May 14, 2025 • 12 mins
A mushroom expert who examined a portion of the beef wellington meal took to the stand today to outline her findings.
The Mushroom Cook team is Brooke Grebert-Craig, Laura Placella, Anthony Dowsley, Jordy Atkinson and Jonty Burton
Our intern is Jasmine Geddes.
Go to themushroomcook.com.au for news, features, previous episodes and more
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
On July thirty one, twenty twenty three, mushroom expert Camille
Truong was searching for answers. There'd been a poisoning at
a lunch in a small country town, and she had
been asked to examine a sample of leftover food. She'd
(00:21):
left work when a request came in to test the meal. Luckily,
doctor Chruong had a home set up and the sample
was sent over to her. She cleaned a bench and
pulled out her equipment.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
I have a small microscope setting in my house, so
I went there. I always clean up the bench and
then I use gloves. I use a small tray and
tweezes that are also sterilized with alcohol wipes. I opened
the package, saw it was a food item which contained
mushrooms inside. So with tweezers, I carefully picked out the
little pieces of mushroom on the tray, and then I
(00:57):
studied them under the microscope.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
After she examined the food, she put them in her
fridge and she tested them again on August two. What
she found, along with her other investigations into death caps,
she told to the court today in the trial of
Aaron Patterson. I'm brook Greebert Craig and this is the
(01:22):
Mushroom Cook. We've just finished day eleven and once again
I'm joined by my colleague, court reporter Laura PLASSELLA Hey Brook,
how are you going?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Not bad getting through now, Laura.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
We've had some luck finding voice actors that sound like
the witnesses on the stand, but unfortunately not this time.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
No, unfortunately not. As our listeners heard at the top
of the episode, we heard from a second mushroom expert
today and she speaks with a French accent. But alas,
we don't have any French speakers in our office, so
we had to make.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Do that's right. So doctor Treong was the OnCore my
college at Victorian Poisons Information Center on July thirty one.
She was sent the leftovers of that beef Wellington dish
that was fished out of Aaron's bin by a local
police officer.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
We heard last week some details around this operation. One
of the local cops spoke to Erin over the phone
and got the access code to her front gate. Erin
directed him to one of her outside bins and said
that would be the place he would most likely find
leftovers of the beef Wellington and after donning some gloves
(02:33):
and having a search through the bin, he found a
Woolworth's bag that contained the leftovers.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
But today the jury was told more about where the
leftovers of that meal ended up after it was taken
in an ambulance with Aaron to Monash Medical Center.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Yes, these leftovers have gone on quite the journey. So
from the bin at Erin's lean Gatha home, like you said, Brook,
they've been taken to lean Gatha Hospital from their transported
in an ambulance with Erin to Monash Medical Center in Melbourne,
and then from Monash Medical Center they've been ferried in
(03:10):
an urgent taxi to the city to the office of
the Royal Botanic Gardens.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
And then what happened with them.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
So doctor Truong works for the Royal Botanic Gardens and
she's a mycologist, just like doctor Tom May who we
heard from yesterday, and she received a phone call from
doctor Laura Muldoon who worked at Monash Medical Center about
these leftovers. Doctor Muldoon had sent doctor Truong a photo
and asked her whether or not from that photo she
(03:39):
could identify whether there were death caps in that meal.
Considering four people had fallen seriously ill after consuming the
beef Wellington lunch. But doctor Truong said that there was
not enough information from that photo for her to be
able to draw any conclusions, and the court heard more
today about her thought process after she spoke with doctor Mildoon.
(04:01):
These are her words, it's not her voice. I did
indicate to her that if the mushroom were coming from
a shop or a supermarket, it was extremely unlikely and
probably impossible to be death cap mushrooms because those mushrooms
only grow in the wild, whereas the mushrooms that you
buy in the supermarket are cultivated, are grown in culture,
and death cap mushrooms cannot be grown in cultures. She
(04:24):
went on to say.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
I also told her that there were absolutely no sighting
of death cap mushrooms in Victoria during the last months,
So based on the information that I received, it was
highly unlikely to be a case of death cap poisoning.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
So, Laura, you said, doctor Truan couldn't make any conclusions.
