Fatal Foraging: The Deadly Mushroom Lunch

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
The accused killer claimed to be snowed under. When questioned
by health department officials trying to trace the source of
a poison which affected her relatives, Miss Patterson changed the
details when asked about the ingredients for the beef wellingtons,
which she allegedly laced with death cap mushrooms.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
The senior public health advisor recalled a conversation she had
with her in Patterson after being notified of suspected death
Cap mushroom poisonings. He Miss Patterson claimed to have bought
mushrooms from an Asian grosser from either Clayton Oakley or
Mount Waverley, but said she couldn't remember which suburb because
she'd driven around a lot that day. She said she
didn't have the packaging anymore. She said it was a

(00:42):
small sea through bag with a white label on it
that didn't have a lot of writing on it. Miss
Patterson decided to make individual beef wellingtons because she wanted
to make something fancy, but didn't have enough button mushrooms.
She needed a kilo, so she thought she'd just added
the rest of those mushrooms into the mushroom mix. Patterson
denied foraging for mushrooms. In the days after the lunch,

(01:03):
health officials were frantically trying to trace the source of
the poisonous mushrooms. They tried to contact Miss Patterson repeatedly,
often receiving no response. Miss Patterson appeared to change her
story about when she'd purchased the ingredients for the beef.
Wellington dish, Don and Gaiale Patterson and Heather Wilkinson all
suffered extensive liver damage and organ failure consistent with death

(01:25):
cat mushroom poisoning. Prosecutors claim thereon Patterson deliberately poisoned her
lunch guests with death cat mushrooms. She maintains her innocence
and insists she didn't intend to poison anyone.

Speaker 3 (01:38):
True Crime Brewery contains disturbing content related to real life crimes.
Medical information is opinion based on facts of a crime
and should not be interpreted as medical advice or treatment.
Listener discretion is advised.

Speaker 4 (01:56):
Welcome to True Crime Brewery.

Speaker 5 (01:58):
I'm chill and I'm Big.

Speaker 6 (02:00):
In the quiet Australian town of Leengata, a family lunch
turned into a shocking crime that has fascinated the world,
and at the center of it all was a modified
gourmet recipe a beef Wellington made with one of the
world's most lethal fungi, the death cap mushroom. So join
us for fatal Foraging. Today, We're going to unravel the

(02:24):
chilling case of Aaron Patterson, a woman who was accused
of orchestrating one of Australia's most unusual and cruel murder plots.
So over the next hour or so, we'll dive into
the evidence, the trial, and the tangled web of family
secrets and sentiments behind this case that has really captivated us.

(02:45):
And before we get started, I'd like to thank Louise
for her enthusiastic recommendation of this case for our show.

Speaker 4 (02:53):
Thinks she recommended it.

Speaker 7 (02:54):
Twice, I believe twice.

Speaker 6 (02:56):
And she was excited about it, So I hope that
Whi's not disappointed.

Speaker 4 (03:01):
What have we got for a beer today?

Speaker 7 (03:03):
We have an Australian beer. But before diving into the beer.
Over the last couple episodes, several of our listeners have
commented on my voice and how it seems that Jill
is doing more of the talking. So let me just
say that I have a medical condition where my voice
gets softer and more difficult to understand. Otherwise I'm fine,

(03:25):
not going to make any difference in my overall health,
but I'll take it easy on my voice for a while,
so you will be hearing more of Jill and less
of me. Uh oh, not a bad thing.

Speaker 4 (03:36):
It could be that's who you're talking to.

Speaker 7 (03:38):
Yeah, I guess.

Speaker 6 (03:39):
But okay, good, we got that out there. Now tell
us about the beer.

Speaker 7 (03:43):
So this nice Australian beer, which I have to thank
my friend Phil from sending me this because I never
would have gotten it otherwise. We're going to drink some
Brisbane pale Ale from Brisbane Brewing Company. It's American pale
ale four point two percent alcohol by volume, so it's
a clear gold white head, a little bit of lacing,
nice aroma of citrus. I get a taste of grapefruit

(04:05):
and tangerine and some bitterness throughout. It's a light bided
Chris beer. What would consider a good session beer where
you can sit down and drink a few without worrying
about getting really blasted.

Speaker 4 (04:18):
That's always good.

Speaker 6 (04:19):
Really blasted can cause problems in.

Speaker 7 (04:21):
Life, it certainly can.

Speaker 8 (04:22):
Yeah, So let's walk on down to the quiet end today.
We're going to begin our journey into the Leangtha Mushroom murders,
a case that is left behind a trail of questions,

(04:43):
grief and disbelief. It was a quiet Saturday, July twenty ninth,
twenty twenty three in the rural town of Leangatta, Victoria.
Aaron Patterson, a forty nine year old mother of two,
invited her former in laws and family friends over for lunch.
So on the menu was beef wellington, mashed potatoes and

(05:05):
green beans. But what was portrayed as being a warm
family gathering turned into a deadly affair. So by the
next morning, four of the guests were violently ill. Within
one week, three of them, Gal and Don Patterson and
Heather Wilkinson were dead. The fourth, Ian Wilkinson, a local pastor,

(05:26):
barely survived after spending weeks in intensive care. So Aaron
Trudy's Scudder and that is Aaron Patterson's birth name, was
born in September of nineteen seventy four in the Melbourne
suburb of glen Waverley. Her mother, doctor Heather Scudder, was
a respected lecturer at Monash University and she was also

(05:46):
an expert in children's literature, so she was a very
brilliant woman. Aaron's father, Eaton Scudder, held executive positions in
multiple Australian companies, so he was a businessman. Those who
knew Aaron from her early years have described her as
being a smart and witty woman. In her mid twenties,
she left her science college program to pursue a degree

(06:08):
in accounting. Then she decided to be an air traffic controller.
In two thousand and one, Aaron sat for an Air
Services class photo which included all the trainee air traffic
controllers for that year. She became one of the few
people to make it through the training program after successfully
passing the very difficult air traffic controller test. So her

(06:30):
former co workers described Erin as a solitary, odd and
a little bit strange young woman who was a loner
and could be socially abrupt, abrasive, or even rude. She
was the only person in the fourteen person air traffic
controller training group who declined every invitation to a group,
social activity or event. These former air traffic controller colleagues

(06:55):
painted a picture of Erin as a crafty employee who
would call in sick, pretending to be other workers so
she could pick up more lucrative shifts for herself, so
that's pretty sneaky. But Aarin was not an air traffic
controller for long because she changed careers to work in
animal management for the RSPCA at Manash City University. So

(07:17):
you have to wonder what happened there that she didn't
stay long. It seems like there may have been some
issues with her co workers. But it was while working
at the city Council in two thousand and four that
she met her husband to be, Simon Patterson, who was
working on the council as a civil engineer. So he
was a smart guy too, and Simon would describe his

(07:37):
former wife as very intelligent, witty and quite funny. The
couple got to know each other as part of an
outgoing group of friends before they developed their own romantic relationship.
Then Erin was involved in a drunk driving crash where
she was almost three times over the legal limit. This
was in the same year she met Simon, but court

(07:57):
records show that she'd been driving an on registered car
and she'd also fled the scene of the accident. She
was also caught driving thirty five kilometers an hour over
the sixty kilometer per hour speed limit. Aaron pleaded guilty
to five charges and she was fined one thousand dollars
and her license was suspended, so she wasn't allowed to

(08:18):
drive in Victoria for the next two and a half years.
So by the time Simon had met Aarin, she was
already a very accomplished woman. She had a university degree
in business management and accounting. He liked that she was
very smart and that she'd been an air traffic controller.
Simon loved to travel and wanted to share that passion

(08:39):
with Aarin. Simon was very religious and he was raised
in a Christian family, but Aaron called herself a fundamental atheist.
She would say that she initially hoped to convert Simon,
but he ended up converting her to Christianity. But according
to some of her Facebook posts, she did continue to
have her atheist beliefs, so maybe she was just going

(09:01):
along to get along. But then in two thousand and six,
Aerin inherited two million dollars from her grandmother, which was
paid to her over the next eight years, beginning in
two thousand and seven. Aaron and Simon got married. In
two thousand and seven. They settled in Perth, York and Pemberton,
Aaron ran a second hand bookstore while her husband worked

(09:22):
on the local council. In two thousand and nine, they
had a son, and in twenty fourteen they had a daughter.
Throughout their marriage, the couple had multiple separations, which were
usually initiated by Erin. So In fact, in two thousand
and nine, Aerin abandoned her infant son and her husband
during a road trip across Australia. They'd planned this trip

(09:44):
for their honeymoon, but ended up going in April two
thousand and nine, but by November, Aarin had had enough.
She wanted to sleep in a real bed, and it.

Speaker 6 (09:53):
Was difficult to camp with a newborn. So I can
definitely see that it seems like a kind of a
crazy trip, seems really hard to take a little baby
like that. But Simon would make this incident seem like
Aaron had just up and left him and their son
out of nowhere. Aaron said she and Simon had agreed
it was okay for her to fly home took birth

(10:16):
while Simon and their newborn son drove back alone, which
would take about a week. Then after this, Simon and
Aaron lived apart for a while. Aaron lived in a cottage,
and Simon lived in a van in a nearby r
V park, But Simon and Aaron did get marriage counseling
and started living together again. Eventually, just prior to their
daughter's birth, Arin and Simon relocated to Kunwera, Victoria to

(10:41):
be closer to Simon's parents, Don and Gail Patterson. Aaron
bonded with Don over their shared love of education and
because she liked his gentle nature. After Aaron gave birth
to their son, she became close with Don and Gail.
Simon's uncle, Ian Wilkinson, was the pastor at the Baptist church,
so the Pattersons were very close with Ian and his

(11:03):
wife Heather. In twenty fifteen, Simon and Aaron separated for
the final time, but they remained friendly and they raised
their children together. The children lived with Aaron, but they
went with their father on the weekends. Aaron had not
regularly attended church, but she started going after the separation
when Simon was taking the children there, and she would

(11:25):
say that was because she just wanted to see her children.
She didn't like being apart from them. Aaron's father died
from cancer in twenty eleven, and then her mother died
at age seventy two from cancer in twenty nineteen. Aaron
and her sister inherited the estate in twenty nineteen, and
this included a gorgeous nine hundred thousand dollars beach house

(11:46):
in Eden, New South Wales. Aaron's inheritance was used in
part to give interest free loans to Simon's three siblings
to help them purchase their own houses, so that was
very generous and really helped them out a lot. She
also used proceeds from selling that house to buy two
more homes, one of which she was living in with

(12:06):
her two children in twenty twenty three. So even though
the couple had separated in twenty fifteen, in early twenty
twenty they were considering reconciliation. But then in two thousand
and two, Simon listed himself as being separate on their
tax return for the first time, and even though they
had been separated for years, he'd never done that before,

(12:29):
so this really bothered Aaron. A few weeks later, she
filed for child support and requested that Simon help pay
for the kids' schooling, and this was likely set off
by that tax form that he changed. Aaron had inheritances
from her grandmother and mother, and she'd been able to
set up a better life not just for her immediate family,
but for Simon's extended family. Aarin didn't have much family left,

(12:54):
and she had helped Simon's siblings quite a bit, but
she didn't mind this because she was very goose with
Simon's family, at least back then. In twenty twenty two,
when this child support issue was happening, Aaron started to
feel like Don and Gail Patterson were taking sides. She
began to feel left out and hurt by them. So

