August 31, 2025 • 37 mins
In this gripping episode of Real Crime with Adam Shand, award-winning journalist John Ferguson of The Australian takes us inside one of the most shocking murder cases in recent Australian history — the Erin Patterson “mushroom lunch” killings. From the first police raid to the courtroom revelations, Ferguson shares how he broke the story that went global, what the jury didn’t hear and the chilling details of Patterson’s lies, motives and downfall.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Appoche Production. Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shanned. I'm
your host, Adam Shan. Thanks for joining me today. I
feel like our content. Please hit the like and subscribe
buttons and share the show with your friends, family, enemies,
passing strangers. That doesn't matter, It's all about continuing to
(00:26):
produce this independent crime journalism. The Mushroom Cook Aaron Patterson
was back in the news last week as her pre
sentencing hearing began.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Three people have now died and another is fighting for
life after being poisoned by wild mushrooms at a lunch
with friends in Gippsland.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
She's facing a long lagging after being convicted of three
counts of murder and one of attempted murder over that
deadly lunch at her home and len gather.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
In twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Aaron Patterson waking up a convicted triple murderer. Her beef
Wellington's laced with death cap mushrooms killed her ex husband's parents,
Don and Gale Patterson, along with Gail's sister, Heather Wilkinson.
Heather's husband, Pastor Ian Wilkinson, survived to tell the story
of this most bizarre and seemingly egregious crime.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
In Wilkinson told the court the greatest impact of Aaron's
actions on me has been to deprive me of Heather's company.
The silence in our home is a daily reminder I
only feel half alive without her.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
In Victoria, the maximum jail sentence for murder is life
imprisonment twenty five years with a minimum non parole period
of thirty years, and I suspect Patterson will serve every day.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Of that and it will be hard time.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Indeed, it's only now after her conviction that we're seeing
the extent of Patterson's conduct, the evidence of her long
term premeditation of this ghastly act, which, according to her
sentencing judge, puts her offending in the worst possible category.
Most of us have had to piece together our impressions
of Patterson from court reporting.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
I come fath them what has happened.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
But the media covering the nine week trial, we're able
to observe the killer up close and to compare and
contrast their impressions of her with the evidence they were
hearing and seeing, and also the evidence that the jury
did not see. My guest today, John Ferguson of the
Australian newspaper has been on this from day one. He
broke the story that has now gone around the world.
(02:28):
It's my pleasure to welcome John, the Pride of Narrow Court,
South Australia to the real crime stitio Gidey.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
Fergh my mates in Aracle, I love that. Thank you.
How are you going?
Speaker 1 (02:39):
I'm very well mate. Amazing story and you were there
from day one. How did it begin for you?
Speaker 4 (02:46):
Well, I suppose it began in a sense for Aaron
as well. On August five, twenty twenty three, I was
at home. I was about to take my youngest child
to football and I got a tip off that there'd
been a mass poisoning at LeAnn Gatha. There are potentially
a large number of people dead. And I've got to say, Adam,
(03:09):
it was a Saturday. We don't have a newspaper on Sunday,
so really was should I file for the web? And
thankfully I did? Rang police and very quickly. It was
a bit unusual. Usually with Victoria Police things can move slowly,
particularly on a decent story, and bang, almost immediately a
detailed statement outlining how yes, they were investigating this mass
(03:34):
poisoning at LeAnn Gatha. Essentially, they sort of said they
had an open mind from memory what the statement said,
but there was nothing to go, oh, this is interesting.
So I quickly, and I'm not joking, rattled out, probably
in about eleven minutes a story. It went up and
then it just went off like a forty four gallum
drum of kerosene put on the barbecue. It just the
(03:56):
story exploded.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
And I guess at the beginning, people are looking at
this story, she's not a crim It doesn't seemed to
be a strong motive. We'll talk about motive later, but
it doesn't seem to be a strong motive here. So
I guess you're prepared to give it the benefit of
the doubt. But this is a terrible accident perhaps, But
what was your impression?
Speaker 4 (04:17):
Well, from day one it was hard to say, but
by the month, so that was a Saturday, so on August,
and that actually happened to be when we published, police
raided her house for the first time. So they've worked out, well,
the meet is on to it, so we're going to
have to move and so they went in and took
her down to thank you for that first record of
interview on the Monday, the head of the homicide squad
(04:41):
came out, Dean Thomas, and he basically named Aaron Pattison
as a suspect. Now that's when everyone started going, okay, well,
we thought somebody might have just cooked up a really
dun spaghetti marinara or something that had gone off, but no,
this was actually the police were seriously looking at her,
(05:02):
and as events started to unfold, it obvious while they
were looking at her, because by that point, Simon Patterson
had been telling people that, well, hang on, this is
my ex wife I believe had been trying to poison
me several times. So that was the big underlying, I suppose,
vibe of the story.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
And this was the whole crux of the story, wasn't
it that there was a long term premeditation of this
crime that had begun with the breakdown of her marriage
to Simon Patterson. They've got two kids together, and this
incredible story that she tried to poison him before.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
What was the story about that?
Speaker 4 (05:42):
Well, so basically she was actually charged with several attempt
to murder charges which were later dropped, but basically he
accused her. He actually kept a spreadsheet of this he'd
got really really ill a couple of times, quite seriously
critically ill. After what he said was Aaron Patterson had
cooked him meals. That was the link. The link was
(06:04):
he went through, did a spreadsheet AND's gone on, hang on,
every time I've got sick, Aaron's cook food for me.
So that was the sandwich wraps, the chicken, corma curry,
the stew, the pasta.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
You know.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
So there were four occasions. She was only charged with
three attempted murger. But so that detail is swirling around
the background, and so police clearly would have known about
this by the time Dean Thomas came out, and it
was a major factor in setting the perception of the story.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
And he was really crooked and he had to go
to hospital. He had part of his intestine taken out.
I mean that having happened, surely there was some concern
about accepting another invitation to lunch later on. I don't
want to make light of this, but it certainly should
have sent alarm bells through the family.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Was there any evidence that people were on guard?
Speaker 4 (06:57):
Well, Simon discussed it with his father, Don, who died beforehand,
explained he wouldn't be going, and Simon Patterson told his
father previously before the lunch that he suspected Aaron of
trying to kill him, and his father had said, well,
I don't know. Paraphrasing, he said, well, I don't suggest
you go around telling people that. So this was a
(07:19):
classic old school country response. Reputation is everything, we don't
I'm paraphrasing, and I'm thinking it through as to what
might have been going through Don's head. She's the mother
of your kids and et cetera, et cetera. But there
also had been before then. There'd been discussions with a
doctor in a fifty seven minute consultation in the February
(07:40):
of twenty twenty three, whereiggs I think she's trying to
kill me, she told the doctor. And there had also
been a discussion with In fact, one of his cousins
had suggested, well, is Aaron trying to do something to you?
This is beforehand, And there was also a discussion Simon
had with a brother at a music concert or in Melbourne,
(08:01):
all prior to the lunch, so it wasn't a secret.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Yeah, of course the family had attended another lunch prior
to this, when nothing had happened.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
How do you interpret that lunch.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Now, was it possibly a throwoff that she was now
trying to re establish trust in terms of her long
term plan to murder them?
