June 4, 2025 • 20 mins
Today, a jury heard Erin Patterson's version of events, with the accused triple murderer explaining how she prepared the lethal beef wellington lunch – and how she panicked after an accusation from her estranged husband.
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):
It was the gathering that formed the center of this trial,
the few hours in a country house that propelled Aaron
Patterson to international headlines. Four weeks ago. The only guest
to survive the Mushroom lunch took to the stand and
described these hours, the discussion at the table, and the
beef Wellington dish. But today, in the witness box, it
(00:23):
was the accused who gave her version of the lunch,
how she prepared the meal and what she said happened after.
I'm Brooke Creeper Crane and this is the Mushroom Cook.
It's day twenty six of Aaron Patterson's murder trial, and
I'm back with court reporter Laura Possella. Hi, Laura.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
It's been another big day, hasn't it.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Yes, it has. So today Aaron took the stand for
the third day in a row.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Yes, and today was the first day that we heard
her speak about the lunch in detail. It was touched
upon very briefly yesterday when she was asked a question
by her defense barrister Colin Mandy. But we spent hours
today unpacking both the events before the lunch, what happened
during the lunch, and the days after the lunch. Mister
(01:14):
Mandy brought his client through the timeline in chronological order,
so we'll do the same today.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
So let's start with how Aaron said she prepared the lunch.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
She told the court that she went through a long
process when it came to deciding what she wanted to cook.
She had previously cooked a shepherd's pie for Don and Gale,
but she said that she didn't feel like it was
special enough for this lunch. She said that her mother
would cook beef Wellington on important occasions when she was younger,
so she thought she would give it a crack herself.
(01:46):
She had a recipe tin Eats cookbook called Dinner that
had a beef Wellington recipe inside it, so she said
she used that, but she had to make some deviations.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Aaron told the jury that she couldn't find a big
meat log that the recipe called for, so she used
individual steaks instead. She said the different meat meant that
the quantities of mushroom and pastry would also be changed
from the original recipe. Aaron also said that she included
no mustard and no presciutto because Don didn't eat pork.
(02:19):
The recipe also included a crape player, but Aaron said
that she thought it looked complicated, so she used Fillo
pastry instead.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
She began prepping the meal on the Friday, that is,
July twenty eight, by salting the meat and getting the
juices out of it, and she even said she took
time to google how not to stuff up a beef Wellington.
On Saturday morning, she said she woke up early to
get started on the mushroom duck cel. The mushroom du
cel is the mushroom paste that coats the meat, and
(02:50):
that involved her frying garlic and chopping up shalots. She
said she added Woolworth's mushrooms into the pan and then
she cooked it for a long time. While she was cooking,
she said she had a taste and in her opinion,
it tasted a little bit bland. So she decided to
put in some dried mushrooms that she had purchased from
an Asian grosser back in April. Eron told the court
(03:12):
that these dried mushrooms were being held in a container,
and mister Mandy asked her today whether or not she
believed there were any other mushrooms in that container. She
conceded that now she believes there was a possibility there
were forage mushrooms in there as well, she told the court.
She chopped them up, and she sprinkled them over the
mushroom duck cells and pushed them in slightly with a
(03:35):
utensil she called an egg flip. Mister Mandy then asked
her more about how she prepared the beef wellington. Here
is more of their exchange. These are their words, but
not their voices.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Can you talk us through the rest of the process
of preparing the meal?
Speaker 4 (03:50):
So, after doing what I needed to do with the
duck cell in the frypan, I used the egg flip
to transfer it out onto baking paper on an oven
tray to put in the fridge for a little while.
And I fried off the steaks on each side and
let them rest, And then I started doing the process
of putting the wellingtons together. Do you want me to
go through that?
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Yes? Okay.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
So after frying off the steaks and letting them rest
and cool a bit, I used the egg flip again to,
I guess, lift a little bit out of the oven
tray and put on each steak.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Lift a little bit of the duck cell.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
The duck cell that's right, Like you could lift out
a sort of you know that shaped out of the
tray and transfer it to the steak. I did that
for both. I think I did it for both sides
of the steaks, and then wrapped each one in filo
and then wrapped each one in puff pastry.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Mister Mandy then took Aaron to messages sent the day
before the lunch where Simon told her he wouldn't be
coming because he felt too uncomfortable. Simon told the jury
Aaron invited him because she wanted to discuss some medical news.
Alistoners have heard the messages before, but here's the exchange
between Simon and Aaron. Again.
