'Fifth deception'

The Crown closes its case, accusing Patterson of engaging in multiple calculated deceptions and telling lies even when her lunch guests were gravely ill. Rogers also accused Patterson of trying to play the jury.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Nine podcasts.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
The ground prosecutor finishes her closing arguments, telling the jury
the accused killer engaged in multiple calculated deceptions, alleging she
persisted with telling lies even when the lunch guests were
gravely ill, and accusing her of trying to play the jury.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
Victoria's mushroom mystery, the mushroom lunch that claimed three lives
an Australian family's meal is now the center of a
homicide investigation.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
The bizarre tragedy now grabbing global headlines.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
Aaron Patterson's alleged victims died after eating a family lunch
she'd serve them at her home.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
I cannot think of another investigation that has generated this
level of media and public interest.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Four of the guests of that lunch were much loved
members of this church.

Speaker 4 (00:48):
Only one will ever return.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
People are feeling very heavy with having lost such wonderful people.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Today, Aaron Pattison remained here inside her home.

Speaker 4 (00:59):
She's continued to plead her innocence in a court room
in Country Victoria.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Aaron Patterson is on trial accused of using death cat
mushrooms to kill She's pleaded not guilty to murdering three
of her former in laws and attempting to kill a
fourth the town's church pastor. It's up to the jurors
to decide what happened when Patterson's loved ones sat down
to eat. The prosecution has now finished the closing arguments

(01:27):
to the jury in this case, and initially Nnette Rogers
told the jurors there were four calculated deceptions that she'd
take them through. There was then a little surprise, an
extra bit that came, which you'll hear a little bit
later in this episode. But let's start off with what
happened when Nannette Rogers got to her feet to make
these final submissions.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
Yeah, she got to court pretty early, rearing and ready
to go. As she took to her feet, she moved
the lef turn in front of her to face directly
to the jury, So she therefore had her back to
Aaron Patterson, who is now in the dock and was
facing directly to the jury. Penny, And at this point
I noticed that she opened a red bind of folder

(02:07):
and in it were pages and pages of printed notes
in paragraphs, which is how we've seen her bring her
notes to court throughout the whole trial. And she really
started off with a bang straight away telling the jury,
these are the four things that I'm going to take
you through in particular. But it was in that fifth
surprise element, Petty, that really had I guess everybody in

(02:28):
the court room, the jurors, members of the public, and
the media thinking, well, what's this. We thought that we're
only going to have four, but essentially there was a fifth.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Now, this closing has gone over multiple days, and we're
going to take you through in chronological order and the
topics that Nanette.

Speaker 4 (02:42):
Rodgers took the jury through.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
So to start off with, let's hear what she said
about these initial four calculated deceptions.

Speaker 4 (02:50):
These are her words. It's voiced by an actor.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
Members of the jury. The twenty ninth of July twenty
twenty three lunch was arranged by the accused. Each of
the guests were thereby her invitation. She alone chose what
to cook, obtained the ingredients, and prepared the meal. Despite
the recipe being for a single dish intended to be

(03:13):
cut into smaller serves, the accused made individual portions. That
choice to make individual portions allowed her complete control over
the ingredients in each individual parcel. It is a control
the prosecution says that she exercised with devastating effect. It

(03:34):
allowed her to give the appearance of sharing in the
same meal whilst ensuring that she did not consume a
beef Wellington parcel that she had laced with death cap mushrooms.
Each of the deliberately poisoned parcels was served and consumed
by only Header and Ian Wilkinson and Don and Gail Patterson.

(03:58):
What are the reasonable possibility he can explain why all
of the lunch guests became so gravely ill with death
cat mushroom poisoning, but that the accused did not. At
the heart of this case r four calculated deceptions made
by the accused.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
Now, the first of these alleged four deceptions that make
up this case that Nanette Rogers sc took the jury
to is what the prosecution alleged is this cancer lie.
And they say the reason why Aaron Patterson held this
lunch in the first place and why she invited her
loved ones over to her home.

Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yes, she said that the that Pattison's fake cancer diagnosis
really gave her lunch guests a reason to attend what
Annette Rogers says was otherwise a really unusual lunch and
she started explaining in her words that the accused painted
a picture of a gathering that wasn't just social. This
wasn't just a social catch up. It was a catch

(04:56):
up where the kids would be absent. And the prosecutor
said that that alone emphasized the serious nature of the
matter that the accused allegedly wanted to discuss.

Speaker 4 (05:07):
And we'll hear.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
Throughout the evidence as well as what we're talking about
a lot of references to different witnesses and their evidence.
That's how the prosecution is laying out their arguments. So
as part of this element and this sort of subtopic
that she was talking about with the jury, and Neette
Rodgers noted that the daughter of Aaron Patterson, who's given
evidence via the recorded video interview with police, had mentioned

(05:28):
that her mum wanted to discuss adult things, yes, just
with the adults at this lunch, and.

Speaker 4 (05:33):
She said that the jury should really consider.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
That and take on board that and some evidence from
other witnesses, including Simon Patterson and Ian Wilkinson, that this
was the purpose of the lunch, was to discuss something
just for adults and something quite serious, and in her
leaning towards this being something of a serious medical nature,
and she touched on Ian Wilkinson's evidence of this being
a life threatening diagnosis and a life threatening situation that

(05:58):
she'd found herself in.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
Yeah. Rogers also reminded the jury that when Simon Patterson
declined to attend Penny, the accused expressed irritation at this
and telling him quote, I may not be able to
host a lunch like this again for some time. The
prosecution alleged that was sent in an attempt to change
Simon Patterson's mind and get him to attend.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
Nannette Rodgers also spoke about in this part of her
closing address that it was the planting of a seed,
that there was a research that Aaron Patterson had conducted.
She said this was pre planned, but that in the texts,
particularly that the jury have been shown between Gail Patterson
and Aaron Patterson, that there was evidence, she says, of

(06:41):
this seed being planted of I'm getting a biopsy, yes,
algo biopsy, and then I'm going to get an MRI,
and that Gail had then written in her diary. As
the jury has been taken through on this particular date,
around a month before Aaron Saint Vincent's and the evidence
that they've been shown through medical appointments and things that
were conveyed to family to plant this seed that something

(07:02):
was really seriously wrong with her health.