Speaker 4 (08:23):
Yeah, Look, it's really hard to One of the things
about Aaron Patterson, she is a terminal liar. Basically, if
she opens her mouth, that's probably a lie. And that
was the thing that happened in court. That's what the
jury saw up close and personal over those six or
eight days that she was in the stand. That's what
they saw. So that the fact that she had there
(08:46):
was another lunch is probably, frankly, not that unusual because
the family, even though Simon and Aaron were estrange, they
did still meet at times and do things together.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
But because the media and I guess the broader public
has spent a long time trying to understand motive for
this crime, and that seems to be central to our
understanding and why this happened. Of course, the lawyers don't
think that way. It's simply all about criminal intent. Once
she puts the death cap mushrooms in the beef wellingtons,
she has now decided to kill these people. But motive
(09:22):
is certainly important to us and the prosecution. I guess
he uses it to throw a bit more fuel on
the fire to her offending. But these are ordinary people,
nice country folk. This is a story that gets played
out in thousands of breakdowns of marriages. It doesn't seem
to be any motive for murder. How did you approach
that question as you were trying to relate this to
(09:44):
your readers in these times?
Speaker 4 (09:47):
Well, I've always said that it was revenge, that basically
she hated her husband, her estranged husband, to such an
extent that she was prepared to potentially and some of
these charges were thrown out, potentially killing, try to kill him,
and certainly loathing enough that she would take on the
(10:08):
four elderly guests. I think it's very straightforward in my
mind that it's complete and not a revenge.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
You say that now, but let's look at the arc
of this story as you've covered it and the first
time you clapped eyes on there, and what are your
impressions of her?
Speaker 4 (10:24):
She's really, really bright, she's clearly intelligent, well read, she's
got a nasty streak, she struggles to communicate with people,
she makes things up. All these things I've seen and
it was a very consistent story, very consistent the whole
way through. And that's an interesting part about us being
(10:45):
a journalist is that you get to test things out,
and if you talk to enough people, you either get
a consistent or an inconsistent picture of someone. And it
can happen either way, as you know, but there was
a fairly consistent picture of her. The other two things,
I would say, she had a sense of humor, and
this is what people told me, a caustic sense of humor.
She was a cynical woman. But also she was a
(11:07):
good mother. And I don't think anyone I haven't found,
although the question is if you kill someone's grandparents, are
your good mum? Well, clearly not. But in the sort
of observation of her, everyone I've spoken to say she
was a good mum.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
I guess most of us formed our opinion of her
from the early appearances before the cameras, where she was
tearfully saying this is all a terrible tragedy and accident.
And I guess we're looking at and saying, well, this
would have to be the dumbest murder plot of all
time because the finger would only be pointed at Aaron,
and you make the point about her own children, she's
(11:44):
murdered their grandparents. And I think a lot of people
were sort of saying, there must be more to this story,
there must be some piece that we're not seeing. But
you were, I guess, behind the scenes of this story
early on, talking to police, talking to people in the area.
And how long before you formed the view that she
was a killer.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
I hate to say it, but fairly reasonably quickly. I
had my doubts. I just have my doubts about her,
and I'd sort of tapped into some people who knew
her well, and I had a lot of doubts about her.
I certainly thought that she had the capacity to do
something like this, But look, this is hindsight, and you
(12:28):
always have an open mind until the pre trial, which
was all suppressed. When the detail around the allegations against
Simon came out, then things started. I suppose in everyone's mind,
you're going, well, there's a lot going on here. So
I suppose I was sixty forty YEA, she could have
(12:49):
done it. I suppose it's probably I'm being very loose here.
I'm not. This is not a scientific debriefing, psycholostic briefing.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
It's your personal impressions.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
Yeah, look, she's not a very nice person, Adam, and
that we know that because she's killed three people, but
she's actually just not very nice. And the other thing
that I did do is I really tried to drill
down into Simon Patterson's family and the Wilkinson's and got
the same thing, very very consistent picture that they're all
(13:22):
really good people, particularly Don Patterson, you know, fantastic bloke. Now,
it wasn't as strong around Simon because the defense, obviously
in pre trial, were testing him, and there was a
lot of text messages and Facebook messages that were well
leaked behind the scenes of Aaron talking about things. So
(13:43):
you read those and that informs your view of where
it's at. But none of the criticisms I've seen of
Simon Patterson, none of them add up to anything other than,
you know, it's really low level stuff and that he's
a decent bloke.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
That's why it's so perplexing, I think, to people to
understand what had Simon done? Aaron just break up, you know,
it happens every day, But where was the motivation? Where
was the hurt for this outsized, disproportionate act of revenge.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
So Aaron Patterson had received quite inherited quite a lot
of money. Let's say it's around three million, it could
actually be more than that, and she was very generous
with it. With Simon's family. She gave away, not gave away.
She got the money back eventually, but hundreds and hundreds
of thousands of dollars to her in or so they
(14:38):
could buy houses now she got the money back or
they got the money back. Everywhere through the narrative of
her she was generous with the money to the point
where I would have gone, I wouldn't manage my money
the way she did. So the moment where the evidence
was that things really blew up was in around November
twenty twenty two, when Simon Patterson's accountant, according to his evidence,
(15:01):
changed his business affairs, stating that he tax affairs single.
Now that had an impact on basically family payments that
Aaron Patterson may or may have been eligible for. And
then really up and that's where the evidence would say
Aaron went into killer mode. But of course, you know,
(15:22):
if you think it through, she was up to no
good before that as well. But that's when their relationship
really soured.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
It comes back to a simple lack of gratitude.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
Maybe yeah, I think she's Aaron Patterson's an incredibly arrogant woman,
incredibly arrogant, and yes, well she's gone, well, hang on,
what are you doing to me? And then this there's
a blow up in the family about it. She tried
to get help from Don and Gale Patterson to try
and mediate but that didn't get very far. And I
(15:53):
suspect too if you think it through logically, if Simon
Patterson's starting to think around this point that Aaron had
tried to kill him up to four times, then he
wouldn't be very happy with her either. So you can
be absolutely sure that the relationship that's around the point
of the relationship.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Now.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
I think the sixty four million dollar question in all
this is, given the overwhelming evidence that you've just laid
out there, why there wasn't a consideration of pleading guilty
or even pleading up to a lesser charge of manslaughter.
And we interviewed Philip Dunkc for the show. You can
find that in the archive, and he didn't say this directly,
(16:36):
but I got the idea from talking to him that
maybe he could have introduced the idea of pleading up.
And that was the reason she didn't go ahead with
him as her barrister in the trial.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
Yes, and you and I both talked to lawyers and
it was definitely chatter around that as to why if
she had been convicted of manslaughter, she might have been
out in ten years rather than thirty. And you can
only speculate on that. I don't have the inside word
on it, but I can say that everything that I've
seen Patterson court, she didn't look like a person who
(17:13):
was going to admit to having killed those people. And
so maybe it's just a simple case of I didn't
do it. And look, maybe she even thinks that, you know,
she may be in that space where she's convinced herself
she didn't do it, or certainly literally I.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Mean you had a chance to look at her both
in the box but also while listening to all the
damning evidence. Yes, and I think that's the way this
went around the world. There was a feeling that this person,
she must be deranged, delusional, completely crazy. But when you
look at her life to that point is cohesive.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
She's had a.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Career, worked as an air traffic controller, meet Simon Pattison,
has the kids, raises her family, and gets to this
point where this mad act of revenge suddenly becomes a
viable plan for her. What would you say about her
state of mind as you could observe it, both through
the evidence and observing her.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
That's a really good question. I think that she's extremely
odd and there could be a whole heap of things
going on in the background with her mind that she
doesn't understand and others don't understand. There was discussion around
her having Aspergers in pre sentence and the judge said, well,
(18:32):
it's basically there's not the evidence for her. But there
was a lot of chatter around that she claimed to
her online friends that Chad Asperg's. Now. That doesn't make
it kill three people, of course, but it might explain
some of her oddness though, And she is strange. Like
towards the end of the pre sentencing hearing a week ago,
(18:52):
she was meditating in the dock and look, you know,
she would have been completely distressed about what she was
looking at, and people can do odd things. But there
she was, eyes closed, you know, breathing, which she had
done Danny Morwle during the Supreme Court trial. So I
just I look at her and go, is she completely bad?
