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Revealed - Death Cap Murders (2025) Season 1 Episode 2
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00:00Oh, I could tell you lots of stories about Curranborough.
00:20Poisonous mushrooms have killed three people and a man is in hospital fighting for life.
00:25As a result of suspected mushroom poisoning.
00:27The Death Gap mushroom poisoning is the Chernobyl of poisons.
00:31Erin Patterson from Liangatha decides to invite over for lunch her in-laws and she invites her estranged husband Simon.
00:38He decides to pull out.
00:39Pete Wellington is served.
00:41So devastated about what's happened. I love them.
00:44And three died.
00:45Do you know anything about it? Do you want to try to bring your hands to the woman?
00:48Why would she want to kill them? Could this all be a terrible accident?
00:52Erin Patterson has been arrested in a dramatic early morning raid on her Liangatha home.
00:57She's been charged with multiple counts of murder and attempted murder.
01:01But most significantly, four counts of attempted murder for trying to kill her husband, Simon Patterson, over a number of years.
01:09So it's May 2022.
01:30We know Erin and Simon go on a camping trip together.
01:33They are separated. They've been separated for many years, but they were friends, they were texting, they were calling, they were going on holidays together quite frequently with and without the children.
01:45Simon recalls on one camping trip that he was eating a chicken curry.
01:52He remembered that Erin Patterson was cooking the meal, something he wasn't really keeping too close of an eye on.
01:58They went to bed in the tent that night and it was hours later, he said he remembered waking up and becoming violently ill and then he ended up in hospital for 20 odd days and 16 of those were in a coma.
02:11He had three different bowel resection surgeries.
02:15There was results that just didn't make sense.
02:18The hospital was running around trying to figure out why he was in such excruciating pain.
02:23This man was dying.
02:24His family had been told to come in and say goodbye to him, that this may be the final time that they ever get to see him.
02:33Simon believed that this camping trip formed part of a whole string of sinister attempts to take his life, but it was never, ever put before the jury.
02:44In this land, there is no place for my heart, in the hope for my heart.
03:04In this land, there is no place for my heart, in the hope for my heart, in the hope for my heart, in the hope for my heart, in the hope for my heart.
03:34In this land, there is no place for my heart, in the hope for my heart, in the hope for my heart.
04:04Far away.
04:06Far away.
04:07Far away.
04:08And if they come.
04:11For me to come.
04:19Then I must go.
04:23And you stay.
04:28At the moment it's very quiet.
04:29It's almost like that feeling that people are just sitting and waiting now.
04:35You know, the time has come for those to have their day in court.
04:41There will be a bit of interest around the region about what is the evidence, what is there that's potentially damning or what is it that's possibly missing.
04:54There must be more to the story than what we have heard.
04:58Once there's an outcome of the case, you know, that will be when a lot of people will be able to process their group and to decide to move on.
05:05There's a lot of people in our community that will need closure.
05:12So I've got the court sketch from Erin Patterson's first appearance in Mowat.
05:15Um, immediately after she was charged with the court sketch.
05:36So I've got the court sketch from Erin Patterson's first appearance in Mowat immediately after she was charged.
05:45So this was November 3rd, 2023.
05:48And, um, it's signed by the sketch artist.
05:52And, um, this was a gift that I got from my partner.
05:55Cause we're both, um, working the news and, you know, this is the kind of, kind of stuff that we gift each other.
06:01Which makes me think like, like, feel like a bit like of a crazy lady.
06:04And then you've got the photo of Erin's first interview.
06:10The only interview she's ever given to the media or comments she's ever given outside of her house.
06:15I took that one.
06:16I got nominated for a quote for this one.
06:18That's why it's printed.
06:20And then I've got this one as well, which is a, um, it's a scientific drawing of the Death Cab mushroom.
06:26That too was a birthday gift from a friend.
06:29So there you go.
06:30I've got like a little collection of, um, mementos from the mushroom, mushroom case.
06:36Interestingly in this case, the trial was held at Morwell.
06:48From the 50s, 60s right to the end of the 80s, Morwell was a boom town.
06:55Morwell might only be 50 kilometers from Langatha.
07:01But in terms of culture, it's nothing like.
07:04There's definitely a good community here.
07:07I mean, sometimes we get a bit of a bad rap.
07:10Morwell's a cold town.
07:12It's a place that is in the process of reinventing itself.
07:16There's a lot of youth crime in the area and there's just no resources for anyone.
07:21I will be honest, a lot of the time it's like a ghost town.
07:24Um, so just seeing so many people around is a nice change.
07:28The defense chose to do it in Morwell in the belief that the local people were less likely to convict.