Speaker 5 (04:57):
Sorry, I feel too uncomfortable about coming to the lunch
with you, mom, Dad, Heather, and Millian tomorrow, but I'm
happy to talk to you about your health and implications
of that at another time. If you'd like to discuss
it on the phone, just let me know.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
That's really disappointing. I've spent many hours this week preparing
lunch for tomorrow, which has been exhausting in light of
the issues I'm facing, and spent a small fortune on
beef by Philip to make beef Wellington's because I wanted
it to be a special meal, as I may not
be able to host a lunch like this again for
some time. It's important to me that you're all there
tomorrow and that I can have the conversations that I
(05:32):
need to have. I hope you'll change your mind. Your
parents and Heather and Ian are coming at twelve thirty.
I hope to see you there.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Mister Mandy asked Erin why she sent that message to Simon.
Here's what she said in court.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
I was hurt he didn't want to come, but I
was also really anxious and stressed about this upcoming procedure
that I was going to have, and I just wanted
to know that it would be sorted and I wouldn't
have to worry about whether I would have help with
the kids or not. So I just wanted him to
come so I could talk to with about that.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Aaron said that apart from the small fortune claim and
the fact she wanted it to be a special meal,
the rest of the message was exaggerated. Here is more
of what she said.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
I just really wanted him to come so I could
talk about the medical stuff and not worry about it anymore.
I didn't mean to do any of that. I shouldn't
have done any of that, but that's what I was
thinking at the time.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
What did you want him to feel when he read
that message?
Speaker 4 (06:24):
I guess I wanted him to feel a little bit
bad about canceling at the last minute, after he would
have known. I'd done a lot of preparation.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
And when you say I've spent many hours this week
preparing lunch for tomorrow, was that true.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
I didn't do any preparing other than shopping and researching
the recipe. So I guess the answer to your question
is no, it wasn't true.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Mister Mandy then went on to ask questions about the
day of the lunch on July twenty nine. Aaron said
she had planned for the dishes to be ready by
twelve thirty pm, when her guests were due to arrive.
Aaron told the jury Heather brought a fruit platter and
Gale brought an orange cake.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
She explained that she served five dishes, with the sixth
beef Wellington put into the fridge on the tray it
was cooked on. She said she told the guests to
grab a plate before she grabbed the last one herself
and joined them at the table. She said today that
she didn't remember what plate she used, as the jury
has previously heard Erin said, the Wilkinsons ate all of
(07:25):
their meals, don ate all of his as well as
Gail's leftovers, as she didn't finish hers. And then Aaron
said she ate between a quarter and a third of
her own meal because she was eating slowly and talking
a lot. Aaron said she had a health issue she
wanted to discuss with her guests. Here is what she
said about that conversation.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
So it was right at the end of the meal,
and I mentioned that I'd had a maybe not scare
is the right word, but I'd had an issue a
year or two earlier where I thought I had ovarian
cancer and had various scans about and related to that.
And then I'm not proud of this, but I led
them to believe that I might be needing some treatment
in regards to that in the next few weeks or months.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
And can you remember what you said about that in
any more detail?
Speaker 4 (08:13):
Not specifically. I do remember I referred to upcoming treatment
because primarily in my mind, I was thinking I might
need help with getting the kids to and from the bus.
Or activities, and I might need to explain why I
was going out to hospital for a day or two.
So that was really the focus of what I was
talking about.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Did you mislead them?
Speaker 4 (08:33):
I did.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Aaron told the court that the upcoming treatment she had
referred to was actually the plan she had to have
gastric bypass surgery, but she was too ashamed to tell
her guests. Here is another exchange between her and mister Mandy.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
And why didn't you tell them the truth about what
you were intending.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
I was really embarrassed. I was ashamed of the fact
that I didn't have control over my body or what
I ate. I was ashamed of that and embarrassed. I
didn't want to tell anybody, but I shouldn't have lied
to them.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
After the guest had left, Aaron told the jury she
ate a piece of orange cake before eating another, then another.
In the end, she said she ate two thirds of
that cake. She told the jury that she felt sick
and overfull and went to the toilet and brought it
back up again. On Tuesday, Aaron told the jury that
she had struggled with binge eating and bolimia for most
(09:27):
of her life.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Aaron told the court that she felt better later that afternoon,
but started experiencing diarrhea from about ten pm. She didn't
sleep very much that night, she said, and the next
morning she went downstairs to speak with her children before
making herself a herbal tea. The court heard that she
decided they wouldn't be going to church that day, but
(09:49):
that afternoon, she said, she decided to still drive her
son to his flying lesson in Taiab. She said she
still felt nauseous and had diarrhea, but her symptoms weren't
as bad as they were night before. Here's what she
said today in court about the journey to the flying lesson.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
So, maybe about half an hour into the trip, I
felt like I needed to go to the toilet. So
he pulled over on a stretch of the road where
there's quite a bit of bush along the way.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Do you remember where that was?
