July 9, 2025 • 13 mins
As Erin Patterson returns to the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre having been found guilty of murder, veteran crime reporter Anthony Dowsly joins the show to talk about her life inside.
The Mushroom Cook team is Brooke Grebert-Craig, Laura Placella, Anthony Dowsley, Jordy Atkinson and Jonty Burton
The Mushroom Cook is a Herald Sun production for True Crime Australia.
Go to themushroomcook.com.au for news, features, previous episodes and more.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
In the wide flat planes of Western Melbourne. Sits Dame
Phyllis Frost Center, Victoria's only female maximum security prison. It's
here that Aaron Patterson was driven back to after her
guilty verdict to discuss what her life will be like
behind bars. I'm joined by veteran crime reporter Anthony Dowsley.
(00:22):
I'm Brook Greebert Craig, and this is the Mushroom Cook. Hi,
dows How are you going well?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
In some ways, it's a relief that this has come
to a conclusion. We know the verdict, as you've said
on a previous podcast, and we can talk about everything
that's happened since Monday, when Aaron Patterson was found guilty
of three murders and an attempted murder.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
And right now we're in herold Son's podcast studio and
we're looking at our front page on Tuesday. It's splashed
with the headline Cooked and a photo of Aaron looking
quite shocked.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
She's also looking a little bit struck by the idea
of a flash in her face. It's an interesting story
behind this photo that maybe probably the photo that defines
this trial and maybe this case. In some ways. It
was taken about nine weeks ago. This photo was taken
(01:22):
by Martin keep who's an AFP photographer, and he set
up a special contraption on his camera to get the
flash to be able to get through the prison van.
He spent a long time planning for the photo and
it's been used by all media outlets. There was some
conjecture around the ABC and whether they would use it
(01:45):
or not, but it really is a defining moment of
Aaron Patterson as she faced the trial of her life.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
And as we're talking about it, I'm sure our listeners
can definitely picture the photo that we are talking about about.
In the Herald Son's paper, we showed multiple stills of her.
As I said earlier, she's looking quite shocked. You can
see her moving her hand up to her face, closing
her eyes quite tightly, and you can definitely tell that
(02:15):
she wasn't expecting this photo to be taken in that moment.
For weeks, photographers were trying to get the shot of Erin.
They had two chances each week.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Yeah, the chances are being taken from Dame Phyllis Frost
Center on her way to the more Well Courts, and
then at the end of the week when she was
going back to Dame Frost Center. She'd been in custody
since November twenty twenty three, and she was being brought
to court and away from court every weekend every week,
so that was the chances they had. They didn't have many.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Erin caught on after this particular photo was taken, and
she ended up lying on the ground of the prism
van to shield her face from the cameras. So she
got quite smart in the taps that she would do
to avoid the cameras.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Really yeah, and given Aran's personality, I think, you know,
kind of the public notoriety surrounding her. We don't know
how she feels about it. But even when she was
in court and a sketch artists would try and you know,
take a sketch of her while she sat in the dock,
she would shield away from that. So it was clear
that she did not want to be photographed or have
(03:24):
her image taken anymore. It's interesting as this was taken
quite a number of weeks ago, it was most likely
inside this prison van that she was taken back on
Monday to Dame Phyllis Frost Center where she is going
to be sentenced to stay, probably for the rest of
her life. We don't know when the sentencing is going
(03:46):
to happen. There's a plea hearing that will happen before it,
that's in the weeks and maybe months ahead. But she
now has to come to that realization that she convicted
murderer and her life will never be the same.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
So Dame Phyllis Frost is a woman's maximum security prison
that's located in Melbourne's West. Some of the most notorious
female prisoners are in there, for example, like Malkalaifer who
else do ows?
