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The accused killer, Aaron Patterson has been called to give evidence. She appeared to choke back tears as she described the traumatic birth of her first child, telling the jury how her mother in law, Gail Patterson, offered help and support when she was out of her depth. She also gave evidence on how she tried to convert her now estranged husband, hoping he'd become an atheist, but instead she became a Christian.
Victoria's Mushroom Mystery, the mushroom lunch that claimed three lives an Australian family's meal is now the center of a homicide investigation. For bizarre tragedy now grabbing global headlines, Aaron Patterson's alleged victims died after eating a family lunch she'd serve them at her home. I cannot think of another investigation that has generated this level of media and public interest.
Four of the guests of that lunch were much loved members of this church.
Only one will ever return.
People are feeling very heavy with having lost such wonderful people.
Today, Aaron Patterson remained here inside her home.
She's continued to plead her innocence.
In a court room in Country Victoria, Aaron Patterson is on trial accused of using death cat mushrooms to kill She's pleaded not guilty to murdering three of her former in laws and attempting to kill a fourth.
The town's church pastor.
It's up to the jurors to decide what happened when Patterson's loved ones sat down to eat penny.
After twenty four days, it's finally happened. The accused killer herself, Aaron Patterson, has taken to the witness box to give evidence for the first time. We heard shortli after three o'clock today, Crown prosecutor got up and said to the jury, the Crown closes its case. Within a second, Colin Mandy, s c defense barrister, rose to his feet and said, I call Aaron Patterson. There was silence in the room.
You could have heard a pin drop. There was her heads turning around and looking around to see what anybody else was thinking, but essentially there was nothing. The jury were given a break and when they returned to the court room, Aaron Patterson was in the witness box.
Yeah, and that was It wasn't at Aaron. We heard Colin Mandy say, the defense will be calling the accused as a witness, and that was when the judge said, well, now seems like a good time to have a break. So there was this moment, as you said, where there was a sort of a feeling in the courtroom that
everyone was ready for this to begin. But we came back a little while later, and when the jury returned to the room, Aaron Patterson herself, she was at the witness box area of the court directly across from that jury box. She was wearing a Paisley style patterned top, sort of a Maroney brown top with that pattern, shut her hair down. It's quite long, sort of chest length, and she gave an affirmation as to swearing to tell the truth in her evidence, whereas you can also take
an oath on the Bible. But she took this affirmation and her evidence began.
Yeah, I could see her shaking her head back and forward as she was reading out that affirmation. When it got to the point where she said, I tell the truth and nothing but the truth, and she shook her head as to indicate, yes, I will tell the truth.
All the jurors sitting on the opposite side of the courtroom, we're looking at her and Colin Mandy was in the middle of them, turning to his left to face his client, and he really started his questioning today painting a picture of what Aaron Patterson's life was like in twenty twenty three. She was asked a few details about her family life.
For example, Penny, she talked about the fact that her two children had just started a new school, she was having self esteem issues, and was also talking about some planned weight loss surgery, so she was explaining there was a few things going on.
So she was first sort of taken through.
I think Colin Mandy described them as at least being
the better parts of her life at that time. She said she had been accepted into doing a university degree a Bachelor of Nursing in Midwiffrey at the start of that year of twenty twenty three, but she said that she'd put that on hold, essentially deferred it because her daughter needed a little bit of extra help and that time, as well as the fact that kids had changed schools at that time of middle twenty twenty three, and she said that come the middle of that year that everything
was sort of going all right, so she had thought that she probably would go and do this degree. But it was then that Colin Mandy took her through what he sort of said were some of the less positive elements of her life at that point, and she was taken through the situation with her children at that time too. She said that the daughter was spending time with her estrange husband Simon fairly regularly, but that her son was only really seeing him kind of at youth group.
And at church at that particular time.
She was also asked questions about her relationship with her in laws Don and Gail Pattison at that time, and she was explaining that she felt from early twenty twenty three that was a bit of a separation was forming. Perhaps she wasn't being invited to as many events, and she believed that at that time Simon Patterson perhaps was having something to do with that and didn't want her included in as many events. And then things changed a little bit, Penny, and we went into a timeline.
Yeah, So before we get to that timeline, let's hear a little bit about what Aaron Patterson spoke about regarding particularly the family relationship and dynamic at this time of July twenty twenty three, as well as how she was physically and mentally feeling about herself. This is Colin Mandy speaking with his client Aaron Patterson. It's voiced by actors.
Were there parts of your life that weren't so good in July of twenty twenty three?
Yeah, there was. I'd felt for some months that my relationship with the wider Patterson family, and particularly Don and Gale, had perhaps a bit more distance or space between us. We saw each other less. I mean, partly it's a consequence of I no longer lived in the same town as Don and Gale. But I'd begun to have concerns that Simon was not wanting me to be involved too much with the family anymore. Perhaps I wasn't being invited to so many things.
