Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Already and this this is the Daily Off. This is
the Daily ohs oh, now it makes sense. Good morning,
and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Wednesday, the seventh
of May. I'm Billy FitzSimons.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
I'm Zara Seidler.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
We are taking a break from our election coverage today
to update you on another event that you've probably been
hearing a lot about in the headlines, the mushroom trial.
In case you missed it, the murder trial of a
woman accused of killing three people by serving them poisonous
mushrooms is underway in Victoria's Supreme Court. Aaron Pattison was
(00:41):
charged with murder after three people died following a meal
at her home in July twenty twenty three. She pleaded
not guilty, and so now we are in the middle
of a six week trial. On today's podcast, we're getting
you up to speed with the details of the case.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Billy, I remember when this story first broke a couple
of years ago, it was absolutely everywhere. I think it
was just such a unique story and there were so
many elements that just defied logic really that it was
all anyone was talking about. But as you said, it
has been two years since the incident took place. So
(01:21):
can you just give everyone a really quick recap of
what happened.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Yeah, Before I tell you what happened, I'm going to
take you through kind of who the main characters are
because there are so many different details in twists and turns,
so I'll just give you a very brief overview. So,
the first person, who I think is probably the most
important person you need to know about to understand this
is Aaron Pattison. She is fifty, she is a mum
of two, and she's the person who is accused of
(01:49):
these murders and who is currently standing trial now. She
was married to a man named Simon Patterson, and he's
the father of their two children. They married in two
thousand and seven split in twenty fifteen, but they never divorced.
They were just estranged, and they by all accounts, had
a relatively good relationship. It kind of went downhill in
(02:09):
late twenty twenty two, which we will talk about, but yeah,
they pretty much had a quite good relationship. And Simon
didn't attend the lunch, which is kind of at the
center of all of these allegations, but it was his
relatives who did attend the lunch, and three of them
died and one fell critically ill. He was invited to
(02:31):
the lunch, but he didn't attend. He actually pulled out
the night before the lunch because he said that he
felt uncomfortable attending. Now to speak about the lunch that
I've referenced many times, so this is where the alleged
poisoning took place, and it all happened in July twenty
twenty three. Now Erin invited her estranged husband's parents, so
(02:54):
her ex in laws. Their names are Don and Gale Patterson,
and she also invited her ex husband's auntie and uncle,
whose names are Heather and Ian Wilkinson. Now at this lunch,
she served them a beef Wellington. Now, following this meal,
all four guests became critically ill, and Don, Gale and
(03:15):
Heather died. So those are the two parents of Simon.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
So her ex in laws, her ex in laws.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
They both died, and then the ex husband's auntie also died.
The uncle was very ill. He spent many weeks in hospital.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
That's Ian, right, that's it.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
He survived, and so he was the sole survivor of
this lunch. Erin, who was eating at the lunch. She
did not fall critically ill. I don't think that she
was sick at all. Now, following their deaths, Erin was
charged with three counts of murder and one count of
attempted murder.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Just quickly before we get into the trial.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
I've read a lot of headlines about this, and one
of the ones that I haven't really understood is about
one of the murder charges against Aaron being dropped. Can
you just talk me through that.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Yeah, So that did happen, but it was actually in
relation to something separate. So Aarin was also charged with
attempted murder of her ex husband, who I've been speaking about, Simon,
but that was not in relation to this lunch.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
So there was a separate murder charge, not in relation
to this lunch that police had previously brought against Aaron Patterson,
but that has been dropped.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Now that has been dropped. It was dropped at the
start of the trial. We didn't really find out too
many details.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
About I always thought it was about the lunch.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
No, okay, Yeah, we didn't really find out too many
details about why it was dropped. We just know that
it was dropped. And so now this entire trial just
centers around this lunch and the alleged murders and attempted
murder of the four guests.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Okay, so this trial is focusing on a lunch where
three people who became critically ill and died and another
was very unwell but managed to survive. So what have
we learned during the course of this trial, because it's
now been a week or so, what have we learned
so far?
Speaker 1 (05:14):
So mostly what we have learned so far is from
Erin's estranged husband, Simon. He was the first witness called
and he told the court that his relationship with Erin
was amicable following their split in twenty fifteen, but that,
like I said before, it started to go downhill in
late twenty twenty two, and that was allegedly over child support. Okay,
(05:37):
just quickly to recap. Simon was invited to the lunch
in July twenty twenty three, but he canceled the night
before via text, and we have seen those text messages
come out during this trial, and so in the text
messages shown to the court, Aeron told Simon that she
wanted to have an important conversation with him and his
(05:59):
relatives about her health at this lunch. And so she
said that his cancelation was quote really disappointing, and she
noted that she had spent many hours and a small
fortune preparing a special meal.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
So a special meal being a direct quote from what
she said to Simon in those texts.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
It's so fascinating.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
You mentioned there that she said or it's alleged that
she said she wanted to talk about her health.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
What was that about? Do we have any more understanding
about what the health issues were?
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Yeah, so Erin did tell her lunch guests that she
had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer. That wasn't true, though
we have since learned and both sides, so defense and
prosecution agree that she was not diagnosed with that disease.