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Robin Lindholm, who's known as the Black Widow. She's convicted
of killing two men, both of them being partners of hers,
and she's suspected of killing a woman as well.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
And you've also mentioned to me about Judy Moran.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Judy Moran a gangland figure, the mother of Jason and
Mark Moran, and she's been in there for some time
over the murder of her in law, Des Moran. But
Dame Phyllis Frost Center has, according to reports, maximum of
almost five hundred and forty inmates. There's probably over five
hundred in there at any one time, and it's the
(04:53):
only maximum security prison for women, and even though I
don't know if it's a vol tile as the men's prisons,
there is volatility in there, and there's certainly a pecking
order of who runs certain divisions within the prison. Now
there's no register of this, but I think that anyone
(05:16):
who thinks that Arin Patterson is some sort of prison
boss inmate inside Dame Philos Frost Center would be sorely mistaken.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
So what do you think then her life would be
like in there?
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Being high profile as a prison is not necessarily a
good thing. It doesn't get you any benefits. In fact,
it only makes you a target most of the time.
So I think that's one of the reasons that she
would be separated from other prisoners just at this moment,
and that might go on for some time.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
And they have access to the papers in prison.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yep, they can read papers. She would be someone on
the the tip of the tongue. She's in the mind
of people. Having your name in the paper isn't necessarily
a good thing for a prisoner. Most prisoners just want
to lay and do their time. If you're smart and
you can ascend through the ranks through brutality, or you
can do it through your personality. In Aaron's case. I
(06:10):
think that if she is to be put in contact
with other prisoners, she's going to have to use her
smart She's an intelligent person. We've heard that in court
and that's her main power I think in there.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
So Dows, you and I have reported on a complaint
that Aaron tampered with prison food.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Yeah, that was a complaint that came about last year.
We don't know if that went anywhere. It seems like
it didn't go anywhere. It might have been just a
complaint in and of itself, and there's been other reports
about this as well. But we know that she was
put into an isolated area of the prison and we
think that's where she remains. And it may have to
(06:49):
do with the fact that she is high profile. As
we were talking about that, you find yourself not only
just in prison, but battling the prison politics, if that's
the way we can term it, because you know, it's
a bit of a jungle in there, and you've got
to deal with other prisoners and how they want things
to roll. They haven't got much to do with their time.
(07:09):
It's pretty basic when you're in prison. Most people who've
been to prison complain about the boredom, and Aaron Patterson
will be in the weeks and months to come feeling
that boredom. She's been there for quite some time since
November of twenty twenty three. But now she doesn't have
that trial to focus on. We've heard that she's setting
(07:31):
herself for an appeal that might take up some of
her time, but really her main chance to fight this
was a trial and a jury didn't believe her when
she said that she didn't mean to kill these people.
They did not believe her.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
And as far as we know, Aaron is the only
triple murderer that's at Dame Phillis Frost.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
That's right, she is in rarefied air as a criminal. Again,
that goes to her high profile. She's not only notorius
Australia White, She's notorious around the world. Now. The story,
as you know, has been reported in The Washington Post,
New York Times, the Times in London, it's everywhere. We
were doing interviews on Monday evening and calls were coming
(08:14):
in from everywhere, especially the UK. You know, it was
just one of those things that had a life of
its own, and you know, we had a twelve page
lift out in the Herald Son. Our opponents had major
coverage as well. This is one of those rare crime
stories that come along every five to ten years.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
And that is a lot coming from someone like you Dows,
who has such experience in the industry as a veteran
crime reporter.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
It's not hard to define because the ones that I've
noticed that had a life of their own would be
the trial of Adrian Bailey. There was enormous amount of
public outrage about what happened to Jill mar That had
a layer of systemic problems with the parole system because
(09:10):
Adrian Bailey should not have been free before that. There
was the case of the death of Maria Corp. One
woman went to jail on manslaughter and her husband killed himself.