(13:15):
Erin had not been invited to her mother in law,
Gail's seventieth birthday party until the last minute. Aaron texted
Simon and said she was very hurt that they hadn't
bothered to invite her ahead of time and she might
just not go. He said it would be important to
his mother. She felt betrayed and like she was not wanted,
but Simon was not at all apologetic. He told Erin

(13:38):
she could come or not come to the party. So
Aarin did end up going and bringing the children with her,
so it seemed like maybe everything was okay. But the
next day Aaron texted Simon and apologized for getting upset,
and she explained why she was hurt. Simon also did apologize,
but it was just a few months later when Simon

(13:59):
changed that tech form and then Aaron filed for child support,
and that seems to be when the real problems began.
You see, Simon had quit his job because he was
living a comfortable life where he really didn't need to work,
so he would only be ordered to pay forty dollars
a month in support. This is really nothing. Aaron felt
like he should have been contributing to the children, and

(14:21):
that seems fair. Around the same time, Simon had stopped
helping financially with any of the children's expenses. He stopped
paying school fees and medical expenses. Their son did have
some medical issues that required hospital stays in surgeries, but
Simon refused to pay for these. When Aaron requested that

(14:41):
Simon pay a surgery bill for their son, Simon texted
Aaron saying that the Department of Human Services had instructed
him not to pay her any more money because his
child support payment was intended to cover these things, so
this did not make her happy. In his defense, he
may not have known at the time that he was
only going to be ordered to pay forty dollars a month,

(15:03):
so maybe he thought that his money would be able
to cover these things. But anyway, this really really made
Aaron upset and angry with him. So another thing about

(15:34):
Aaron is that she was a true crime fan. She
was in a true crime Facebook group. So the group
had primarily been dedicated to the twenty ten trial of
Kelly Lane, and that's the case that we did cover.
That's the former water polo player who was convicted of
the nineteen ninety six murder of her newborn baby. This

(15:54):
is the one that was hiding the pregnancy and it's
quite a story. But after that trial had concluded, the
number of members fell from over one thousand to just
twenty or thirty people, but they would still talk about
true crime, and they'd also talk about things going on
in their own lives. The members became quite close and
the other members would later say that Aaron was the

(16:16):
best detective in their true crime discussions. So if you
wanted something researched, Aaron was the one you would turn to.
So in this group, Aaron started discussing her issues with
Simon and the challenges of being a single mom. She
described Simon as being controlling and coercive. She also wrote
that his family was very demanding. She had some issues

(16:38):
with the in laws wanting the children to attend faith
based schools, and she felt like they were trying to
control how she raised her children. She felt like, if
Simon wasn't going to pay for the school, why should
he choose the school. Aarin did say that she attended church,
but that she didn't really believe in religion and only
went because it was important to Simon's family. Aaron'shusband and

(17:00):
Simon was also supposed to be at that deadly lunch
on July nineteenth, twenty twenty three. He canceled because he
couldn't make it at the last minute, and he was
also very wary of his ex. He said he believed
she'd previously tried to poison him. He'd even been in
an induced coma for sixteen days after suffering a mystery

(17:21):
guestro intestinal illness after eating food aar And had served
to him, so he believed she'd previously tried to poison him,
and if he had come to lunch that day, he
would likely be dead as well. In fact, Simon wrote
about his May twenty twenty two stomach illness, from which
he did make a full recovery. On Facebook, he wrote,

(17:44):
I collapsed at home and then I was in an
induced coma for sixteen days, through which I had three
emergency operations mainly on my small intestine, plus an additional
planned operation. My family were asked to come and say
their goodbyes to me twice, as I was not expected
to live. So Simon thought his earlier illness had stemmed

(18:05):
from eating night shade plants, an herb family which includes tomatoes,
egg plants, potatoes, and peppers.

Speaker 5 (18:12):
So on.

Speaker 6 (18:13):
Ripe into night shade plants contained poisonous alkaloids, which can
be fatal. He'd been living with his parents while recovering
from this illness, after having to stay in a rehab
facility for a while. So in December twenty twenty two,
Aarin was talking to her Facebook group about the child
support issue. She also discussed it in a Signal group

(18:33):
chat that included Simon and his parents. She was clearly
angry about this. She wrote that both parents have a
responsibility to support their children and Simon was not living
up to his responsibilities. So Simon messaged Arin and said
he wanted to discuss all of the financial issues between
the two of them. Don, Simon's father, contacted Erin and

(18:55):
asked her to withdraw the child support claim, but then
he and Gale said they wanted to stay out of it.
Don said he did try and discuss it with Simon,
but Simon had refused.

Speaker 4 (19:05):
So now Erin was very.

Speaker 6 (19:07):
Angry and complained to her Facebook group that she no
longer wanted anything to do with any of them because
she had thought they would do the right thing, but
they didn't, so fuck them, she wrote. Erin complained again
to her Facebook friends the next day. She said that
Don and Gale and Simon had sent her messages but
that she was ignoring them. She said that Don and

(19:29):
Gale had not checked in on her in months to
see how she was doing, and they had definitely taken
Simon's side against her, so maybe this was true. We
don't know exactly what went on in the marriage or
the home, but there is evidence that Don and Gale
had kept in contact with Aaron and were supportive of
her and the children. Erin had said that she loved

(19:50):
Simon's parents and that since both of her parents were gone,
they were really the only parents she had. But once
this child support issue came up and Arin felt like
Don and Gale had taken sides against her, she clearly
felt betrayed by them and she was expressing a lot
of anger, so that could have been her motive for
poisoning them. So what led to the poisonous lunch? There's

(20:14):
a website called i Naturalist where people can record and
share their observations about plans, animals, other organisms and fungi.
On April eighteenth, twenty twenty three, an eye Naturalist user
reported finding death cap poisonous mushrooms growing in lock So.
Locke is a small rural town in Victoria. And ten

(20:37):
days later, on April twenty eight cell phone data would
show that Arin traveled to Locke before returning to her
home in the neighboring town of Leangana. So just two
and a half hours later, Aarin bought herself a food dehydrator.

Speaker 4 (20:52):
So between March.

Speaker 6 (20:53):
And may Erin was talking about dehydrating mushrooms in her
true crime Facebook group.

Speaker 4 (20:58):
She posted a message.

Speaker 6 (20:59):
In her group saying I've been hiding powdered mushrooms in everything,
mixed it into chocolate brownies. Yesterday and the kids had
no idea, And then there was another message. So fun fact,
the dehydrator reduces mushroom mass by ninety percent. Do you
think Woolies would mind if I brought the dehydrator into
the vegetable section and dry things before I buy them?

Speaker 7 (21:22):
Probably?

Speaker 4 (21:23):
So that was a little humor, I hear it.

Speaker 6 (21:26):
Yeah, so we do know that dehydrating mushrooms only removes water,
and the toxins stay in the mushroom at any temperature.
They're very temperature stable, and by dehydrating them, she would
only make the toxic mushrooms more concentrated.

Speaker 7 (21:42):
Yeah, you do ninety percent of the fluid.

Speaker 6 (21:45):
Yes, definitely makes it even easier to poison things. So
their toxins are resistant to freezing, cooking at high temperatures,
and they do not break down in the stomach. The
toxins were still fully active no matter how how she
processed them. So at this time, Aaron's comments were not
considered odd by the women in her Facebook group because

(22:07):
one of their main topics was cooking. But they would
say that she was very excited about that food dehydrator
and was really interested in using it for mushrooms. So
then On May twenty first, another Eye Naturalist user hosted
a photo and the exact location where some death cap
mushrooms were growing. The point of this was to warn

(22:28):
forgers about them. Then on May twenty second, Aaron's cell
phone traveled back to Locke and then to the other
place where death caps had been seen. So there were
some people who thought, well, why are they pointing this out?

Speaker 4 (22:41):
But they were pointing it out to.

Speaker 6 (22:42):
Warn people off of them, obviously, not to tell people
you can get them there, no no Now. When going
through Aaron's Internet searches, they discovered that someone had used
a laptop in her house to access the Eye Naturalist
website for death cap mushroom sightings. Police would find an
entry in the personal diary of Gail Patterson from June

(23:04):
twenty eighth, twenty twenty three. That's Simon's mother, and it
read Aarin Saint Vincent's arm lump. So why is this important? Well,
when Erin did invite her in laws and Simon for
lunch about one month later, she had said she needed
to discuss some medical issues. So it turns out Aarin

(23:25):
was pretending to have cancer in order to get them
to come to the special lunch that she had planned
for them. She'd actually told Gail in June that she
needed to go to Saint Vincent's Medical Center to get
a lump in her arm checked out, so she was
laying the groundwork for that lunch even back then. On
June twenty eighth, Gail had texted Erin and asked her

(23:45):
how she had done with her appointment, and Erin had
replied that the next day and said that a needle
biopsy had been taken and she would be returning to
the hospital the next week for an MRI. But when
police would look into this, they'd find that Aaron had
not had any appointments or procedures at any hospitals in

(24:06):
the region between January twenty twenty one and June twenty twenty.

Speaker 7 (24:11):
Three, so she might be making it up.

Speaker 4 (24:14):
Maybe Yes.

Speaker 6 (24:16):
On July sixth, the Gail texted Erin again and asked
if she had gotten any results on her tests. Erin
replied that she was okay, but that she would have
more to say about it later.

Speaker 4 (24:27):
So kind of a mystery there.

Speaker 7 (24:28):
She's lying out Yep, she wants to use something to
draw them into visiting her.

Speaker 6 (24:34):
Yes, So it was July sixteenth, when Aerin attended a
church service and she invited Don and Gail Patterson, and
Ian and Heather Wilkinson and Simon for lunch. She said
that there was a bit to digest about her medical
issues and she wanted to talk to them about it
and how they would explain it to the kids now. Actually,

(24:55):
Ian and Heather had not known Erin very well, so
they were pretty surprised by this lunch invitation.

Speaker 4 (25:01):
They'd never been invited to eat at.

Speaker 6 (25:03):
Her house before, so they were all really concerned about
what news she'd be sharing.

Speaker 4 (25:07):
They were worried about her health.

Speaker 6 (25:09):
The lunch was scheduled for July twenty ninth, but on
June twenty eighth, But on July twenty eighth, Simon texted
Erin to tell her he would not be coming. He
said he just didn't feel comfortable about coming, but he
was still happy to discuss her issues over the phone
whenever she wanted. Erin was insistent that he should come
because she'd put a lot of work into preparing the

(25:31):
meal and she was exhausted because of her medical condition.
She said she wanted it to be a special meal
and she'd spend a lot of money on the beef filet,
and she really wanted to share her news with the
family all together, but still Simon would not attend.

Speaker 4 (25:46):
So it's pretty weird.

Speaker 7 (25:48):
It's pretty weird.

Speaker 6 (25:49):
So it is clear that Aaron had wanted Simon to
eat the death kept mushrooms if you look at it
that way, right, Yes, she did have an issue with
Simon and apparently with his parents as well. But then
why did she invite the Wilkinsons. That's a question you
asked me a little bit ago. She had no problems
with the Wilkinsons. People did know about the issues with Simon,

(26:11):
Don and Gale, So maybe the other couple were just
going to be there to throw off investigators, because if
two people she had no issues with became ill or died,
then it would look more like an accident.

Speaker 4 (26:23):
I guess.

Speaker 7 (26:23):
I guess in the mind of Aaron, that's the reason.

Speaker 6 (26:27):
Well it's the only one I can come up with,
and it's the only one I've really read that makes
any sense to me. I can't see any reason why
she would want them to be ill or dead.

Speaker 7 (26:37):
No, because, like the Wilkinson said, they had very little
contact with her through the years.