So that's not in contention.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
We also know that in March she did do a
cervical cancer test, but that returned negative.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Okay, So we underst and that she wanted to talk
to her ex's family about a health update, and that
that health update turned out not necessarily to be true.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
What else have we learned from Simon's testimony?
Speaker 1 (07:13):
So we also learned that Simon told the court he
visited both couples the following morning. He said both were
not feeling well at all.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
I thought that they had died fairly quickly after and
that's not what happens.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
There was time between.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Yeah, And one thing that he mentioned is that his aunt, Heather,
commented on the plates that Aaron used.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
And a lot of headlines about these plates.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Yeah, so Heather told Simon that Aaron served herself on
an orange plate but served her guests their meals on
these gray plates. Now, when he was cross examined by
the defense, Simon said that it was fair to assume
the mismatch could have been due to the fact that Aaron,
quote had a bunch of ceramic plates that weren't all
(07:58):
the same. But like you said, the plates have emerged
as kind of a key piece of evidence that is
being scrutinized.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
We're going to be back with the rest of today's
deep Dive after a quick message from our sponsor. Simon
wasn't at the lunch, so his testimony he's reflecting on
the conversations he had after the lunch. But you said
that there was a soul survivor, so there was someone
at that lunch who can testify. What have we heard
(08:25):
from Ian?
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Yes, so he only entered the witness box yesterday and
he started off by kind of describing his relationship with Erin.
He said that they had a fairly amicable relationship and
that they were very happy to accept the invitation to
go to lunch. One thing he mentioned is that Heather,
his wife, wanted to look at the pantry in Aaron's kitchen.
(08:49):
He said that she had a particular interest because they
had just built one in their own home. But he
said that Erin was really reluctant about this visit to
the pantry and that she kind of followed Heather In.
I will just point out these all allegations, so these
haven't been put to Erin, but this is his recounting
of what happened.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Because Aaron hasn't testified yet. No, okay understood.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
He also confirmed what we were talking about before about
these different plates, so he again said that the four
guests ate on one style of plate and Erin ate
on another. He also confirmed that after the lunch, Aaron
told the guests that she had a life threatening cancer
and that she was particularly anxious about telling their kids
(09:32):
about it. He said that then when they left, it
wasn't until that night at about eleven PM when Heather
first started to feel sick, and then he soon after
that also started to feel quite ill, and then the
next day all four guests went to hospital where they
were treated for suspected mushroom poisoning.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
I just want to shift gears a bit because I've
read about a Facebook group and I've seen quite a
few headlines around that.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
What's that in relation to?
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Yeah, so this is also something that has come out
that Aaron was allegedly part of a true crime Facebook
group where she met some people on there and they
created a private group chat, and she allegedly told those
people about dehydrating mushrooms and a particular interest that she
had in dehydrating mushrooms. In one message exchange shown to
(10:26):
the court, Aaron had said, quote, I've been hiding powdered
mushrooms in everything. So that has been another piece of
evidence that has emerged in the trial so far. And
some of the people that were in that true crime
Facebook group have also been called as witnesses to this trial.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Okay, so it's a six week trial. You said, we're
about one and a half weeks into it. When are
we expecting to hear from erin because obviously these are
just allegations that she hasn't been able to defend yet
because she hasn't been in the wind Sparks.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
When will we hear from her.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
I'm actually not sure when exactly we will hear from her,
but I do know that we have heard from her
once before, and that was in August twenty twenty three,
so that was before she had actually been charged with
the murders.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Oh I remember this, yes, yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
It went quite viral and it actually made global headlines
when it happened, and she was very emotional at the time.
So the media found her and they asked her questions
and she was really emotional talking about she said, losing
people that she loved, and she said she was devastated
by it. I thought I'd play a little bit of
(11:38):
that clip.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
I just can't fit them what has happened that Ian
and Henna have lost her lives and Gaya has lost
her life, and Donna's still in her foot and I pray,
I pray that he pulls through.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
So that was almost two years ago. Now, like I said,
we haven't yet heard from Erin herself, but I'm sure
that will be a very big moment when we do
hear from Erin in the witness box.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Just quickly before we end, is this trial being decided
by a judge or a jury? Because I'm always curious
in cases like this where there's so much media attention,
like everyone around the country was talking about this story NonStop.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Is it a judge or a jury.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
It's a jury. It's a jury of fifteen. Read what
you're saying about it being a high profile case. I
have seen the judge ask the jurors many times not
to read any social media commentary about this case so
that their opinions aren't influenced by others.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Yeah, really really interesting and certainly a story that has
gripped the country, and so we'll be sure to bring
you updates, certainly as Aaron herself begins to testify and
defend these murder charges and later once that jury, as
you said.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Hands down their decisions. So thank you for explaining that.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Billy, thank you, and thank you for joining us for
another episode of The Daily Os. The best way that
you can help this podcast grow is by hitting follow,
because that sends a message to the platform that you
like what we're doing. We'll be back later today with
the headlines but until then, have a great Wednesday.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
Bunjelung Kalkadin woman from Gadighl country. The Daily oz acknowledges
that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
s right island and nations. We pay our respects to
the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.