reporting
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: and analysis, Plus see graphics, photos, videos and more at
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: the Australian dot com dot au right now