Speaker 4 (10:16):
It's before the South Gibson Highway meets the Bass Highway,
somewhere around the Noyora turnoffish somewhere around there.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
And what happened? You pulled over?
Speaker 4 (10:26):
Yes, So, and I went off into the bush and
went to the toilet.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
What kind of going into the toilet was it?
Speaker 4 (10:33):
So?
Speaker 2 (10:33):
I had diarrhea and what happened after that?
Speaker 4 (10:37):
So I cleaned myself up a little bit with tissues
and put them in a dog Pooh bag and put
it in my handbag and we hit the road again.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
There's evidence that on the way at three twenty pm
you stopped at the BP in calder Meat and the
internal footage shows you going into the bathrooms. Why did
you go into the bathrooms?
Speaker 4 (10:56):
I put the dog Pooh bag with the soiled tissues
in the bin.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
And when you came out of the bathroom you purchased
some things I did.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Aaron said. Her diary continued and that she didn't want
to cook anything for the kids, so she gave them
leftovers of that beef Wellington meal that were in the fridge.
She said she removed the pastry and mushrooms from the
leftover in Wellington, splitting it onto two plates, which were
served with potatoes and beans. She said her children ate
(11:25):
both meals.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Mister Mandy then brought erin to the events of July
thirty one. The monday. Erin recalled that she still woke
up feeling unwell, so she decided she would go to
lean Gatha Hospital to get some saline. The jury has
previously heard that Erin arrived at the hospital around eight
am and was greeted by doctor Chris Webster at the entrance.
(11:48):
Erin told the court that she told doctor Webster that
she wasn't an urgent patient. She said she just had
gastro and he asked for her name. When she told
him her name was Erin Patterson, she said that doctor
Webster said words to the effect of we were expecting you.
Erin told the court that she remembered feeling quite unsettled
because when she said her name, it was clear that
(12:09):
doctor Webster knew who she was. He told her that
they were concerned that she had been exposed to death
cap mushrooms and asked her where she had bought the
mushrooms from. Aaron said that she was shocked and confused.
She didn't understand how death caps could be in the meal.
Earlier today, mister Mandy asked Arin more questions about her
foraging for mushrooms. She denied ever foraging for mushrooms in
(12:34):
Locke and Outram, those being the two areas where doctor
Tom May and Christine McKenzie spotted death cap mushrooms and
posted their locations to citizen science website by Naturalist. She
also denied ever seeing their posts.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
As the jury has previously heard, Aaron left the hospital
after only being there for five minutes. She discharged herself
against medical and she said she left to go feed
her animals and organize her daughter's ballet items. The court heard.
Hospital records showed that Erin returned at nine forty eight am.
(13:13):
She record telling doctor Webster that her children had eden
leftovers of that meal on Sunday night.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Erin said that the doctors at the hospital wanted the
children to come there themselves because they were concerned the
toxins from the death caps had seeped into the meat,
despite the fact that Erin said she had scraped them off,
They said it was better to be safe than sorry.
Erin was taken by ambulance to Monash Medical Center, where
eventually she was joined by Simon and their two children.
(13:43):
The next day, on August one, the four of them
were still at the hospital. Erin recounted a conversation that
she had with Simon and the children, where they explained
to the children that there were concerns over the lunch
that she had cooked. Erin told the court today that
that led to a discussion about mushrooms and her dehydrader.
More broadly, they spoke about how their daughter doesn't like
(14:06):
mushrooms and how Erin had used the dehydrader to be
able to dry mushrooms, chop them up into small pieces,
and put them into food for her to eat. Aaron
said that after that conversation, the children had left the room,
leaving her and Simon. She spoke more today about what
was said between the two of them.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
Did you and Simon have any conversation?
Speaker 4 (14:28):
Yeah, So during that conversation with the children about the
taste tests, and we're discussed in that conversation that I
dried the mushrooms and I don't remember if it was
Simon or I that initiated it, but there was a
conversation about how I had used a dehydrated to do that,
and he said to me, is that how you poisoned
my parents using that dehydrader?
Speaker 3 (14:48):
And what was your response?
Speaker 4 (14:49):
I said, of course not.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Did that comment by Simon cause you to reflect on
what might have been in the meal?
Speaker 4 (14:57):
It caused me to do a lot of thinking about
a lot of things. Yeah, it caused me to reflect
a lot on what might have happened.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Okay, well, can you explain to us what crossed your
mind then and what you were thinking about?