And how was your relationship with Simon in July of twenty twenty three?
It was functional. From the start of the year to July. We mainly just related on logistical things like church, the streaming, the kids, but we didn't relate on friend things banter like we used to. That changed at the start of the year.
All right, We'll get back to that in due course. How in July of twenty twenty three did you feel about yourself physically not good.
Why I'd been fighting a never ending battle of low self esteem most of my adult life, and the further inroads I made into being middle aged, the less and less I felt good about myself. I suppose put on more weight, could handle exercise less.
Was it principally the weight issue?
Yeah, I mean that was the large that was the bulk of it. Yeah.
Did you have plans to do anything about to address the weight issue? I did, And what were those plans.
I was planning to have weight loss surgery, you know, is a gastric bypass. I was planning to do that.
So that's a snapshot of how your life was in July of twenty twenty three.
Yep, that's fair, now, Colin Mandy told the jury and told Aaron Patterson he was now going to take her back to what he called the beginning, and then he went through a number of questions, really right back to when Aaron Patterson had met her now estranged husband Simon. Yeah.
She started the timeline recalling that it was about two thousand and three that she believed that she first met Simon, and then later corrected it to two thousand and four. But at the time they were both working for a local council in Melbourne, and she was explaining she was working for the RSPCA, but her role was actually located
inside the council offices. And she first became friends with Simon and they would largely do things in groups together and it wasn't until mid two thousand and five that she recalled that their relationship turned from friendship to a romantic relationship. And within a couple of years two thousand and seven, Penny, I think it was February two thousand and seven, they got engaged. Within months they got married
in June of that year. But there was one particular event she asked to recall by Colin mandy In and that was a visit during one of their friendship trips where they would go camping and alike, where they went and stayed with Don and Gale Patterson down here in Gippsland. And Aaron Patterson was explaining at the time she was an atheist. She knew that her partner, what Simon at that time, was a Christian and she actually said that she started off thinking that she was going to convert him,
but actually went the other way. Yeah, So she spoke in this evidence, particularly about that camping that you mentioned.
She said at this particular time, sort of two thousand and five time that Simon really, who was also working at this Monash council, she said sort of in a traffic engineering capacity, that he was really wanting to focus on some time away from work and sort of recharging, and that camping was how he was doing that, and pretty much that most weekends, especially with this group of friends, he was wanting to go camping, but she would often join him.
And she recalled this trip.
Down to car and Burrough where they'd also stayed with Don and Gale Patterson. She said she thought that was the first time that she had met them, but it was then that her barrister took her.
Through sort of what her views.
On religion were and particularly this one experience. So let's hear a little bit more from the evidence as it was heard by the jury.
This is no one's real voice.
When you met Simon. What were your views about religion?
I was what you could probably call a fundamentalist atheist, like I was really very atheist.
And what was Simon's views?
Oh, he was a Christian?
Yeah, And did your attitude towards religion change.
Yeah, it did.
Yeah, and when was that?
So? Through the course of those months December fourth, January February oh five, we had a lot of conversations about life, religion, politics, and a lot about religion, and I was trying to convert him to being an atheist, but things happened in reverse and I became a Christian.
You said that you first met Don and Gale when you went on a trip to karen Borough.
Yep.
Did you go to church on that trip to karen Borough?
Yeah?
It was the first church service I'd ever been to.
And do you remember when that was?
I think the closest I can say is March or April, but I don't think it was Easter, so.
Yeah, that's fine much or April. Do you remember the experience of going to church on that occasion?
Yeah, I do. I remember being really excited about it because I'd never been to a church service before. I'd been to my sister's wedding in a church, but that was it and I was really looking forward to it. Which church wasn't It was Current Borough Baptist Church.
And what do you remember about that church service?
I remember that there was a banner up on the wall behind where Ian was preaching.
When you say Ian, do you mean Ian Wilkinson.
That's right. He was the pastor and he is giving a sermon that day. And then there was then a banner. It could still be there now, but it said it has on it faith, hope, and love. And Ian gave a sermon talking about that. There's a passage in the Bible that talks about faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love. And I remember Ian giving a sermon on that. And then we had the communion, which I was welcome to participate.
And in what impacts did that church service have on you?
I had what at best can be described as like a spiritual experience. I'd been I'd been approaching religion as an intellectual exercise up until that point. Does that make sense? Is that rational? But I had what I would call religious experience there, and it quite overwhelmed me.
Now, Ian Wilkinson was sitting in the body of the court with some of his family members and the Patterson family members. As we've seen over what is now the six weeks of this trial, there.
Was about a dozen of them there today, Penny, and I would say half of them spent a majority of Aaron Patterson's evidence today looking straight ahead or looking at the ground. A couple of them also had their eyes closed. It was only I would say less than half of them had actually turned around and had to look to their left to see Aaron Patterson.