Speaker 4 (26:43):
Exactly.

Speaker 7 (26:43):
There's no reason that I can find that Aaron would
try to kill them or make them ill.

Speaker 6 (26:48):
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(27:11):
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and you can join the tigrabber community today. So let's
go to July twenty ninth, twenty twenty three, Simon called
his son, who told him that he and his sister
were going to go to the movies. Simon made plans

(28:11):
to pick the kids up after the movie, drop his
son back at Aeron's, and take his daughter home with him.
Ian and Heather Wilkinson were picked up by Don and
Gail Patterson to go to the lunch together, and the
four arrived at Aaron's at twelve thirty pm. So before lunch,
Heather wanted to see Aaron's pantry because she was building
one in her house. So Heather and Gale went to

(28:34):
look at the pantry, but according to Ian, Aaron appeared
nervous and uncomfortable having them go toward there.

Speaker 7 (28:41):
Maybe there was some incriminating evidence there.

Speaker 6 (28:43):
Well, that's what he's thinking. As Aaron was plating the food,
Heather and Gale offered to help her, but again Aaron
insisted on doing it herself and didn't seem to want
them around. She served mashed potatoes, green beans, and single
portions of beef Wellington Sowell. Beef Wellington, if you don't know,
is a gourmet dish. It's made with wrapping a tenderloin

(29:05):
of beef in a fine layer of finely chopped mushrooms
and garlic, and then encasing it in a puff pastry
with gravy. Individual beef Wellington's would be a lot more
work than a single dish which you would slice and serve,
But that's what Aaron made.

Speaker 7 (29:21):
You're right. It is a lot more work to do.
Individual beef Wellingtons a lot more work. Six puff pastries.

Speaker 6 (29:27):
Six times more work at least yep. But of course
this would make it easier to poison her guests and
not herself.

Speaker 7 (29:35):
Yeah, as long as she remembers which plate is hers.

Speaker 6 (29:37):
Yeah, and we think she did that by serving them
on gray plates and using a different plate for herself,
So there's no way she could have mixed it up right.
So they're having lunch and Gail really raved about the meal.
She could only eat about half of it until she
was full. Don ended up eating his entire portion, plus
half of Gale's. During this lunch, Aaron told them she

(30:00):
had potentially life threatening ovarian cancer, and she was worried
about how she would tell the children. Her computer had
searches about ovarian cancer, but there were no medical records
indicating that she had been diagnosed with any kind of cancer.
So Aarin likely thought that if all of her lunch
guests died, no one would be around to tell anyone

(30:22):
about this whole cancer story she'd given them, because these
were the only people she'd set it to. Now, that afternoon,
Simon dropped off his son and a friend of his
at Aaron's house. Andy saw that his parents' car was
still in the driveway. He took his daughter back to
his house, then brought her back to Aaron's. At about
nine pm, after her guests had left, Aarin drove her

(30:44):
son's friend home and took him to Subway to get
some food. Now, she never mentioned feeling ill that afternoon
or night to anyone, even though she would later say
that she had felt ill just a few hours after
eating that lunch. So now, the next morning, July thirtieth,
Don and Gale called Simon and told him that they
had been violently ill since the night before and they

(31:07):
were now at the hospital. They'd been taken there by
an ambulance. So with death cap mushrooms, the symptoms are
delayed until six to twenty four hours after ingesting them,
so you might feel fine but then start having these
gastro intestinal symptoms. But by the time you have those symptoms,
your liver is already being attacked by the toxins, very

(31:29):
deadly toxins.

Speaker 7 (31:31):
Yeah, and you can't do anything to clear them out
of the body.

Speaker 6 (31:35):
No. The GI symptoms include violent vomiting and diarrhea, and
it's sometimes mistaken for food poisoning.

Speaker 7 (31:42):
You have a food poisoning usually has a much more
quick onset exactly like, you eat it within an hour
or so, you're sick.

Speaker 4 (31:49):
Right, But this it took hours.

Speaker 7 (31:51):
Yeah, this is slow moving.

Speaker 6 (31:53):
So these death cap mushrooms, which I had never heard of,
are responsible for ninety percent of mushroom poisoning deaths. So
that is significant.

Speaker 7 (32:03):
Yeah, yes it is.

Speaker 6 (32:04):
They grow throughout the world and look like many other mushrooms.
They have kind of a flat or slightly rounded cap
on a thick stalk. They normally grow in forests or
on or near trees, especially oak trees. They have a
high concentration of amatoxins that are extremely poisonous. The toxins
can stop protein synthesis and cells, which causes the cells

(32:27):
to die right right, not good?

Speaker 7 (32:30):
Not good to the toxin intext the liver and kidneys primarily.
Neither of those are good things to attack.

Speaker 6 (32:37):
No, your body cannot function, no. So Stage one of
death cap poisoning is that gastro intestinal phase, and this
includes symptoms of nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and fever which
causes dehydration. Stage two, referred to as the latent phase,
occurs between twelve and thirty six hours, and patients may

(33:00):
begin to feel much better. So during this stage they
might think they had food poisoning and it's resolving, right,
But during this stage, the toxins in the mushroom are
damaging the liver and the kidneys, and there's really not
much you can do.

Speaker 5 (33:13):
To stop that, right, That's what I've learned.

Speaker 9 (33:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (33:17):
Stage three is the hapato renal stage, meaning liver kidney
stage basically, and it starts between three and six days
after eating the mushrooms. So the patient has a loss
of liver and kidney function, They have jaundice, they have
low blood sugar, delirium and confusion which can happen sooner

(33:39):
as well. And if the patient does reach this stage,
extreme measures like a liver transplant maybe necessary to try.

Speaker 4 (33:47):
To save them.

Speaker 5 (33:48):
That's rather extreme and it's.

Speaker 6 (33:49):
Not guaranteed to work either. So when Simon heard that
his parents were ill and that they had been transported
to Doningong Hospital, he called his and uncle Ian and Heather.
When they didn't answer the phone, he drove to their house.
Simon said that his uncle looked really ill when he
answered the door. Heather looked terrible too. She was vomiting

(34:12):
into a bucket and lying on the couch. Simon said
he was driving them to the hospital, so when Ian
got ready to go, Heather told Simon that Aaron had
served them on different plates than the one she had
eaten from, and in the car on the way to
the hospital, she asked Simon about the plates.

Speaker 7 (34:29):
Again, she must have had some idea, why else was
she ask about.

Speaker 5 (34:33):
The plates exactly?

Speaker 6 (34:34):
Yes, so she asked if Aaron had a shortage of plates,
and Simon said, well, she does only have eight plates.
But later he would realize that she most definitely served
the meals on different plates, just to make sure she
didn't accidentally poison herself. So tests on the Pattersons had
shown liver function abnormalities. The same happened with the Wilkinsons.

(34:57):
Doctors first considered death cap POISONO. When they realized how
delayed the symptoms had been, the treating physician at Dondanog
Hospital contacted the physician who was treating the Wilkinsons at
another hospital and shared that he believed the Pattersons had
death cap mushroom poisoning. So all four were in the

(35:18):
ICU and given ivy syllabin. So this has been associated
with increased survival in death cap poisoning as it protects
the liver. But it's really not an antidote. There's no
antitoxin and no cure. It is administered in four equal
doses and started as soon as possible, preferably in the

(35:38):
guesstro intestinal phase of the illness.

Speaker 7 (35:41):
No, that's tough to do. You have to recognize pretty
quickly that it's the mushroom or the toxins that are
causing the symptoms.

Speaker 6 (35:48):
That's the problem to get early treatment.

Speaker 7 (35:51):
And there isn't a test you can do that says
mushroom toxin.

Speaker 10 (35:54):
Nope.

Speaker 6 (36:16):
So doctor Beth Morgan at Dondanong Hospital had blood testing
done on Don Patterson which showed he had liver damage.
She became concerned that this was not just food poisoning then,
so she called the toxicology registrar, who requested information about
the last meal they'd eaten, and of course that was

(36:37):
the beef Wellington. Gail Patterson was doing much better than
don remember, heating one and a half servings and Gail
had only eaten a half a serving. True, but it
wily wouldn't change the outcome for it.

Speaker 7 (36:50):
He's bigger than she is, obviously, yes, so amount of
tox and per body weight probably was roughly the same
for both of them.

Speaker 6 (36:58):
Possibly, I don't really know the size difference in the people.
Doctor Christopher Webster was taking care of Ian and Heather
Wilkinson at Lee and got a hospital and he decided
to treat them with anti nausea medication. So they first
responded well to this, but then the symptoms returned and progressed.
When doctor Morgan informed doctor Webster that her two patients

(37:21):
were suffering from death cap mushroom poisoning and they'd eaten
the same thing as Ian in Heather, she suggested that
he give them the syllabin two. So all four patients
were continuing to deteriorate and Aarin was back home. Simon
called her at about two thirty pm, and they talked
about his parents and aunt and uncle being ill. She

(37:42):
claimed she'd not gone to church that day because she'd
had such bad stomach pains and she'd had to run
to the bathroom constantly having severe diarrhea. It was so bad,
she said that she was afraid she might soil herself.
But Aaron spent the day running errands. Aaron's son had
a flying lesson about an hour to an hour and
a half drive away from her house, and that had

(38:05):
been rescheduled for four pm. And even though she claimed
to be suffering from terrible nausea and diarrhea, she went
ahead and drove him so on the way, she said
she had to relieve herself, so she went behind some
bushes on the side of the road. She said she
cleaned herself up with some tissues that she had in
her bag and put them into a dog waste bag.

(38:28):
She also stopped at a service station to use the restroom,
she said, and we were able to see this on CCTV.
But the CCTV footage would show that she did use
the bathroom there, but was only in the bathroom for
a total of nine seconds, and then she came out
and casually shopped, picking out a sandwich and some other food.

(38:50):
But then when Aaron got to the flying lesson with
her son, she found out that it had been canceled
due to bad weather, so she had to turn around
and drive back home. So this whole thing is just
something you wouldn't expect someone who was poisoned would be
able to do at all. No. Plus, on the way home,
she stopped at a donut truck and her son got

(39:11):
out and bought her a coffee. So I would think
that would be the last thing you'd want as a coffee,
Aaron said. She stayed in the car and they got
back to the house. So now it's Sunday evening and
Don Patterson is not doing well at all. Don and
Gail were then transported to Donanogue Hospital, where Ian and

(39:31):
Heather are already in the ICU. And when Gail was
getting loaded into the ambulance in severe pain and near death,
she still thought to say to doctor Webster, thank you
for looking after me, and he would say those words
would haunt him forever. So at five pm that day,
Aaron would claim that she served her children leftovers from

(39:52):
the previous day's lunch.

Speaker 4 (39:54):
I don't know why she said this.

Speaker 6 (39:56):
She later told Simon and the police that she'd scrape
off the mushrooms because her children didn't like mushrooms. She
had spoken to Simon and she knew the lunch guests
were severely ill, but she still fed the children the leftovers.
According to her, So a question that everyone had is
if your lunch guests are hospitalized from eating a meal,

(40:19):
would you feed that meal to your children?

Speaker 4 (40:22):
Of course not.

Speaker 7 (40:23):
Well, the only answer I have for that is that
she knew that it was the mushrooms that have been poisoned,
and she scraped them off. So that makes it all better.

Speaker 6 (40:32):
You can eat the bee, yeah, but it doesn't necessarily
because it can leach into the meat.

Speaker 7 (40:37):
Certainly she doesn't know that.

Speaker 4 (40:40):
Yeah, that's true. Maybe not so.