Speaker 4 (15:12):
So it got me thinking about all the times that
i'd used it, and I.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Had used the dehydrator that's right.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
And how I had dried foraged mushrooms in a weeks earlier,
and I was starting to think, what if they'd gone
in the container with the Chinese mushrooms?
Speaker 3 (15:27):
How did that make you feel scared?
Speaker 4 (15:30):
Responsible, really worried because child protection were involved, and Simon
seemed to be of the mind that maybe this was intentional,
and I just I just got really scared.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Aaron told the court that around this time she also
thought it was a possibility that the dried mushrooms from
the Asian grosser were behind the guest's illnesses.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Let's move on to the next day, August two, Laura,
what did Aaron do?
Speaker 2 (15:55):
By this stage, she's back at her home in Leengatha
after being discharged from one as medical center, and she admitted,
as her legal team has done before, that she dumped
her dehydrata at the local tip. Mister Mandy asked her
about this today.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Why did you do that?
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Child protection were coming to my house that afternoon, and
I was, I was scared of the conversation that might
flow about the meal and the dehydrator, And I was,
and I just was. I was scared of that, that
they would blame me for it, blame you for for
making everyone sick, And I was scared they'd remove the children.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
Did you tell anyone that you had come to the
realization that death cap mushrooms might have been in the meal?
Speaker 4 (16:38):
No, I didn't.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Did you tell anyone that foraged mushrooms might have been
in the meal? No, you had been told that the
suspicion was that death cap mushrooms had been in the meal. Yes,
What did that make you think about weather or what
might have been in the dehydrator?
Speaker 4 (16:56):
Well, I thought there might be evidence of that, evidence
of any forage mushrooms in there.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Aaron went on to tell the jury that two days later,
on August four, she told child protection workout Katrina Cripps
that she was concerned about Simon.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Erin said she told Miss Cripps that she wanted to
change her phone number. She said she was becoming concerned
about Simon's behavior and his allegations, and that meant she
was feeling concerned for her security, she wanted to make
sure he couldn't contact her.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Mister Mandy then asked Aaron about the phone she handed
to police the next day on August five, when they
searched her Lee and Gatha home. Laura, what did she
say about that phone?
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Our listeners were probably hoping we would never have to
touch on Phone A and Phone B again, but it
was touched upon again today by mister Mandy, who first
asked her about this phone. You've spoken about, Brooke, the
one she handed to police, and this one has been
dubbed Phone B. The jury has previously heard that multiple
factory resets were conducted on this phone in twenty twenty three.
(18:00):
Erin explained today that the first one, on February twelve,
was because her son had damaged his phone, so she
gave him Phone B to use and she had bought
a new one. He needed to conduct that factory reset,
so he was able to use the phone for himself,
but the court heard he stopped using Phone B after
he took it to a school camp and it got
(18:20):
covered in mud which got stuck inside the charging port.
Erin told the court that the phone was drying out.
At her house, almost forgotten about until August when she
had this conversation with Miss Cripps about wanting to have
a new phone number. She told the court that she
conducted a second factory reset on August two so she
(18:40):
could wipe her son's information off this phone and set
it up for herself. She explained to the court that
by this time the mud had dried out and Phone
B could be charged again, but she went on to
say that she reset the phone again on August five,
the day of the search, because she panicked and didn't
want police to find photos of mushrooms and the dehydrata
(19:02):
that she believed were in her Google Photos app. She
eventually handed this phone to police, but Erin admitted that
she reset the phone the next day, on August six.
She said this was out of panic, saying that she
tried to see if she could log into her Google
account remotely and conduct the reset that way, and she
said to the court that it worked and Laura.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Phone A was also mentioned today, wasn't it?
Speaker 2 (19:26):
That's right? So Phone A was the phone that Erin
was using before she set up Phone B. After having
that conversation with Miss Cripps, she told the court that
on August five, when police were searching her home, Phone
A was sitting on a window sill near a charging station.
When she returned home that afternoon after her record of interview,
(19:47):
she said she was handed a property seizure record by
detectives which stated that two devices had been taken, and
she said this left her confused. She told the court
she looked around her home and was able to find
a Nokia phone that was left in a basket and
Phone A that remained on that window sill at this
point in time. Phone A had a simcard in it
(20:09):
ending in seven eighty three, which was Erin's normal phone number,
the one she said she had wanted to move away from.