What was her next steps?
Speaker 3 (04:45):
So I mentioned earlier that the leftovers were ferried to
her office at the Royal Botanic Gardens, but she hadn't
heard from staff at Monash Medical Center for a while,
so she actually went home. The leftovers arrived at her
office and she wasn't there, so she then had to
arrange for them to be brought to her home. But
rest assured. Doctor Trung had a microscope at home, as
(05:09):
our listeners would have heard at the top of the episode,
so she was well equipped to be able to take
a look at these leftovers from the comfort of her house.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
And what did she find?
Speaker 3 (05:18):
So after she used some tweezers to extract some pieces
of the mushroom, she popped them under her microscope and
took a look. She was asked today and caught by
Crown Prosecutor Nnette Rodgers, whether or not she found any
pieces of death cat mushrooms, and she said she didn't. Now,
this may be a good time to remind our listeners
that the prosecution allege erin served individual Beef Wellington's that
(05:43):
day at that lunch. Beyond that, the prosecution also alleged
that her serve of that Beef Wellington that individual serve
did not contain death cat mushrooms. But again to also
remind our listeners, the defense claimed that what happened at
that lunch was a tragedy and a terrible accident, and
Erin has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
That's right, Laura. So doctor Truon did find another type
of mushroom in those leftovers that she was examining.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
What were they, so, she told the court. After examining
these mushrooms on July thirty one at her home, she
put them in her own fridge at her house, and
it was two days later that she took them out
and brought them back to her office to examine them further.
She told the court today, upon examining them for the
second time, she identified them as field mushrooms, and she
(06:31):
went on to say that these are mushrooms that are
very typically found at your everyday supermarket.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
The leftovers were then collected by the Department of Health
on August two, So before the jury heard from doctor Truong,
my collogist Tom May returned to the stand and continued
his evidence from yesterday. Laura, can you remind the listeners
who doctor May is.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
So, he is an internationally recognized fungi specialist, and he's
actually colleagues with doctor Truong. They both work at Royal
Botanic Gardens, where doctor May has worked for over thirty years.
His cross examination continued today and he was brought to
another fatal case of death cap mushroom poisoning. The court
(07:14):
heard last year there was a Victorian woman who picked
some mushrooms from her front yard that she cooked in
a meal that she served to her and her son.
The jury heard that she first picked mushrooms from her
yard in April twenty twenty four and she cooked them
and everything was fine. Her and her son didn't fall ill.
But then a month later she noticed that mushrooms were
(07:36):
growing in the same location in her yard, so she
picked them again and cooked them again, but this time
they both got very ill following the meal. They were
both taken to hospital, but unfortunately the woman died.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
And doctor May told the jury that he was familiar
with this particular case. Why is that, Laura?
Speaker 3 (07:55):
The court heard that this was the subject of a
cronial finding. The coroner recommended there to be more public
health messaging about the dangers of consuming wild mushrooms.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
And in particular, he was contacted by the Department of
Health to help with these public health messages, and doctor
May was also asked about the smell of death cap mushrooms.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
He told the court that he's actually dried deathcap mushrooms
before and he was asked by the prosecution what they
smell like, and he said very unpleasant in his opinion.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Okay, Now moving on to more medical evidence, the jury
heard from an intensive care specialist. His name was Professor
Andrew Burston. He actually examined Aaron's medical records. What did
he find.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
The first thing he was questioned about today was whether
or not Erin had ever been diagnosed with cancer. And
to remind our listeners, it's the prosecution case that Arin
invited her lunch guests over to her house on the
pretense that she had cancer as a way to expl
blained to them why the children were not in attendance. However,
the defense have suggested that Eron never told the lunch
(09:06):
guests she had cancer, but rather that she had a
suspected diagnosis. So Professor Burston was asked today about this
and he said that after reviewing Erin's medical records, he
found no evidence that she had been diagnosed with cancer.