Speaker 6 (40:42):
When her children were later interviewed, they said that they
did eat some kind of a meat dish, but it
wasn't beef Wellington. Aaron spoke to Simon that night and
he told her that his parents and aunt and uncle
were sick. Aaron told him that she was also sick,
and she'd been having stomach issues since the previous afternoon,

(41:02):
but from Sunday night into Monday, morning, Gail's condition got
a lot worse. Her daughter was at the hospital with her,
taking her to the bathroom over and over. Then she
was in the ICU by Monday morning with liver failure.
So she's too sick for a liver transplant. And Aaron
didn't go to the hospital to check on her in laws,

(41:23):
not once, not at all.

Speaker 7 (41:24):
No phone calls, no visits, no.

Speaker 6 (41:27):
So on that Monday morning of July thirty first, Aaron
got up and drove her children to school. She texted
Simon afterwards and said that she was still sick, and
she asked him if he could drive her to the hospital.
So it's almost like she's trying to get his attention
to be on her. Yeah, it's a little munchausiny.

Speaker 7 (41:46):
Well, she's got to make a case for her being
ill also right, Well.

Speaker 6 (41:50):
That I know, yes, of course, but it seems like
it might be even more than that, wanting the attention
like that now. She did claim that she had to
run to the bathroom every twenty minute and was afraid
to drive herself in case she had an accident, but
Simon said no, he was busy with his sick relatives.
His parents were in critical condition, and his aunt and

(42:11):
uncle were not getting any better either, So if she
was really that sick, she should have called an ambulance,
but she didn't.

Speaker 7 (42:18):
No, she didn't.

Speaker 6 (42:19):
So at seven am, Erin's getting her children ready for
school and she's planning to drive them to the bus stop.
This is when doctor Webster at lee and got A
Hospital got a call from the doctor at Dondanong telling
him that there was a high probability that Erin's in
laws had been poisoned with death cap mushrooms. Then, finally,

(42:40):
at eight o five am, Aaron arrived at the hospital
in Liangatta. By the time she got there and explained
she had eaten lunch with the other patients, the medical
staff knew it was important to get her care as
soon as possible, but Erin would only stay at the
hospital for five minutes. When the director of nursing a
tempted to get her into a room and do an exam,

(43:03):
she said she just did not want to be there.
The nurse consulted the doctor and asked him to talk
to Erin and get her to stay. By the time
the doctor reached Erin, she was already at the door
getting ready to leave and she would end up discharging
herself against medical advice. So she told the doctor she
wasn't able to stay because she had to make arrangements

(43:24):
for her animals and for her children, but she promised
she would return within thirty minutes. Now, the nurse and
the doctor did not think this was a good idea
at all, but she was not going to listen to them.
Doctor Webster had even spoke with her to explain how
serious this situation was, but no matter what, she wouldn't stay.

(43:47):
So what was it that she wanted to go do
or was she just avoiding being examined?

Speaker 7 (43:52):
Well, she didn't want to be examined.

Speaker 6 (43:54):
Yeah, So the medical staff was stunned by her behavior
and her attitude. Doctor Webster said that he had just
warned her that she had been exposed to a potential
death cap mushroom poisoning, and she had just seemed oblivious.
He did not understand because he'd already told her that
Don and Gil Petterson were in the ICU and that

(44:16):
Ian and Heather Wilkinson were being transferred to a larger
hospital because they required more advanced care. So when Aaron
did not return to the hospital in half an hour
like she said she would. Doctor Webster called her cell
phone three times and he left her some urgent messages
telling her that for her own health, she needed to

(44:37):
get in there or he was going to have to
call the police. He told her she had to come
back to the hospital or he really had no choice
but to call the police.

Speaker 4 (44:46):
That's how concerned he was.

Speaker 7 (44:48):
Yeah, well, I got four people that are near death
from the poisoning, and if she's ingested this stuff, she
absolutely needs to be.

Speaker 6 (44:56):
Seen right and they just can't figure out why she's
acting way. Yeah, and this doctor Webster would say at
this point, he really thought that she had poisoned them.

Speaker 4 (45:06):
He could see no other reason for this.

Speaker 7 (45:08):
Yeah, well, probably isn't any other reason.

Speaker 4 (45:11):
Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 6 (45:13):
Well, Aarin did finally return to the hospital, and this
was just a few minutes before ten am. We don't
know exactly what she was up to during this time,
but her cell phone pinged off of towers in the Angada,
Kunwera and Outrim. When she was back at the hospital,
the doctor began asking her questions about the food that

(45:34):
she had prepared. He asked her where she had gotten
the mushrooms she'd used in the recipe, she said from Woolworth's,
which is a grocery store there. He asked if anyone
else beside herself, the Patterson's and the Wilkinsons had eaten
the meal, and she mentioned that she had heated up
the food the next day for her children, but that

(45:55):
she had scraped the mushrooms off of the.

Speaker 7 (45:57):
Meat, allegedly because her kids didn't like mushrooms.

Speaker 4 (46:00):
That's what she said.

Speaker 6 (46:02):
So at ten oh four am, doctor Webster got a
call from the police. They were at Aaron's house because
they were going to do a welfare check after he'd
called them earlier. Webster asked Aarin then for permission to
let the police enter her house and take the leftover beef.
Wellington and Erin did agree and told the police that

(46:23):
the leftover food was in a brown Woolworths bag, most
likely in the outdoor garbage, so that's where it was
found and they didn't have to enter the house at all.
So that makes me wonder a little bit why it
was outside. Was she thinking this would happen and didn't
want police in her house?

Speaker 7 (46:41):
Yeah, she wanted it out of the house to keep
everybody free of poison.

Speaker 6 (46:45):
Oh well, that could be it, so the leftover meal
was taken by the police to the hospital, where medical
staff took custody of it. Meanwhile, Erin was finally allowing
the medical staff to examine her, but the staff would
say she was pouting and saying she didn't want any interventions.
The director of nursing, who had cared for Heather and

(47:06):
Ian Wilkinson, said that Erin did not look on well
like Ian and Heather had. She remembered Ian being so
sick that he couldn't lift his head from the pillow,
but Erin, on the other hand, was sitting up and
really looked normal. She claimed to be sick and needing
to use the bathroom, but it didn't seem that way.
While she was there, the doctor decided to give Erin

(47:29):
a medication called NAC which is a modified form of
the amino acid cysteine, which protects cells from damage and
helps detoxify the liver. Erin tried to refuse this ivy medication,
but the nurse was able to convince her that she
had to have it. The nurse also told her that
it was imperative that her children come to the hospital

(47:51):
to be examined, because even if Aaron had scraped off
the mushroom mixture, the toxins could have leached into the meat.

Speaker 4 (47:59):
So at this.

Speaker 6 (47:59):
Point Aarin appeared very worried and tearful, but she still
did not want her children to be examined, which was
really weird. There's no explanation for that. Doctor Webster did
get involved in this conversation and he told Aaron that
her children needed to be taken to the hospital immediately.
Aaron said she was reluctant because she didn't want her

(48:21):
kids to be frightened if they were picked up at
school to go to the hospital. But doctor Webster had
really had it. He told her, well, they can be
scared and alive or dead. So at that point Aarin
was agreeable, and she said she would have Simon get
the kids and take them to Monosh Hospital, which is
one of the largest public hospitals in Victoria, and it

(48:44):
was about ninety minutes away, which is a bit of
a drive it is if it's urgent. So doctor Webster
contacted doctor Connor McDermott, the toxicology registrar at Austin Hospital
in Melbourne, where the Victorian poison Information Centers located. McDermott
knew that Aarin was in stable condition. Her test results

(49:06):
were normal, even though she was claiming to be suffering
from diarrhea for the past twenty four hours. McDermott spoke
to Erin and asked her about the mushrooms she'd used
in the beef Wellington and she told him that she
had bought pre sliced button mushrooms from the Safeway in
the Angada, as well as some dried mushrooms from an
Asian grocer in Oakley. She said she had bought these

(49:30):
mushrooms months ago, though, and they'd been unbranded and she'd
thrown away all the original packaging, so that was kind
of convenient. McDermott went online and looked up Asian grocers
in the area, and he offered to read them off
so she could remember the name when he says it
and they could figure this out. But she said, oh,
doesn't matter, because you could say any names and I'm

(49:52):
just not going to remember anyway, so she wouldn't even try.
Now we know that these poisonous mushrooms could not have
been at a regular old grocery store or the Asian
grocer really for that matter, because there are really strict
rules on mushrooms that are sold to the public. There's
a whole organization in charge of looking out for these mushrooms.

(50:13):
So I don't know if Aaron was aware of how
unusual it would be for her to have picked them
up at a store, right, I.

Speaker 7 (50:21):
Mean, if you're foraging for them, sure, right, but mushrooms
sold in stores should have been inspected or at least cleared.

Speaker 6 (50:29):
Oh, absolutely, they would have been, absolutely so. But she's
denying foraging at this point.

Speaker 7 (50:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (50:36):
So Aarin knew that her children were being taken to
Manash Hospital by Simon, so she requested that she be
transferred to the same hospital. At twelve thirty pm, she
texted Simon and said, they're arguing with me, saying I
might have to go to Denenong Hospital. This doctor's not
listening to me and is being a bit mean about it.

(50:57):
So Aaron and some samples from the beef welling to
and were transferred by ambulance to Monash Hospital because that's
what Aaron wanted. And it seems like Aaron got what
she wanted now, this, like I said, was a ninety
minute drive. The paramedic assured her that they would help
her if she needed to use the bathroom along the
way during the transport. But miraculously, Aaron did not have

(51:19):
any diarrhea or vomiting during the entire drive. She did
complain of a headache and she was given fentanyl because
acida minifin was contraindicated because of the possible effects on
her liver.

Speaker 7 (51:31):
Well, yeah, if you have a messed up liver, a
cetaminifin is toxic as hell.

Speaker 6 (51:36):
Yeah, so that would be a big strain on a liver,
especially if it was already failing.

Speaker 7 (51:41):
Right and already damaged liver. Acetaminafin is absolutely contraindicated.

Speaker 6 (51:46):
But she would be described as being pretty relaxed, just
kind of going along on this ride, has her fentanyl,
kind of happy, and no stops for vomiting her diarrhea.

(52:19):
By a few minutes after four pm, Aaron arrived at
Monash Hospital. The kids and Simon were already there. Aaron
talked about dehydrating mushrooms and hiding them in some food
that she would feed the children. So Simon speaks to
Aaron about this dehydrator and according to Aaron, he said
to her, is that what she used to poison my parents.

(52:42):
But Simon would deny ever, saying that Aaron told another
doctor that she had bought the mushrooms at an Asian grocer.
Now it was either in Oakley or Mount Waverley, so
she's expanded the area. Now, this was over seventy miles
away from her home. Two physicians examined and spoke with Aaron,
and they determined that she was not suffering from death

(53:05):
cap mushroom poisoning. She had no signs of GI illness either.
All of her testing was normal, So Aarin was finally
told she and her children were not poisoned and they
were discharged healthy, no problems. But in the meantime, Gail,
don Ian and Heather were all getting worse. The toxins

(53:26):
from death cap mushrooms are recycled through the body and
they're not excreted, so I did not know that until
I read about it. It's kind of a terrifying thing,
it is.

Speaker 7 (53:36):
Yeah, I guess that's why the only definitive thing to
do if you're getting progressively sicker is a transplant.

Speaker 4 (53:43):
Right.

Speaker 6 (53:44):
They were given activated charcoal just to try and absorb
some of the toxins from their bowels, but it was
really too late to be effective, because now it had
been a couple of days.

