May 6, 2025 • 9 mins
As the trial of Erin Patterson enters its second week, The Quicky news podcast examines the latest developments in the mushroom murder case that shocked a small Victorian town.
Stay tuned! True Crime Conversations will be covering the full case and trial very shortly...
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Hosts: Taylah Strano & Claire Murphy
Guests:
Stephen Stockwell, Producer of ABC's Mushroom Case Daily podcast
Executive Producer: Taylah Strano
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
True Crime Conversations acknowledges the traditional owners of land and
waters that this podcast was recorded on. In July twenty
twenty three, four people gathered for lunch at Aaron Patterson's
home in leon Gather, a small town in Victoria, Australia.
Erin served her former in laws Don and Gal Patterson,
along with Gay's sister, Heather Wilkinson, and her husband Ian.
(00:29):
The dish was beef Wellington. Within days, Don, Gale and
Heather died in hospital, while Ian survived after weeks in
critical care. Aaron Patterson is now on trial facing three
counts of murder and one of attempted murder. Prosecutors claim
(00:49):
she deliberately served the meal laced with death cap mushrooms,
one of the deadliest fungi in the world, and later
attempted to cover it up. Her defense argues that the
poisoning was accidental and that she lied to police out
of pure panic. The case has drawn national and international attention,
(01:10):
especially due to the rare nature of the crime and
the disturbing evidence a discarded food dehydrator, messages about hiding mushrooms,
and searchers related to mushroom preparation. In this segment of
Muma MEA's news podcast, The Quickie, host Taylorstrano interviewed the
producer of the ABC's Mushroom Case Daily podcast to get
(01:32):
all the latest updates as a trial of Aaron Patterson
enters its second week.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Stephen, what are the prosecution actually trying to prove?
Speaker 3 (01:41):
So in this case, the prosecution is trying to prove
that Aaron.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
Patterson deliberately killed Gail and Don Patterson and Heather Wilkinson.
Now they have to convince a jury of that beyond
reasonable doubt, and there's four points that they've got to
hit with this. They have to show the jury and
commits the jury that the accused committed the act that
caused the death, that they did it voluntarily and deliberately,
there was no lawful justification for us, and that the
(02:05):
accused in tended to kill or cause serious injury. That's
the four points that they went through when they were
doing the opening statements and opening addresses to the jury
last week.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
What's the alleged timeline of events here? In an overview,
we know that Aaron Patterson has been accused of serving
up a beef Wellington lunch to these people, that she
laced it with death cap mushrooms allegedly, But what do
we actually know about how that day unfolded.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
Yeah, So Aaron Patterson held a lunch on the twenty
ninth of July twenty twenty three. She invited her in
laws Don and Gal Patterson, and Gayle's sister Headan Wilkinson,
and her husband Ian Wilkinson. And she invited them to
this line a couple of weeks beforehand. Ian Wilkinson was
the pastor of local church and she was actually at
that church a couple weeks before and said, hey, look
I'd like to have it around for a lunch. And
(02:53):
then when she got to this lunch, she started talking
to them about how she was keen to figure it
a way to tell her children that she had been
diagnosed with cervical cancer.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
That was the purpose for the lunch.