07:34Yeah, I think folk are really interested in the case.
07:38They've all got an opinion on what's going on.
07:40It's actually bigger than I expected.
07:43Um, more reporters, I think, than I expected.
07:46Day one of the highly anticipated mushroom murder trial gets underway here in Morwell.
07:54Day one of the highly anticipated...
07:56Erin Patterson has pleaded not guilty to all charges...
07:59...and has always maintained her innocence.
08:02I'll go again.
08:03Something we've been waiting for for nearly two years, it's finally starting.
08:08It felt like we were driving up and unpacking the circus tent
08:13and erecting it around the front of the courthouse.
08:20We've got these really smart, big noted legal minds that have come in
08:26to this small little country town of Morwell
08:29that are trying to convince your average Joes of why they should pick one side.
08:35There was a line every day to get in, there was an atmosphere outside of anticipation.
08:40It's this incredibly important murder trial that's made international news everywhere.
08:45And you're in this, like, tiny suburban-looking court.
08:48Oh, yeah.
08:49Thanks, ma'am.
08:50Court four in the Morwell Law Courts.
08:53You walk in the door.
08:54The jury box is basically directly in front of you.
08:58Then we've got two big banks of public seating.
09:01On the right-hand side of the bar table, we have the Crown Prosecution Team being led by Dr. Nanette Rogers,
09:07who is one of the sharpest legal minds in the field.
09:10She's supported by Jane Warren and two other members of the prosecution team as well, including Sarah Lenthal.
09:16On the left-hand side, leading the defence team is highly respected criminal barrister, Colin Mandy, SC.
09:24Seated to his left was his junior barrister, Sophie Stafford.
09:28Across the table supporting them, the two solicitors are Bill Duke, who's a very senior legal figure within Melbourne,
09:35and Ophelia Holloway.
09:37But perhaps the most incredible thing about the whole thing is that Erin is right behind you.
09:43That never happens. You're never that close to an accused.
09:46So close, I could almost feel her breath on the back of my neck.
09:49Every time you want to look at her, you've got to turn around and look at this woman.
09:58We're about to start the trial. Mouth guards are in, and then a bombshell.
10:03Serious charges have been dropped against accused mushroom lunch killer Erin Patterson.
10:08Charges of attempting to murder her estranged husband will not proceed.
10:13I don't know how everybody in the room didn't gasp in that moment.
10:17It may have been that it was a difficult thing for the prosecution to kind of justify it.
10:22You know, there was less evidence than compared to the lunch charges, so let's drop it.
10:27Allegations without any forensic backup would, in the judge's view, pollute
10:32the stream of justice.
10:34It was very hard to stay composed in that moment because you could imagine Simon Patterson
10:39hearing about the fact that his testimony will now sound very, very, very different.
10:44Simon Patterson arrived at court ready to face his estranged wife for the first time since she was accused of poisoning his entire family.
11:05So, on the first of May, on the third day of the trial, we get the first major prosecution witness,
11:12Simon Patterson, Erin's estranged husband.
11:15A lot of what Simon talks about when he's in the witness box is his relationship with Erin,
11:21how they met, how they came to be a couple, how their relationship slowly fell apart.
11:26For most of Simon and Erin's relationship, up until their separation,
11:31it sounded like Donna and Gail had a pretty good relationship with Erin.
11:35Donna and Erin had pretty similar interests.
11:38They were both really curious, busy minds, and so they would bond over, you know,
11:42things like science, world affairs, and they would talk about a lot of those topics of conversation all the time.
11:47So they had a pretty special bond.
11:51Erin inherited a large amount of money from her family.
11:56She loaned money to her extended family.
11:59She was more than generous to Simon.
12:02The way Simon stepped through how Erin had loaned, you know, all his siblings' money,
12:07I found it really perhaps revealing of the fact that Erin didn't have much else or many other people in her life.
12:14You know, that's how important the Patterson family were to her.
12:19Simon's main role in this trial is to talk about this turning point in his relationship with Erin,
12:25that from the prosecution's perspective is where things started to go south,
12:29and that's the moment that gives Erin a semblance of a motive to have murdered Simon's family.
12:37There's this situation where Erin feels like she hasn't been invited to Gail's 70th birthday party,
12:42so she's having a conversation with Simon around that.
12:50She feels particularly upset about the fact that she's been left off the guest list.
12:56She, I believe, feels that she's been abandoned by this family that she's embraced.
13:02I want to ask you about 2022. There was a change in the relationship, was there?
13:21Yes. She said that she discovered that my tax return for the previous financial year
13:27had for the first time noted that we were separated.
13:30It was my understanding it was going to have implications on family tax benefit.
