From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Thursday, June five, twenty twenty five. Australia's leading Indigenous elders need to take a step back and let a new generation lead. That's the call from Pat Anderson, one of the most respected senior Aboriginal advocates. That storys live now at the Australian dot com dot au. Aaron Patterson
lied to her elderly relatives and her husband. She's told the Victorian Supreme Court, where she's on trial for murder, but she's pleading not guilty to deliberately poisoning her family with deathcat mushrooms. Today, Patterson says she ate the same meal as the others, but forced herself to vomit after lunch.
We're bringing you her evidence, recreated by voice actors. On Wednesday morning, Defense counsel Colin Mandy Casey took his client Aaron Patterson through her recollection of inviting her parents in law, Gail and Don Patterson, Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson, and her husband Ian to a lunch on July twenty nine, twenty twenty three. That's the lunch that ultimately resulted in the deaths of Don, Gail, and Heather from what doctors say
was death cap mushroom poisoning. Aaron Patterson, who had separated from the Patterson's son Simon, described exchanging messages with Gail Patterson about a lump on her arm shortly before the fatal lunch. Here's what Aaron Patterson's message said.
I had a needle biopsy taken out of the lump, and I'm returning for an MRI next week and will know more after the results of those two things.
In court, Mandy asked, had you been to an appointment? No?
Had you had a needle biopsy taken off the lump?
No?
Were you returning for an MRI the next week?
No?
Were those lies?
Yes?
And why did you tell those lies?
So some weeks prior, I had been having an issue with my elbow with pain, and I thought there was a lump there, and I'd told Gail and Don about that when I saw them or spoke to them, and they'd showned quite a lot of care about that, which felt really nice. The issue started to resolve, and I felt like a bit embarrassed that I'd made such a big deal about it, and I didn't want their care of me to stop, so I just kept it going. I shouldn't have done it.
Patison sent another message suggesting they talk about it at the lunch.
I'd come to the conclusion that I wanted to do something for once and for all about my weight and my poor eating habits. So I was planning to have gastric bypass surgery, and so I remember thinking I didn't want to tell any what I was going to have done.
I was really embarrassed about it. So I thought perhaps letting them believe I had some serious issue that needed treatment might mean they'd be able to help me with the logistics around the kids, and I wouldn't have to tell them the real reason.
She said, she decided to cook beef Wellington, as she recalled her mum making the dish for special occasions. She got the recipe from a book by Nagi Mayhashi called Recipe Tin Eats, and did two big shops at Woolworths on the twenty third of July, buying mushrooms I feel at steak puff and fillow pastry, and on July twenty eight, the day before the lunch, buying mushrooms again, more I feel its, and more pastry.
I have no idea why I thought I needed more filo. I didn't shop with a list, so sometimes I would just buy things I already had. I'd only bought some the day before. But it looks like I must have forgotten I did that. But I made things with pastry all the time, so it wouldn't have mattered.
In total. Patterson said she bought ten steaks. She said she wasn't able to find a tenderloin log of meat called for in the recipe to make one Wellington, and so used individual steaks to make smaller serves wrapped in pastry like pasties. She said. On the Friday before the lunch, she salted the steaks, and on Saturday woke up to cook the mushrooms into a duck cell a sauce with fried garlic, shalots and chopped mushrooms from Woolworths.
So as I was cooking it down, I tasted a few times and it seemed a little bland to me. So I decided to put in the dried mushrooms that I'd bought from the grocer that I still had in the pantry.
This was a reference to mushrooms she earlier told the jewelry she'd bought at an Asian grocer. She said she poured some hot water over the mushrooms, chopped them, and sprinkled them over the mushroom duck cell without stirring them much.
At that time, to your knowledge, what was in that tupperware container?
At that time, I believed it was just the mushrooms that i'd bought in Melow.
And now what do you think might have been in that tupperware container?
Now? I think that there was a possibility that there were foraged ones in there as well.
Simon Patterson the previous night had told his wife he wouldn't be attending the lunch. He sent his wife a message.