Speaker 7 (53:54):
Yeah, you'd have to do that within hours.

Speaker 5 (53:57):
Yeah, of ingestion.

Speaker 6 (53:59):
The Department of Family had received a report about the children,
and child protection worker Katrina Cripps spoke with Simon, Aaron,
and the two children on August first. When asked about
her relationship with Simon's family, Aaron said she loved them
very much.

Speaker 4 (54:16):
She also said.

Speaker 6 (54:17):
That Simon was controlling and emotionally abusive, and he had
been isolating her from his family over the past several months.
She said that her children had told her they didn't
want to visit their father on the weekends because he
yelled at them and he slept too much. So Aarin
was asked again about the mushrooms. She said she had

(54:38):
gotten the fresh ones from Woolworth's and the dried ones
from the Asian grocer. At this time, the Department of
Health had been trying to talk to Aarin, but she
hadn't been responding, so the Department of Families employee Katrina
Cripps arranged a call between Aaron and the Department of Health.
So that was a way that she was able to

(54:59):
get Aaron on the phone with the Department of Health
because Aaron was not calling them back.

Speaker 7 (55:04):
No, she just keeps saying, I'll get around to it.

Speaker 4 (55:07):
Right, She's busy, you know.

Speaker 7 (55:09):
Yep.

Speaker 6 (55:10):
So on August fourth, five days after consuming the death
cap mushrooms, Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson died. Then the
next day, August fifth, Don Patterson died, even after receiving
a liver transplant.

Speaker 4 (55:24):
So that man suffered.

Speaker 5 (55:25):
Oh my god, yeah he sure did.

Speaker 4 (55:28):
Jeez, it's a horrible way to die.

Speaker 6 (55:30):
So Ian Wilkinson would survive, but he would remain hospitalized
until late September, so he went through hell as well.
Plus he lost his wife. So on Saturday, exactly one
week from the lunch, Aaron learns that Gail and Heather
have died. Police arrive at her house to interview her
and do a search of the house. So they were

(55:51):
in her house for hours searching, and then later that
day was when Don died. The way the illness affected
the Pattersons and Wilkinson's was so different from Aaron's physical
condition after that lunch that it really could not be explained.
So now the story started to make the national news.
It had already been in the local news and Aaron

(56:12):
eventually decided to speak to the media. This happened on
the Monday after the deaths. So Channel nine and the
Harold's son had reporters outside of her home for days
just waiting to get a statement from her, and they
were really surprised this day when she stopped and she
gave this impromptu interview.

Speaker 4 (56:31):
It's a tragedy with company.

Speaker 3 (56:34):
Can you tell us about the Mela equals.

Speaker 11 (56:36):
That devastated by what's happened about Thelissom Don Don is
still in hospital, Anne and Hither and Kyle that was
some of the best people that I've ever met. Gyle
was like that I didn't have because my mom passed

(56:58):
a wife four years ago. And Gail's never been anything back, good.

Speaker 4 (57:02):
And kind to me.

Speaker 11 (57:04):
And Anne and Heather were some of the best people
I've ever met.

Speaker 4 (57:08):
They never did anything wrong to me.

Speaker 6 (57:09):
I'm so devastated about what's happened.

Speaker 11 (57:13):
I lost to the community and to the families, and
to my own children have lost their grandmother.

Speaker 5 (57:20):
Can you tell us a bit more about the lunch?
What I can tell you.

Speaker 11 (57:28):
Is that I just can't fathom what has happened.

Speaker 5 (57:31):
I just can't fathom what has happened.

Speaker 11 (57:36):
That Ian and Heather have lost their lives, and Gail
has lost her life, and Donna is still in hospital,
and I pray, I pray that he pulls through because.

Speaker 4 (57:45):
My children love him, and you must be pretty shaken.

Speaker 5 (57:48):
Up with this as well.

Speaker 4 (57:50):
I'm devastated.

Speaker 11 (57:51):
I love them, and I can't believe that this has happened,
and I'm so sorry that they have lost their lives.

Speaker 5 (58:00):
But I just don't believe it, just got believe it.

Speaker 11 (58:07):
Can you tell us where the mushrooms came from?

Speaker 7 (58:15):
Would I pick from the.

Speaker 4 (58:15):
Property to leave your life?

Speaker 7 (58:19):
Afterlease?

Speaker 6 (58:20):
Police are your suspects?

Speaker 5 (58:22):
Do you have anything to say about that? I didn't
do anything.

Speaker 11 (58:25):
I loved them, devastated that.

Speaker 4 (58:28):
They go on and I hope.

Speaker 6 (58:31):
Every five of my being that don calls free.

Speaker 11 (58:35):
That's what.

Speaker 7 (58:37):
Did I pick by you? Or where did they come from?

Speaker 9 (58:40):
There?

Speaker 7 (58:41):
So you tell.

Speaker 3 (58:42):
Us what meal did you cook them?

Speaker 5 (58:49):
Did you wade the same meal their one? So?

Speaker 6 (58:52):
I think there are a few things that are noteworthy
about her interview. One of them is how she mixed
up the names. Very true, a lot of crying, but
no tears if you look at the video, and did
she really think that Ian was dead and don wasn't.
It's kind of weird that she mixed that up, And
I don't know if that shows that she just didn't

(59:13):
care or what. Due to her behavior, the statement made
by her victims before their deaths, and the fact that
Erin did not become ill, Aarin was a suspect in
the poisoning very early on. The case against her relied
quite a bit on forensic evidence related to digital devices,
financial records, and the toxicology. The most significant were a

(59:35):
mobile phone and SIM card activity, factory resets of devices,
credit card transactions, and the handling of physical evidence from
the scene of the alleged poisonings. Let's begin with mobile
phones and SIM cards. The prosecution would allege that Aaron
Patterson manipulated devices to conceal evidence. After the fatal lunch,

(59:56):
Aaron swapped the SIM card from her primary phone into
a noise phone, so the original SIM card from a
Samsung tablet was also put into another phone referred to
as Phone B by investigators. So the phone handed over
to police by Aaron in the investigation was factory reset
at least three times after the lunch and before being

(01:00:18):
turned over. This phone had a SIM card that had
seen little use for calls or messages, suggesting this was
an irregular phone. Police determined that her primary phone, believed
to be at the center of the investigation, was never recovered.
The device handed to police was a secondary phone, and
a third device with older messages was also found in

(01:00:40):
her home. One of the phones was remotely wiped on
August sixth, the day after it was handed to police,
and at that time it was sitting in a police locker,
so that's pretty ballsy. This further complicated police forensic recovery efforts.
When the police asked her for the past code, she

(01:01:01):
also said she wasn't sure if it was four or
six digits. Then once they got it open and they
turned it on, they didn't need a pin, just like
a factory reset phone. It was all cleared. So when
she sat down for that interview, she was asked if
she had a food dehydrator. She said no, maybe years ago,
but not for a long time. But they found user

(01:01:23):
manuals for a dehydrator in her house, and they already
knew that she had one. They had recovered it from
the dump, which they call a tip. She also denied
ever foraging at all. But later the only way she
would be able to defend herself was to say she
foraged for the mushrooms and accidentally brought home death caps.

(01:01:44):
So a Victoria Police digital forensics officer detailed the analysis
of the sea's devices, including the multiple factory resets, and
the recovery of messages that showed motive or evidence of
her state of mind. The forensic analysis also included examination
of Internet searches and visits to web pages about deathcap

(01:02:07):
mushrooms on devices seized from Aaron Patterson's home. There were
important credit card and financial records too. Aaron's bank records,
shopping receipts, and Woolworth's rewards were used to track her
purchases in the week leading up to the fatal lunch.
So after being accused of poisoning her in laws, Erin

(01:02:27):
complained that she was being portrayed as a witch to
the public. So this brings us to about a year
prior to the mushroom lunch, when Aaron had hired a
contractor to fix a wall which had been drawn on
with marker. He found what was on the wall very
disturbing and it seemed to confirm that there was something
sinister going on. The contractor actually referred to this wall

(01:02:49):
as the death wall. The things written on this wall
raised some questions. A photo, which can be found at
news dot com dot au, shows a large section of
walls inside the home previously owned by Erin covered in red,
blue and black markings.

Speaker 4 (01:03:05):
So One section.

Speaker 6 (01:03:06):
Reads you don't have long to live one hour exactly.
Another one reads you're dead from my sword. Underneath two
stick figures of a male and female are the words
I am dead, no, I am really dead. And above
three tombstones there are the words Grandma rip, Hannah rip,
and me rip on them. So Erin explained to the

(01:03:28):
contractor that the markings happened when she was gone and
the kids did it, but still very weird.

Speaker 4 (01:03:35):
Why would a kid do that?

Speaker 6 (01:03:37):
Police confirmed on August fourteenth that Erin had given a
detailed statement, but this was provided to them by her attorney.
She said that she intentionally disposed of the food dehydrator
that the police had recovered from a trash bin at
the transfer station after people began accusing her of intentionally
poisoning the meal. This was after she had told the

(01:03:59):
police that she'd had it a long while back and
had thrown it away like weeks or months before, but
they had security footage that showed her dumping a food
dehydrator at the transfer station after she hosted the deadly lunch.
Traces of death cap mushrooms were found on the Sunbeam dehydrator,
the same toxin ingested by four guests on July twenty ninth,

(01:04:22):
twenty twenty three. Also it had Erin's finger prints. Erin
is seen retrieving the dehydrator from her trunk boot and
taking it inside the shed. Manager Darren Canty said the
item was later retrieved from an e waste band and
given to the police. Erin made that trip to the
landfill just hours after being discharged from the Monash Hospital.

(01:04:44):
So after her arrest in November of twenty twenty three,
Erin was held at the Dame Phyllis Frosts Center, a
woman's maximum security prison in Melbourne. On May seventh, twenty
twenty four, she pleaded not guilty to three murder charges
and five attempted murder charges by her own choice. Her

(01:05:05):
case proceeded directly to the Supreme Court of Victoria, and
she was also charged with attempting to kill her ex
husband Simon On several occasions, but those charges were eventually dropped.
Aarin requested that her trial be held in more Well
rather than Melbourne, and this was approved by the judge.

(01:05:25):
Her trial began on April twenty ninth, twenty twenty five,
and it lasted nine weeks. In opening statements, the prosecutor
talked about the food dehydrator and how Aarin had lied
at first saying she did not own one. The prosecutor
showed her Facebook posts which shared photos of it and
photos of dehydrated mushrooms. So details were given about her

(01:05:47):
trips to Locke and out Trim in April twenty twenty three,
and those were two known places where the death cap
mushrooms grew. So the defense did acknowledge that Aarin had
lied to the police about not owning a dehydrator and
about never foraging for mushrooms. They did not dispute that
death cap mushroom poisoning had killed her lunch guests, but

(01:06:10):
they argued that it had been an accident. So, according
to the defense, this was a tragedy and just a
terrible accident. So if you were on the jury, would
you believe that, what do you think.

Speaker 7 (01:06:21):
I'd have a tough time believing that she's switching stories midstream.
It's always tough to recover from that.