13:35She was upset about it.
13:37You know, he lists himself as separated in his tax return,
13:40which means that now she needs to apply for child support payments.
13:43It's only like $40 or so a month that Simon needs to pay Erin for child support.
13:48Erin's getting annoyed basically saying like,
13:50this is the bare minimum. This is not all you need to pay.
13:53This is just the baseline.
13:56She's sending messages to both Don, Gail and Simon,
13:59basically saying, I need Don and Gail to decide on what it is that was to happen financially.
14:04What couldn't be said during the trial is that typically these sort of assessments are made based on,
14:11you know, taxable income and in the kind of year leading up to that,
14:15Simon had been, you know, incredibly unwell because he says Erin poisoned him.
14:20And I'm cross-examined on my finances and I'm made out to be a villain.
14:25When I want to scream out to the jury,
14:27this crazy woman tried to kill me three times, but I can't do that.
14:32I can't do that.
15:02The pre-trial hearings are designed to test the strength of the evidence that will eventually go to trial.
15:14It's very tip and iceberg, really.
15:16You know, when you sort of think about big criminal trials like this,
15:18you've got, you know, the trials are tip and there is this huge iceberg of evidence the jury's not going to hear below it.
15:25It's almost like an off-Broadway rehearsal.
15:29You start with a full deck of 52 cards and you might go into the trial with 26 cards.
15:37And it was here in pre-trial that we learnt for the first time that it's Simon Patterson's version of events that he had eaten meals that his estranged wife had been cooking for him.
15:49He would become incredibly unwell after eating food that she'd prepared for him and for nobody else.
15:56That it was when they were away together and that there was no other explanation for that particular, you know, severe illness.
16:05He hadn't really confided in anybody. He'd told really only his doctor, Christopher Ford.
16:10The doctor's advice was to start keeping a diary, to start trying to put together the pieces himself.
16:17What are the kind of consistent things here? What was I doing in the lead up to all these instances of being sick?
16:22And he then kind of pins it on, on Aaron.
16:25He had us on the edge of our seats as he was talking about the different meals that he ate
16:29and then the horrendous symptoms that he says he suffered afterwards.
16:33The first was in November 2021.
16:36He recalled that Erin Patterson had given him some penne bolognese to take home, which he ate the next day.
16:42In May 2022, while camping with Erin, he ate a chicken curry prepared by her and ended up in hospital.
16:49This was a really quite significant event in Simon Patterson's life.
16:54Simon wrote in a Facebook post that his condition was so serious, his family were asked to come and say goodbye to him twice.
17:01In July 2022, he became unwell again after eating a beef stew cooked by Erin.
17:08And finally, in September 2022, while on another camping trip with his estranged wife,
17:14he once again became ill after eating a chicken and vegetable wrap Erin had pre-prepared.
17:19He was asked what he remembered. Did they share the same dish? No.
17:23He would say Erin Patterson would eat something different than me or she would prepare it and I wasn't watching.
17:28When he was recounting this in pretrial, he was really, really distressed about what she may have done to him.
17:35Simon nearly died from something, you know, and he wasn't struck by lightning.
17:41The defence then were arguing, this is a suspicion, this is a fear, but where's the medical evidence?
17:47Where is the evidence that shows the cause of this particular illness?
17:52And then at the 11th hour, we know the charges against Simon Patterson were thrown out.
17:57That was a massive moment because what falls away with those charges is also a lot of the evidence.
18:04Document after document, internet after internet search, book after book, potentially about poisonings that had been accessed,
18:11the Crown says by Erin Patterson, was disappearing.
18:14Exactly what is in or out, often, and happened in this case, wasn't decided on until what felt like hours before the trial was about to begin.
18:25In Erin Patterson's case, what happened in pretrial was very, very different to the case that proceeded to a jury.
18:32The day before the lunch, Simon sent a text to Erin saying that he wasn't going to be coming because he felt uncomfortable attending the lunch.
18:52And what we get in response is a pretty telling text from Erin.
18:57And she's bloody annoyed that Simon won't turn up and says, you know, I've slaved over this all week.
19:09So the jury's sitting in there, listening to Simon, laying all this stuff out, but then they're not hearing half the story that we've been able to hear in the pretrial.
19:20There's almost this information vacuum because they all knew those charges existed, but he's not talking about it.
19:25No one's asking him about it, and they're just not going to hear about it.
19:29No one's asking him about it.
19:31No one's asking him about it.
19:33There was so much tension in the room today.
19:37Yeah.