But she said she put this simcard into the Nokia
and continued to use it, conceding that Simon would most
likely need to contact her about the children moving forward.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Thanks Laura, that was a great explanation. As always, Aerin
will be back on the stand tomorrow and she's expected
to be cross examined by the prosecution team. To stay
updated with this case, go to the mushroomcook dot com
dot au
It was the gathering that formed the center of this trial,
the few hours in a country house that propelled Aaron
Patterson to international headlines. Four weeks ago. The only guest
to survive the Mushroom lunch took to the stand and
described these hours, the discussion at the table, and the
beef Wellington dish. But today, in the witness box, it
(00:23):
was the accused who gave her version of the lunch,
how she prepared the meal and what she said happened after.
I'm Brooke Creeper Crane and this is the Mushroom Cook.
It's day twenty six of Aaron Patterson's murder trial, and
I'm back with court reporter Laura Possella. Hi, Laura.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
It's been another big day, hasn't it.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Yes, it has. So today Aaron took the stand for
the third day in a row.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Yes, and today was the first day that we heard
her speak about the lunch in detail. It was touched
upon very briefly yesterday when she was asked a question
by her defense barrister Colin Mandy. But we spent hours
today unpacking both the events before the lunch, what happened
during the lunch, and the days after the lunch. Mister
(01:14):
Mandy brought his client through the timeline in chronological order,
so we'll do the same today.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
So let's start with how Aaron said she prepared the lunch.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
She told the court that she went through a long
process when it came to deciding what she wanted to cook.
She had previously cooked a shepherd's pie for Don and Gale,
but she said that she didn't feel like it was
special enough for this lunch. She said that her mother
would cook beef Wellington on important occasions when she was younger,
so she thought she would give it a crack herself.
(01:46):
She had a recipe tin Eats cookbook called Dinner that
had a beef Wellington recipe inside it, so she said
she used that, but she had to make some deviations.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Aaron told the jury that she couldn't find a big
meat log that the recipe called for, so she used
individual steaks instead. She said the different meat meant that
the quantities of mushroom and pastry would also be changed
from the original recipe. Aaron also said that she included
no mustard and no presciutto because Don didn't eat pork.
(02:19):
The recipe also included a crape player, but Aaron said
that she thought it looked complicated, so she used Fillo
pastry instead.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
She began prepping the meal on the Friday, that is,
July twenty eight, by salting the meat and getting the
juices out of it, and she even said she took
time to google how not to stuff up a beef Wellington.
On Saturday morning, she said she woke up early to
get started on the mushroom duck cel. The mushroom du
cel is the mushroom paste that coats the meat, and
(02:50):
that involved her frying garlic and chopping up shalots. She
said she added Woolworth's mushrooms into the pan and then
she cooked it for a long time. While she was cooking,
she said she had a taste and in her opinion,
it tasted a little bit bland. So she decided to
put in some dried mushrooms that she had purchased from
an Asian grosser back in April. Eron told the court
(03:12):
that these dried mushrooms were being held in a container,
and mister Mandy asked her today whether or not she
believed there were any other mushrooms in that container. She
conceded that now she believes there was a possibility there
were forage mushrooms in there as well, she told the court.
She chopped them up, and she sprinkled them over the
mushroom duck cells and pushed them in slightly with a
(03:35):
utensil she called an egg flip. Mister Mandy then asked
her more about how she prepared the beef wellington. Here
is more of their exchange. These are their words, but
not their voices.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Can you talk us through the rest of the process
of preparing the meal?
Speaker 4 (03:50):
So, after doing what I needed to do with the
duck cell in the frypan, I used the egg flip
to transfer it out onto baking paper on an oven
tray to put in the fridge for a little while.
And I fried off the steaks on each side and
let them rest, And then I started doing the process
of putting the wellingtons together. Do you want me to
go through that?
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Yes? Okay.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
So after frying off the steaks and letting them rest
and cool a bit, I used the egg flip again to,
I guess, lift a little bit out of the oven
tray and put on each steak.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Lift a little bit of the duck cell.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
The duck cell that's right, Like you could lift out
a sort of you know that shaped out of the
tray and transfer it to the steak. I did that
for both. I think I did it for both sides
of the steaks, and then wrapped each one in filo
and then wrapped each one in puff pastry.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Mister Mandy then took Aaron to messages sent the day
before the lunch where Simon told her he wouldn't be
coming because he felt too uncomfortable. Simon told the jury
Aaron invited him because she wanted to discuss some medical news.
Alistoners have heard the messages before, but here's the exchange
between Simon and Aaron. Again.