Speaker 3 (07:04):
Yeah, and then another part to that as well was
this making sure that the children weren't their penny. The
way that Ninette Rogers explained it to the jury today
was their case is that this was done to ensure
that they wouldn't be harmed, to ensure that there was
no way that they could eat this poisoned lunch. And
we heard a little bit more about the kids and

(07:25):
they what they said in their statements throughout the prosecution closings,
but essentially it was wrapped up and summarized this particular
chapter almost of the closings as being an elaborate lie.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
You heard the evidence of Professor Andrew Burston, the intensive
care specialist who examined her medical records and found no
evidence that she had received a cancer diagnosis. And of
course here in court the accused agreed she had never
been diagnosed with cancer. You might be wondering why on

(07:59):
earth would she tell such a lie. Well, the prosecution
says that the accused never thought she would have to
account for this lie. She did not think her lunch
guests would live to reveal it. Her lie would die
with them.

Speaker 2 (08:15):
Now, the next topic that the Crown prosecutor took the
jury to was the fact that the prosecution alleged Aaron
Patterson deliberately sawce deathcap mushrooms and that she then placed
them into this pre planned, organized special meal that she
wanted to have her family members come and eat with her.

Speaker 3 (08:34):
Yeah, it's been referred to throughout the trial as the lunch,
but this was one of the ways that Nannette Rogers
described this particular alleged deception as well as being the
lunch and being the second deception. She was explaining to
the jury that it's the lethal doses of poison that
the prosecution say Patterson sought out and then disguise in
this beef Wellington that really made up this particular category.

(08:57):
And she started off by explaining to the jury that
it was Aaron Patterson who chose the meal, who chose
to serve this particular style of the meal that deviated
from the recipe book, and that she was solely in
charge of sourcing the ingredients as well. We have heard
earlier from the parts of the trial that Aaron Patterson

(09:20):
had said that she wanted to cook something special, something fancy.
But Rogers maintains that despite this, and despite getting on
the standard and saying this to the jury, that at
no point did Aaron Patterson tell her guest that wild
mushrooms would be in the meal, and that she really
didn't follow that recipe book the way that it was

(09:40):
explained to her.

Speaker 2 (09:42):
In touching on that, the Crown prosecutor mentioned that Aaron Patterson,
she alleges, sought specifically out the individual stakes to make
individual portions of beef Wellington rather than the Logs style
larger piece of meat than the recipe tin eats recipe
actually called for, and she noted in her closing that

(10:02):
Aaron Patterson, she says, not only sought out that meat,
but so that she could create these individual parcels and
so that she could be certain that there would be
a parcel for her to eat, that the prosecution alleges,
wasn't poisoned and that's that so.

Speaker 3 (10:16):
She got avoid poisoning herself.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
To go a step further, they say the reason Aaron
Patterson was or the way they say Aaron Patterson was
ensuring she wouldn't eat that was with a different colored plate,
and to explain that, they went back to the evidence
of Ian Wilkinson. These are some of the words of
Nnette Rogers.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
Sc Ian Wilkinson told you that the accused plated the
food by herself. He gave clear evidence of four matching
large gray dinner plates, not dark or light gray, but
a sort of middle gray color was his evidence. And
then a fifth smaller orangey tan colored plate. Under cross examination,

(10:54):
he conveyed no doubt about what he had seen. There
were four plates that the same, they were gray, and
there was one smaller, different colored plate. Ian Wilkinson was
a compelling witness who was able to recall a substantial
amount of detail about the lunch. You might recall him
describing the discussions at the house about a sick looking

(11:17):
tree and the accused pantry. He had a clear memory
of where everyone sat at the dining table during the lunch,
and you will remember the photo where he marked where
people were sitting at the dining table. He had a
clear memory of exactly what was served at the lunch.
The individual wholly encased pasty type beef wellington, mashed potato

(11:38):
and green beans. You will have no trouble in being
satisfied that he is a reliable witness, and you can
confidently accept what he told you about the details of
the lunch, including the four gray plates and the fifth
odd plate. Of course, as you have heard, Ian was
not the only person to know not the different plate.

(12:01):
Heather Wilkinson said to Simon Patterson on the Sunday morning
that she noticed Aaron served herself her food on a
colored plate which was different to the rest. This was
clearly something that's stuck in Heather's mind.

Speaker 2 (12:15):
It was noteworthy the prosecutor put to the jury that
this website I Naturalist, then they've heard a lot about
She alleges that Aaron Patterson had the knowledge to use
that website, that she'd visited that website back in May
twenty twenty two, bit over a year before the lunch
was put to the jury. This evidence that they've seen
a number of times of the particular search for I

(12:39):
Naturalist and then the narrowing in on a map of
Victoria for deathcap mushroom sightings.

Speaker 4 (12:43):
At the same time that there was a.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
Search for the curran Borough Middle Pub and that purchase
that was made with Aaron Patterson's details for a family
dinner at that time.