But they are examples of stories that just go on
and on and on. Aaron Patterson has exposed what can
(09:33):
happen in a rural town with a normal family when
something extraordinary happens. And that thing that was extraordinary is
that she decided to kill a family, her family for
reasons that we are not quite clear on yet. There's
lots of reasons that have come up that we haven't
actually got.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
The reason from her, and we may never know.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
We may never know. I mean, you and I talk
about this. We have slightly different opinions sort of around
the same areas about why she may have done this,
but we both sort of agree that it's likely to
be some form of revenge.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Yes, I think it's pretty fair to say that Aaron
did have a hatred towards her estranged husband, Simon, and
that probably fested into a resentment for his parents. And
really Heather and Ian were collateral damage in her plan.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
And if we accept that, it shows a kind of
ruthlessness to have the capacity to kill people that aren't
really involved in your life or your problems. Aaron Patterson
has said on numerous occasions that she loved her family,
b that these people never did anything bad to her.
(10:52):
And when we've sat and talked about this, and we
have talked about that moment when and she's served deathcap
mushrooms in a beef Wellington, as everyone knows, and she
tells them that she has cancer and then they pray
for her. And I often wonder what she felt like
(11:14):
in that moment.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
And right now, what's probably going through her head at
the moment is the process through the courts.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Yes, there's a few hearings to go. The first major
one will be a plea hearing, and in that hearing,
her barrister will be setting out mitigating circumstances surrounding her
guilty place. So why she doesn't deserve to go away?
Life is life. All the things that Aaron Patterson has
(11:46):
done in her life, how she held a job, She
doesn't have any major convictions before this. All that kind
of thing will come up. Once we're through the plea,
then Justice Christopher Beale will be able to say, okay,
now I'm going to sentence. The sentencing hearing will be
you know, at some point after that, probably a couple
of weeks at least, and then he's going to determine
(12:07):
a minimum and maximum term. The maximum she can get
his life and the very maximum she can get his
life is life. Now she's a convicted triple murderer with
an attempted murder on top of that, it's going to
have to be a prison stint. I would suggest above
thirty probably above thirty five. If she gets a minimum,
(12:27):
I reckon she'll get a minimum, there'll be thirty five
and above.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
So there's a high chance that Aaron Patterson could die
in prison.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Absolutely. Some prisoners are allowed out when they become so
sick or infirmed that you know they're no danger to anyone,
but you know many prisoners do die in jail. If
she does end up appealing, which we hear that she will,
she has to lodge that within twenty eight days of
her sentence, and there'll be a hearing to see whether
(12:57):
that appeal has any grounds, and that could be the
end of it.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Thanks Towles, I'm sure we'll see you here back again.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
See the brob
In the wide flat planes of Western Melbourne. Sits Dame
Phyllis Frost Center, Victoria's only female maximum security prison. It's
here that Aaron Patterson was driven back to after her
guilty verdict to discuss what her life will be like
behind bars. I'm joined by veteran crime reporter Anthony Dowsley.
(00:22):
I'm Brook Greebert Craig, and this is the Mushroom Cook. Hi,
dows How are you going well?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
In some ways, it's a relief that this has come
to a conclusion. We know the verdict, as you've said
on a previous podcast, and we can talk about everything
that's happened since Monday, when Aaron Patterson was found guilty
of three murders and an attempted murder.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
And right now we're in herold Son's podcast studio and
we're looking at our front page on Tuesday. It's splashed
with the headline Cooked and a photo of Aaron looking
quite shocked.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
She's also looking a little bit struck by the idea
of a flash in her face. It's an interesting story
behind this photo that maybe probably the photo that defines
this trial and maybe this case. In some ways. It
was taken about nine weeks ago. This photo was taken
(01:22):
by Martin keep who's an AFP photographer, and he set
up a special contraption on his camera to get the
flash to be able to get through the prison van.
He spent a long time planning for the photo and
it's been used by all media outlets. There was some
conjecture around the ABC and whether they would use it
(01:45):
or not, but it really is a defining moment of
Aaron Patterson as she faced the trial of her life.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
And as we're talking about it, I'm sure our listeners
can definitely picture the photo that we are talking about about.
In the Herald Son's paper, we showed multiple stills of her.
As I said earlier, she's looking quite shocked. You can
see her moving her hand up to her face, closing
her eyes quite tightly, and you can definitely tell that
(02:15):
she wasn't expecting this photo to be taken in that moment.
For weeks, photographers were trying to get the shot of Erin.