(19:16):
And that's the question. Quite possibly, Is she a little
bit mad? Quite possibly, that would be my I think
there's a mix of bad and a little bit mad,
would be my take on it.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Adam, Yeah, I think we're still trying to work out
mad or bad. I think if Asperger's was I voted
for murder, half our journal mates would be in jail
now for murdering people. So that doesn't necessarily provide an answer.
One of the reasons we were talking today is that
once you listened to Phil Done and you heard him
talk about the media portrayal of Patterson, and he related
(19:46):
it to other famous female defendants in Australia where there
has arguably blend a rush to judge them based on
their demeanor, based on what they do or don't say.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Do you think that's fair? Do you think that?
Speaker 1 (19:59):
And Phil Done the barrister said that there was an
archetype portrayed. She was the witch, the evil, the fat, evil,
murdering witch. How fair do you think that was in
terms of the way she was portrayed? And I guess
your impressions of her before the trial began.
Speaker 4 (20:18):
No deepest respect for Philip's fantastic Bloken is a tremendous lawyer.
I don't think her appearance had anything to do with
any perceptions at all. I think, as we discussed privately,
I think had she been you know, like, it's sort
of the suggestion to me was that the story got
a life of its own because of the way Aaron
(20:40):
Patterson looked. Well, no, I mean an amazing story, but
it would have been even more amazing if she had
been a six foot Scandinavian model like that. Now, wat's
the story really go off? If that happened. So I
don't think the looks really had much to do it.
I think though she defined herself in that first media
(21:00):
interview she did at her house where you know, she
said I loved on and she confused who was dead
and who was alive.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
That's devastated by what's happened, but the loss of Don
is still in hospital.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
Boughsome Ian and Heather and Gail. To me, I'm maybe
I'm a bit naive, but I thought she looked distressed
to me, but other people set afterwards that's really odden.
And the police, I know when they saw that interview
that they really they really clicked into that. They sort
(21:37):
of thought, oh, that's really strange response. And the suggestion
is she didn't actually have any tears when that happened.
I had really had an open mind, and because grief
is a weird thing, and you know that the Linda
Chamberlain thing about whether or not she was grieving when
it all started. Now, just a friend of mine actually
got the first interview with Lindy Chamberlain Michael and the
(21:58):
photograph of Zarah on the It was like a bassinette,
remember lying back on the so and I spoke to
him probably about six years after Lindy was child I
think it was in eighty two. So do you think
Lindy did it? And his response was I'm not sure,
which is really interesting because sometimes we just get overloaded
(22:20):
with information and it makes it hard. You know, it
just can swamp your mind. One thing I would say
for your listeners is that a lot of the evidence
that we talked about before wasn't heard by the jury.
So none of the allegations in relation to Simon's alleged
attempts to kill him, for instance, was heard by the jury.
(22:41):
So the jury didn't have the totality of the information
the jury had basically, and the defense had worked really cleverly.
Colin Mandy s C. I think did a really he
was very very good. He got quite a lot of
stuff struck out, so the jury didn't hear it. So
what the jury heard was a watered down version of
(23:02):
the totality of the evidence. So that made it pretty
interesting in a way down anymore, because those of us
that sat through a pre trial knew a whole lot
more than the jury did. But you know, after seven
days was the jury going to convict? And I wasn't
necessarily convinced all of the jurors would fall that way.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
We'll get to that.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
It's interesting these defense barristers, they often bring up this
thing about, oh, my client can't get a fair trial
because of perceptions and so forth. But of course when
they get up in jury trials, they say, there we
go the strength of the jury system once more.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
They get it. And I think juries do get it right.
And you had a chance to view the jury.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
And particularly as the courts dealing with the post offense
conduct the lies, which I think was the most stunning
evidence and also will probably ultimately weigh against her as
she tries to get some sort of lenient sentence which
she won't because she had an opportunity to correct things,
to tell the police, tell the hospital, while her loved
(24:04):
ones you could call them, were gravely ill what she'd done,
but she chose not to. How important do you think
those lies were in her final.
Speaker 4 (24:14):
I think utterly central. I think, you know, because having
listened to what everything that the jury did, some things
that I sort of thought, well, it's heavily circumstantial, For example,
the phone tower evidence, where I basically said she might
have been in these places like lock an outrum searching
for deathcap rushians. But I can tell you, Adam, she
(24:37):
might not have been too She could easily to me
that stuff like that sort of jarred with me a
little bit, I have to say. But the lies were
so breathtaking that you know, she got up before the
jury and said on the morning after the lunch she
drove to our return trip and at one point went
off the side of the road and had explosive diarrhea
(25:00):
while she was wearing white pants. Right now, I camp
a lot. I could tell you that that that you
white pant. No, I can if you want, but no,
and I've just got oh my god, and I know
feel done. Thinks what does that mean, but those sorts
of things when you've got country people. Now this this
(25:22):
is another another point. So it was Patterson chose to
have the trial in Marble. The thing about country people's
lot liars. Liars get nowhere because everyone knows the liar
the like once someone tells one lie, they will always
be known in the community as a liar. This is
in country areas. Now that's your reputation, because if you're
(25:45):
the sort of person that would say, commit a fraud
or whatever, that's your reputation. If you're steal twenty sheep,
you could go and help mother Teresa for twenty years,
you still always be the blokeer stole the marinos. So
and I think the jury, having been just exposed to
all these that were admitted to the outset, that just
(26:07):
would have smashed her credibility in their eyes. And there
was a pretty dramatic moment when she was giving evidence
where it was introduced that she may have had bulimia
or something like that and suffered that over the long term,
and that after the lunch guests left, she ate a
whole stack of Gail Patterson's orange cake and then purged afterwards.
(26:32):
Now it didn't seem at all real again and another
sort of in my mind anyway, a fake medical diagnosis
that she just made up. And I think the more
the jury looked at that, the worse it got for her,
you know, the benefit of the doubt.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Well, that's right, And I thought one of the dramatic
moments I wasn't in the court at all, I have
to say, but one of the dramatic moments for me
was when Colin Mandy chose to put her on the stand.
In these cases, it's up to the crown to prove
their case, not for the defense to disprove it, so
there was a calculated risk there, and I think she
did reasonably well. I think there were some people thinking
(27:11):
she would just break down and it'd be so obvious.
But how did you rate her performance in the box?
Speaker 4 (27:17):
I just didn't think they would put her up and
from everything that I knew, and I think she performed
eight out of ten compared with what I expected. I
thought she would fall apart pretty quickly and that didn't happen.
But her credibility was eroded by her lies they you see,
So yeah, I was surprised how well she did invert
(27:40):
a commas clearly not that well because she's in Dane
Field's frost. But yeah, I think she did better than
I thought she would, is my Yeah, I suppose my
answer right.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
So you're sitting there, you had the pre trial proceedings,
you got the nine week trial. What's it like covering
that sort of a case? And over the journey did
your impressions change at all? With there were moments where
you doubt any earlier impressions or was it tended to
be a situation where they were being reinforced as it
went along.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
No, I think because a lot of key evidence was
excluded from the trial. To me, that changed the way
I looked at it because you have to look at
it what the jury's hearing, not what you know or
you think you know. Journal as we think we know everything.
We don't know everything, but we often think we do.