Speaker 4 (12:53):
The prosecutor really put to the jury.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
That they should take on board this evidence as being
an example of Aaron Patterson, they say, being able to
use that website, using that website to look for death
cat mushrooms at that particular occasion, and they said that
she also had the knowledge to blitz these mushrooms up,
as heard through the evidence of her estranged husband, Simon Patterson,

(13:16):
in a conversation they had at the hospital with their
children of how she had hidden mushrooms before in muffins
for their daughter to taste test. Nanette Rogers sc referred
to that as being a knowledge base for Aaron Patterson
and an example of her blitzing up mushrooms before, and
that this was something she knew how to do well
at this time.

Speaker 3 (13:37):
Yeah, and then she explained a little bit further about
the fact that any suggestion that wild mushrooms were added
accidentally should should be rejected, not only for the reasons
that you just said, Penny, but also that we heard
from this expert witness, Tom May and he'd said that
he'd dried death cat mushrooms in the past as part
of his job, and he recalled them smelling very, very unpleasant,

(13:59):
and that was unlikely then that somebody would put something
that smelt really, really unpleasant deliberately into a meal that
was supposed to be special In connecting these dots here
as she was doing today, that's when she spoke a
little bit more about the fact that because they would
have smelt very unpleasant, it's a prosecution's case that it's
unlikely that deathcat mushrooms would have then just been chopped up.

(14:21):
They would have had to have been blitzed into a
powder to be then hidden into the food. And this
is something the accused had told her online friends as
well that she'd done before, as she mentioned with the
muffins as well, that experimentation and it was another type
of experimentation as well that Nanette Rogers put to the
jury was part of this particular deception, and that was

(14:44):
within days of purchasing a food dehydrator we know happened
in April twenty twenty three. The prosecution say that Patterson
undertook a test run with button mushrooms and then took
photographs with the device and then sent them to her
online friends. Test run it was another part of that
experimentation that the prosecution allege happened before deathcap mushrooms were

(15:06):
actually picked forage and then put into the dehydrator before
going into the meal.

Speaker 2 (15:11):
Now, the third point that the prosecution took the jury
through as part of these closing arguments sort of subheadings,
was that they say Aaron Patterson was attempting to make
herself look sick so that medical professionals and other people
would think she had ingested the deathcap mushrooms, because they
allege if she wasn't seen to be sick like her
lunch guests, that would be suspicious.

Speaker 3 (15:32):
Yeah, the prosecution maintained that Aaron Patterson wasn't sick, and
so these attempts to make it look so were to
try and cover her tracks a little bit or to
disguise her crimes. Is the way that the prosecution explained it.
And as part of this third deception, the prosecution said
the accused of different accounts of when she became sick
to different people. There was lots of different ways the

(15:55):
prosecution alleged the evidence contradicted itself, and there was a
lot of back and forth about these different things. But yeah,
one of those elements of this being unwow was when
was she sick? How sick was she before she even
made it to the hospital.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
And one of those points that the prosecution went back
to a number of times, as you said, was that
Aaron Patterson, their prosecution alleged, through Simon Patterson's evidence, initially
told him that she'd become ill about this four four
thirty time on the Saturday afternoon. Now that's about an
hour and an hour and a half since the gun
lunch guests left her home. The other lunch guests all

(16:32):
became ill sort of after eleven thirty around midnight one
am following that lunch, and the jury was told some
evidence that had come through one of the doctors at
one of the hospitals that this was an initial flag
for some of these medical professionals, that this may have
been a mushroom poisoning incident rather than regular food poisoning,
because the prosecution says in the evidence that the jury

(16:52):
has heard from these witnesses, usually food poisoning sets in
within a couple of hours, which it appeared with what
Patterson was talking about with her symptoms, that they were
relatively soon to having eaten the meal, but that it
was these lunch guests who became gravely ill and three
of whom lost their lives. Actually, they had become sicker

(17:13):
much later in terms of the onset of their particular symptoms.

Speaker 3 (17:17):
Two to three hours for the onset of sort of
gas stro or food poisoning related symptoms, but twelve hours
typically round about four deathcat mushroom poisoning. And it was
the on call toxicologist at the dating On hospital. The
jury were reminded today that was the one that put
those pieces together, along with the doctor who was working
at lean at the hospital. The two of them had

(17:38):
a foreign conversation and that's when deathcat mushroom poisoning was
really put on their radar for the first time. But
we also then heard a little bit about what happened
the day after the lunch Penny and the prosecution was saying,
this is another example of why Aaron Pattison couldn't have
been as ill as she was telling health officials and

(17:59):
friends and family she really was, and that was a
long two hour round trip. We heard that she was
taking her son to a flying lessons in tai Ab,
but it was at this time she also had told
later on a health Department official that she had explosive diary.
During this time, Sonette Rodgers was explaining to the jury
that there was these different versions of events happening. Could

(18:21):
somebody with explosive diary driver to our around trip and
not have an accident, and that these were the different
pieces of evidence that we'd heard over the last month
or so that Nenette Rogers was really putting together and
trying to convince the jury why they should side with
the prosecution in this case.

Speaker 2 (18:39):
And as some of this, what the prosecution was also
touching on was the Saturday night trip in taking the
friend's son home after the lunch that Aaron Patterson had
told Simon Patterson and other people that she had taken
this boy home at around seven seven thirty, that she'd
then taken her son to subway, And the prosecution was
putting to the jury why would she have made that
stop when she'd also told other witnesses that at that

(19:02):
point she was really worried that she wasn't really well
enough and she wouldn't really make it through other sort
of trips without an accident. Why is that she was
then stopping to get a takeaway meal? But the jury
was then taken to another day after the lunch, being
the Monday, the thirty first, the day Aaron Patterson first
presented at the Lee and Gatha Hospital, and they were

(19:22):
told that when she first presented that she seemed, on
the prosecution's allegation, reluctant to have treatment, but reluctant even
to come.