19:38there was so much tension in the room today yeah i mean you could you could cut it with a knife
20:00one thing that really surprised me today we heard how many family members are expected to come and
20:05attend the hearing i've never before really seen an area of a court sectioned off just for family
20:10yeah but i think it'll be it'll be really interesting to see them coming in to see engaging
20:15with it because i was actually quite surprised as well because i thought they'll tune in remotely
20:19being given a link why would you call themselves they might not have been in the same room as erin
20:25since before she was charged right so there might be an element of wanting to see her and look at her
20:30you're in public space essentially and that must be incredibly hard to hear some of the things
20:35they're going to have to hear and know that that everyone can can see them in there it's probably
20:42the thing that stays with me more than anything else when covering court stories seeing the family
20:48of the deceased look at an accused killer it's incredibly powerful you can watch this person's
20:56entire body their face their posture you can almost watch their their blood pressure rise as they turn
21:04and look at the person who is accused of you know killing a loved one i think it says a lot about uh how
21:11a person is grieving how a person is processing the worst thing that could possibly happen to them
21:17it's going to be a long six weeks thanks there was the two faces of erin patterson that were really
21:31portrayed to the jury one of this god-loving woman who took her children to church and invited her loved
21:39ones over for meals but online the prosecution really painted a different version of erin patterson
21:45has anyone seen the news in victoria about four people killed by eating mushrooms it's a homicide
21:53case i think it's erin patterson from our group oh my god all we talked about was murder oh my god
22:03the group name was keep kelly lane behind bars kelly lane was a woman who was convicted of killing her
22:08baby a baby a baby that was never found there was a big debate going on whether kelly had faced a
22:16travesty of justice or whether she was actually guilty erin was on the guilty side and so was i
22:23and that's how i met her i remember meeting erin because she was really really smart um she really
22:29got into detail about the case she was really good at finding information i guess that's what we really
22:36bonded over in the beginning erin and i connected a bit over um what i was going through with in my
22:43life with my my breakup and also um you know just what was happening with my ex-husband and she kind
22:50of related to some of that um with simon well see those people they were her intimate acquaintances
22:57they were the group was her whole world erin was extremely invested i don't feel like the friendship
23:04was fake i feel like i feel like she did she did actually become friends with us and i feel
23:12she called us family and i feel like when the group started to fall apart and we started to pull
23:22pull away that's when she started to become aggressive erin had fake profiles that she was
23:29using to attack us and then she would come in under her real profile and stick up for us and and have
23:35goes at the fake profile um and it was almost like it was a way to kind of build a stronger relationship
23:40with people and align with people at the end when when i had a conflict with erin she was she was very
23:48confrontational she came across as a as a sledgehammer and and so it made me wonder is she an introvert
23:59or was she just fitting in i think my closer relationship with erin ended around march 2020.
24:09there were three women who were part of that group that gave evidence to the jury and they all gave
24:14varying accounts of what their interactions were like with her during the time that you knew erin
24:19patterson did she ever discuss or post information about her relationship with her husband simon yes she
24:26did she had some concerns about him paying his share and that he was very controlling she used the word
24:32coercive at times they were the people that she trusted they were the people that she spoke to
24:39outside of the pattersons and the wilkinsons that were her support network in the real world
24:45her online profile it showed an ugly side to her and also venting about her own in-laws
25:04the messages were being displayed on these giant television screens on different sides of the courtroom
25:13erin patterson's darkest secrets were really in that moment being absorbed by everybody
25:24you know for the first time we see that she is really annoyed and basically they're dead to me
25:36i think understandably a person's communication style between their baptist church in-laws and their
25:45online true crime friends is going to be a little bit different the way she was speaking with her
25:50online friends was vulgar it was rude it was angry it was disrespectful but it's another layer in the deck
25:59of a person who can get very angry and hold a grudge
26:22a world-renowned fungi expert called to give evidence in his own backyard
26:28tom may um he is i'm going to say australia's premier mycologist
26:37can you tell the jury please about i naturalist so i naturalist is a publicly accessible website
26:45it's where members of the public can make observations about nature do you have a profile
26:50on that site i do have a profile on i naturalist and the profile name is funky tom
26:58so i think the first time that i naturalist came to mind was when tom may
27:10was giving evidence and he was being quizzed about i naturalist i naturalist is a site where anybody can
27:17post photographs of living things you've got the date a gps location and you've got an image
27:27that can then be sorted out with ai the downside to it is the quality of the data is extremely variable