Speaker 5 (04:57):
Sorry, I feel too uncomfortable about coming to the lunch
with you, mom, Dad, Heather, and Millian tomorrow, but I'm
happy to talk to you about your health and implications
of that at another time. If you'd like to discuss
it on the phone, just let me know.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
That's really disappointing. I've spent many hours this week preparing
lunch for tomorrow, which has been exhausting in light of
the issues I'm facing, and spent a small fortune on
beef by Philip to make beef Wellington's because I wanted
it to be a special meal, as I may not
be able to host a lunch like this again for
some time. It's important to me that you're all there
tomorrow and that I can have the conversations that I
(05:32):
need to have. I hope you'll change your mind. Your
parents and Heather and Ian are coming at twelve thirty.
I hope to see you there.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Mister Mandy asked Erin why she sent that message to Simon.
Here's what she said in court.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
I was hurt he didn't want to come, but I
was also really anxious and stressed about this upcoming procedure
that I was going to have, and I just wanted
to know that it would be sorted and I wouldn't
have to worry about whether I would have help with
the kids or not. So I just wanted him to
come so I could talk to with about that.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Aaron said that apart from the small fortune claim and
the fact she wanted it to be a special meal,
the rest of the message was exaggerated. Here is more
of what she said.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
I just really wanted him to come so I could
talk about the medical stuff and not worry about it anymore.
I didn't mean to do any of that. I shouldn't
have done any of that, but that's what I was
thinking at the time.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
What did you want him to feel when he read
that message?
Speaker 4 (06:24):
I guess I wanted him to feel a little bit
bad about canceling at the last minute, after he would
have known. I'd done a lot of preparation.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
And when you say I've spent many hours this week
preparing lunch for tomorrow, was that true.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
I didn't do any preparing other than shopping and researching
the recipe. So I guess the answer to your question
is no, it wasn't true.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Mister Mandy then went on to ask questions about the
day of the lunch on July twenty nine. Aaron said
she had planned for the dishes to be ready by
twelve thirty pm, when her guests were due to arrive.
Aaron told the jury Heather brought a fruit platter and
Gale brought an orange cake.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
She explained that she served five dishes, with the sixth
beef Wellington put into the fridge on the tray it
was cooked on. She said she told the guests to
grab a plate before she grabbed the last one herself
and joined them at the table. She said today that
she didn't remember what plate she used, as the jury
has previously heard Erin said, the Wilkinsons ate all of
(07:25):
their meals, don ate all of his as well as
Gail's leftovers, as she didn't finish hers. And then Aaron
said she ate between a quarter and a third of
her own meal because she was eating slowly and talking
a lot. Aaron said she had a health issue she
wanted to discuss with her guests. Here is what she
said about that conversation.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
So it was right at the end of the meal,
and I mentioned that I'd had a maybe not scare
is the right word, but I'd had an issue a
year or two earlier where I thought I had ovarian
cancer and had various scans about and related to that.
And then I'm not proud of this, but I led
them to believe that I might be needing some treatment
in regards to that in the next few weeks or months.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
And can you remember what you said about that in
any more detail?
Speaker 4 (08:13):
Not specifically. I do remember I referred to upcoming treatment
because primarily in my mind, I was thinking I might
need help with getting the kids to and from the bus.
Or activities, and I might need to explain why I
was going out to hospital for a day or two.
So that was really the focus of what I was
talking about.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Did you mislead them?
Speaker 4 (08:33):
I did.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Aaron told the court that the upcoming treatment she had
referred to was actually the plan she had to have
gastric bypass surgery, but she was too ashamed to tell
her guests. Here is another exchange between her and mister Mandy.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
And why didn't you tell them the truth about what
you were intending.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
I was really embarrassed. I was ashamed of the fact
that I didn't have control over my body or what
I ate. I was ashamed of that and embarrassed. I
didn't want to tell anybody, but I shouldn't have lied
to them.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
After the guest had left, Aaron told the jury she
ate a piece of orange cake before eating another, then another.
In the end, she said she ate two thirds of
that cake. She told the jury that she felt sick
and overfull and went to the toilet and brought it
back up again. On Tuesday, Aaron told the jury that
she had struggled with binge eating and bolimia for most
(09:27):
of her life.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Aaron told the court that she felt better later that afternoon,
but started experiencing diarrhea from about ten pm. She didn't
sleep very much that night, she said, and the next
morning she went downstairs to speak with her children before
making herself a herbal tea. The court heard that she
decided they wouldn't be going to church that day, but
(09:49):
that afternoon, she said, she decided to still drive her
son to his flying lesson in Taiab. She said she
still felt nauseous and had diarrhea, but her symptoms weren't
as bad as they were night before. Here's what she
said today in court about the journey to the flying lesson.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
So, maybe about half an hour into the trip, I
felt like I needed to go to the toilet. So
he pulled over on a stretch of the road where
there's quite a bit of bush along the way.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Do you remember where that was?