Speaker 4 (19:31):
Into the hospital.

Speaker 2 (19:32):
That the prosecution put to the jury that it was
this point when she arrived that it was put to
her that there might be mushroom poisoning. That that was
the first time she, they alleged, realized that there was
a concern about deathcat mushroom poisoning and that there was
a concern that perhaps she may have something to do
with that, and that's why the prosecution alleged that she
left the hospital at.

Speaker 3 (19:52):
That time and for almost two hours.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
Penny, Yeah, they say that that one hour and thirty
eight minutes that she left for that she had done
that because she realized what the doctors and nurses were
thinking and therefore didn't want to be in that place.
So the prosecutor touched on some evidence from some of
the nurses, one who said that she couldn't get Aaron
Patterson to come in and initially get her observations taken properly.
She'd said that it was to prepare things for her children.

(20:16):
She'd said it was to prepare things for her animals.
She'd also said that it was to pack her daughter's
ballet bag. But it was touched on quite a bit
by the prosecutor that she'd also said to her estranged husband,
Simon Patterson, on his evidence that when she went to
her home at land Gatha, that she'd laid down on
the floor for around forty five minutes and fallen asleep,
and the prosecutor put to the jury that even if

(20:37):
that was the case, the prosecutor says that she feels
that's an unlikely thing for someone to do in this
situation when they knew other people were sick in hospital
and they themselves had these symptoms, but that even if
she did lay down for forty five minutes, that doesn't
account for the entire space of time. And that's when
the prosecutor also said to the jury that they had

(20:57):
seen CCTV some security footage of Aaron Patterson leaving that hospital,
and she put to the jury that there was nothing
to indicate that she was weak or unable to walk
in that particular footage that she'd driven away from the
hospital and eventually after that hour and thirty eight minutes
she drove herself back.

Speaker 3 (21:14):
Yeah, and Nnette Rogers took quite a bit of time
comparing who said what at one point as well explaining
to the jury that it was this witness that said
this in contradiction to what the accused were saying, and
that at this point this other witness had said this
really painting a picture of the prosecution case in fine detail.

Speaker 4 (21:31):
And she also spoke.

Speaker 2 (21:32):
About as part of that what Aaron Patterson was doing
at different times compared to her lunch guests who were growing,
as the prosecution says, sicker and sicker.

Speaker 4 (21:40):
Here's some more of the words as the jury heard it.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
Nurse Miriam Sespond did one on one nursing care for
Heather Wilkinson, while another nurse did the same one on
one care for Ian. This is the same morning that
the accused drove her to children to the bus stop
and then drove herself to hospital on that say, day
thirty one July. By the time Ian and Heather Wilkinson

(22:04):
were also transferred to Dandenong Hospital. Ian was reported to
be extremely nauseated and constantly vomiting. That was the evidence
of doctor Mark Douglas. This is around the time that
the accused had discharged herself from lean Gatha Hospital and
drove home. She said to pack her daughter's ballet bag.

(22:26):
You saw for yourselves how she appeared on the CCTV
shortly after eight five am as she was discharging herself
from Leanngatha Hospital. Don and Gale Patterson were both transferred
to the Austin Hospital on thirty one July. At two
thirty pm that day, Don Patterson was critically ill and

(22:47):
in multiple organ failure. He was on life support ventilation
with a tube down his windpipe. At this time, the
accused was being transported by ambulance to Modash Medical Center
and was calm and chatty. By August first, twenty twenty three,
all four of the lunch guests had been conveyed to

(23:08):
the Austin Hospital ICEE you on life support and in
an advanced state of multiple organ failure with their organs
essentially shutting down. Gail Patterson was in an advanced state
of shock. That was the evidence of Professor Warrillo. This
is the day the accused was discharged home from the

(23:29):
Modash Medical Center with no clinical or biochemical evidence of
Amanita mushroom poisoning or any other toxic substance, and no
liver damage.

Speaker 4 (23:40):
Here's more of what the prosecutor went on to say.

Speaker 1 (23:43):
It is inexplicable about why four of five people who
ostensibly ate the same meal fell fatally ill and only
one person, the person who prepared the meal, did not.

Speaker 2 (23:57):
We'll be back after this with more of the prosecution
closing arguments. The fourth deception topic allegation Penny that the
jury were taken through was the sustained cover up, a
sustained cover up to conceal what the prosecution alleged really
was the truth at that time, and this included lying
about feeding her children leftovers, lying about the source of

(24:19):
the mushrooms, disposing of the food dehydrator, and then allegedly
deliberately concealing her usual mobile phone from police. These were
the elements that the prosecutions say make up this last deception,
this sustained cover up. Yes, so sort of dot points
or subheadings within subheadings that and Nannette Rodgers she really
signposted these for the jury, and then she went through

(24:42):
them in detail, and we'll try and do that for
you now as well. So beginning with feeding her the
leftovers to the children. Now, the prosecution alleged Aaron Patterson
never fed leftovers from the lunch to the children, that
what she fed to the children was something else entirely
that night, despite the fact that they've given evidence that
it was the leftovers from the lunch. And what the

(25:03):
Crown prosecutor pointed to as part of this was some
of the different things that Aaron Patterson had said or
had said to her by different witnesses at different times,
and what they say was her reluctance to have her
children initially medically assessed.