27:36posts that have been made by tom may you can 100 trust but lots of other posts
27:43on may 21st 2023 dr tom may identifies deathcap mushrooms in the autrum area and takes a picture
27:51and posts about it on the i naturalist website there's a separate post that was made by christine
27:56mckenzie in the log area on the 18th of april that also identifies deathcap mushrooms
28:01a post that had identified mushrooms in autrum just in the like outskirts of carambara and so it was
28:09through that that i was like maybe that is the next obvious step is to have a look at where that
28:16location is and what that looks like police have found evidence in erin patterson's devices that she
28:27had previously accessed the i naturalist website and done searches for deathcap mushrooms
28:36so basically you've got the listing that's within her local area and it wouldn't have taken long for
28:40her to drive out here and this is the exact spot where tom may found deathcap mushrooms in may 2023
28:50and these mushrooms could potentially be you know the murder weapon in the case
28:58and now the prosecution needs to find out whether erin's phone was in those same areas at the same
29:03time as those posts were made in 2023 and in order to do that they call the premier expert in cell
29:10phone tower data dr matthew sorell now normally i'm given a week's worth of records or a month's worth of
29:18records or a day or an hour in this case i had four and a half years of erin's phone call records
29:27in the end i was asked to examine three things on the 28th of april 2023 whether erin's phone visited
29:34lock on the 22nd of may whether erin's phone visited both lock and outrim the data that i
29:42see it's like it's like the matrix like it's numbers numbers numbers numbers numbers and you dive in
29:48and when you see something in that pattern um that's it's really satisfying i'm going to show
29:53you a tool shortly which blows minority report out of the water what this map shows us is if erin did
30:02visit the mushroom field on the 22nd of may then erin's data session basically tells me that these are the
30:11possible routes that she could have taken we can take that reach map starting in liangatha ending
30:17up at the outro mushroom field our first connection here from liangatha immediately tells us that if
30:25she's on this journey she's not going this way scroll that forward in time next connection
30:35tells us once again still here this lines up same map this is the out from bay station now connecting
30:45at 11 18 for the first time that gives me a window of 11 24 to 11 50 where the only connection i've got
30:54is the outram bay station little yellow marker here is where the mushroom field was and we've only got
31:02connections to outram now when she goes home this gets pretty interesting so she leaves this area at
31:11about 11 40. we've got this weird connection to foster north foster north makes no sense except that foster
31:18north has a direct clear line of sight to an area just north of the mushroom field where the outram
31:26bay station doesn't so that's that's crazy now erin's phone does visit the lock area on the 28th of april
31:37and i've got a single indication that she is connected to the right bay station to the right
31:44antenna that covers the lock township and i've got about an hour period where i don't have any
31:50connection records and then her phone's moving away from lock scenarios phone was left in the car
31:57while she was picking death cat mushroom sure or went to a cafe sat down had a coffee with somebody
32:04phone sitting on the table not in yes sure could she have visited this mushroom field on the 22nd of
32:11may yes does the evidence support that scenario yes does it give us timing yes did she go there
32:22can't say that my purpose is not to convict the accused my purpose is to ensure that the evidence
32:31is properly understood in its proper context
32:38she could have potentially accessed the i naturally's website and then traveled to that area and picked
32:44up those mushrooms took them home dehydrated them and put them in the beef wellingtons
32:54there are only two people two witnesses that can actually tell you what happened at that lunch on the
33:0029th of july 2023 and they are ian wilkinson the only person the only guests that survived the lunch
33:07and erin patterson the person who cooked the meal ian has a bit of a commanding presence about him
33:14he's the baptist pastor at the carambara baptist church he always wears a little jesus fish pin to his
33:21lapel i was once told by a local that if the town had a flag in wilkinson's face would be on it
33:27as he was brought into the courtroom in front of the jury he actually looked directly at erin patterson
33:35in the dock there's something really powerful about seeing this man that's been in the brink of death
33:41walk back into a courtroom and face erin patterson to tell his truth
33:47i want to ask you about your relationship with erin patterson
33:50how would you describe your relationship with her i would say our relationship was friendly amicable
33:58it didn't have much depth i think we were more like acquaintances we didn't see a great deal of each
34:04other can i ask you how did it come about that you attended that lunch erin extended an invitation
34:11through heather a church erin walks up to gail and heather who are standing around just after the
34:18service has concluded and she approaches them and says like hey i would like to invite you over to
34:24have lunch at my place on the 29th of july please bring don and bring ian i'm gonna invite simon also
34:31she tells simon that the reason for the lunch was that she had received some serious medical news
34:37how did you feel about the invitation we were very happy to be invited yes it seemed like maybe our
34:46relationship with erin was going to improve ian's testimony in court basically unlocks for us three