Speaker 4 (03:06):
This lunch she prepared beef Wellington's now beef Wellington, if
you're familiar with it, sometimes.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Prepared in like a like a long log.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
In this instance, it was prepared as five separate dishes,
so everyone had their own mini Wellington and as being
served out the guests. The red Errand's house had these
gray plates and Erin was apparently.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
With this little orange plate that was different to the
rest of them.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
Now, Aaron's strange husband, sim Patterson, was invo this lunch,
but the court heard that he told Aron he wouldn't
be coming just the night before lunch.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
He sent a text in the evening that she was
you know, we saw the messages exchange.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
She seemed quite upset with him not attending, so she
spent a lot of time preparing that lunch at great expense.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
So that's what had happened there.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
And these are these people around there to talk through
how she can break the news of this Cancter diagnosis
to her children. They have the lunch, they pray for
Aaron and you know, for her, you know, for her children,
and like a way that she can explain what has
happened and break the news of this to them. Ian
Wilkinson was a pastor, as I mentioned, and he was
actually giving evidence in.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Court yesterday, talking through the prayer that they had just before.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
One of Aaron's children arrived home that afternoon and then
they all went their separate ways. And it was the
following day when the people who attended this lunch started
to feel sick. They ended up being taken to hospital,
actually transferred hospitals and were incredibly sick. Through the course
of the week, lots of medical professionals we've heard his prostcuts.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Told the court, you know, working out kind of work
out what had happened to them, what the situation was.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
And then later the following week, on the Friday after
the lunch, just as Gaale and Heather passed away, and
then the following Saturday or the Saturday, the day after
Don Patterson died as well. Ian Wilkinson I mentioned, was
giving evidence on Tuesday. He survived the lunch, but he
was in hospital for a really long time. He didn't
come out of hospital until I think early September, and
(04:59):
a lot happened throughout that time. So in that period
between you know, Aaron Patterson hosting that lunch in July
and in coming out hospital and said Tember, the police
and search Darren's home in the Ngatha, the been a
memorial so Gaiale, Heather and Don and Erin had also
given a really tearful statement outside of home saying that
she'd never meant to hurt any of these people. And
then following that, Aaron was charged with murder and attempted
(05:21):
murder on the second of November twenty twenty three, as.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
This trial enters its second week. Now we've heard from
a whole bunch of different people on the stand. We've
gotten a bit of a clearer picture on who Aaron
Patterson may be. What kind of evidence has the jury
been presented with to paint that picture of her.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Yeah, so we're still I mean, we're still comparative pretty
early in this trials. So there's a lot more that
we will here.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
There's so much more to come. But somebody really interesting
evidence over the course of this week came on Monday,
and this is when some of the women that she
was in a couple of different Facebook groups, we've started
talking about the women that they knew from these groups,
the conversations they would have and the chat that they
would have. And one of the things that became quite
clear on Monday was that Aaron seemed to be a
(06:03):
person whose life revolved around her children. These women talking
about how she would often talk about her children, how
much she cared for them, the things she was doing
for them, all of those things as well, but also
who had a strained relationship with her estranged husband, Simon Patterson.
There were conversations they were having around how Aaron felt
as though he would be putting the church ahead of
the family, and then one witness, Christine Hunt, used words
(06:26):
like coercive and controlling when talking about the way that
Aaron described the relationship with her estranged husband. Simon has
been giving evidence as well of the course of the trial.
He was giving evidence over the course of Thursday and
Friday last week, and he finished his evidence on Monday.
A lot of his evidence was around the details of
their relationship, some of the tension, a lot of the messages.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Back and forth. But he also said that she was
funny and could be quite witty as well.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
And I think one of the interesting things that we've
seen happen over the last couple of days is just
the amount of communication between family members and friends.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
It's just been on public display.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
For the entire court to hear and then to be
seen in all of the reporting that is happening around
this case is well.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
We know that this trial is expected to run anywhere
between five and six weeks. Given the nature of this story,
it's everywhere in the news at the moment. Everybody sort
of knows about it. Obviously that won't have an impact
on the jury, But how long do we think it'll
take them to deliberate and ultimately decide on Eron's fate.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
This is a real how long is a piece of
screen question.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
A jury could take a number of hours to reach
a verdict, It could take them a number of days,
It could take the weeks. One of the things we
do know about what's going to happen during the process
that they're making the decision.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
The judge who's presiding over this.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
Case, he did say that the jury will be sequested
while they're making that decision. While they're deliberating, so they
will be taken on a bus from the courthouse to
a hotel.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Will they'll be staying overnight.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
And then they'll be brought back to the courthouse every
day to deliberate and try to reach their verdict, and
if they haven't reached on by the end of the day,
back on the bus back to the hotel and repeat
until they do find themselves with a verdict. But at
this stage, we have no idea how long that will take.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Stephen, just finally, as I said just before, this is
a case that has really captured the public's attention. Why
do you think people are so obsessed with this trial?
Speaker 3 (08:17):
This is a really interesting one. It's something that I
have thought about a lot.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
And while I'm here in more well covering this trial
with Christian Seal Mushroom Case daily, we're also working quite
closely with one of the ABC's true.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Crime investigative reporters, Rachel Brown.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
And Rachel was talking about this exact thing the other
day and she was saying she's done a lot of
work in this space, and it's the fascination comes from
people's you know, reasoning and thinking and why they're making
certain decisions. We're really curious about why people act in
certain ways in certain circumstances, and there's so much we
don't know at this stage about, you know, why Aaron
has acted in certain ways in this situation, and so
(08:51):
there's a real curiosity for what's I'm folded. There's obviously,
you know, it's an incredibly sad situation. The thing that's
really important to remember with this is that three people
who have lost their lives. One person spent a really
long spent in hospital following this month. So it's a
really sad story as well.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
And I think people are just be interested in how
we got to this point.