Speaker 3 (25:17):
Yeah, this was one of the first lies that the
prosecution say Aaron Patterson told as part of this whole case,
and that was that her children had been fed some
of the leftovers. Now, the prosecution agree that the children
did eat steak and that they would have eaten mashed
potato and beans, which is the evidence that we've heard
during this trial. But they maintained it certainly wasn't the

(25:38):
steak that had been cooked in the mushroom paste and
with the pastry over it the day before, and there
was a number of different reasons. She said that was
the case and why they should be able to satisfy
the jury beyond reasonable doubt. That this particular part was satisfied,
and that was because when remnants of the lunch ended
up with scientists, she was explaining that even they were

(26:00):
struggling to separate the mushroom paste from the meat in
their testing. The prosecution's cases, it would make absolutely no
sense for a mother to feed her child something that
she could have believed could have made the lunch guest sick.
And when she fed her children this meal on the
Sunday night, Penny, we know at that point Aaron Patterson
already knew that a number of the lunch.

Speaker 4 (26:22):
Guests had got sick.

Speaker 3 (26:23):
And it's the prosecution case that there is no way
that a mother would feed their beloved children anything that
could potentially make them sick.

Speaker 2 (26:31):
Let's hear a little bit of that scientific evidence, as
Annette Rodgers sc put it to the jury.

Speaker 4 (26:36):
This is voiced by an actor.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
The accused attempted to explain why the children would not
be sick despite eating the leftovers by repeatedly stating that
she'd scraped the mushrooms off their serves because they didn't
like mushrooms. However, the scientific evidence in this case strongly
suggests that simply scraping the mushroom paste away would not
have been enough to prevent the children from ingesting amatoxins

(27:02):
had they also eaten the leftover beef Wellington. You might
remember mister Mandy Cross examining doctor Jeris de Mulus about
the leftover meat sample and how tiny pieces of mushroom
or mushroom paste were still stuck to it inside the
small glass vials. Mister Mandy may argue that the toxins
did not really penetrate the meat. The meat sample was

(27:24):
simply unable to be separated from the poisonous mushroom paste,
and that is why the specimen tested positive for beta amaneton.
Maybe that is so, Maybe the toxin penetrated the meat,
or maybe the mushroom paste just could not be separated
so that the sample tested positive for beta amaneitan. But

(27:45):
it doesn't really matter. The result is the same. The
meat from that dish carried beta amaneitan in it. Even
when a forensic toxicologist tried to extract the meat portion
for analysis, it could not be entirely separated from the
mushroom paste. It is impossible, we suggest to you, that

(28:05):
the accused could have served up a piece of leftover
steak with all of the poisonous mushrooms or mushroom paste removed.
Not even a forensic toxicologist managed to do that in
an laboratory.

Speaker 2 (28:17):
So as you touched on before, then erin as well
as we've just heard in that evidence that prosecutions say
that physically Aaron Patterson could never have removed the toxins
from the meat if she was to feed it to
those children. There was a lot of what they were
putting to the jury, these words of the beloved children,
the doting mother, that they've heard a lot of evidence

(28:37):
that Aaron Patterson really was those things and that she
really did protect her children. And that's why they say
that they really wouldn't have been put in a situation
where they ate this meal, nor where they could have
possibly been at the particular lunch. But what they also
say the prosecution as part of this is that while
the leftover showed there was the toxin, they say that

(28:58):
this was from the sixth beatf Wellington, this beef Wellington
that ended up in the outside bin at Aaron Patterson's home,
and the Crown Prosecutor has put to the jury in
the closings that this sixth beef Wellington was on their case,
intended for Simon Patterson. That while he had texted to
say he wouldn't be attending to the meal, the last
words that he and Aaron Patterson had exchanged on text
before the lunch itself was her saying I hope to

(29:21):
see you there. And that the prosecution say these shows
that she had this meal prepared ready to go for
Simon Patterson, but that she'd got rid of that, put
it in the bin, and that's the leftovers that were
eventually tested. It's not the leftovers that the children were
actually eating.

Speaker 3 (29:37):
Yeah, And the prosecution also said that it would, in
their mind more readily help people believe that this whole
ordeal was just a big shocking accident. If Aaron Patterson
had in fact fed this beef Wellington leftover to her children,
a lie helped cover her tracks. Is a quote I
remember from today. I looked at the jury as they

(30:00):
were being taken through this particular deception chapter and it
was quite lengthy and it was quite complicated, but they
seem to be following every single word. There wasn't a
lot of eyes darting around the room other than to
look at Aaron Patterson herself in the dock. It was
a jury who were all really fixed on Whatnette Rogers
was saying to.

Speaker 2 (30:19):
Them, and Aaron Patterson, as we've mentioned, is back in
the dock. She's no longer in the witness box where
she was for quite a few days giving her evidence,
but she was sitting behind us erin and looking back
at her a couple of times. She was very much
watching Nenette Rogers sc as you mentioned, She's sort of
moved her positioning slightly so that she's very much presenting
to the jury and her back is entirely to the public,

(30:41):
to the media.

Speaker 4 (30:42):
And to Aaron Patterson. And Aaron Patterson.

Speaker 2 (30:44):
She was certainly watching with a lot of interest and
very much fixed on what the prosecutor was saying, with
her glasses sort of right down her nose and keeping
her direction of her gaze fixed right in that area
of the prout and the jury box.

Speaker 3 (31:01):
She was also taking a lot of notes today, Penny.
I saw a blue pen in her right hand as
she was looking down her nose through her glasses. She
was frantically taking notes at some stage, other times pausing
to reflect on what the evidence was or reflecting on
what the prosecution had to say. And once again we
had a number of family members in court. There was

(31:23):
about ten members I counted from the Wilkinson and Patterson families.
Ian Wilkinson again was there seated in the back row,
seated today between one of his daughters and his son
in law. This was at a time, Penny where the
jury were really being reminded of what happened in those
final days as well, including to Ian Wilkinson himself, and

(31:46):
how their illnesses really got worse and worse over a
number of days. While Aaron Patterson was experiencing one thing,
these four lunch guests were going into organ failure and
there wasn't a lot of reaction from those in the
court room. I think every was really focused on what
Neette Rodgers had to say.