The court specifically heard that Erin had completed a cervical
screening test in March twenty twenty three, and the results
(09:29):
of that had come back normal. Professor Burston told the
court that these tests are only required every five years,
and she would most likely have been told that.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Through Aaron's medical records. Professor Burston also found no evidence
of toxic mushroom poisoning after she was admitted to hospital
following the lunch. We touched upon that in yesterday's episode,
Now Laura, we saw the return of the dehydrator being
mentioned in court.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Yes, the dehydrator has been missing an action, but it
made a return today and that was through the evidence
of Darren Canty. He is an operations manager at the
Dasma Group and this organization run the Kunwara transfer Station
and landfill, so essentially one of the local tips in
the area. Now our listeners might remember the tip from
(10:19):
the opening addresses. Defense barrister Colin Mandy said that Aaron
admitted she lied to police about dumping the dehydrator at
the tip. Mister Canty told the court that he got
a call from police on August four, who were making
inquiries about a person who had gone to their tip
to drop something off on August two, so two days earlier.
(10:43):
He said he reviewed the CCTV footage from that day.
This footage was shown to the jury and in it
you can see a red fooel drive pull up to
the tip. A woman who was dressed in a gray
sweater and cream pants is seen getting out of the car,
going to a boot and taking out an item. She
then walks into a shed at the tip and about
(11:05):
twenty seconds later re emerges without that item. She then
gets back into her car and the footage stops.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Mister Canty then got his colleague to go through the
tip and find this item that was dropped off. The
colleague then found a dehydrator and he told his boss.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
The jury was then shown a photo of the dehydrator.
It was lying on its side, and mister Canty then
said he rang the police to tell them what he
had found, and before long they had come to the
site to pick it up.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
That's right, so the police actually sees that dehydrator on
August four.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
But I'm sure this won't be the last we hear
about the dehydrator.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
So that's all the evidence from today and tomorrow we're
expected to hear more from expert witnesses. So we'll be
back then with another episode, and in the meantime, go
to the mushroomcook dot com dot au for more
On July thirty one, twenty twenty three, mushroom expert Camille
Truong was searching for answers. There'd been a poisoning at
a lunch in a small country town, and she had
been asked to examine a sample of leftover food. She'd
(00:21):
left work when a request came in to test the meal. Luckily,
doctor Chruong had a home set up and the sample
was sent over to her. She cleaned a bench and
pulled out her equipment.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
I have a small microscope setting in my house, so
I went there. I always clean up the bench and
then I use gloves. I use a small tray and
tweezes that are also sterilized with alcohol wipes. I opened
the package, saw it was a food item which contained
mushrooms inside. So with tweezers, I carefully picked out the
little pieces of mushroom on the tray, and then I
(00:57):
studied them under the microscope.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
After she examined the food, she put them in her
fridge and she tested them again on August two. What
she found, along with her other investigations into death caps,
she told to the court today in the trial of
Aaron Patterson. I'm brook Greebert Craig and this is the
(01:22):
Mushroom Cook. We've just finished day eleven and once again
I'm joined by my colleague, court reporter Laura PLASSELLA Hey Brook,
how are you going?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Not bad getting through now, Laura.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
We've had some luck finding voice actors that sound like
the witnesses on the stand, but unfortunately not this time.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
No, unfortunately not. As our listeners heard at the top
of the episode, we heard from a second mushroom expert
today and she speaks with a French accent. But alas,
we don't have any French speakers in our office, so
we had to make.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Do that's right. So doctor Treong was the OnCore my
college at Victorian Poisons Information Center on July thirty one.