So you're listening to what the jury's hearing my take
(28:34):
on it, and I said, this is done recentably well
known in the dying sort of moments before the jury
came back, I thought it would be hung because I
just thought there would be an overwhelming majority would go
it's guilty, But then there'd be a smaller smallish rump
of people would go, ah, well, I think there's enough
doubt there for me. So that was where my head
(28:55):
was at.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Yeah, because often in these long term trials, the media
forms are kind of relationship with the jury. You're looking
at their reactions to things as you go, they're looking
at you, and there's a kind of relationship going on.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Describe what that's like in this trip.
Speaker 4 (29:12):
Yeah, Well, you obviously try not to. You just want
to know, I suppose very carefully, because you're just sitting
there wanting to know, well, getting a feel for where
you think the jury is at. It's impossible not to
do that, and to listen how to the way they speak,
and you get a feel for where you think people
(29:33):
are going by their responses, like if, for instance, there's
looks on faces and all that sort of stuff. I mean,
it's very precise, like you've got absolutely no idea. It's
like the old saying about you don't know what's going
on inside someone's head or behind their bedroom door. And
it's the same thing with the jury.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
People.
Speaker 4 (29:51):
I remember during the Pell case, people were coming back
with these detailed analysis are where the jury was at
and well no, so I think, yeah, it's a bit fraud.
But yeah, you're sort of interested because you get bored
as well at him. It's a long time to be
sitting listening to the same evidence. A lot of the
evis you've heard before, so you get bored. You look around,
(30:11):
you want to know what everyone's You sort of get
a view of almost everyone in the court, including Aaron Patterson,
who had to put up with people gawking at her
the whole time. It's brutal the legal system. It's brutal,
and I get it why defense lawyers get protective of
their clients, because it is just brutal what the defendants
(30:33):
go through. And I know quite a bit, quite a
lot about the Victorian prison system. It always you know,
you just want the jury gets it right because prisoner's prison.
There's no fun to be had.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Oh no, she's going to do it very tough in
their first offender. She's very arrogant in titled. People will
sort her out. I think she will have to spend
a lot of time in seclusion there. It'll be tough
for her. And she's she's not going to see the
lot of the least until she's eighty. So this is
the what a disaster, blown up everything, up everything. I mean,
you have sat through these long term trials, and you've
(31:09):
also you also feel the gravity of what's happened. As
a journal you're hearing the evidence, you're hearing the technical evidence,
the forensic evidence of what was done to these people,
and you start to naturally your view hardens against the defendant.
But were there any moments in this proceeding where you
felt some sympathy for her, or some empathy at least.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (31:32):
Look, I have to say there was a couple of things.
One was that really graphic photo of her in the
back of the prison van that was the defining picture
of the trial that the AFP photographer took, very very unflattering.
Photographer sort of thought, aren't that's that's brutal. I have
to say last Monday in hearing, what we saw on
(31:56):
Monday was a completely destroyed person and in my mind
just looks totally destroyed. And she's clearly in what the
judge described as what seemed to be unsatisfactory conditions at
Dane Phillips Frost that she's basically not seeing the light
of the day or maybe an hour a day out.
I mean that just destroys people, So I feel sorry
(32:18):
for anyone who's in that predicament. Sure she inflicted terrible
pain on the people before they died, but I don't know. Yeah,
I feel compassion. I've spent a lot of time in
the prisons several to know that as the resident mind you, No, no,
not yet, but I'm sure he'll catch me at some point.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
On your Facebook it does say often excessive, I.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Think, doesn't it.
Speaker 4 (32:46):
So that's that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
You know.
Speaker 4 (32:50):
I'm very old school, so I'm probably probably one of
the last of the old school. Well you're me, you're
me both really five?
Speaker 3 (32:58):
I was one year later.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
I think you must have become you're about twelve, you know,
child labor in the rippet Medley.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
But you're still going. Well it was fantastic.
Speaker 4 (33:06):
Five am to five pm mate.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
The moment for me in the pre sentence hearing was
when Ian Wilkinson got up there and he was doing
his victim impact statement and he talked about giving her
the offer of forgiveness if she makes a confession, and
his quote was, my prayer for her is if you
will use her time in jail wisely to become a
better person. Now I'm no longer Aaron Patterson's victim, and
(33:33):
she's become a victim of my kindness.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (33:36):
Heavy, yeah, really heavy. It was at another moment during
the moral trial for me, was when Nan Wilkinson walked
in to give evidence. He turned over, turned around and
looked straight at Aaron Patterson on the way in. It
was it was a very it was understandably a look
of disdain. He's a man who's been who's had his
(33:58):
life beyond upended. And I thought I thought his choice
of words were really interesting because he was basically saying,
I forgive you, but I really makes it harder for you,
not easier. And there was a really interesting peace on
seventh Spotlight the other night with the bloke from Western
Sydney who killed those four kids several years ago as
(34:20):
a driver, and the father came in and has pledged
total forgiveness. What Ian Wilkinson did wasn't as nearly as
strong as that. He was a man who's clearly just
devastated by what's happened, loved his wife, loved Don and
Gale Patterson. And you know, you'd have to give him
(34:42):
eleven out of ten for his victim impact statement. And
you'd give him twenty out of ten for his resilience
for turning up every day and marble to court. He
was pretty astonishing really.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
Anyway. You're a sporting gentleman.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
But I don't think you're going to get odds, decent
odds that she's going to get anything less than the
full whack.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
What's your prediction for the sentence.
Speaker 4 (35:05):
I think my prediction is she will get a non
parole period. I think the judge is really unhappy with
the conditions that Aaron Patterson has been kept in and
I think there'll be a little bit of a discount.
I think he'll give her a little bit of glimmer
of something, but she'll she'll do the minimum thirty. She's
(35:26):
not going to walk quickly. And the problem she has, Adam,
and you'd know this that with poisoning intent is writ
large because you've got to go out and source the mushrooms.
You've got to put them in the dehydrated, you've got
to cut them up, you've got to going by the steak,
you've got to go and get the pastry. You've got
to at so many points, as Ruth Dubois, who is
(35:49):
Aman Wilkinson's daughter said at so many points she had
months where she could have called this ridiculous plot off,
but she didn't, and it was interesting. There was another
interesting moment when Ruth Duboire said that she had months
to call this off. Aaron Patterson just shook her head slightly,
you know, And that to me suggests that Aaron Patterson
(36:10):
doesn't think either she doesn't think she did it deliberately,
or it was an accident, or I think that's probably
where Aaron Patterson's head is at.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
John Ferguson, thank you so much for your time today.
It's been fascinating to get that inside view of this
extraordinary proceeding.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
And I think you're right.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
The lack of contrition, the lack of taking those opportunities
to turn away from this plot. I mean, we've all
had moments of thinking about revenge against people who wronged us.
But in the light of day, you say, oh goodness,
the consequences, and you look at the consequences in this
person's life and you say, wow, unbelievable.
Speaker 4 (36:46):
And this very quickly. And what makes it this story
so compelling, is that she is very well educated, came
from a very well educated family, She was a multi millionaire.
She had a you know, not a house I'd built,
but it was a really nice house in Gaffa. She
had two kids living with She had more than ninety
(37:11):
nine percent of the world on her side, and then
here you were talking about how she kills three people.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Yeah, unbelievable. Thanks your time, John, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
That's John Ferguson of The Australian there on Aaron Patterson
and her disastrous decision to murder her in laws. What
did you think as you watch this thing go through?
Do you think she got a fair trial? A lot
to hear from you, but your thoughts on this you
can send me an email at Adam Shanned writer at
gmail dot com. You also send me stories send him
there before John Ferguson gets them. By the way, he's
(37:43):
a snoop master, this fella. But thanks for joining us today.