Speaker 4 (10:16):
It's before the South Gibson Highway meets the Bass Highway,
somewhere around the Noyora turnoffish somewhere around there.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
And what happened? You pulled over?
Speaker 4 (10:26):
Yes, So, and I went off into the bush and
went to the toilet.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
What kind of going into the toilet was it?
Speaker 4 (10:33):
So?
Speaker 2 (10:33):
I had diarrhea and what happened after that?
Speaker 4 (10:37):
So I cleaned myself up a little bit with tissues
and put them in a dog Pooh bag and put
it in my handbag and we hit the road again.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
There's evidence that on the way at three twenty pm
you stopped at the BP in calder Meat and the
internal footage shows you going into the bathrooms. Why did
you go into the bathrooms?
Speaker 4 (10:56):
I put the dog Pooh bag with the soiled tissues
in the bin.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
And when you came out of the bathroom you purchased
some things I did.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Aaron said. Her diary continued and that she didn't want
to cook anything for the kids, so she gave them
leftovers of that beef Wellington meal that were in the fridge.
She said she removed the pastry and mushrooms from the
leftover in Wellington, splitting it onto two plates, which were
served with potatoes and beans. She said her children ate
(11:25):
both meals.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Mister Mandy then brought erin to the events of July
thirty one. The monday. Erin recalled that she still woke
up feeling unwell, so she decided she would go to
lean Gatha Hospital to get some saline. The jury has
previously heard that Erin arrived at the hospital around eight
am and was greeted by doctor Chris Webster at the entrance.
(11:48):
Erin told the court that she told doctor Webster that
she wasn't an urgent patient. She said she just had
gastro and he asked for her name. When she told
him her name was Erin Patterson, she said that doctor
Webster said words to the effect of we were expecting you.
Erin told the court that she remembered feeling quite unsettled
because when she said her name, it was clear that
(12:09):
doctor Webster knew who she was. He told her that
they were concerned that she had been exposed to death
cap mushrooms and asked her where she had bought the
mushrooms from. Aaron said that she was shocked and confused.
She didn't understand how death caps could be in the meal.
Earlier today, mister Mandy asked Arin more questions about her
foraging for mushrooms. She denied ever foraging for mushrooms in
(12:34):
Locke and Outram, those being the two areas where doctor
Tom May and Christine McKenzie spotted death cap mushrooms and
posted their locations to citizen science website by Naturalist. She
also denied ever seeing their posts.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
As the jury has previously heard, Aaron left the hospital
after only being there for five minutes. She discharged herself
against medical and she said she left to go feed
her animals and organize her daughter's ballet items. The court heard.
Hospital records showed that Erin returned at nine forty eight am.
(13:13):
She record telling doctor Webster that her children had eden
leftovers of that meal on Sunday night.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Erin said that the doctors at the hospital wanted the
children to come there themselves because they were concerned the
toxins from the death caps had seeped into the meat,
despite the fact that Erin said she had scraped them off,
They said it was better to be safe than sorry.
Erin was taken by ambulance to Monash Medical Center, where
eventually she was joined by Simon and their two children.
(13:43):
The next day, on August one, the four of them
were still at the hospital. Erin recounted a conversation that
she had with Simon and the children, where they explained
to the children that there were concerns over the lunch
that she had cooked. Erin told the court today that
that led to a discussion about mushrooms and her dehydrader.
More broadly, they spoke about how their daughter doesn't like
(14:06):
mushrooms and how Erin had used the dehydrader to be
able to dry mushrooms, chop them up into small pieces,
and put them into food for her to eat. Aaron
said that after that conversation, the children had left the room,
leaving her and Simon. She spoke more today about what
was said between the two of them.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
Did you and Simon have any conversation?
Speaker 4 (14:28):
Yeah, So during that conversation with the children about the
taste tests, and we're discussed in that conversation that I
dried the mushrooms and I don't remember if it was
Simon or I that initiated it, but there was a
conversation about how I had used a dehydrated to do that,
and he said to me, is that how you poisoned
my parents using that dehydrader?
Speaker 3 (14:48):
And what was your response?
Speaker 4 (14:49):
I said, of course not.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Did that comment by Simon cause you to reflect on
what might have been in the meal?
Speaker 4 (14:57):
It caused me to do a lot of thinking about
a lot of things. Yeah, it caused me to reflect
a lot on what might have happened.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Okay, well, can you explain to us what crossed your
mind then and what you were thinking about?