She was sent the leftovers of that beef Wellington dish
that was fished out of Aaron's bin by a local
police officer.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
We heard last week some details around this operation. One
of the local cops spoke to Erin over the phone
and got the access code to her front gate. Erin
directed him to one of her outside bins and said
that would be the place he would most likely find
leftovers of the beef Wellington and after donning some gloves
(02:33):
and having a search through the bin, he found a
Woolworth's bag that contained the leftovers.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
But today the jury was told more about where the
leftovers of that meal ended up after it was taken
in an ambulance with Aaron to Monash Medical Center.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Yes, these leftovers have gone on quite the journey. So
from the bin at Erin's lean Gatha home, like you said, Brook,
they've been taken to lean Gatha Hospital from their transported
in an ambulance with Erin to Monash Medical Center in Melbourne,
and then from Monash Medical Center they've been ferried in
(03:10):
an urgent taxi to the city to the office of
the Royal Botanic Gardens.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
And then what happened with them.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
So doctor Truong works for the Royal Botanic Gardens and
she's a mycologist, just like doctor Tom May who we
heard from yesterday, and she received a phone call from
doctor Laura Muldoon who worked at Monash Medical Center about
these leftovers. Doctor Muldoon had sent doctor Truong a photo
and asked her whether or not from that photo she
(03:39):
could identify whether there were death caps in that meal.
Considering four people had fallen seriously ill after consuming the
beef Wellington lunch. But doctor Truong said that there was
not enough information from that photo for her to be
able to draw any conclusions, and the court heard more
today about her thought process after she spoke with doctor Mildoon.
(04:01):
These are her words, it's not her voice. I did
indicate to her that if the mushroom were coming from
a shop or a supermarket, it was extremely unlikely and
probably impossible to be death cap mushrooms because those mushrooms
only grow in the wild, whereas the mushrooms that you
buy in the supermarket are cultivated, are grown in culture,
and death cap mushrooms cannot be grown in cultures. She
(04:24):
went on to say.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
I also told her that there were absolutely no sighting
of death cap mushrooms in Victoria during the last months,
So based on the information that I received, it was
highly unlikely to be a case of death cap poisoning.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
So, Laura, you said, doctor Truan couldn't make any conclusions.
What was her next steps?
Speaker 3 (04:45):
So I mentioned earlier that the leftovers were ferried to
her office at the Royal Botanic Gardens, but she hadn't
heard from staff at Monash Medical Center for a while,
so she actually went home. The leftovers arrived at her
office and she wasn't there, so she then had to
arrange for them to be brought to her home. But
rest assured. Doctor Trung had a microscope at home, as
(05:09):
our listeners would have heard at the top of the episode,
so she was well equipped to be able to take
a look at these leftovers from the comfort of her house.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
And what did she find?
Speaker 3 (05:18):
So after she used some tweezers to extract some pieces
of the mushroom, she popped them under her microscope and
took a look. She was asked today and caught by
Crown Prosecutor Nnette Rodgers, whether or not she found any
pieces of death cat mushrooms, and she said she didn't. Now,
this may be a good time to remind our listeners
that the prosecution allege erin served individual Beef Wellington's that
(05:43):
day at that lunch. Beyond that, the prosecution also alleged
that her serve of that Beef Wellington that individual serve
did not contain death cat mushrooms. But again to also
remind our listeners, the defense claimed that what happened at
that lunch was a tragedy and a terrible accident, and
Erin has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
That's right, Laura. So doctor Truon did find another type
of mushroom in those leftovers that she was examining.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
What were they, so, she told the court. After examining
these mushrooms on July thirty one at her home, she
put them in her own fridge at her house, and
it was two days later that she took them out
and brought them back to her office to examine them further.
She told the court today, upon examining them for the
second time, she identified them as field mushrooms, and she
(06:31):
went on to say that these are mushrooms that are
very typically found at your everyday supermarket.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
The leftovers were then collected by the Department of Health
on August two, So before the jury heard from doctor Truong,
my collogist Tom May returned to the stand and continued
his evidence from yesterday. Laura, can you remind the listeners
who doctor May is.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
So, he is an internationally recognized fungi specialist, and he's
actually colleagues with doctor Truong. They both work at Royal
Botanic Gardens, where doctor May has worked for over thirty years.