If you have any information about a crime, make sure
you call crime Stoppers one. It had a triple three,
triple zero. This has been real crime with Adam Shann
Thank you for listening.
Appoche Production. Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shanned. I'm
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feel like our content. Please hit the like and subscribe
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passing strangers. That doesn't matter, It's all about continuing to
(00:26):
produce this independent crime journalism. The Mushroom Cook Aaron Patterson
was back in the news last week as her pre
sentencing hearing began.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Three people have now died and another is fighting for
life after being poisoned by wild mushrooms at a lunch
with friends in Gippsland.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
She's facing a long lagging after being convicted of three
counts of murder and one of attempted murder over that
deadly lunch at her home and len gather.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
In twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Aaron Patterson waking up a convicted triple murderer. Her beef
Wellington's laced with death cap mushrooms killed her ex husband's parents,
Don and Gale Patterson, along with Gail's sister, Heather Wilkinson.
Heather's husband, Pastor Ian Wilkinson, survived to tell the story
of this most bizarre and seemingly egregious crime.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
In Wilkinson told the court the greatest impact of Aaron's
actions on me has been to deprive me of Heather's company.
The silence in our home is a daily reminder I
only feel half alive without her.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
In Victoria, the maximum jail sentence for murder is life
imprisonment twenty five years with a minimum non parole period
of thirty years, and I suspect Patterson will serve every day.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Of that and it will be hard time.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Indeed, it's only now after her conviction that we're seeing
the extent of Patterson's conduct, the evidence of her long
term premeditation of this ghastly act, which, according to her
sentencing judge, puts her offending in the worst possible category.
Most of us have had to piece together our impressions
of Patterson from court reporting.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
I come fath them what has happened.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
But the media covering the nine week trial, we're able
to observe the killer up close and to compare and
contrast their impressions of her with the evidence they were
hearing and seeing, and also the evidence that the jury
did not see. My guest today, John Ferguson of the
Australian newspaper has been on this from day one. He
broke the story that has now gone around the world.
(02:28):
It's my pleasure to welcome John, the Pride of Narrow Court,
South Australia to the real crime stitio Gidey.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
Fergh my mates in Aracle, I love that. Thank you.
How are you going?
Speaker 1 (02:39):
I'm very well mate. Amazing story and you were there
from day one. How did it begin for you?
Speaker 4 (02:46):
Well, I suppose it began in a sense for Aaron
as well. On August five, twenty twenty three, I was
at home. I was about to take my youngest child
to football and I got a tip off that there'd
been a mass poisoning at LeAnn Gatha. There are potentially
a large number of people dead. And I've got to say, Adam,
(03:09):
it was a Saturday. We don't have a newspaper on Sunday,
so really was should I file for the web? And
thankfully I did? Rang police and very quickly. It was
a bit unusual. Usually with Victoria Police things can move slowly,
particularly on a decent story, and bang, almost immediately a
detailed statement outlining how yes, they were investigating this mass
(03:34):
poisoning at LeAnn Gatha. Essentially, they sort of said they
had an open mind from memory what the statement said,
but there was nothing to go, oh, this is interesting.
So I quickly, and I'm not joking, rattled out, probably
in about eleven minutes a story. It went up and
then it just went off like a forty four gallum
drum of kerosene put on the barbecue. It just the
(03:56):
story exploded.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
And I guess at the beginning, people are looking at
this story, she's not a crim It doesn't seemed to
be a strong motive. We'll talk about motive later, but
it doesn't seem to be a strong motive here. So
I guess you're prepared to give it the benefit of
the doubt. But this is a terrible accident perhaps, But
what was your impression?
Speaker 4 (04:17):
Well, from day one it was hard to say, but
by the month, so that was a Saturday, so on August,
and that actually happened to be when we published, police
raided her house for the first time. So they've worked out, well,
the meet is on to it, so we're going to
have to move and so they went in and took
her down to thank you for that first record of
interview on the Monday, the head of the homicide squad
(04:41):
came out, Dean Thomas, and he basically named Aaron Pattison
as a suspect. Now that's when everyone started going, okay, well,
we thought somebody might have just cooked up a really
dun spaghetti marinara or something that had gone off, but no,
this was actually the police were seriously looking at her,
(05:02):
and as events started to unfold, it obvious while they
were looking at her, because by that point, Simon Patterson
had been telling people that, well, hang on, this is
my ex wife I believe had been trying to poison
me several times. So that was the big underlying, I suppose,
vibe of the story.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
And this was the whole crux of the story, wasn't
it that there was a long term premeditation of this
crime that had begun with the breakdown of her marriage
to Simon Patterson. They've got two kids together, and this
incredible story that she tried to poison him before.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
What was the story about that?
Speaker 4 (05:42):
Well, so basically she was actually charged with several attempt
to murder charges which were later dropped, but basically he
accused her. He actually kept a spreadsheet of this he'd
got really really ill a couple of times, quite seriously
critically ill. After what he said was Aaron Patterson had
cooked him meals. That was the link. The link was
(06:04):
he went through, did a spreadsheet AND's gone on, hang on,
every time I've got sick, Aaron's cook food for me.
So that was the sandwich wraps, the chicken, corma curry,
the stew, the pasta.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
You know.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
So there were four occasions. She was only charged with
three attempted murger. But so that detail is swirling around
the background, and so police clearly would have known about
this by the time Dean Thomas came out, and it
was a major factor in setting the perception of the story.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
And he was really crooked and he had to go
to hospital. He had part of his intestine taken out.
I mean that having happened, surely there was some concern
about accepting another invitation to lunch later on. I don't
want to make light of this, but it certainly should
have sent alarm bells through the family.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Was there any evidence that people were on guard?
Speaker 4 (06:57):
Well, Simon discussed it with his father, Don, who died beforehand,
explained he wouldn't be going, and Simon Patterson told his
father previously before the lunch that he suspected Aaron of
trying to kill him, and his father had said, well,
I don't know. Paraphrasing, he said, well, I don't suggest
you go around telling people that. So this was a
(07:19):
classic old school country response. Reputation is everything, we don't
I'm paraphrasing, and I'm thinking it through as to what
might have been going through Don's head. She's the mother
of your kids and et cetera, et cetera. But there
also had been before then. There'd been discussions with a
doctor in a fifty seven minute consultation in the February
(07:40):
of twenty twenty three, whereiggs I think she's trying to
kill me, she told the doctor. And there had also
been a discussion with In fact, one of his cousins
had suggested, well, is Aaron trying to do something to you?
This is beforehand, And there was also a discussion Simon
had with a brother at a music concert or in Melbourne,
(08:01):
all prior to the lunch, so it wasn't a secret.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Yeah, of course the family had attended another lunch prior
to this, when nothing had happened.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
How do you interpret that lunch.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Now, was it possibly a throwoff that she was now
trying to re establish trust in terms of her long
term plan to murder them?
Speaker 4 (08:23):
Yeah, Look, it's really hard to One of the things
about Aaron Patterson, she is a terminal liar. Basically, if
she opens her mouth, that's probably a lie. And that
was the thing that happened in court. That's what the
jury saw up close and personal over those six or
eight days that she was in the stand. That's what
they saw. So that the fact that she had there
(08:46):
was another lunch is probably, frankly, not that unusual because
the family, even though Simon and Aaron were estrange, they
did still meet at times and do things together.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
But because the media and I guess the broader public
has spent a long time trying to understand motive for
this crime, and that seems to be central to our
understanding and why this happened. Of course, the lawyers don't
think that way. It's simply all about criminal intent. Once
she puts the death cap mushrooms in the beef wellingtons,
she has now decided to kill these people. But motive
(09:22):
is certainly important to us and the prosecution. I guess
he uses it to throw a bit more fuel on
the fire to her offending. But these are ordinary people,
nice country folk. This is a story that gets played
out in thousands of breakdowns of marriages. It doesn't seem
to be any motive for murder. How did you approach
that question as you were trying to relate this to
(09:44):
your readers in these times?