Speaker 4 (15:12):
So it got me thinking about all the times that
i'd used it, and I.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Had used the dehydrator that's right.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
And how I had dried foraged mushrooms in a weeks earlier,
and I was starting to think, what if they'd gone
in the container with the Chinese mushrooms?
Speaker 3 (15:27):
How did that make you feel scared?
Speaker 4 (15:30):
Responsible, really worried because child protection were involved, and Simon
seemed to be of the mind that maybe this was intentional,
and I just I just got really scared.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Aaron told the court that around this time she also
thought it was a possibility that the dried mushrooms from
the Asian grosser were behind the guest's illnesses.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Let's move on to the next day, August two, Laura,
what did Aaron do?
Speaker 2 (15:55):
By this stage, she's back at her home in Leengatha
after being discharged from one as medical center, and she admitted,
as her legal team has done before, that she dumped
her dehydrata at the local tip. Mister Mandy asked her
about this today.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Why did you do that?
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Child protection were coming to my house that afternoon, and
I was, I was scared of the conversation that might
flow about the meal and the dehydrator, And I was,
and I just was. I was scared of that, that
they would blame me for it, blame you for for
making everyone sick, And I was scared they'd remove the children.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
Did you tell anyone that you had come to the
realization that death cap mushrooms might have been in the meal?
Speaker 4 (16:38):
No, I didn't.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Did you tell anyone that foraged mushrooms might have been
in the meal? No, you had been told that the
suspicion was that death cap mushrooms had been in the meal. Yes,
What did that make you think about weather or what
might have been in the dehydrator?
Speaker 4 (16:56):
Well, I thought there might be evidence of that, evidence
of any forage mushrooms in there.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Aaron went on to tell the jury that two days later,
on August four, she told child protection workout Katrina Cripps
that she was concerned about Simon.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Erin said she told Miss Cripps that she wanted to
change her phone number. She said she was becoming concerned
about Simon's behavior and his allegations, and that meant she
was feeling concerned for her security, she wanted to make
sure he couldn't contact her.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Mister Mandy then asked Aaron about the phone she handed
to police the next day on August five, when they
searched her Lee and Gatha home. Laura, what did she
say about that phone?
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Our listeners were probably hoping we would never have to
touch on Phone A and Phone B again, but it
was touched upon again today by mister Mandy, who first
asked her about this phone. You've spoken about, Brooke, the
one she handed to police, and this one has been
dubbed Phone B. The jury has previously heard that multiple
factory resets were conducted on this phone in twenty twenty three.
(18:00):
Erin explained today that the first one, on February twelve,
was because her son had damaged his phone, so she
gave him Phone B to use and she had bought
a new one. He needed to conduct that factory reset,
so he was able to use the phone for himself,
but the court heard he stopped using Phone B after
he took it to a school camp and it got
(18:20):
covered in mud which got stuck inside the charging port.
Erin told the court that the phone was drying out.
At her house, almost forgotten about until August when she
had this conversation with Miss Cripps about wanting to have
a new phone number. She told the court that she
conducted a second factory reset on August two so she
(18:40):
could wipe her son's information off this phone and set
it up for herself. She explained to the court that
by this time the mud had dried out and Phone
B could be charged again, but she went on to
say that she reset the phone again on August five,
the day of the search, because she panicked and didn't
want police to find photos of mushrooms and the dehydrata
(19:02):
that she believed were in her Google Photos app. She
eventually handed this phone to police, but Erin admitted that
she reset the phone the next day, on August six.
She said this was out of panic, saying that she
tried to see if she could log into her Google
account remotely and conduct the reset that way, and she
said to the court that it worked and Laura.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Phone A was also mentioned today, wasn't it?
Speaker 2 (19:26):
That's right? So Phone A was the phone that Erin
was using before she set up Phone B. After having
that conversation with Miss Cripps, she told the court that
on August five, when police were searching her home, Phone
A was sitting on a window sill near a charging station.
When she returned home that afternoon after her record of interview,
(19:47):
she said she was handed a property seizure record by
detectives which stated that two devices had been taken, and
she said this left her confused. She told the court
she looked around her home and was able to find
a Nokia phone that was left in a basket and
Phone A that remained on that window sill at this
point in time. Phone A had a simcard in it
(20:09):
ending in seven eighty three, which was Erin's normal phone number,
the one she said she had wanted to move away from.
But she said she put this simcard into the Nokia
and continued to use it, conceding that Simon would most
likely need to contact her about the children moving forward.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Thanks Laura, that was a great explanation. As always, Aerin
will be back on the stand tomorrow and she's expected
to be cross examined by the prosecution team. To stay
updated with this case, go to the mushroomcook dot com
dot au
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