Speaker 6 (01:06:28):
Yeah, I don't think she will recover. The court heard
testimony from Aaron's ex husband, Simon Patterson. He said that
Aaron had a close relationship with her father in law,
Don and he recalled how when he took Heather Wilkinson
to the hospital, she had said twice that Aaron had
eaten from different colored plate, from a different colored plate

(01:06:50):
than the rest of them. He stated that Aaron had
left him extremely aggressive messages over child support payments in
the months leading up to the poisoning. Andy also said
she never asked about the well being of her in
laws after the poisoning. He went on to talk about
how Aarin had been disappointed when he said he was

(01:07:11):
not attending the lunch, and he explained how she had
arranged the lunch to discuss her fate cancer diagnosis with
their relatives. So the jury heard from Christine Hunt, Jenny Hay,
and Daniella Barkley. There were posts showing the dehydrator along
with sliced mushrooms that were sent in her Facebook group,

(01:07:34):
and Daniella said that Aaron had asked the group for
advice on cooking beef Wellington weeks prior to the lunch.
So I would just think, if she was planning this poisoning,
why would she put these things on the Facebook group.
It's almost like she can't help herself. Well Ian Wilkinson
testified as the sole survivor of the poisoning, and he

(01:07:57):
recalled how Aarin had been very reluctant to show o'heather
and Gale her pantry, and that she had also refused
their help in plating and serving the meal. He also
said that she ate from a different colored plate than
the rest of them. So Mana's emergency doctor Mark Douglas
testified about mushroom poisoning symptoms similar to those experienced by

(01:08:18):
the Pattersons and the Wilkinsons. Following that lunch, Don and
Gale's daughter Anna also gave testimony about her parents' relationship
with Aaron and said, you know what was really unusual
for the Wilkinsons to be invited to lunch by her.
She never had been before. The court also heard testimony
from Matthew Patterson, and that's Aaron's brother in law. He

(01:08:42):
recalled that Aaron had told Simon that she had bought
the mushrooms used in the beef Wellington's from a Woolworths
supermarket and an Asian grocer. So Leanne got a hospital doctor,
Chris Webster testified that Aaron had claimed her children were
frightened of being tested. Gippsland Southern Health Service nursing director

(01:09:04):
Kylie Ashton told the court that Aaron had refused to
let hospital staff examine her and had signed a discharge
at own risk form. Aaron's lawyer said that she was
prepared to have treatment, but not at that time.

Speaker 7 (01:09:19):
Now that's just a totally ridiculous statement.

Speaker 6 (01:09:22):
Yeah right, because time is of the essence in this yes, exactly.

Speaker 7 (01:09:26):
And she potentially had ingested a lethal.

Speaker 6 (01:09:29):
Poison right for her children, Yeah right. So Leanne got
a Director of nursing Cindi Monroe, also testified about Aaron's
refusal to accept medical treatment and testing. Aaron's sister in law, Tanya,
testified that Aaron's relationship with Simon had deteriorated in the
year leading up to the lunch. Tanya, who visited Aaron

(01:09:50):
and her children two days after the lunch, testified that
Aaron had said she was nauseous, dizzy and tired, and
she also testified that Aaron had asked about the well
being of her four lunch guests while she was at
Monash Hospital on August first, The police interview with Aaron's
daughter was played for the jury, and the daughter said

(01:10:11):
that she did not know her mother used mushrooms in
her cooking. The son described his parents' relationship as very negative,
and he said that he and his sister were closer
with their mom. He said that his father did a
lot of things to try and hurt their mom, and
when asked about the drive to that flight lesson, he

(01:10:31):
said that his mother did not use the toilet, even
though she did tell him that she had diarrhea. So
after several medical professionals testified about Aaron's normal physical exam
and normal blood tests, the child protection worker Katrina Cripps
told the court that the Patterson children really disliked visiting

(01:10:51):
their father because he yelled at them and he slept
too much during the weekend.

Speaker 4 (01:10:56):
She said that.

Speaker 6 (01:10:57):
Aaron had been unable to recall where she had the
mushrooms and that she had been evasive when asked if
she had forged for them herself.

Speaker 7 (01:11:06):
Doctor Dimitri Garastamulos, the head of forensic science and chief
toxicologist of the Victorian Institute of Medicine, said that they
had tested the meat, pastry and mushroom paste samples from
the beef Wellington. One of the four mushroom samples contained
beta amanitin. That's an amatoxin found in death cap mushrooms.

(01:11:27):
He spoke about the toxicology results from Don Gail and Heather,
which tested negative for the toxin, the surviving victim ian
tested positive for the toxin, and another prosecution witness confirmed
that samples from the dehydrator had a ninety nine percent
similarity to death cap.

Speaker 4 (01:11:46):
Mushrooms, so that's quite damning for Aaron.

Speaker 7 (01:11:50):
Definitely not good.

Speaker 6 (01:11:52):
The court heard from retired pharmacist and Victoria Poison's Information
Center specialist Christine Mackenzie, who gave expert testimony about her
observations of death cap mushrooms growing in April of twenty
twenty three. The court also heard expert testimony from digital
forensic science expert Matthew Cerrell, who would analyzed the phone

(01:12:15):
records of one of Aaron's mobile phones between January first,
twenty nineteen and August third, twenty twenty three, so Aarin
had used that phone to access photos of death cap
mushrooms on Eye Naturalists in April and May of twenty
twenty three, and he confirmed that his analysis of her

(01:12:36):
phone showed that she had visited Locke twice in the
autumn of twenty twenty three. The court was also told
that police had been unable to recover her mobile phone
which was used during those visits, so the phone data
showed that Aaron had made several visits in back to Locke,
out Trim and Kunwera during the eighteen months leading up

(01:12:59):
to the lunch. Then there was a detective who presented
the CCTV footage of Aaron's car at a gas station
in Caldermead on July thirtieth at three twenty pm. She
had visited the service station's toilet and this was just
for nine seconds. So a Victoria Police digital forensics officer

(01:13:21):
also testified about his examinations of Aaron's devices that were
seized on August fifth, and an analysis of her computer
found that she had searched for the Eye Naturalist website
and death Cap mushrooms twice in May twenty twenty two,
so it seems like she's not even trying. Why would
you go into the bathroom for nine seconds. You have

(01:13:43):
to know there are cameras, and you have to know
if people die, they're going to look into it. I mean,
why wouldn't you assume that That's a good question.

Speaker 7 (01:13:51):
Also from this testimony, if we didn't know it already,
this is something that she'd been planning for quite some time.

Speaker 4 (01:14:00):
Definitely seems like it.

Speaker 7 (01:14:01):
Yeah, it doesn't seem like a spur of the moment thought.

Speaker 6 (01:14:04):
No, And maybe she was planning on just poisoning Simon.

Speaker 4 (01:14:08):
I don't know.

Speaker 6 (01:14:09):
I don't know how it turned into this mass murder.
But there was also some testimony about the investigation that
was done into twelve local grocers who sold mushrooms. So
the photos of Aaron's mushrooms did not match any sold
by any of the grocers. The Department of Health concluded
that it was highly unlikely that commercial mushrooms supply chains

(01:14:32):
were contaminated with death cap mushrooms.

Speaker 7 (01:14:35):
Oh I hope not. Hadn't be a tough one.

Speaker 6 (01:14:37):
Yeah, right, And Erin's description of the mushrooms that she
used for the lunch did not match any commercial varieties,
so Detective Sergeant Luke Ferrell, who had searched the Patterson's
home on August fifth, and who had seized her computer
and some mobile devices, said that Aaron had expressed surprise
after learning about the death of Heather that same day,

(01:15:00):
and he also confirmed that the police did not seize
any of her plates during the investigation. So that's kind
of unfortunate. I think that was an oversight. I think
the plates might have helped some Oh maybe, I know,
we didn't need them.

Speaker 7 (01:15:15):
They probably wouldn't be able to recover any evidence of
toxin on the plates.

Speaker 6 (01:15:20):
But no, but you could just like show them. When
Ian testified to what plates were used, he could have
pointed it out to people to the jury. Yeah, So

(01:15:51):
the final prosecution witness, Detective Leading Senior Constable Stephen Eppenstal,
told the court that his team at analyzed Aaron's bank
records and identified a transaction from the Kira transfer station
on August second. Following the deaths of Heather and Gale.
On August fourth, he had questioned her about her Beef

(01:16:13):
Wellington recipe. He said his team had concluded that Aaron's
Samsung phone had been factory reset four times, then the
court watched Aaron's police interview from August fifth, where she
denied owning a food dehydrator at all. So the prosecution
also submitted maps of the lock and outtrim area and

(01:16:34):
CCTV movements of Aaron's car, all quite damning. So once
the prosecution rested, Aaron took the stand for her defense.
And this was a surprise. This really was not expected.
Most people don't do.

Speaker 7 (01:16:48):
This, so typically the accused does not take the stand.

Speaker 6 (01:16:53):
Right unless she thought she could convince them.

Speaker 7 (01:16:57):
Well, I'd imagine that that was her hope.

Speaker 6 (01:17:00):
Well, I think in committing this crime, she showed that
she thought she was smarter than everyone else, because I
think she really thought she was going to get away
with this. Oh yeah, So she talked about her relationship
with Simon and her in laws. She also told the
court that she struggled with low self esteem and weight gain,
and she had been planning to undergo gastric bypass surgery

(01:17:22):
in July twenty twenty three. She told the court that
she had forged for mushrooms in Leangata and Corumbura for
several years leading up to July twenty twenty three. So
right there, she's admitting that she lied to the police
there she is. She also said that she accepted that
there were deathcap mushrooms inside the beef wellingtons that she

(01:17:45):
had cooked. She testified that she bought most of the
ingredients for the lunch from a supermarket, in some forest
mushroom mix from a Melbourne based grocer. She explained that
she had used a food dehydrator to preserve the mushrooms
for use.

Speaker 4 (01:18:01):
Later in the year.

Speaker 6 (01:18:03):
Erin also testified that she had planned to use several
mushrooms she had bought from an Asian grocer, but had
stored them because they were too pungent. Aaron then went
on to tell the court that she believed that the
forged mushrooms had ended up in the lunch just due
to a mistake about the contents in her containers in

(01:18:24):
her pantry. She also admitted that she had lied about
her cancer diagnosis, but then she was claiming that she
had been too embarrassed to tell her relatives that she
was actually going to get gastric bypass surgery. I see,
but that's another lie she's going to be caught in.

Speaker 7 (01:18:42):
It's easier to say I have ovarian cancer than to
admit that you're having bypass surgery.

Speaker 6 (01:18:47):
That's what she's saying. Yes, So she testified that she
had organized the lunch in order to improve relations with
the Patterson family, who she was afraid were becoming distant
after her suffer from simon. She said that she had
vomited after the lunch and after eating two thirds of
a cake that Gail had brought. So Gail had brought

(01:19:09):
this orange cake, and Aarin said that she did struggle
with bolimia, although I don't think she used the word bulimia,
but she said that she kept eating the cake and
then vomited it up. But when she vomited, much of
the lunch came up with it. So now this was
her reasoning for why she didn't get sick. So it's
kind of a pretty smart idea.

Speaker 4 (01:19:29):
But it's too late.

Speaker 7 (01:19:30):
It's little too late.

Speaker 4 (01:19:32):
Absolutely.

Speaker 6 (01:19:34):
She did say she had diarrhea for several days after
the lunch, and she'd taken some medications to treat her symptoms.
She claimed that she'd become really anxious after her husband
confronted her in the hospital about whether she had used
her food dehydrator to poison his parents. So she denied
deliberately using death cap mushrooms, and she also denied that

(01:19:58):
she had told her relatives at the Lunech Bunch that
she had cancer. She said she lied to the police
and health authorities about dehydrating mushrooms and food because she
was afraid of being blamed for the poisonings, and she
admitted to lying about medical appointments and about having a
needle biopsy. She also denied seeing posts about deathcap mushrooms

(01:20:21):
on the eye Naturalist website in May twenty twenty two,
although remember they had evidence that her computer did.