His cross examination continued today and he was brought to
another fatal case of death cap mushroom poisoning. The court
(07:14):
heard last year there was a Victorian woman who picked
some mushrooms from her front yard that she cooked in
a meal that she served to her and her son.
The jury heard that she first picked mushrooms from her
yard in April twenty twenty four and she cooked them
and everything was fine. Her and her son didn't fall ill.
But then a month later she noticed that mushrooms were
(07:36):
growing in the same location in her yard, so she
picked them again and cooked them again, but this time
they both got very ill following the meal. They were
both taken to hospital, but unfortunately the woman died.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
And doctor May told the jury that he was familiar
with this particular case. Why is that, Laura?
Speaker 3 (07:55):
The court heard that this was the subject of a
cronial finding. The coroner recommended there to be more public
health messaging about the dangers of consuming wild mushrooms.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
And in particular, he was contacted by the Department of
Health to help with these public health messages, and doctor
May was also asked about the smell of death cap mushrooms.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
He told the court that he's actually dried deathcap mushrooms
before and he was asked by the prosecution what they
smell like, and he said very unpleasant in his opinion.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Okay, Now moving on to more medical evidence, the jury
heard from an intensive care specialist. His name was Professor
Andrew Burston. He actually examined Aaron's medical records. What did
he find.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
The first thing he was questioned about today was whether
or not Erin had ever been diagnosed with cancer. And
to remind our listeners, it's the prosecution case that Arin
invited her lunch guests over to her house on the
pretense that she had cancer as a way to expl
blained to them why the children were not in attendance. However,
the defense have suggested that Eron never told the lunch
(09:06):
guests she had cancer, but rather that she had a
suspected diagnosis. So Professor Burston was asked today about this
and he said that after reviewing Erin's medical records, he
found no evidence that she had been diagnosed with cancer.
The court specifically heard that Erin had completed a cervical
screening test in March twenty twenty three, and the results
(09:29):
of that had come back normal. Professor Burston told the
court that these tests are only required every five years,
and she would most likely have been told that.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Through Aaron's medical records. Professor Burston also found no evidence
of toxic mushroom poisoning after she was admitted to hospital
following the lunch. We touched upon that in yesterday's episode,
Now Laura, we saw the return of the dehydrator being
mentioned in court.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Yes, the dehydrator has been missing an action, but it
made a return today and that was through the evidence
of Darren Canty. He is an operations manager at the
Dasma Group and this organization run the Kunwara transfer Station
and landfill, so essentially one of the local tips in
the area. Now our listeners might remember the tip from
(10:19):
the opening addresses. Defense barrister Colin Mandy said that Aaron
admitted she lied to police about dumping the dehydrator at
the tip. Mister Canty told the court that he got
a call from police on August four, who were making
inquiries about a person who had gone to their tip
to drop something off on August two, so two days earlier.
(10:43):
He said he reviewed the CCTV footage from that day.
This footage was shown to the jury and in it
you can see a red fooel drive pull up to
the tip. A woman who was dressed in a gray
sweater and cream pants is seen getting out of the car,
going to a boot and taking out an item. She
then walks into a shed at the tip and about
(11:05):
twenty seconds later re emerges without that item. She then
gets back into her car and the footage stops.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Mister Canty then got his colleague to go through the
tip and find this item that was dropped off. The
colleague then found a dehydrator and he told his boss.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
The jury was then shown a photo of the dehydrator.
It was lying on its side, and mister Canty then
said he rang the police to tell them what he
had found, and before long they had come to the
site to pick it up.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
That's right, so the police actually sees that dehydrator on
August four.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
But I'm sure this won't be the last we hear
about the dehydrator.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
So that's all the evidence from today and tomorrow we're
expected to hear more from expert witnesses. So we'll be
back then with another episode, and in the meantime, go
to the mushroomcook dot com dot au for more
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