True Crime Conversations acknowledges the traditional owners of land and
waters that this podcast was recorded on. In July twenty
twenty three, four people gathered for lunch at Aaron Patterson's
home in leon Gather, a small town in Victoria, Australia.
Erin served her former in laws Don and Gal Patterson,
along with Gay's sister, Heather Wilkinson, and her husband Ian.
(00:29):
The dish was beef Wellington. Within days, Don, Gale and
Heather died in hospital, while Ian survived after weeks in
critical care. Aaron Patterson is now on trial facing three
counts of murder and one of attempted murder. Prosecutors claim
(00:49):
she deliberately served the meal laced with death cap mushrooms,
one of the deadliest fungi in the world, and later
attempted to cover it up. Her defense argues that the
poisoning was accidental and that she lied to police out
of pure panic. The case has drawn national and international attention,
(01:10):
especially due to the rare nature of the crime and
the disturbing evidence a discarded food dehydrator, messages about hiding mushrooms,
and searchers related to mushroom preparation. In this segment of
Muma MEA's news podcast, The Quickie, host Taylorstrano interviewed the
producer of the ABC's Mushroom Case Daily podcast to get
(01:32):
all the latest updates as a trial of Aaron Patterson
enters its second week.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Stephen, what are the prosecution actually trying to prove?
Speaker 3 (01:41):
So in this case, the prosecution is trying to prove
that Aaron.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
Patterson deliberately killed Gail and Don Patterson and Heather Wilkinson.
Now they have to convince a jury of that beyond
reasonable doubt, and there's four points that they've got to
hit with this. They have to show the jury and
commits the jury that the accused committed the act that
caused the death, that they did it voluntarily and deliberately,
there was no lawful justification for us, and that the
(02:05):
accused in tended to kill or cause serious injury. That's
the four points that they went through when they were
doing the opening statements and opening addresses to the jury
last week.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
What's the alleged timeline of events here? In an overview,
we know that Aaron Patterson has been accused of serving
up a beef Wellington lunch to these people, that she
laced it with death cap mushrooms allegedly, But what do
we actually know about how that day unfolded.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
Yeah, So Aaron Patterson held a lunch on the twenty
ninth of July twenty twenty three. She invited her in
laws Don and Gal Patterson, and Gayle's sister Headan Wilkinson,
and her husband Ian Wilkinson. And she invited them to
this line a couple of weeks beforehand. Ian Wilkinson was
the pastor of local church and she was actually at
that church a couple weeks before and said, hey, look
I'd like to have it around for a lunch. And
(02:53):
then when she got to this lunch, she started talking
to them about how she was keen to figure it
a way to tell her children that she had been
diagnosed with cervical cancer.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
That was the purpose for the lunch.
Speaker 4 (03:06):
This lunch she prepared beef Wellington's now beef Wellington, if
you're familiar with it, sometimes.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Prepared in like a like a long log.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
In this instance, it was prepared as five separate dishes,
so everyone had their own mini Wellington and as being
served out the guests. The red Errand's house had these
gray plates and Erin was apparently.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
With this little orange plate that was different to the
rest of them.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
Now, Aaron's strange husband, sim Patterson, was invo this lunch,
but the court heard that he told Aron he wouldn't
be coming just the night before lunch.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
He sent a text in the evening that she was
you know, we saw the messages exchange.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
She seemed quite upset with him not attending, so she
spent a lot of time preparing that lunch at great expense.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
So that's what had happened there.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
And these are these people around there to talk through
how she can break the news of this Cancter diagnosis
to her children. They have the lunch, they pray for
Aaron and you know, for her, you know, for her children,
and like a way that she can explain what has
happened and break the news of this to them. Ian
Wilkinson was a pastor, as I mentioned, and he was
actually giving evidence in.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Court yesterday, talking through the prayer that they had just before.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
One of Aaron's children arrived home that afternoon and then
they all went their separate ways. And it was the
following day when the people who attended this lunch started
to feel sick. They ended up being taken to hospital,
actually transferred hospitals and were incredibly sick. Through the course
of the week, lots of medical professionals we've heard his prostcuts.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Told the court, you know, working out kind of work
out what had happened to them, what the situation was.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
And then later the following week, on the Friday after
the lunch, just as Gaale and Heather passed away, and
then the following Saturday or the Saturday, the day after
Don Patterson died as well. Ian Wilkinson I mentioned, was
giving evidence on Tuesday. He survived the lunch, but he
was in hospital for a really long time. He didn't
come out of hospital until I think early September, and
(04:59):
a lot happened throughout that time. So in that period