They had two chances each week.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Yeah, the chances are being taken from Dame Phyllis Frost
Center on her way to the more Well Courts, and
then at the end of the week when she was
going back to Dame Frost Center. She'd been in custody
since November twenty twenty three, and she was being brought
to court and away from court every weekend every week,
so that was the chances they had. They didn't have many.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Erin caught on after this particular photo was taken, and
she ended up lying on the ground of the prism
van to shield her face from the cameras. So she
got quite smart in the taps that she would do
to avoid the cameras.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Really yeah, and given Aran's personality, I think, you know,
kind of the public notoriety surrounding her. We don't know
how she feels about it. But even when she was
in court and a sketch artists would try and you know,
take a sketch of her while she sat in the dock,
she would shield away from that. So it was clear
that she did not want to be photographed or have
(03:24):
her image taken anymore. It's interesting as this was taken
quite a number of weeks ago, it was most likely
inside this prison van that she was taken back on
Monday to Dame Phyllis Frost Center where she is going
to be sentenced to stay, probably for the rest of
her life. We don't know when the sentencing is going
(03:46):
to happen. There's a plea hearing that will happen before it,
that's in the weeks and maybe months ahead. But she
now has to come to that realization that she convicted
murderer and her life will never be the same.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
So Dame Phyllis Frost is a woman's maximum security prison
that's located in Melbourne's West. Some of the most notorious
female prisoners are in there, for example, like Malkalaifer who
else do ows?
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Robin Lindholm, who's known as the Black Widow. She's convicted
of killing two men, both of them being partners of hers,
and she's suspected of killing a woman as well.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
And you've also mentioned to me about Judy Moran.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Judy Moran a gangland figure, the mother of Jason and
Mark Moran, and she's been in there for some time
over the murder of her in law, Des Moran. But
Dame Phyllis Frost Center has, according to reports, maximum of
almost five hundred and forty inmates. There's probably over five
hundred in there at any one time, and it's the
(04:53):
only maximum security prison for women, and even though I
don't know if it's a vol tile as the men's prisons,
there is volatility in there, and there's certainly a pecking
order of who runs certain divisions within the prison. Now
there's no register of this, but I think that anyone
(05:16):
who thinks that Arin Patterson is some sort of prison
boss inmate inside Dame Philos Frost Center would be sorely mistaken.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
So what do you think then her life would be
like in there?
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Being high profile as a prison is not necessarily a
good thing. It doesn't get you any benefits. In fact,
it only makes you a target most of the time.
So I think that's one of the reasons that she
would be separated from other prisoners just at this moment,
and that might go on for some time.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
And they have access to the papers in prison.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yep, they can read papers. She would be someone on
the the tip of the tongue. She's in the mind
of people. Having your name in the paper isn't necessarily
a good thing for a prisoner. Most prisoners just want
to lay and do their time. If you're smart and
you can ascend through the ranks through brutality, or you
can do it through your personality. In Aaron's case. I
(06:10):
think that if she is to be put in contact
with other prisoners, she's going to have to use her
smart She's an intelligent person. We've heard that in court
and that's her main power I think in there.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
So Dows, you and I have reported on a complaint
that Aaron tampered with prison food.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Yeah, that was a complaint that came about last year.
We don't know if that went anywhere. It seems like
it didn't go anywhere. It might have been just a
complaint in and of itself, and there's been other reports
about this as well. But we know that she was
put into an isolated area of the prison and we
think that's where she remains. And it may have to
(06:49):
do with the fact that she is high profile. As
we were talking about that, you find yourself not only
just in prison, but battling the prison politics, if that's
the way we can term it, because you know, it's
a bit of a jungle in there, and you've got
to deal with other prisoners and how they want things
to roll. They haven't got much to do with their time.
(07:09):
It's pretty basic when you're in prison. Most people who've
been to prison complain about the boredom, and Aaron Patterson
will be in the weeks and months to come feeling
that boredom. She's been there for quite some time since
November of twenty twenty three. But now she doesn't have
that trial to focus on. We've heard that she's setting
(07:31):
herself for an appeal that might take up some of
her time, but really her main chance to fight this
was a trial and a jury didn't believe her when
she said that she didn't mean to kill these people.