Speaker 2 (32:03):
Yeah, and as part of what Nanette Rodgers was talking
about with this organ failure and the progressive decline of
the lunch guests, she spoke to the jury about that.
At the same time Aaron Patterson was being asked about
where these mushrooms had come from, and the prosecution allege
at this point she came up with, they say, another
elaborate lie regarding the source of the mushrooms and started

(32:27):
to tell people they'd come from an Asian grocer. But
the prosecution put to the jury that this story about
the Asian grosser and the details became broader over time
and more complex.

Speaker 3 (32:37):
Yeah, she said that on their case, Aaron Patterson sat
on her hands as her loved ones were growing more
and more unwell, and she really sent the Department of
Health and also the City of Monash on a wild
goose chase to find what they say was a fictional
Asian grocer store. With something we've heard a lot about
in this trial and was again mentioned today at length,

(32:59):
was whether or Aaron Patterson somebody who used to work
and used to live in this particular part of Melbourne
many many many years earlier, would have known the areas
and would have known the suburbs. And as you said,
this lie, the prosecution say, grew bigger and bigger as
time went on, and more suburbs they say, were added in.
More broad descriptions of things then followed, and they say

(33:23):
this was all not as somebody who was panicking, but
somebody who was caught in their own lives. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
And the one of the words that Nnette Rodgers used
that really stuck out for me was she called it
a frolic. She said that they had been sent on
a frolic the Health Department. And then she also went
through how the Monash Health investigators were also involved in
this foot on the ground search going through all of
these different local businesses looking for any source of mushrooms.
The three hundred and forty photos that were taken by

(33:50):
that environmental officer and sent to the Department of Health
because there was this major concern that as well as
this one family was really unwell in hospital, that there
could be a big part public health emergency. At the
same time, Nannette Rodgers, as part of the closings and
this part of her address, she took the jury through
eleven times. The prosecution allege between when Aaron Patterson first

(34:12):
spoke with doctor Chris Webster on the thirty first of July,
that Monday that she first presented at Leanngatha Hospital, through
to a couple of days after the lunch on the
second of August, when she was visited by a Child
Protection worker and she had a speakerphone conversation with a
public health official.

Speaker 4 (34:29):
The prosecution says.

Speaker 2 (34:30):
There's eleven times there and they signposted them there to
the jury of the things Aaron Patterson said and they
say didn't say regarding where these particular mushrooms came from,
beginning with that first doctor saying that the mushrooms, they
say on the evidence of him, and with what the
prosecution alleged that she just replied Woolli's and that despite
the defense saying that she had said, he had asked

(34:53):
where the ingredients came from, the prosecution said that the
jury should consider that he asked where the mushrooms had
come from, and that that doctor, doctor Chris Webster, was
very much focused on mushrooms at the time, not on
the ingredients.

Speaker 4 (35:05):
As a whole.

Speaker 2 (35:06):
All the way through to these different suburbs and the
different descriptions that they say Aaron Patterson gave these particular
public health officials and investigators. But what they also touched
on was the prosecution say that it was Aaron Patterson
not always responding or not always being forthcoming with information

(35:26):
that the jury should also look at here that towards
the end of Sally Ann Atkinson needing to get information
from her. In those later days, Aaron Patterson wasn't always
returning her calls or her voicemail messages.

Speaker 3 (35:37):
At other times text messages were responded to, but they
didn't answer the questions of Sally Ane Atkinson from the
Department of Health was asking, now we do know this
time Aaron Patterson gave evidence and the jury were reminded
of this today that in one of the messages she
did right back, well, I'm a bit busy, I'm dealing
with my children. I've got a bit of my plate
at the moment, essentially, but that it was some of

(35:59):
those other phone calls that followed that she was so
difficult to get hold of. And this is something as well.
The jury reminded that was the complete opposite to what
Aaron Patterson said in her police interview. She told police
that she was very, very helpful with the Department of Health,
where Asnette Rodgers said that really wasn't the case.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
Here's a little bit of what Nenette Rogers told the jury.
It's voiced by an actor.

Speaker 1 (36:22):
Even if you could accept it is something you might
not remember. You would think that if you were in
a situation like this, for the sake of your very
ill family members, and for anyone else who might be exposed,
you would do everything you could to try and remember
the store. But the accused sat on her hands while Don,

(36:42):
gail Ian and Heather were all in comas. She was
slow to respond to the Department of Health, even totally
non responsive at times, and as time passed, her description
of the Chinese food store shifted and grew broader. You
noticed that when the accused was giving the evidence that

(37:02):
she appeared to have a remarkable memory. She could recall dates, evidence,
and details easily, as she was being asked questions over
many days. Even now in June twenty twenty five, she
could recall that April twenty eighth, twenty twenty three was
a Friday and not a Monday, as I had suggested
to her in cross examination. Yet in August twenty twenty three,

(37:27):
she could not recall the shop or even the suburb
where she purchased the mushrooms from an Asian grosser in
the same April of twenty twenty three. It's simply beggar's belief.
How were the mushrooms packaged? Not only did the locations
of the supposed Asian grosser spread across more and more suburbs.

(37:47):
The story about the mushrooms from the Asian Grosser also
became more complex when professionals asked the accused about the packaging,
She said she didn't have it, then came up with
an elaborate ex explanation for why that would be the case,
given that she had only prepared the meal a few
days earlier.