Speaker 4 (09:47):
Well, I've always said that it was revenge, that basically
she hated her husband, her estranged husband, to such an
extent that she was prepared to potentially and some of
these charges were thrown out, potentially killing, try to kill him,
and certainly loathing enough that she would take on the
(10:08):
four elderly guests. I think it's very straightforward in my
mind that it's complete and not a revenge.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
You say that now, but let's look at the arc
of this story as you've covered it and the first
time you clapped eyes on there, and what are your
impressions of her?
Speaker 4 (10:24):
She's really, really bright, she's clearly intelligent, well read, she's
got a nasty streak, she struggles to communicate with people,
she makes things up. All these things I've seen and
it was a very consistent story, very consistent the whole
way through. And that's an interesting part about us being
(10:45):
a journalist is that you get to test things out,
and if you talk to enough people, you either get
a consistent or an inconsistent picture of someone. And it
can happen either way, as you know, but there was
a fairly consistent picture of her. The other two things,
I would say, she had a sense of humor, and
this is what people told me, a caustic sense of humor.
She was a cynical woman. But also she was a
(11:07):
good mother. And I don't think anyone I haven't found,
although the question is if you kill someone's grandparents, are
your good mum? Well, clearly not. But in the sort
of observation of her, everyone I've spoken to say she
was a good mum.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
I guess most of us formed our opinion of her
from the early appearances before the cameras, where she was
tearfully saying this is all a terrible tragedy and accident.
And I guess we're looking at and saying, well, this
would have to be the dumbest murder plot of all
time because the finger would only be pointed at Aaron,
and you make the point about her own children, she's
(11:44):
murdered their grandparents. And I think a lot of people
were sort of saying, there must be more to this story,
there must be some piece that we're not seeing. But
you were, I guess, behind the scenes of this story
early on, talking to police, talking to people in the area.
And how long before you formed the view that she
was a killer.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
I hate to say it, but fairly reasonably quickly. I
had my doubts. I just have my doubts about her,
and I'd sort of tapped into some people who knew
her well, and I had a lot of doubts about her.
I certainly thought that she had the capacity to do
something like this, But look, this is hindsight, and you
(12:28):
always have an open mind until the pre trial, which
was all suppressed. When the detail around the allegations against
Simon came out, then things started. I suppose in everyone's mind,
you're going, well, there's a lot going on here. So
I suppose I was sixty forty YEA, she could have
(12:49):
done it. I suppose it's probably I'm being very loose here.
I'm not. This is not a scientific debriefing, psycholostic briefing.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
It's your personal impressions.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
Yeah, look, she's not a very nice person, Adam, and
that we know that because she's killed three people, but
she's actually just not very nice. And the other thing
that I did do is I really tried to drill
down into Simon Patterson's family and the Wilkinson's and got
the same thing, very very consistent picture that they're all
(13:22):
really good people, particularly Don Patterson, you know, fantastic bloke. Now,
it wasn't as strong around Simon because the defense, obviously
in pre trial, were testing him, and there was a
lot of text messages and Facebook messages that were well
leaked behind the scenes of Aaron talking about things. So
(13:43):
you read those and that informs your view of where
it's at. But none of the criticisms I've seen of
Simon Patterson, none of them add up to anything other than,
you know, it's really low level stuff and that he's
a decent bloke.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
That's why it's so perplexing, I think, to people to
understand what had Simon done? Aaron just break up, you know,
it happens every day, But where was the motivation? Where
was the hurt for this outsized, disproportionate act of revenge.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
So Aaron Patterson had received quite inherited quite a lot
of money. Let's say it's around three million, it could
actually be more than that, and she was very generous
with it. With Simon's family. She gave away, not gave away.
She got the money back eventually, but hundreds and hundreds
of thousands of dollars to her in or so they
(14:38):
could buy houses now she got the money back or
they got the money back. Everywhere through the narrative of
her she was generous with the money to the point
where I would have gone, I wouldn't manage my money
the way she did. So the moment where the evidence
was that things really blew up was in around November
twenty twenty two, when Simon Patterson's accountant, according to his evidence,
(15:01):
changed his business affairs, stating that he tax affairs single.
Now that had an impact on basically family payments that
Aaron Patterson may or may have been eligible for. And
then really up and that's where the evidence would say
Aaron went into killer mode. But of course, you know,
(15:22):
if you think it through, she was up to no
good before that as well. But that's when their relationship
really soured.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
It comes back to a simple lack of gratitude.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
Maybe yeah, I think she's Aaron Patterson's an incredibly arrogant woman,
incredibly arrogant, and yes, well she's gone, well, hang on,
what are you doing to me? And then this there's
a blow up in the family about it. She tried
to get help from Don and Gale Patterson to try
and mediate but that didn't get very far. And I
(15:53):
suspect too if you think it through logically, if Simon
Patterson's starting to think around this point that Aaron had
tried to kill him up to four times, then he
wouldn't be very happy with her either. So you can
be absolutely sure that the relationship that's around the point
of the relationship.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Now.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
I think the sixty four million dollar question in all
this is, given the overwhelming evidence that you've just laid
out there, why there wasn't a consideration of pleading guilty
or even pleading up to a lesser charge of manslaughter.
And we interviewed Philip Dunkc for the show. You can
find that in the archive, and he didn't say this directly,
(16:36):
but I got the idea from talking to him that
maybe he could have introduced the idea of pleading up.
And that was the reason she didn't go ahead with
him as her barrister in the trial.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
Yes, and you and I both talked to lawyers and
it was definitely chatter around that as to why if
she had been convicted of manslaughter, she might have been
out in ten years rather than thirty. And you can
only speculate on that. I don't have the inside word
on it, but I can say that everything that I've
seen Patterson court, she didn't look like a person who
(17:13):
was going to admit to having killed those people. And
so maybe it's just a simple case of I didn't
do it. And look, maybe she even thinks that, you know,
she may be in that space where she's convinced herself
she didn't do it, or certainly literally I.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Mean you had a chance to look at her both
in the box but also while listening to all the
damning evidence. Yes, and I think that's the way this
went around the world. There was a feeling that this person,
she must be deranged, delusional, completely crazy. But when you
look at her life to that point is cohesive.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
She's had a.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Career, worked as an air traffic controller, meet Simon Pattison,
has the kids, raises her family, and gets to this
point where this mad act of revenge suddenly becomes a
viable plan for her. What would you say about her
state of mind as you could observe it, both through
the evidence and observing her.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
That's a really good question. I think that she's extremely
odd and there could be a whole heap of things
going on in the background with her mind that she
doesn't understand and others don't understand. There was discussion around
her having Aspergers in pre sentence and the judge said, well,
(18:32):
it's basically there's not the evidence for her. But there
was a lot of chatter around that she claimed to
her online friends that Chad Asperg's. Now. That doesn't make
it kill three people, of course, but it might explain
some of her oddness though, And she is strange. Like
towards the end of the pre sentencing hearing a week ago,
(18:52):
she was meditating in the dock and look, you know,
she would have been completely distressed about what she was
looking at, and people can do odd things. But there
she was, eyes closed, you know, breathing, which she had
done Danny Morwle during the Supreme Court trial. So I
just I look at her and go, is she completely bad?