34:52key elements that we didn't know back in august first of those is that the beef wellington was
34:58actually individual pasties and not the log the second of those was the fact that the beef wellington
35:04was served on different colored plates what type of plate from the descriptions that you have given
35:11did you eat from i ate from a gray plate heather a gray plate gail a gray plate don a gray plate
35:21and erin a rusty colored plate orangey tan plates whatever it was
35:27prior to eating the meal was anything done or said we said grace
35:39after the lunch had been eaten was there any further conversation yes what was that about
35:47after the lunch erin announced that she had cancer
35:50a third element that ian also revealed is that erin told them that she had been diagnosed with
35:56ovarian cancer and that she didn't know how to tell the children the prosecution also backs that
36:02version of events with a series of screenshots that police were able to recover from her devices what
36:08they showed were basically screenshots of searches that had been done on google about cancer specifically
36:13ovarian cancer and what the prosecution say that this means is basically that she was
36:19using those searches to make her story seem more realistic and when they heard that she had cancer
36:26they prayed for her they prayed for her and they're about to die
36:31the lunch concludes around 2 30 eventually they all go to bed everything seems fine and it is around
36:45midnight both ian and heather start feeling sick they report having to do trips back and forth to
36:50the toilet all throughout the night simultaneously as ian and heather are also falling sick don and
36:56gail are experiencing similar symptoms to the point that by the time the sunday morning comes
37:02they feel compelled to call an ambulance and get to the hospital
37:19before they even arrive to liangatha hospital dr chris webster gets a phone call from simon's doctor
37:24dr chris ford that will change his approach to everything so the phone call was from dr chris ford
37:34who was informing me that his patients parents had eaten a meal at his ex-partner's house and they were
37:45unwell and dr ford indicated to me that there was a suspicion of deliberate
37:54poisoning i thought it was bizarre well i wasn't allowed to say any of this stuff at the trial
38:00things that i'm talking about at the moment were ruled inadmissible
38:09by the time i made my way to urgent care ian and heather had already been positioned within the
38:18plaster room as in plaster cast we use it as a isolation room they looked unwell but not distressed
38:27they were both quite conscious and alert they're responding to the treatment in terms of the
38:35rehydration the moment everything changed was the phone call from dr beth morgan which was the following
38:44morning morning and she told me that she'd been looking after don and gail by monday morning don and
38:51gail have been taken to dandenong hospital where they've been placed under the care of dr beth morgan
38:57the lunch was consumed at lunchtime and they didn't have any symptoms until 12 hours later
39:02this would be more indicative of a serious toxin syndrome as opposed to a food poisoning the toxicologist
39:09suggested that if it was related to mushrooms it was possibly caused by the ingestion of the amanita
39:16phalloides mushroom uh yeah i woke up pretty quickly after i heard that
39:24the doorbell or the call button had been pressed and i sort of said oh look sorry
39:30uh we've got unwell patients that's why we've kept you waiting sorry about that
39:33why why are you here she said either i think i've got gastro or i've got gastro
39:41uh and i was like what's your name and she said aaron patterson i was like oh
39:47did you bring her through the urgent care center i did i said there's a concern of death cat mushroom
40:03poisoning where did you get the mushrooms what did she say it was a single word response woolworths
40:13i was like yeah no there's there's no point talking to her anymore uh because she's a liar
40:26if she looked genuinely concerned that four people were dying uh i probably would have talked to
40:34more uh or you know sort out more information but uh it was quite interesting to me i'm gonna be careful
40:49the words i guess erin didn't go over to ian she didn't go over to heather and she didn't ask them
41:00how they were she didn't interact with them she didn't say uh sorry for the death cat mushrooms
41:09in the beef wellington there was there was no interaction uh at all between them which which
41:15i thought you're not even going to ask them how they are when you're in in the same room two meters
41:20away from each other it was that close they were as far away as you and i are from each other
41:26did you become aware that aaron patterson was no longer in the urgent care center yes i did i
41:35completely was oblivious to the discharge against medical advice how did you become aware of that
41:44i asked where she was i kind of censored myself in court a little bit because i i said where the
41:52fuck is she and kylie said well she discharged herself against medical advice like kylie i just told
42:00her that she'd been exposed to death cap mushroom it's kind of there in the name death okay it's it's not
42:07like there's good outcomes with this i said and then kylie's like oh she said she had some things to
42:13do like well great now i'm gonna have to call the cops uh to get her back i took advantage of the fact
42:22that i knew my phone call was being recorded to get out some foundation information that may not have
42:29been an opportunity to do so later this is dr chris webster calling from lee and gatha hospital
42:38um and i have a concern regarding a patient that uh presented here earlier but has left the building
42:46um and is potentially exposed to a uh fatal uh toxin from mushroom poisoning uh and i've tried several