Speaker 2 (38:06):
Now, another point that Nanette Rodgers sc has taken the
jury too in part of her closings were the claims
around that Aaron Patterson says she read hydrated the Asian
grosser mushrooms and added them into this particular meal. Now,
she went back to some of Aaron Patterson's evidence that
she said while she was on the stand that she'd

(38:27):
noticed how crisp things were when they came out of
her dehydrator, and she felt these particular Asian mushrooms, which
previously the jury had heard evidence from other witnesses that
she'd told them, smelt a bit funny or a little
bit strange, and that's why she hadn't included them in
other foods at the time. That she felt that those
mushrooms were a bit rubbery in the tupper where she'd
put them in, so at some point she couldn't remember

(38:49):
exactly when, but she'd taken them out, she'd popped them
into the dehydrator and that was to crisp them up.
And what Nanette Rogers told the jury was that in
telling the taught this in her evidence that she was
telling a ridiculous lie. That was Nnette Roger's words, that
she was trying to show that there could still be

(39:09):
some contamination with the Asian grosser mushrooms. But that really
all along, Aaron Patterson knew. The prosecution alleges that she
had dehydrated deathcat mushrooms in her own sun Beam dehydrator,
and they suggest that she bought that dehydrator for the
exact purpose of dehydrating those mushrooms.

Speaker 3 (39:25):
Yeah, Rogers said that it wouldn't make sense to purchase
dried mushrooms to then rehydrate them, to put them in
this meal, to then chop them up to then redry
them again. And that was at a point where there
was a few of us are a little bit confused
trying to make sense of this. But the way she
broke it down was, yes, Aaron Patterson's evidence was, when

(39:48):
I took these mushrooms out of the pantry, I rehydrated
them with a little bit of water, I chopped them up,
and then I added them to the meal. But why
and then and how has remnants of death cat mushrooms
then made their way onto the dehydrator. So and Nette
Rogers was saying essentially that that is another lie, it
doesn't make sense, and that Aaron Patterson did in fact

(40:10):
source dry and add mushrooms deathcat mushrooms to the meal.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
It's a little bit more from what Nannette Rogers told
the jury regarding the dumping of the dehydrator.

Speaker 1 (40:20):
The defense may argue that this was part of a
wild panic, that the accused did this because she was
worried she would be falsely accused of deliberately poisoning her
lunch guests. You should completely reject that position. Her story
about Simon accusing her in the hospital of using the
dehydrator and this sending her into a panic is nonsense.

(40:44):
Simon Patterson categorically denied to you ever saying such a
thing to the accused. You will use your common sense
when you're considering the evidence in this case, including this
piece of evidence. If there was nothing incriminating about the
deh hydrator, why hide it? And there is only one
reasonable explanation. She knew it would incriminate her. She knew

(41:09):
that she had dehydrated death cap mushrooms in that appliance
and that she had deliberately done so, and she knew
that keeping it was going to be far too risky.

Speaker 3 (41:21):
Yeah, this dumping of the dehydrator, Rogers said, was one
of the first things that Aaron Patterson did as soon
as she was released from that Monash hospital. And she
then took the jury through a number of other things
that they say she did that prove she was covering
her tracks after she attempted to kill some of her
lunch guests. And this next thing that they say she

(41:43):
did was the dumping of what Nanette called the dummy phone.
We've heard during some of this evidence that there was
fhone A in phone B, but she really used different
terminology during her closings and explained that Aaron Patterson had
a usual phone and she had a dummy phone. And
their case is that Aaron Patterson handed police the dummy phone,
a phone that she knew that had been wiped and
then was later wiped again while it was in the

(42:05):
locker of the police informat and that she didn't actually
hand over her usual phone. Now, Neett Rodgers reminded the
jury that the defense case was this other phone, this
usual phone was just left on the window sill in
there in Patterson's house and police had missed it. And
Rogers really encouraged the jury to reject that suggestion and
said that the police had been there for four hours.

(42:27):
They're searching for all of the devices that they could find,
and it wouldn't make any sense for them to have
missed or looked over a phone that was now sitting
on a window sill in air in Patterson's house.

Speaker 2 (42:39):
Yeah, and for the listeners that have been listening along
we have referred to in previous episodes, like the prosecution
and the defense have that what the prosecution now alleged
is a dummy phone, that is Phone B and the
phone A, that phone that police never recovered is what
Nenette Rodgers is referring to there as well.

Speaker 4 (42:59):
Toward the end of.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
Her final submission her closing arguments, Nanette Rodgers spoke a
lot about the relationships within the family and why she
says there may have been while there doesn't need to
be a motive in this particular case, but there may
have been some animosity in this particular family. And she
touched on what she says is evidence that these particular

(43:21):
relationships had changed over time and changed around the time
of the lunch.

Speaker 3 (43:24):
She reminded the jury when she was speaking about this
that the prosecution doesn't need to prove a motive to
prove murder. It's not one of the full elements of
murder that a jury needs to be satisfied beyond reasonable
doubt that they have reached to find somebody guilty of murder.
But the way it was explained was that sometimes the
reasons are obvious as to why somebody might kill somebody,

(43:45):
in other times they're not. And so that was part
of the explanation about what was going on then with
the family at the time. And she noted that on
the surface, it may have seemed like the accused was
in this really loving family, this loving relationship, yes, but
perhaps the truth was that what was really going on
with Don and Gail Patterson and Aaron Patterson at that

(44:06):
time was that things weren't always really harmonious.

Speaker 2 (44:10):
Hiss a little bit of what the jury was told
about the situation within the family at the time of
the lunch.

