🍄‍🟫 Everything You Need To Know About The Erin Patterson Mushroom Murder Trial

Em Gillespie joins Jonesy & Amanda to talk about the Erin Patterson mushroom trial.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jersey and Amanda gem Nation The Daily Oz M Gillespie
is here. Everything we needed to know about the mushroom
woman slash cook is going to be delivered to us
right now from.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
You, delivered to you on a gray plate with a
beef Wellington. It's been if you can believe, six weeks. Well,
we're in week six of this trial, one of the
most closely watched court hearings in Australia in recent years,
the trial of Aaron Patterson. Of course, the fifty year
old is facing three counts of murder and one count
of attempted murder following that infamous twenty twenty three lunch

(00:34):
where she allegedly served deadly beef Wellington containing death cap mushrooms.
Now this week we have heard from her, the woman herself,
in her own words, she's been on the stand for
the last three days.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Which is unusual. Isn't it for the defense to put
that person on a stand.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
It is pretty unprecedented and it can be extremely risky.
But I suppose they've wanted to unpack all of these
lies and it's been interesting. Patterson's conceded to a lot
of lies, but she's given her version of events for
those lives. So, for example, she's detailed how she made
the dish, admitting that there must have been foraged mushrooms

(01:11):
in the dish. She said that she'd gone to Woolies
she'd bought mushrooms, that she made individual beef Wellington's instead
of one big switch.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
Sounds I mean, I'm speculating, but it does sound suss
in that that was to make sure that she knew
who was getting what well.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
She says it's because she couldn't find big enough steak
to go in one piece. She was using a recipe
tin Eats recipe, so the recipe eats is one giant.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
Most individual.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
She said she had to turn it into individual ones
and went into a Facebook group for advice on how
to do that. She made a mushroom paste with the
mushrooms from Woolies, says that it wasn't flavorful enough, so
she added some of the mushrooms she had in her cupboard.
She'd been storing mushrooms in a tubbleware container for several months.
She got into foraging during COVID apparently, so she was

(01:58):
foraging mushrooms from around Gippsland and she thinks that some
of those mushrooms must have been death cap mushrooms. But
essentially the case boils down to did she intentionally poison
her guests or was it all an accident. Of course,
Patterson maintains her innocence.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
And what's she saying as to why she wasn't poisoned.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
She says she wasn't poisoned because she only had a
little bit, that the beef wellingtons themselves were really large serves,
and that afterwards we've learned this week that she says
she made a cake for the lunch, but because the
servings were so big, no one really wanted dessert. When
she was cleaning up, there was three quarters of a
cake left. She said she ate the entire cake herself.

(02:37):
She detailed a history of binge eating disorders and that
she essentially threw up after eating all of that cake.
And I guess the theory is that she kind of
purged herself potentially of the death cap.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
Mushrooms, which is why she didn't get sick.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
But she maintains that she had diarrhea for twenty four hours,
that she was really sick the next day, that she
was driving her son quite for a long distance exten
she had to pull over and she had an accident
on the side of the road, cleaned herself up at
a servo. So she's kind of systematically gone through all
these lies and explained that, yes, that it was a lie.
But here's why there was a lie. One of those

(03:13):
big ones was about cancer. So we'd heard revelations that
she had lied to her in laws about having ovarian cancer.
Aaron Patterson has admitted that she falsely explained that that
was her diagnosis. She said she had a family history,
it was something she has been worried about. But really
what the lunch was about, she said, was to continue
this relationship that she had with her in laws despite

(03:35):
her husband being estranged, because she had an upcoming weight
loss surgery plan. She wanted to get a gastric banding surgery,
and she knew she'd need their support with helping with
the kids, but she didn't have the heart to tell
them because they seemed to care so much when she
told them she had cancer. So she's admitted to feeling
really nice when they were so worried about her. So

(03:55):
that's been a big standout finding. But I mean, no
one really expected her to take the stand. This has
gained international attention this one. Yeah. I think we can
all agree it's going to be a fascinating Netflix series
one day. I think that Rhonda from Rhonda and Catudas,
I think she should be Aaron Patterson.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
Do you think she'll enjoy the diarrhea scene? Yes, I
can see.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
The Loki personally.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
Can't you see it? I? Can you talk a diary?

Speaker 2 (04:23):
You think?

Speaker 1 (04:23):
Logis M?

Speaker 2 (04:25):
Thank you, well done.