42:55times to get hold of her on her mobile phone mushroom poisoning you said yeah so there were five people
43:03that ate a meal on saturday and uh two of them are in intensive care at uh dandenong hospital uh two
43:11have just been transferred from lee and gatha hospital to dandenong hospital uh and aaron presented
43:17this morning with uh symptoms of poisoning um and what happened when she presented she's got up and left
43:22uh while i was attending the other patients the nurse uh informed me that she had discharged
43:26herself against medical advice she was only here for five minutes i must have seen her walk in when she
43:40came back an hour and a half later i was like okay well let's all right she's back and i i said look
43:48there there could be some leftover beff wellington at the property aaron's here in the hospital she's
43:54come back let me go and ask her if she doesn't mind and where where you might be able to find them
44:01and she said she gave permission for the police to break in if they had to and they did find some
44:07leftovers i was at that stage i was thinking the fuck's going on like you full-on bald-faced lied to me
44:14about when you got the mushrooms but on the other hand you're happy for the cops to go in and obtain
44:21those leftovers
44:24so i was aware that she had children and i wanted to double check that the children had not consumed
44:32the meal she indicated that they had consumed the meal and i suggested well call the school she was
44:39concerned for them she didn't want them to be frightened and uh you know i said well look they
44:48can be alive and scared or they could be dead
44:56when heather was being taken away in the ambulance
45:01i knew that i wasn't going to see her again you know there's a lot of aspects of this case that you
45:11know like anything that goes in life you'd love to have another chance to you know do it again
45:22all four lunch guests that ultimately transferred to the austin hospital where their conditions continue
45:27to worsen although it wasn't able to be put before the jury because simon's charges were ultimately
45:34withdrawn the scene that sticks with me the most is a gathering in a really small chapel at the austin
45:42hospital in heidelberg just as the health of their loved ones is deteriorating simon sends a message to
45:50his siblings and his cousins basically tells them that he's got some serious news that he needs to share
45:56it was in that chapel that simon really revealed for the first time that he believed that his wife
46:01was capable of murder ruth dubois is one of ian wilkinson's daughters and introduced us to this
46:09conversation during pre-trial he wanted to tell us that he had stopped eating food that erin had prepared
46:17because he suspected that she might have been messing with it nobody was made aware of this in the lead
46:25up to the lunch um when the lunch occurred really nobody knew of his level of suspicion he was really
46:32sorry that he hadn't told our family or our parents before this but he thought that he was the only
46:40person that she was targeting and that they'd be safe you can imagine how difficult this must have
46:49been for simon someone that not only had survived an ordeal like this himself but to know that he had
46:54that information and that he hadn't disclosed that with everyone beforehand there must have been
47:00like a pretty big weight on his shoulders at that point in time to say i'm sorry i have to tell you this
47:07at this time i probably should have done this sooner it's such a horrible thing to hear and it must
47:12have come with its own fair share of guilt i don't think erin could have possibly considered that she
47:35would be a suspect so quickly i think erin thought that she would have a fair degree of time to cover
47:44her tracks incriminated conduct is basically the conduct that an accused person would engaged in or
47:50a suspect would engaged in after the commission of an alleged crime it's particularly important in
47:55this case because there's a number of things that erin patterson does after the lunch that might indicate
48:01there she's guilty
48:06sally anne atkinson is a senior public health advisor within the department of health
48:12she's trying to figure out two things where did the mushrooms come from
48:16and could they be concerns about public health initially sally anne says she tries to get in touch
48:21with erin but she's not very forthcoming sally anne is struggling to get a hold of erin and we know from
48:28the text messages that she's trying to get information about the asian grocery store
48:33i've been very very helpful with the health department through the week because i wanted to
48:39help that side of things as much as possible because i do want to know what happened a council
48:45worker is going around all these shops trying to find this mystery grocer but erin isn't giving
48:50them much to go on and so what the prosecution claim is that erin patterson basically sent the
48:55department on a wild goose chase in an attempt to try to deflect you know the focus on the investigation
49:00which wasted a lot of time and resources obviously what we do have is a set of behavior that's not
49:08just about cover-up it's showing a total lack of concern for the other people it's a shifting process
49:17going from the mushrooms came from woolworths to oh i added some asian dehydrated mushrooms to
49:23i got rid of the dehydrated because i panicked a young detective in the office who was just doing
49:31a little bit of a search of erin patterson's bank records found a transaction for something that was
49:37dumped at the tip cctv shows erin has dumped her food dehydrator on august 2 four days after the fatal
49:48lunch that's a key example of incriminating conduct because why else would you dump an appliance unless
49:54there was proof in that that you might have dehydrated deathly mushrooms using it