Speaker 1 (44:17):
The accused professed her love for Don and Gail in
her police interview. Even Simon told you that they got
on well, that is, the accused and his parents, and
that the accused seemed to love his parents. On the surface,
perhaps it seemed that way even to the family members themselves,
but you have heard evidence which shows that the relationship

(44:39):
between the accused and Don and Gail was not always
a harmonious one, particularly in the nine months or so
leading up to the lunch. Don and Gail were dragged
unwillingly into the conflict between the accused and Simon over
child support.

Speaker 3 (44:56):
And this is what Annette Rogers told the jury about motive.

Speaker 1 (44:59):
Motive is not an element of the crime of murder
or the crime of attempted murder, and it is only
the elements of the offense that you must find proven
beyond reasonable doubt that makes sense. People do different things
for different reasons. Sometimes the reason is obvious enough to others.

(45:19):
At other times, the internal motivations are only known by
the person themselves. You don't have to know why a
person does something in order to know they did it.

Speaker 2 (45:32):
Now, this is the part that we have alluded to
earlier in the episode that there was a surprise for
the jury, for us sitting in the courtroom as well
and the members of the public when it came to
the number of calculated deceptions that the prosecution alleged Aaron
Patterson took part in.

Speaker 4 (45:48):
Initially, Annette Rodgers.

Speaker 2 (45:50):
As you heard outlined in what she told the jury
earlier in this episode, said there were four calculated deceptions.

Speaker 4 (45:56):
Then she said there was a fifth calculated deception.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
She says, this deception is Aaron Patterson herself saying that,
in Nnette Roger's words, that Aaron Patterson tried to play
the jury.

Speaker 3 (46:08):
Yeah, Nenette Rogers was facing the jury at this time,
and the jury, as they really had behaved throughout all
of her closing submissions, they couldn't be seen taking any notes,
they weren't looking at their iPads. Their eyes were really
fixed on Nett Rogers as she was speaking. And this
was a moment where there was surprise across the faces
of some of the jury members, and one of the

(46:30):
male jurors as well, almost smirt He had a smile
on his face. When they were told that there would
be this fifth element, and then all of a sudden
we heard net Rodgers say, this is the lies that
we say. Aaron Patterson told you the juror as while
she was here in the courtroom. Now, I was sitting
in the courtroom like I have been every day of
this trial, Penny, and I looked around to see Aaron Patterson.

(46:52):
She seated in the dock behind where the media is sitting,
and she had been taking notes throughout both days, and
that was happening again today. Glasses on the end of
her nose, and she was continuing to take notes, and
there wasn't a lot of reaction to what was happening
at that point.

Speaker 2 (47:06):
So what Nanette Rodgers told the jury is that Aaron
Patterson didn't have to give evidence, that she made the
choice to give evidence off her own bat, and that
therefore she opened herself up to cross examination just like
any other witness. And there were a number of those
points that you mentioned that Nanette Rogers put to the
jurors saying, we put to you that she lied about this,

(47:27):
that she lied about this, that she lied about this,
And she started off with the cancer diagnosis, quoting from
what she'd told police what she'd told different witnesses, and
then what she'd said on the stand, and she said
every time we asked her questions about that that her
story seemed to be changing.

Speaker 3 (47:42):
She mentioned that Aaron Patterson seemed to have a really
good memory for some things, particularly dates and the day
of the week. She explained that in other parts Aaron
Patterson was unable to explain certain elements, but also didn't
answer or give full some answers to other questions. And
that was the reason or part of the reason why
Anette Rogers said the jury should not put a lot

(48:04):
of faith into what Aaron Patterson was saying, and to
really put that aside and focus on what evidence it
is that the prosecution brought to the table.

Speaker 2 (48:12):
Now, the prosecution has anticipated in some of what they've
told the jury, they expect the defense will say in
their closings. You'll hear a little bit in these words
of Nannette Rogers that were about to play you. This
begins with her talking about the fact that the defense
may try to suggest that a lot of these things
happened because of an innocent panic.

Speaker 4 (48:33):
This is voiced by an actor.

Speaker 1 (48:35):
It might be suggested to you that some of the
accused behavior after the lunch was the result of panic,
innocent panic about the prospect of being blamed, and that
this is why she disposed of the dehydrator and why
she told some of the lies I have already referred to.
We suggest you can reject those suggestions why, because panic

(48:58):
does not explain the extent and prolonged efforts that the
accused went to in order to cover up what she'd done.
It does not explain why the accused chose to persist
with lies even when the lives of the lunch guests
were at stake. And you might also remember that the
accused volunteered some of those lies to someone who she

(49:21):
had absolutely no reason to lie to.

Speaker 2 (49:25):
From then innet, Rogers took the jury through a few
more bits of evidence of different witnesses. What she says
that Aaron Patterson told Jenny Hay, one of her online friends,
regarding elements that had happened after the lunch with the
leftovers and where she says she got the mushrooms. And
after these two days of closings that the jury has

(49:45):
heard from Nannette Rogers, it was time for her to
sit back down and say she had finished these closing submissions.

Speaker 3 (49:51):
She actually thanked the jury. She said thank you for
your time and sat back down. And we know what
happened next, Penny. Is that Colin Mandy. It was his
turn at the lectern. He did the same. He came
in and moved it so it was facing the jury
and we'll bring you some more about what he has
to say in our next episode.

Speaker 4 (50:10):
Thank you for listening to this episode of Say Grace.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
Please press the follow button in your app to get
our next episodes as soon as we publish.

Speaker 3 (50:17):
For more reporting on the case, check out the Age
of nine News in your browser or app store.

Speaker 2 (50:22):
We'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land
that this podcast was recorded on and wherever you're listening
to it now.

Speaker 4 (50:28):
Say Grace is created and hosted by me Penelope Leash
and me Aaron Pearson. This podcast is produced by Genevieve Rule.