Lesley Yeomans: Australian Correspondent on the verdict of Erin Patterson's murder trial

The Australian mushroom murder trial could end up in the appeals court. 

Erin Patterson's been found guilty of murdering her estranged husband's parents and aunt, and attempting to kill his uncle with a beef wellington containing death cap mushrooms. 

Newstalk ZB's Lesley Yeomans is in Victoria, following developments. 

She told Heather du Plessis-Allan that Patterson's legal team now has 28 days to decide whether they'll appeal the verdict. 

Yeomans says we’ll have to wait for the next month or so to see if they’ll do so, but you would assume it’s likely. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So after a week of deliberating, we've got the verdict
in the mushroom chef case. Aaron Patterson was guilty of
murdering her three and laws and then guilty of the
attempted murder of the pastor Leslie Yeomans is Our Australia
corresponding with us now.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hey Leslie, good morning, Heather.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Given that she was so emotionless in court when the
verdict came out, do you think she saw this coming?

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Well, you would have to think that there was some
advice given to her by her legal team that this
was a strong possibility. Three people left dead and one
person who'd spent some time in hospital. The people who
were showing emotion though, were her friends who were outside court,

(00:39):
who was saying that they were going to stick by her.
But Aaron Patterson herself, she must have been aware that
this was not going to look very good.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
Why did jury take so long?

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Do you think, Well, there was a lot to get through.
I guess after a ten week trial there were there
were around fifty prosecution witnesses that they had to get through.
There was a lot of evidence for them to be
sort of reviewing and going over the fact that the

(01:11):
fact that Aaron Patterson had lied about things like the
food dehydrator that she'd purchased and then had disposed of.
There was footage of her at the waste disposal center
of the tip where she was disposing of that that
had told had told authorities that she'd never had one
of those things. There was the fact that also that

(01:33):
the recipe that she'd used for that beef wellington, that
she'd actually deviated from the recipe and she'd made individual
small beef wellingtons rather than go with the recipe as
a whole, and she'd served them up on different colored
plates when she was serving that meal. So there was

(01:54):
a lot of sort of a lot of detail for them,
I guess, to get through before they had to before
they had to sort of reach that verdict.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
What's the possible sentence for her?

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Possible sentence is life? How long is that Lifetically, look
at three people are deceased and there's one attempted murder.
So I don't know, to be honest with you. Life
could be, you know, fifty plus years, it could be twenty.
Who knows. That would be up to the sentencing judge.

(02:28):
She'll be back in court possibly at the end of
the year for that pre sentence hearing. But she's got
twenty eight days or illegal team's got twenty eight days
to appeal the verdict. So we'll just have to wait
for the next month or so to see if they're
actually going to an appeal, which you would likely sort
of assume that that would be what would happen.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
Lislie, it's very good to talk to you. I really
appreciated Lizzie Yeoman's Australia correspondent. I'm not sure if this
is true or not, but it is being reported. I'm
going to tell disclosure. It's being reported by the Daily Mail.
That's why I'm saying I'm not sure, okay, but this
is what is being reported apparently on who. She's been
kept at the Dame Phyllis Frost Center in Melbourne's West

(03:11):
and on her weekly trips back there, quote Patterson had
come to loathe the chicken Cutchia Tory meals provided to
her because the dish had mushrooms in it, which is
a nice little twist of irony if it's true.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
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