Sorry, I feel too uncomfortable about coming to the lunch with you, Mum, Dad, Heather and Ian tomorrow. But I'm happy to talk about your health and implications of that another time. If you'd like to discuss on my phone, just let me know.
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 beefive Phillip 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 have the conversations I 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.
Why did you send Simon that message?
I just remember feeling, well, I was hurt he didn't want to come, but I was also feeling 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'd have to be with the kids or not. So I just really wanted him to come so I could talk to him about that.
Patterson said she hadn't done a lot of prep and that the rest was exaggeration.
When you say I've spent many hours preparing lunch for tomorrow, was that true?
I didn't do any prep other than shopping and researching the recipe. So I guess the answer to your question is no, it wasn't true.
She said she'd fried six steaks, wrap them in mushrooms and pastry, and put them in the oven. Patterson said her children had decided to go to a movie with a friend. She said she wanted to talk to the family about an upcoming medical procedure, which in reality was a pre assessment for the gastric bypass booked for September, but which she wanted the family to think was more serious. Patterson said when the guests arrived, she recalled Heather and Gail going to look in her pantry.
How did you feel about them going to look in the pantry?
Mixed. I was proud of the pantry, but it was probably a little bit messy. I think I'd hidden my garbage bag around there or something. It was fine for them to go in, So after they finished that, they came back out and they stood on the other side of the kitchen bench to where I was plating up the food. So I had the wellingtons on an oven tray resting on the bench next to the stove, and I had the mashed potato in a pot, and then I put out the plates and started serving the mash.
Then the wellingtons, and then finally the beans.
Patterson said. As this was going on, Gail Patterson invited her to a family gathering for next Saturday, which she hadn't previously been invited to.
You were talking about plating up. How many plates did you plate up?
I plated up five.
You said you cooked six wellingtons? Yes, what happened to the other one?
So it either? I think I just put the oven tray straight in the fridge to worry about later. So I said, you know, grab a plate, guys, I'm just going to finish off the gravy. I turned around. I think I used one of those ready made gravy sachets. I didn't want to risk a gravy problem, so I heated that up in the Maybe I used two sachets.
I heated that up in the saucepan and went into the pantry to get the serving picture, put the gravy in the picture, grabbed the last plate off the bench, and went and sat at the table.
And how did the other plates get to the table? Did you see?
Well? I didn't see it happen. I assumed everybody grabbed a plate. Ian said that Gail and Heather took two plates each, and I accept that's probably what happened.
And do you remember which plate you had?
No.
Patterson later told the jury it would have taken her about a minute to heat up the packet gravy in the microwave. She said there were no assigned seats or assigned plates at the lunch, and recalled telling the family about her imaginary cancer scared.
So it was right at the end of the meal, and I mentioned that I'd had an issue a year or two earlier where I thought that I'd had ovarian cancer and had various scans 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.
And do you remember what you said about that in any more detail?
Not specifically. I do remember I referred to an 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 thought I might need to explain why I was going up to hospital for a day or two, So that was really the focus of what I was talking about.
Did you mislead them I did. How did that conversation conclude?
They all showed a lot of compassion about that. And then we saw Simon's car driving into the driveway coming back with the kids, and so Ian said, why don't we pray for Erin? And so that's what we did.
Did you lie to them?
I did lie to them, And.
Why didn't you tell them the truth about what you were intending?
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, She said.
The Wilkinsons and Don Patterson ate all their beef. Wellington and Don also ate the uneaten half of his wife, Gails.
I ate a quarter a third somewhere around there of mine. I ate some of mine.
After the guests left, she turned to the orange cake Gail Pattison had brought.
I had a piece of cake, and then another piece of cake, and then another.
How many pieces of cake did you have?
All of it?
How much had been left?
Probably a good two thirds of it was left.
And what happened after you ate the cake, I felt sick.
I felt over full, so I went to the toilets and brought it back up again.