They did not believe her.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
And as far as we know, Aaron is the only
triple murderer that's at Dame Phillis Frost.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
That's right, she is in rarefied air as a criminal. Again,
that goes to her high profile. She's not only notorius
Australia White, She's notorious around the world. Now. The story,
as you know, has been reported in The Washington Post,
New York Times, the Times in London, it's everywhere. We
were doing interviews on Monday evening and calls were coming
(08:14):
in from everywhere, especially the UK. You know, it was
just one of those things that had a life of
its own, and you know, we had a twelve page
lift out in the Herald Son. Our opponents had major
coverage as well. This is one of those rare crime
stories that come along every five to ten years.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
And that is a lot coming from someone like you Dows,
who has such experience in the industry as a veteran
crime reporter.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
It's not hard to define because the ones that I've
noticed that had a life of their own would be
the trial of Adrian Bailey. There was enormous amount of
public outrage about what happened to Jill mar That had
a layer of systemic problems with the parole system because
(09:10):
Adrian Bailey should not have been free before that. There
was the case of the death of Maria Corp. One
woman went to jail on manslaughter and her husband killed himself.
But they are examples of stories that just go on
and on and on. Aaron Patterson has exposed what can
(09:33):
happen in a rural town with a normal family when
something extraordinary happens. And that thing that was extraordinary is
that she decided to kill a family, her family for
reasons that we are not quite clear on yet. There's
lots of reasons that have come up that we haven't
actually got.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
The reason from her, and we may never know.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
We may never know. I mean, you and I talk
about this. We have slightly different opinions sort of around
the same areas about why she may have done this,
but we both sort of agree that it's likely to
be some form of revenge.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Yes, I think it's pretty fair to say that Aaron
did have a hatred towards her estranged husband, Simon, and
that probably fested into a resentment for his parents. And
really Heather and Ian were collateral damage in her plan.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
And if we accept that, it shows a kind of
ruthlessness to have the capacity to kill people that aren't
really involved in your life or your problems. Aaron Patterson
has said on numerous occasions that she loved her family,
b that these people never did anything bad to her.
(10:52):
And when we've sat and talked about this, and we
have talked about that moment when and she's served deathcap
mushrooms in a beef Wellington, as everyone knows, and she
tells them that she has cancer and then they pray
for her. And I often wonder what she felt like
(11:14):
in that moment.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
And right now, what's probably going through her head at
the moment is the process through the courts.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Yes, there's a few hearings to go. The first major
one will be a plea hearing, and in that hearing,
her barrister will be setting out mitigating circumstances surrounding her
guilty place. So why she doesn't deserve to go away?
Life is life. All the things that Aaron Patterson has
(11:46):
done in her life, how she held a job, She
doesn't have any major convictions before this. All that kind
of thing will come up. Once we're through the plea,
then Justice Christopher Beale will be able to say, okay,
now I'm going to sentence. The sentencing hearing will be
you know, at some point after that, probably a couple
of weeks at least, and then he's going to determine
(12:07):
a minimum and maximum term. The maximum she can get
his life and the very maximum she can get his
life is life. Now she's a convicted triple murderer with
an attempted murder on top of that, it's going to
have to be a prison stint. I would suggest above
thirty probably above thirty five. If she gets a minimum,
(12:27):
I reckon she'll get a minimum, there'll be thirty five
and above.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
So there's a high chance that Aaron Patterson could die
in prison.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Absolutely. Some prisoners are allowed out when they become so
sick or infirmed that you know they're no danger to anyone,
but you know many prisoners do die in jail. If
she does end up appealing, which we hear that she will,
she has to lodge that within twenty eight days of
her sentence, and there'll be a hearing to see whether
(12:57):
that appeal has any grounds, and that could be the
end of it.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Thanks Towles, I'm sure we'll see you here back again.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
See the brob
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