Speaker 4 (01:20:29):
Go to that site.

Speaker 7 (01:20:31):
It must have done it on its own.

Speaker 4 (01:20:32):
I don't know.

Speaker 6 (01:20:33):
She's just not coming off well at all, at least
during cross examination, because the prosecution confronted her with a
report with data extracted from her computer showing that the
being search engine had been used to search for eye
Naturalists in May twenty twenty two, and she also said
that the recently forged mushrooms may have been placed in

(01:20:56):
the same plastic container with some store bought mushrooms that
she used in the beef wellingtons. She did express regret
for an angry Facebook message that it attacked her in
laws in December of twenty twenty two, but she denied
that that post really reflected her true feelings about them.

(01:21:16):
This was a really tough cross examination. She denied she
had been attempting to cover her tracks after discharging herself
from the hospital against medical advice, and she also disputed
that she had used a different colored plate from her guests.
She did admit that she made six individual beef wellingtons

(01:21:36):
rather than a single dish to be sliced in shared
and she really didn't have any reason that she could
say why she did that. She also denied she'd resisted
treatment or testing for herself and her children. There were
so many lies to deny or dispute that she just
turned out not being credible at all. She even had

(01:21:59):
to admit that the Enrich clinic where she had claimed
she was scheduled to get a gastric bypass never offered
that procedure at all, so she didn't even investigate that.
Oh Man Now her friends on the true Crime website
said she was the good researcher, but she really failed here.
She also rejected that she had factory reset her mobile

(01:22:22):
phone or that she had given the police a dummy phone.
She denied deliberately forging death Cap mushrooms, including those that
had ended up in the lunch. So we had closing arguments,
and the prosecutor pointed out how Aaron Patterson had fabricated
her cancer diagnosis as a way to get her guests
to her house for lunch, that she had deliberately used

(01:22:46):
the death cap mushrooms, and that she had pretended to
be sick after the lunch in order to make it
appear that she too had ingested the poisonous mushrooms. So
her attorney, Coecuter also said that Aaron had engaged in
a sustained cover up to conceal her role in poisoning

(01:23:07):
her guests, and that that did include lying about the
mushrooms used and about using the dehydrator.

Speaker 7 (01:23:14):
Of course, so the jury was sequestered. Deliberations began on
June thirty. They returned with a verdict on July seventh,
twenty twenty five. It took a week. Aaron Patterson was
convicted on all accounts. She was found guilty of murdering
her former in laws Don and Gale Patterson, aged seventy,
and Gail's sister, Heather Wilkinson, aged sixty six. She has

(01:23:37):
also found guilty of the attempted murder of Heather's husband Ian.

Speaker 6 (01:23:41):
Yeah, so she'll have a sentencing hearing later this year
and then she'll have twenty eight days to appeal. She's
very likely to be sentenced to life, but then it
was recently reported that she may avoid life in prison
due to a new diagnosis of Munchausen syndrome or as
they're calling it now, fictitious disorder.

Speaker 7 (01:24:02):
Munchausen's such a cool name.

Speaker 4 (01:24:04):
I know, why would you change it?

Speaker 7 (01:24:05):
I know?

Speaker 6 (01:24:06):
Yeah, Well, I don't know why that would help, but
I guess because Australia does seem more lenient with sentencing
and does seem to concentrate a bit more on rehabilitation,
maybe the judge will take that into consideration to lessen
her sentence. But it's I don't know, It's probably not
true because that's a mass murder. That's really bad, that is. Yeah,

(01:24:31):
so what was the motive? Did she want all four
of them to die?

Speaker 7 (01:24:35):
You know? I keep going over at time and time again.
I don't see why she killed the in laws and
the friends, the relatives if she wants her husband dead
right apparently, and as soon as he declined her invitation,
I would have said, I guess I'll try. I think
it's something else to do.

Speaker 6 (01:24:56):
Okay, Yeah, why kill his poor parents? I mean, that's
it's just awful. Two nice elderly people. The best thing
I've found online about Motive was that she was resentful
of her in laws just because they took the side
of her husband and she felt slighted by them. But
I would say, when most couples separate or divorce, your

(01:25:19):
parents take your side.

Speaker 4 (01:25:20):
It's kind of their.

Speaker 6 (01:25:21):
Duty as your parents, that's right, right, They're supposed to
take your side. And I really didn't see any evidence
that they were shutting her out anyway. They still seemed
to be quite caring. I mean, they didn't have to
come to that lunch.

Speaker 5 (01:25:33):
They did it for her, that's what they did.

Speaker 4 (01:25:36):
Yeah. So fascinating.

Speaker 6 (01:25:38):
And several authors are already working on books about this case,
TV specials, everything, So it's not the last we will
hear of it. I'm really sure about that.

Speaker 7 (01:25:47):
Oh, we'll have some books down the road.

Speaker 4 (01:25:50):
Yeah. Absolutely.

Speaker 9 (01:25:58):
It's time for listeners feedback.

Speaker 6 (01:26:13):
Okay, Dickie, why don't you share your feedback with us?

Speaker 4 (01:26:16):
I know you have a couple of updates.

Speaker 5 (01:26:18):
First, we've got.

Speaker 7 (01:26:19):
Several things to do in feedback. Yeah, we'll start with
some updates. So the first one is on Donna Adelson.

Speaker 4 (01:26:26):
I want to remind us who she is.

Speaker 7 (01:26:28):
So in March twenty twenty three, we did an episode
titled Conspiracy the Murder for Hire of Dan Markel. And
Markel was a law professor at Florida State University. He
and his wife, Wendy were divorced and they had shared
custody of their two sons. The divorce had been pretty
acrimonious and the battle was mostly over custody of the children.

(01:26:50):
Wendy wanted them to live with her in Miami, and
Markel said that was not feasible. They needed to stay
in Tallahassee. And there was a big bone of contention
between the.

Speaker 5 (01:27:01):
Two, Well and her whole family and her whole family.

Speaker 4 (01:27:04):
Her whole family got involved.

Speaker 7 (01:27:05):
They sure did. Now. In twenty fourteen, Marcelle was shot
to death at his home in Tallahassee. Four people have
been charged and convicted for the murder. That's Charles Addelson,
who happens to be Wendy's brother, Sigfredo Garcia, Catherine Magbanua,
and Louis Rivera.

Speaker 6 (01:27:22):
It's meg Banua how they say it.

Speaker 5 (01:27:25):
Okay, but that's fine.

Speaker 12 (01:27:27):
So, yeah, Charles was the boyfriend of Catherine and her
ex husband and some friend of his were contracted to
kill Dan Markol. So now those four have been convicted,
and we're looking at the rest of the Addilson family.

Speaker 7 (01:27:43):
Yeah, potentially, I mean, right now, it's just the mother, Donna,
who's been charged, but I guess they're going to be
looking at her father and her Well.

Speaker 6 (01:27:52):
They've made it clear that Wendy's under investigation. Yes, and
then as far as Wendy's father, Harvey, he and Donna
were very close. They shared the same email account, so
it's really hard to believe that he wasn't involved. Plus,
he was at the airport with Donna and she tried
to flee to Vietnam.

Speaker 7 (01:28:08):
He was going to be leaving with her.

Speaker 6 (01:28:10):
Yeah, okay, So Donna tried to flee, she was arrested,
and now what's going on with her.

Speaker 7 (01:28:16):
She's being held right, she's held her trial for a murder.
The schedule to begin later this month.

Speaker 6 (01:28:22):
Okay, August twenty fifth, that's today, Okay, Well, I'm.

Speaker 4 (01:28:26):
Looking forward to that.

Speaker 6 (01:28:27):
There were rumors recently about a plea deal, but that
turned out to be false, which I'm relieved. I think
most people are, because people want to see Donna get
her due, and there's so much evidence against her. She
is surely going to be convicted, and then there's a
lot of speculation that as soon as she's convicted, Windy
will be arrested. Then they might finally be able to

(01:28:50):
get those two children away from the Addelsons and back
to Dan's family, who Dan's parents have not seen those
kids in years. In fact, days after Dan Markell was killed,
Wendy took the kids moved to Miami, and then shortly
after that she changed their names to Adilson, so totally
erased Dan Markel from their lives.

Speaker 7 (01:29:12):
Yeah, there's definitely something going on. I can't believe that
she was clueless as to what the plan was.

Speaker 6 (01:29:19):
Wendy, Wendy, No, not at all. There's all kinds of evidence.
So we'll talk about that more when the trial comes out.

Speaker 4 (01:29:25):
Do some more updates.

Speaker 7 (01:29:26):
We'll see how Donna's trial goes and what the shakeout
from that is.

Speaker 6 (01:29:31):
Yeah, she's not a young woman, She's in her seventies,
so I'm sure it's not fun to be in prison,
you know, even worse at that age. I would imagine
I would too. Yeah, she should be living in comfort
by this time. But you know, she wanted to kill someone,
so she's paying for it.

Speaker 7 (01:29:47):
You've already decided the guilt of her.

Speaker 4 (01:29:49):
Yes, most people have.

Speaker 6 (01:29:50):
Actually, Okay, I'm not alone in.

Speaker 7 (01:29:52):
This, so we'll see what happens. Stay tuned, yep, and
then we have another update. In this case, we haven't
done yet, but I'm sure we will be doing it.
And by this I mean James Craig. James Craig, who
was a dentist practicing dentist I was found guilty on
July thirtieth of the murder of his wife Angela by
poisoning her protein shakes with cyanide and tetra hydrosylen and

(01:30:17):
tetra hydrozelen is the main ingredient in like bis and iydrops.
Hard to realize that it's a potentially lethal poison.

Speaker 6 (01:30:26):
Well, yeah, it's okay to put a drop in your eye,
but you're not supposed to drink it. And they had
proof that Craig had gone out and bought like seventeen.

Speaker 4 (01:30:34):
Bottles of it.

Speaker 7 (01:30:34):
Yeah, you had a bunch of it.

Speaker 6 (01:30:36):
This guy was not subtle. He had many women in
his life. He was love bombing everyone, including his wife
as he was trying to kill her. And he'd been
cheating on her pretty much since the beginning of their
twenty three year.

Speaker 7 (01:30:48):
Marriage, longtime serial infidelity. But the other thing he was
convicted besides of her murder was he convicted on other
charges and one was in for solicitation to commit murder.
This is the juicy part. So he's in prison, he's
trying to enlist a fellow inmate to kill one of
the detectives that had been investigating him.

Speaker 6 (01:31:11):
Yes, and other people I believe he was thinking of killing.

Speaker 7 (01:31:14):
Yeah, he had a list. Now he was found not
guilty of manslaughter.

Speaker 6 (01:31:19):
Well, sure, the prosecution said, you're going to find him
guilty of murder, so he'll be not guilty of manslaughter.
So that was not a win for him in any way.
He would have loved to have been found guilty of
manslaughter and not murder.

Speaker 7 (01:31:31):
He would have been so moving on. I've got a
voicemail from Nate or one of our frequent flyers. He's
got a few suggestions for cases to do.

Speaker 4 (01:31:40):
All right, let's listen.

Speaker 13 (01:31:42):
Kaijack and Ville Danigan. I actually have three more cases
for you. One is the Linda Ricchio case, which is
called the Fatal Attractions murder in southern California. A lady
stocked and murdered her ex boyfriend. It's kind of interesting
because it came out at the same time as that
Fatal Attractions movie with Glenn Glows, so people called it that.