50:01thanks to your patients today erin we're completing our search um the only outstanding item is that um
50:09mobile phone um that you've got there um so i'll seize that now from you the last key act that the
50:16prosecution claims goes to the heart of incriminating conduct by erin patterson in the aftermath of the
50:21launch is the fact that she took multiple steps to actually eliminate her online presence
50:28on the 5th of august is when they search erin patterson's property and she's not under arrest at
50:33this this point during the search itself epingstall was supposed to be staying with erin patterson for
50:38most of that time but somehow police discovered later on she actually switched sim cards in her phone
50:45from her what they called phone a her main phone into a into a separate phone and then what the
50:50prosecution claim is that they she used some of that time and access that she had to that phone
50:55to actually wipe it out to a factory reset do you want us have a look at it before we take it of course
51:01and at the end of that search she was able to hand over what they described as a dummy phone the second
51:07most crucial reset that happened after that comes the following day as this phone that she's just
51:12handed to the police is sitting in a locker inside the police headquarters on spencer street in melbourne
51:18and it's not put in a faraday bag which is a bag that kind of you know stops wi-fi effectively stops
51:23any signal coming through that phone and it's not turned in airplane mode erin patterson remotely logs on
51:29and wipes the whole thing clean phone a erin's first phone was never found almost certainly it was
51:38been there's no way it was an accident certainly only erin knows what was on it and erin ain't talking
51:47looking like the trial is going to blow out well past the predicted six weeks it still looks like
52:00we are a couple of weeks away from finishing at the very least
52:04i can't even imagine what the family is feeling right now they all look tired the lawyers look
52:15tired the jury looks tired we are all just spent
52:19i just heard the trials blown out by another two weeks oh god can i be here till the end of june
52:39because there's so much evidence
52:44the crown opens its case and of course it looks really good but then we have the defense
52:49all they need to do is create holes throughout the trial there's a number of times that the
52:54defense managed to make a dent into the prosecution's case by either highlighting
52:58inconsistencies or presenting alternative version of events if you're running defense in a
53:03triple murder trial anytime you can make the prosecution case look weak or a little bit you
53:08know shaky or you know include a little bit of that reasonable doubt you're going to take it
53:13obviously we've got concerns in relation to the mushrooms and where they've come from
53:22is that something you've done in the past foraging for the mushroom during
53:27never never
53:31there was an inkling that there was something brewing on the defense side of things when
53:35colin mandy tried to introduce evidence that had been tossed out earlier and that included pictures of
53:41mushrooms that had been uncovered in some devices found at arian patterson's house that were wild
53:47mushrooms that she could have possibly foraged in this case we have a situation where the accused
53:53has been asked questions in the record of interview as to whether or not she forages mushrooms she has
53:59denied that we have admitted in our opening that that is a lie that she has foraged mushrooms
54:06and now you're going to prove that's a lie yes what on earth what the is going on this is crazy
54:14you're wanting to reintroduce this evidence at the 11th hour after you fought so hard to have the
54:20evidence thrown out in the pretrial they didn't want that stuff included you know they they thought
54:26that that was damaging to their case there's an anger within the net that i hadn't seen throughout
54:32the entire trial she actually looked pretty pissed off like she was getting ready to go to war
54:38colin mandy is holding his card so close to his chest he's being accused by the trial judge of
54:44trying to run two different defenses and beale had had enough is it your case that she put foraged
54:49mushrooms into the beef wellington it seems very likely that that's the case your honor yes
54:55the prosecution had been wanting to prove that the entire time they wanted the jury to think also
55:03that she's a forager that she knew what she was doing she knew how to find death cap mushrooms she
55:07deliberately sourced them and she deliberately put them in the beef wellington it was just that
55:11she wanted to say it was an accident and the prosecution wanted to say it was deliberate
55:15so the prosecution's case was like you want it back in all right let's not only admit those speeches
55:19let's admit all these other evidence that was thrown out initially before the trial started
55:25this includes things like searches that erin had done for poisons pages she had visited for poisonous
55:31plants erin wasn't just googling things about mushrooms she was only googling information about
55:38poisonous mushrooms
55:41the prosecution and the defense disappear into a room and by the time they re-emerge they've reached an
55:46agreement all we heard was that some photos would come in and some wouldn't her story was she bought
55:52these mushrooms from one an asian grocer and two a local woolworth store hearing for the first time
55:58in court that her story had changed it was for us how are they going to back that up what witness
56:05are they going to call to talk about these photos to support their theory that erin patterson was a mushroom
56:11for a job your honor the defense will call erin patterson
56:28uh
56:32uh
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