between you know, Aaron Patterson hosting that lunch in July
and in coming out hospital and said Tember, the police
and search Darren's home in the Ngatha, the been a
memorial so Gaiale, Heather and Don and Erin had also
given a really tearful statement outside of home saying that
she'd never meant to hurt any of these people. And
then following that, Aaron was charged with murder and attempted
(05:21):
murder on the second of November twenty twenty three, as.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
This trial enters its second week. Now we've heard from
a whole bunch of different people on the stand. We've
gotten a bit of a clearer picture on who Aaron
Patterson may be. What kind of evidence has the jury
been presented with to paint that picture of her.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Yeah, so we're still I mean, we're still comparative pretty
early in this trials. So there's a lot more that
we will here.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
There's so much more to come. But somebody really interesting
evidence over the course of this week came on Monday,
and this is when some of the women that she
was in a couple of different Facebook groups, we've started
talking about the women that they knew from these groups,
the conversations they would have and the chat that they
would have. And one of the things that became quite
clear on Monday was that Aaron seemed to be a
(06:03):
person whose life revolved around her children. These women talking
about how she would often talk about her children, how
much she cared for them, the things she was doing
for them, all of those things as well, but also
who had a strained relationship with her estranged husband, Simon Patterson.
There were conversations they were having around how Aaron felt
as though he would be putting the church ahead of
the family, and then one witness, Christine Hunt, used words
(06:26):
like coercive and controlling when talking about the way that
Aaron described the relationship with her estranged husband. Simon has
been giving evidence as well of the course of the trial.
He was giving evidence over the course of Thursday and
Friday last week, and he finished his evidence on Monday.
A lot of his evidence was around the details of
their relationship, some of the tension, a lot of the messages.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Back and forth. But he also said that she was
funny and could be quite witty as well.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
And I think one of the interesting things that we've
seen happen over the last couple of days is just
the amount of communication between family members and friends.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
It's just been on public display.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
For the entire court to hear and then to be
seen in all of the reporting that is happening around
this case is well.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
We know that this trial is expected to run anywhere
between five and six weeks. Given the nature of this story,
it's everywhere in the news at the moment. Everybody sort
of knows about it. Obviously that won't have an impact
on the jury, But how long do we think it'll
take them to deliberate and ultimately decide on Eron's fate.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
This is a real how long is a piece of
screen question.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
A jury could take a number of hours to reach
a verdict, It could take them a number of days,
It could take the weeks. One of the things we
do know about what's going to happen during the process
that they're making the decision.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
The judge who's presiding over this.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
Case, he did say that the jury will be sequested
while they're making that decision. While they're deliberating, so they
will be taken on a bus from the courthouse to
a hotel.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Will they'll be staying overnight.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
And then they'll be brought back to the courthouse every
day to deliberate and try to reach their verdict, and
if they haven't reached on by the end of the day,
back on the bus back to the hotel and repeat
until they do find themselves with a verdict. But at
this stage, we have no idea how long that will take.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Stephen, just finally, as I said just before, this is
a case that has really captured the public's attention. Why
do you think people are so obsessed with this trial?
Speaker 3 (08:17):
This is a really interesting one. It's something that I
have thought about a lot.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
And while I'm here in more well covering this trial
with Christian Seal Mushroom Case daily, we're also working quite
closely with one of the ABC's true.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Crime investigative reporters, Rachel Brown.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
And Rachel was talking about this exact thing the other
day and she was saying she's done a lot of
work in this space, and it's the fascination comes from
people's you know, reasoning and thinking and why they're making
certain decisions. We're really curious about why people act in
certain ways in certain circumstances, and there's so much we
don't know at this stage about, you know, why Aaron
has acted in certain ways in this situation, and so
(08:51):
there's a real curiosity for what's I'm folded. There's obviously,
you know, it's an incredibly sad situation. The thing that's
really important to remember with this is that three people
who have lost their lives. One person spent a really
long spent in hospital following this month. So it's a
really sad story as well.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
And I think people are just be interested in how
we got to this point.
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