(19:16):
And that's the question. Quite possibly, Is she a little
bit mad? Quite possibly, that would be my I think
there's a mix of bad and a little bit mad,
would be my take on it.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Adam, Yeah, I think we're still trying to work out
mad or bad. I think if Asperger's was I voted
for murder, half our journal mates would be in jail
now for murdering people. So that doesn't necessarily provide an answer.
One of the reasons we were talking today is that
once you listened to Phil Done and you heard him
talk about the media portrayal of Patterson, and he related
(19:46):
it to other famous female defendants in Australia where there
has arguably blend a rush to judge them based on
their demeanor, based on what they do or don't say.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Do you think that's fair? Do you think that?
Speaker 1 (19:59):
And Phil Done the barrister said that there was an
archetype portrayed. She was the witch, the evil, the fat, evil,
murdering witch. How fair do you think that was in
terms of the way she was portrayed? And I guess
your impressions of her before the trial began.
Speaker 4 (20:18):
No deepest respect for Philip's fantastic Bloken is a tremendous lawyer.
I don't think her appearance had anything to do with
any perceptions at all. I think, as we discussed privately,
I think had she been you know, like, it's sort
of the suggestion to me was that the story got
a life of its own because of the way Aaron
(20:40):
Patterson looked. Well, no, I mean an amazing story, but
it would have been even more amazing if she had
been a six foot Scandinavian model like that. Now, wat's
the story really go off? If that happened. So I
don't think the looks really had much to do it.
I think though she defined herself in that first media
(21:00):
interview she did at her house where you know, she
said I loved on and she confused who was dead
and who was alive.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
That's devastated by what's happened, but the loss of Don
is still in hospital.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
Boughsome Ian and Heather and Gail. To me, I'm maybe
I'm a bit naive, but I thought she looked distressed
to me, but other people set afterwards that's really odden.
And the police, I know when they saw that interview
that they really they really clicked into that. They sort
(21:37):
of thought, oh, that's really strange response. And the suggestion
is she didn't actually have any tears when that happened.
I had really had an open mind, and because grief
is a weird thing, and you know that the Linda
Chamberlain thing about whether or not she was grieving when
it all started. Now, just a friend of mine actually
got the first interview with Lindy Chamberlain Michael and the
(21:58):
photograph of Zarah on the It was like a bassinette,
remember lying back on the so and I spoke to
him probably about six years after Lindy was child I
think it was in eighty two. So do you think
Lindy did it? And his response was I'm not sure,
which is really interesting because sometimes we just get overloaded
(22:20):
with information and it makes it hard. You know, it
just can swamp your mind. One thing I would say
for your listeners is that a lot of the evidence
that we talked about before wasn't heard by the jury.
So none of the allegations in relation to Simon's alleged
attempts to kill him, for instance, was heard by the jury.
(22:41):
So the jury didn't have the totality of the information
the jury had basically, and the defense had worked really cleverly.
Colin Mandy s C. I think did a really he
was very very good. He got quite a lot of
stuff struck out, so the jury didn't hear it. So
what the jury heard was a watered down version of
(23:02):
the totality of the evidence. So that made it pretty
interesting in a way down anymore, because those of us
that sat through a pre trial knew a whole lot
more than the jury did. But you know, after seven
days was the jury going to convict? And I wasn't
necessarily convinced all of the jurors would fall that way.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
We'll get to that.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
It's interesting these defense barristers, they often bring up this
thing about, oh, my client can't get a fair trial
because of perceptions and so forth. But of course when
they get up in jury trials, they say, there we
go the strength of the jury system once more.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
They get it. And I think juries do get it right.
And you had a chance to view the jury.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
And particularly as the courts dealing with the post offense
conduct the lies, which I think was the most stunning
evidence and also will probably ultimately weigh against her as
she tries to get some sort of lenient sentence which
she won't because she had an opportunity to correct things,
to tell the police, tell the hospital, while her loved
(24:04):
ones you could call them, were gravely ill what she'd done,
but she chose not to. How important do you think
those lies were in her final.
Speaker 4 (24:14):
I think utterly central. I think, you know, because having
listened to what everything that the jury did, some things
that I sort of thought, well, it's heavily circumstantial, For example,
the phone tower evidence, where I basically said she might
have been in these places like lock an outrum searching
for deathcap rushians. But I can tell you, Adam, she
(24:37):
might not have been too She could easily to me
that stuff like that sort of jarred with me a
little bit, I have to say. But the lies were
so breathtaking that you know, she got up before the
jury and said on the morning after the lunch she
drove to our return trip and at one point went
off the side of the road and had explosive diarrhea
(25:00):
while she was wearing white pants. Right now, I camp
a lot. I could tell you that that that you
white pant. No, I can if you want, but no,
and I've just got oh my god, and I know
feel done. Thinks what does that mean, but those sorts
of things when you've got country people. Now this this
(25:22):
is another another point. So it was Patterson chose to
have the trial in Marble. The thing about country people's
lot liars. Liars get nowhere because everyone knows the liar
the like once someone tells one lie, they will always
be known in the community as a liar. This is
in country areas. Now that's your reputation, because if you're
(25:45):
the sort of person that would say, commit a fraud
or whatever, that's your reputation. If you're steal twenty sheep,
you could go and help mother Teresa for twenty years,
you still always be the blokeer stole the marinos. So
and I think the jury, having been just exposed to
all these that were admitted to the outset, that just
(26:07):
would have smashed her credibility in their eyes. And there
was a pretty dramatic moment when she was giving evidence
where it was introduced that she may have had bulimia
or something like that and suffered that over the long term,
and that after the lunch guests left, she ate a
whole stack of Gail Patterson's orange cake and then purged afterwards.
(26:32):
Now it didn't seem at all real again and another
sort of in my mind anyway, a fake medical diagnosis
that she just made up. And I think the more
the jury looked at that, the worse it got for her,
you know, the benefit of the doubt.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Well, that's right, And I thought one of the dramatic
moments I wasn't in the court at all, I have
to say, but one of the dramatic moments for me
was when Colin Mandy chose to put her on the stand.
In these cases, it's up to the crown to prove
their case, not for the defense to disprove it, so
there was a calculated risk there, and I think she
did reasonably well. I think there were some people thinking
(27:11):
she would just break down and it'd be so obvious.
But how did you rate her performance in the box?
Speaker 4 (27:17):
I just didn't think they would put her up and
from everything that I knew, and I think she performed
eight out of ten compared with what I expected. I
thought she would fall apart pretty quickly and that didn't happen.
But her credibility was eroded by her lies they you see,
So yeah, I was surprised how well she did invert
(27:40):
a commas clearly not that well because she's in Dane
Field's frost. But yeah, I think she did better than
I thought she would, is my Yeah, I suppose my
answer right.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
So you're sitting there, you had the pre trial proceedings,
you got the nine week trial. What's it like covering
that sort of a case? And over the journey did
your impressions change at all? With there were moments where
you doubt any earlier impressions or was it tended to
be a situation where they were being reinforced as it
went along.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
No, I think because a lot of key evidence was
excluded from the trial. To me, that changed the way
I looked at it because you have to look at
it what the jury's hearing, not what you know or
you think you know. Journal as we think we know everything.
We don't know everything, but we often think we do.