She said that night she suffered diarrhea and in the morning got a call from Simon to say her lunch guests were suffering diarrhea and were in hospital. She said that on the following morning, Monday, she dropped her children for the school bus at seven twenty and then attended the local hospital, hoping for some intravenous fluids. Patterson said she asked her husband Simon, to accompany her.
I wanted company when I went to the hospital. I didn't want to go there by myself. He said that he was tired and still in bed and I should drive myself. Eventually, she arrived at the hospital and spoke to a doctor. He said, there's a concern, or where concerned. You've been exposed to death cap mushrooms.
And what did you think when you heard that?
Shocked but confused as well. I didn't see how death cap mushrooms could be in the meal. The information that I had was that I'd had diarrhea, don and Gale had been a bit unwell, but that's all I knew. I remember feeling very puzzled.
The doctor said they wanted to see Darren Patterson to Monash Medical Center in Melbourne, but she needed to make arrangements for her pets and children. She returned to her house in land Gaffer, where she said she fed her pets, organized kid's gear, laid down and went to the toilet a couple of times. She said she'd return in twenty or thirty minutes, but she agreed. She returned to the
hospital approximately ninety minutes later. After the break Simon Patterson confronts his wife, Aaron Patterson returned to the hospital and was put on a drip, and she said someone put her on the phone to the police, who wanted to get the leftovers of the meal to work out why the lunch guests were so ill, and had told doctors she'd fed her children leftovers of the wellingtons after scraping
off the mushrooms. Doctors insisted the children come in for testing, even though Patterson said they were feeling fine.
It wasn't that I didn't want them to be treated, but more the drastic step of putting them in hospital. I wanted to understand that that was really necessary because of their anxieties. About being in hospital. I didn't want to do that unless it was really necessary. The family ended up at Melbourne's Monash Medical Center. Patterson said she told her husband and children how she had previously dehydrated and powdered mushrooms and put them in muffins she served
to the children. When the children were out of the room, Simon and Aaron Patterson spoke and he said to me, is that how you poisoned my parents using that dehydrator?
And what was your response?
I said, of course not.
Can you explain to us what crossed your mind then and what you were thinking then?
So it got me thinking about all the times that i'd used it, the d hype that's right, and how I had dried foraged mushrooms in it weeks earlier, and I was starting to think, what if they'd gone in the container with the Chinese mushrooms, maybe that had happened. I was thinking, maybe that's how they thought.
How did that make you feel scared?
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.
She said. When she and the children were discharged from hospital. Child protection officers drove them home.
How was your state of mind when you got home.
I was frantic because I'd made the meal and I served it and people had got sick.
Patterson said she took the dehydrator to the local tip.
Child Protection were coming to my house that afternoon, and I was scared of the conversation that might flow about the meal, the dehydrator, and I just was I was scared that they would.
Blame me for it, blame you for.
For making everyone sick, and I was scared they'd remove the children.
Patterson said she'd decided to stop using her original phone and SIM and had put a new SIM into a device known in this case as Phone B.
I was becoming concerned about Simon's behavior and his allegations, and I was concerned for my security, so I wanted him to not be able to contact me anymore.
The trial has previously heard that one of Patterson's phones, Phone B, which was later seized by police, had gone through four factory resets. Patterson said her son did the first reset when using the phone after his device had been damaged. She said she did the subsequent three resets, including once after police had seized the phone.
I'd put all my apps on it, including my Google account, which included my Google photos, and I knew that there were photos in there of mushrooms in the dehydrata, and I just panicked, and I didn't want them to see them.
When you say them, who do you mean?
Theives. At some point after the search of my house and the interview and the detectives had brought me home, I remember thinking, I wonder if I can log into my Google account and see where all my devices are. So I did that and it was really stupid, but I thought, I wonder if they've been silly enough to leave it connected to the internet, and so I hit factory reset to see what happened, and it did.
Patterson said she believed her original phone, Phone A, was left behind by police when they searched the house. Police have previously told the jury they've never been able to find this phone. Aaron Patterson's evidence will resume on Thursday, June four. You can follow The Australian's coverage live at The Australian dot com dot au