(01:32:04):
Another one is the Lisa Peng trial. I think I
mentioned that to you guys before. In the Asian American community.
It's also a California case. It's almost as famous as
the O. J. Simpson trial. Lisa Peng had three trials.
First one was a mistrial, second one she was found guilty,
but on appeal she was released. And then the third

(01:32:27):
trial was a mistrial, and then she took a plea
deal to avoid a fourth trial and was deported back
to Taiwan. And then another one is the murder of
Marty Theer. He was an Air Force officer. His wife,
Michelle Fear, was having an affair with an Army Special

(01:32:47):
Forces officer or sergeant rather, and she killed him for
the insurance money. Now it's not clear whether the guy
John Diamond who she was having an affair with, actually
murdered Marty or if he was just involved in the conspiracy,
because Michelle told so many different stories and it's clear

(01:33:09):
that she was much more involved in the murderer.

Speaker 7 (01:33:12):
Than she said.

Speaker 13 (01:33:13):
Let's see, there is one more.

Speaker 7 (01:33:18):
What is it? Oh?

Speaker 13 (01:33:21):
Yeah, I think you guys covered Amy Bishop already. But
there is the case of the murder of Justin Cosby
at Harvard University that I really think you guys should cover.
I don't There are not many other True Kind podcasts
that covered it, and it was back in two thousand
and nine. Two Harvard students were expelled as a result

(01:33:42):
of that murder, and they've never graduated within weeks of graduation,
and one of them, Britney Smith, went to prison for
her involvement in the murder. I think it's a fascinating
case and you guys should definitely consider covering it.

Speaker 7 (01:33:56):
Anyway.

Speaker 13 (01:33:56):
I hope all as well. Hope you guys are staying cool. Yeah,
and have a good summer.

Speaker 7 (01:34:02):
Okay, thanks for those suggestions, Nate, Thank you, Nate.

Speaker 6 (01:34:05):
We can always count on Nate for some good suggestions.

Speaker 7 (01:34:08):
We sure ken he always has several, so his voicemails
are always fun to read because he goes through listen
to read. I read them too.

Speaker 6 (01:34:17):
Oh, the voicemails come with the transcript I do Okay,
I think you might be imagining that, but.

Speaker 7 (01:34:24):
Sure mental transcrit Okay, anyway.

Speaker 4 (01:34:27):
Okay, what did he recommend again?

Speaker 7 (01:34:29):
So the first one he recommended is on Linda Riccio,
and she met a guy named Ron Russ in nineteen
eighty one when they were both working in an auto shop.
They began dating. Linda soon moved in with Ron, so
they had kind of an instant attraction. Then it turns
out that as they were living together, the more time
they spent together, the more things Linda wanted from Ron.

(01:34:53):
To being together for six years, Ron apparently had gotten
tired of Linda's controlling personality did not take this separation
very well. She began to stalk Ron, and when he
began to see another woman, Linda stalked her also, and
over time the stocking turn threatening to the point that
Ron actually feared for his life, And through all this,

(01:35:15):
his lady friend broke up with him because she was
concerned for her life her safety. Then, on December fourteenth,
nineteen eighty seven, Linda shot and killed Ron Linda was
sentenced to twenty seven years to life in prison and
all requests for parole have been denied. Now the media
called this the Fatal Attraction murder. This is about the

(01:35:36):
time that the movie Fatal Attraction with Michael Douglas and
Glenn Close came out.

Speaker 6 (01:35:40):
Yes, but there were a lot of cases that have
been called the Fatal Attraction murder. Sure, we've covered a
couple of them.

Speaker 7 (01:35:47):
There's a lot of cases of husbands straying from their
wives and their paramour clings to them, won't give them up.
So this is Fatal Attraction twelve.

Speaker 6 (01:35:58):
All right, Yeah, I think the most famous one is
probably Betty.

Speaker 7 (01:36:01):
Broderick, Right, that's the when it comes to mind.

Speaker 1 (01:36:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:36:05):
So another suggestion was the case of Jennifer g. So
August eighteenth, nineteen ninety three, the bodies of ranbing Jennifer
g and her five month old son were discovered.

Speaker 4 (01:36:17):
Now.

Speaker 6 (01:36:17):
She'd been stabbed repeatedly and her infant son had been suffocated.
Jennifer was the girlfriend of a successful business man named
Jim Peng who lived in Mission Viejo with his wife Lisa.
Jim Pang was the father of G's child. So Lisa
and Jennifer were aware of each other and there was
some animosity between them.

Speaker 7 (01:36:38):
Well you can understand why.

Speaker 6 (01:36:40):
Yeah, although I would blame him more than the other woman.

Speaker 4 (01:36:43):
Come on, people.

Speaker 6 (01:36:44):
Lisa Pang was charged with the double homicide, and her
first trial ended with a hung jury. The second trial
found her guilty and sentenced her to life without parole,
and then this verdict was overturned because Peng had not
been proper informed of her riots. So the third trial
also resulted in a hung jury, and finally there was

(01:37:07):
a plea bargain. Lisa Pang was deported to Taiwan and
forbidden ever to travel to the US.

Speaker 5 (01:37:13):
Again.

Speaker 4 (01:37:14):
Not a bad deal, really.

Speaker 7 (01:37:15):
No, it really isn't. I guess the attorney's The prosecution
was ready, allegedly ready to do a fourth trial, but decided,
if we get another hung jury, we don't want that,
so they ended up with a plea bargain.

Speaker 6 (01:37:30):
Well, it'd be interesting to see what kind of evidence
they did have, so definitely something I'd like to read
more about, and we can check that.

Speaker 7 (01:37:39):
So.

Speaker 6 (01:37:39):
Also, Nate recommended Justin Cosby, who was killed in two
thousand and nine in the basement of Kirkland House and
that was his dorm in Harvard. So jeb Rai Kokney,
Jason Akino, and Blaine Jiggots lurd Cosby to the basement,
claiming they wanted to purchase some marijuana from him, and

(01:38:00):
instead he was robbed, shot and killed. His girlfriend, Brittany J. Smith,
was found guilty of assisting Copney by hiding the gun
used in the shooting and lying to police in a
grand jury about what she knew of the shooting. And
actually I read a book about this. I believe it
was written by Justin's mother. I'll have to look in
my library, but I think I actually have a physical book.

Speaker 7 (01:38:23):
I remember you reading it.

Speaker 6 (01:38:24):
Yeah, so it is an interesting case.

Speaker 7 (01:38:26):
Yeah, because here Cosby was a Harvard student. Obviously, Britney
Smith was a Harvard student.

Speaker 6 (01:38:34):
And you always think of these Harvard students as having
their lives pretty much laid out for them.

Speaker 4 (01:38:39):
So why would you do something so stupid and to rob.

Speaker 7 (01:38:42):
A guy over marijuana? That's just weird.

Speaker 4 (01:38:45):
Well I wonder if that was the only motive.

Speaker 7 (01:38:47):
Don't know.

Speaker 6 (01:38:48):
Yeah, we'll find out, but certainly don't send your child
off to Harvard thinking they're going to get murdered, that's
for sure.

Speaker 7 (01:38:54):
That's probably not on your list of possibilities.

Speaker 9 (01:38:57):
No.

Speaker 6 (01:38:58):
Then the other recommendation is Michelle Theer, and we already
did an episode on that one. It's titled The Officer's Wife,
The Plot to Kill Captain Marty Theer. Really creative of
me to come up with that title.

Speaker 7 (01:39:10):
It was a good one. Well, this was from May
of twenty eighteen, so we were still just in our
infancy back then.

Speaker 6 (01:39:16):
We were baby podcasters. Okay, but some of those older
ones are better in my opinion, so Hi, well, they
kind of are because there's that newness about us. It's
kind of fun to listen to people who really don't
exactly know what they're doing, but definitely opinionated, right.

Speaker 7 (01:39:34):
Right, yeah, well look at us now, it's so polished.

Speaker 6 (01:39:36):
We are, well, I know we're not, but a little more,
a little more.

Speaker 7 (01:39:41):
So.

Speaker 4 (01:39:41):
We have an email from Vell. Hi, guys, I.

Speaker 6 (01:39:44):
Would love it if you would do a podcast on
Michelle Carter from plain Bill, Massachusetts. She was convicted of
involuntary manslaughter for her part in the suicide of her
boyfriend Conrad Roy. Now there are several mini series, including
The Girl from Plainville and a forty eight hours highlighting
her trial. She has served her time and is now free,

(01:40:06):
But that poor boy's family, I'm sure is still suffering.
Of course, they are one of our family members married
into her family. So now I'm obsessed. I need to
get your take on it. So many breweries in Massachusetts,
but we have Navigation Brewery near us in lull They
specialize in IPAs and milk stouts, and I could try

(01:40:28):
to ship some to you, as I'm not sure they
would be available in New Mexico. Love you guys, and
hope you're having a great summer. We'll love you too,
Val and I hope you're having a great summer. We
do visit New England from time to time.

Speaker 7 (01:40:41):
Yeah, never had any beer from Navigation Brewery, Okay, but
there's plenty of Massachusetts breweries we could do.

Speaker 6 (01:40:49):
But if she wanted to ship some from there, we
wouldn't argue with her.

Speaker 7 (01:40:53):
Well, we wouldn't, but it's difficult to do. I have
to jump through a few hoops, right and otherwise, probably
the Massachusetts beer that I can get here in New
Mexico or Sam Adams Beer's. But otherwise we do fine
with beer. Yeah, And the case is an interesting case.
This was something that was ongoing when we lived in Maye.

Speaker 6 (01:41:13):
Yeah, it's very shocking. This girl just seems awful. To
be honest with you, I did watch The Girl from Plainville.
I think it's on Hulu, and I think it's more
than one episode. I think it's a series, like she said,
a mini series. And yeah, it's an interesting story, but
I also find it so heartbreaking for the boys family,
and I just remember not feeling real satisfied with the outcome.

(01:41:36):
So I might have to watch it again. I don't
remember all the details.

Speaker 7 (01:41:40):
Yeah, one of the things was when he was going
through with it, he was seeming to back out, and
she strongly encouraged him to get back in the car
and finish.

Speaker 5 (01:41:49):
Why, well, who knows.

Speaker 6 (01:41:51):
I mean, that's just psychotic, I don't know, very psychotic.

Speaker 7 (01:41:55):
Yeah, and they texted back and forth literally thousands of times.

Speaker 6 (01:41:59):
Yes, it was horrible, So I don't know. I don't
think i'd want her dating one of my sons. No, No,
she's kind of horrible.

Speaker 4 (01:42:10):
But yeah, we'll look into that. That might be a
good episode, might be.

Speaker 6 (01:42:14):
A shorter episode, so we might do it for the
premium show.

Speaker 5 (01:42:18):
But we'll see yeah, get some more research, don Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:42:21):
Absolutely. Okay, Well I guess that wraps it up for today.

Speaker 7 (01:42:26):
I don't have any more feedback for you.

Speaker 4 (01:42:28):
Okay.

Speaker 7 (01:42:28):
You're such a task master with these.

Speaker 4 (01:42:30):
I know.

Speaker 6 (01:42:31):
But we'll be back soon with more. We will, and
between then we should have a premium episode coming out,
so subscribe if you want, or just listen to our
regular episodes. Whatever you do, You're always welcome here at
the Quiet End, and we thank you so We'll see
you next time.

Speaker 7 (01:42:47):
Next time, co mine down to the bar.

Speaker 5 (01:42:49):
It's open all right.

Speaker 9 (01:42:50):
Bye, bye, hye guys.

Speaker 7 (01:43:13):
And a diclyt

Speaker 9 (01:43:21):
A w

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