So you're listening to what the jury's hearing my take
(28:34):
on it, and I said, this is done recentably well
known in the dying sort of moments before the jury
came back, I thought it would be hung because I
just thought there would be an overwhelming majority would go
it's guilty, But then there'd be a smaller smallish rump
of people would go, ah, well, I think there's enough
doubt there for me. So that was where my head
(28:55):
was at.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Yeah, because often in these long term trials, the media
forms are kind of relationship with the jury. You're looking
at their reactions to things as you go, they're looking
at you, and there's a kind of relationship going on.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Describe what that's like in this trip.
Speaker 4 (29:12):
Yeah, Well, you obviously try not to. You just want
to know, I suppose very carefully, because you're just sitting
there wanting to know, well, getting a feel for where
you think the jury is at. It's impossible not to
do that, and to listen how to the way they speak,
and you get a feel for where you think people
(29:33):
are going by their responses, like if, for instance, there's
looks on faces and all that sort of stuff. I mean,
it's very precise, like you've got absolutely no idea. It's
like the old saying about you don't know what's going
on inside someone's head or behind their bedroom door. And
it's the same thing with the jury.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
People.
Speaker 4 (29:51):
I remember during the Pell case, people were coming back
with these detailed analysis are where the jury was at
and well no, so I think, yeah, it's a bit fraud.
But yeah, you're sort of interested because you get bored
as well at him. It's a long time to be
sitting listening to the same evidence. A lot of the
evis you've heard before, so you get bored. You look around,
(30:11):
you want to know what everyone's You sort of get
a view of almost everyone in the court, including Aaron Patterson,
who had to put up with people gawking at her
the whole time. It's brutal the legal system. It's brutal,
and I get it why defense lawyers get protective of
their clients, because it is just brutal what the defendants
(30:33):
go through. And I know quite a bit, quite a
lot about the Victorian prison system. It always you know,
you just want the jury gets it right because prisoner's prison.
There's no fun to be had.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Oh no, she's going to do it very tough in
their first offender. She's very arrogant in titled. People will
sort her out. I think she will have to spend
a lot of time in seclusion there. It'll be tough
for her. And she's she's not going to see the
lot of the least until she's eighty. So this is
the what a disaster, blown up everything, up everything. I mean,
you have sat through these long term trials, and you've
(31:09):
also you also feel the gravity of what's happened. As
a journal you're hearing the evidence, you're hearing the technical evidence,
the forensic evidence of what was done to these people,
and you start to naturally your view hardens against the defendant.
But were there any moments in this proceeding where you
felt some sympathy for her, or some empathy at least.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (31:32):
Look, I have to say there was a couple of things.
One was that really graphic photo of her in the
back of the prison van that was the defining picture
of the trial that the AFP photographer took, very very unflattering.
Photographer sort of thought, aren't that's that's brutal. I have
to say last Monday in hearing, what we saw on
(31:56):
Monday was a completely destroyed person and in my mind
just looks totally destroyed. And she's clearly in what the
judge described as what seemed to be unsatisfactory conditions at
Dane Phillips Frost that she's basically not seeing the light
of the day or maybe an hour a day out.
I mean that just destroys people, So I feel sorry
(32:18):
for anyone who's in that predicament. Sure she inflicted terrible
pain on the people before they died, but I don't know. Yeah,
I feel compassion. I've spent a lot of time in
the prisons several to know that as the resident mind you, No, no,
not yet, but I'm sure he'll catch me at some point.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
On your Facebook it does say often excessive, I.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Think, doesn't it.
Speaker 4 (32:46):
So that's that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
You know.
Speaker 4 (32:50):
I'm very old school, so I'm probably probably one of
the last of the old school. Well you're me, you're
me both really five?
Speaker 3 (32:58):
I was one year later.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
I think you must have become you're about twelve, you know,
child labor in the rippet Medley.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
But you're still going. Well it was fantastic.
Speaker 4 (33:06):
Five am to five pm mate.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
The moment for me in the pre sentence hearing was
when Ian Wilkinson got up there and he was doing
his victim impact statement and he talked about giving her
the offer of forgiveness if she makes a confession, and
his quote was, my prayer for her is if you
will use her time in jail wisely to become a
better person. Now I'm no longer Aaron Patterson's victim, and
(33:33):
she's become a victim of my kindness.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (33:36):
Heavy, yeah, really heavy. It was at another moment during
the moral trial for me, was when Nan Wilkinson walked
in to give evidence. He turned over, turned around and
looked straight at Aaron Patterson on the way in. It
was it was a very it was understandably a look
of disdain. He's a man who's been who's had his
(33:58):
life beyond upended. And I thought I thought his choice
of words were really interesting because he was basically saying,
I forgive you, but I really makes it harder for you,
not easier. And there was a really interesting peace on
seventh Spotlight the other night with the bloke from Western
Sydney who killed those four kids several years ago as
(34:20):
a driver, and the father came in and has pledged
total forgiveness. What Ian Wilkinson did wasn't as nearly as
strong as that. He was a man who's clearly just
devastated by what's happened, loved his wife, loved Don and
Gale Patterson. And you know, you'd have to give him
(34:42):
eleven out of ten for his victim impact statement. And
you'd give him twenty out of ten for his resilience
for turning up every day and marble to court. He
was pretty astonishing really.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
Anyway. You're a sporting gentleman.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
But I don't think you're going to get odds, decent
odds that she's going to get anything less than the
full whack.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
What's your prediction for the sentence.
Speaker 4 (35:05):
I think my prediction is she will get a non
parole period. I think the judge is really unhappy with
the conditions that Aaron Patterson has been kept in and
I think there'll be a little bit of a discount.
I think he'll give her a little bit of glimmer
of something, but she'll she'll do the minimum thirty. She's
(35:26):
not going to walk quickly. And the problem she has, Adam,
and you'd know this that with poisoning intent is writ
large because you've got to go out and source the mushrooms.
You've got to put them in the dehydrated, you've got
to cut them up, you've got to going by the steak,
you've got to go and get the pastry. You've got
to at so many points, as Ruth Dubois, who is
(35:49):
Aman Wilkinson's daughter said at so many points she had
months where she could have called this ridiculous plot off,
but she didn't, and it was interesting. There was another
interesting moment when Ruth Duboire said that she had months
to call this off. Aaron Patterson just shook her head slightly,
you know, And that to me suggests that Aaron Patterson
(36:10):
doesn't think either she doesn't think she did it deliberately,
or it was an accident, or I think that's probably
where Aaron Patterson's head is at.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
John Ferguson, thank you so much for your time today.
It's been fascinating to get that inside view of this
extraordinary proceeding.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
And I think you're right.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
The lack of contrition, the lack of taking those opportunities
to turn away from this plot. I mean, we've all
had moments of thinking about revenge against people who wronged us.
But in the light of day, you say, oh goodness,
the consequences, and you look at the consequences in this
person's life and you say, wow, unbelievable.
Speaker 4 (36:46):
And this very quickly. And what makes it this story
so compelling, is that she is very well educated, came
from a very well educated family, She was a multi millionaire.
She had a you know, not a house I'd built,
but it was a really nice house in Gaffa. She
had two kids living with She had more than ninety
(37:11):
nine percent of the world on her side, and then
here you were talking about how she kills three people.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Yeah, unbelievable. Thanks your time, John, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
That's John Ferguson of The Australian there on Aaron Patterson
and her disastrous decision to murder her in laws. What
did you think as you watch this thing go through?
Do you think she got a fair trial? A lot
to hear from you, but your thoughts on this you
can send me an email at Adam Shanned writer at
gmail dot com. You also send me stories send him
there before John Ferguson gets them. By the way, he's
(37:43):
a snoop master, this fella. But thanks for joining us today.
If you have any information about a crime, make sure
you call crime Stoppers one. It had a triple three,
triple zero. This has been real crime with Adam Shann
Thank you for listening.
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