Yeah, certainly, at some points I saw during this part of the evidence Ian Wilkinson looking certainly what it looked like towards Aaron Patterson in the witness box. He had his arms crossed, his legs crossed, his arms around himself, which he has sort of sat in that position many times in the court before. But he did seem to be watching the witness box and looking at her the same way he.
Has with other witnesses as well.
While while he was sort of being mentioned for the first time in this evidence and as part of going through kind of the trajectory of Simon and Aaron Patterson's relationship, Colin Mandy sc asked his client a little bit about their wedding now. She said they got married in karen Burr, and he particularly asked her where her parents were at that time.
She recalled that they were in Russia on a train she believed was a holiday and it was in fact, one of Simon Patterson's cousins, David, she recalled, who walked her down the aisle on that occasion. She also recalled that they had the wedding at a different church than where Ian was a pastor because they wanted him to and his wife to be able to come and enjoy
the day rather than running around and doing tasks. And she recalled that Don and Gail had also booked a really large marquee and outdoor marquee in a vacant paddock that they'd been able to use for the day, and they paid for a buffet of food. That was a memory she.
Also shared with the jury, Yeah, and that this sort of reception was very close to where they were living at the time, and it was it was quite local, and she did mention that she wanted people to kind of be relaxed and enjoy this particular day and that it was quite a large occasion. But then she was sort of taken to the next part of her and Simon's relationship and the fact that they wanted to have children. Her barrister took her through what her age was about
this time. She said it was about thirty three, and she said they both kind of wanted to settle down and she was quite keen to have children, and at this time they were actually based in Wa. So she explained that initially after this wedding that had a long weekend in a Linda, which is in a part of Victoria, but that they really wanted to go on a big trip around Australia as their honeymoon.
She recalled Penny that they sold up everything. She even recalled that they sold Simon's car to his parents and essentially Yeh got rid of everything, packed up and moved over to Perth. And she recalled that Simon got a job for a while and they were renting a really small flat and that's when she gave birth to her first son, and that was an experience she said, was really traumatic. And that was the first time that I
saw Aaron Patterson on the stand today. Welling up with tears seemed to be a difficult thing for her to speak about, and she paused before some of her answers at this point, and I could see her her fingers sort of clenched together. A lot of her evidence today. We saw her hands moving around as she was speaking, and she was nodding as Colin Mandy was asking questions.
But at this point I did see her. She was sitting with her with her hands and fingers sort of I guess, moving around as she was slowly answering these questions.
And she was as you mentioned this time, where which I also felt that this was the most emotional I saw her in her evidence today. And while she wasn't outwardly crying down tears down her face, it was this sort of choked element in her voice that began to waver, particularly on the details which the listeners will hear in a moment through the evidence regarding the way her son came into the world and the details of that birth.
So we'll take you to that now again. This is Colin Mandy and Aaron Patterson as part of her evidence when he was questioning her.
It's voiced by actors.
How was his birth? How well were you after giving birth?
His birth was very traumatic for what reason? It went for a very long time. And then they tried to get him out with four steps and he wouldn't come out, and he started to go into distress and they lost his heartbeat, so they did an emergency cesarean and got him out quickly.
Okay. Now, as a result of that cesarean, you had to stay in hospital for a few days.
Yeah, it was sixteen years ago, so I'm not sure exactly how long, but it was probably roughly a week that I was in He was in neonatal ICU for a while to start with.
And how was it that you ended up leaving hospital?
So the baby had got to a point where they were happy to discharge him. He was off oxygen, he was off the feeding tube, and they said he could be discharged to go home with Simon, but they wanted me to stay because of they didn't think I had healed quite well enough from the surgery, and they wanted me to stay, and I wanted to go with him. So I remember having a conversation with Simon about it, and I was really upset and I said, I don't
want to stay here by myself. I want to go home with him, and Simon said to me, you can just do it, just let's just leave.
Did that involve you discharging yourself against medical advice?
Yep, it did.
We'll be back after this with a little more of Aaron Patterson's evidence.
Yeah.
So the next topic that the jury were taken through from the accused woman was the relationship with John and Gale at that time, and she was explaining that it was only a few weeks after their son was born that they actually came over to help. And she was recalling again the fact that they were renting this really tiny little flat and so what they did is it's not long after Don and Gale arrived they rented an Airbnb and then for a few weeks went and stayed together at a bigger apartment.
Yeah, so she sort of said in her evidence it was this really nice house down south in Western Australia while they were living in Perthin, that they'd all gone and stayed for a week together, being Don and Gail, Simon and Aaron and the newborn baby at this time. And she spoke about through her evidence how she was a new mum and she was sort of asked about
what the relationship was like with Don and Gale. She sort of said that they were also the first people who'd come over to visit them with this new baby.
And she said Penny that she felt like she was a little bit out of her depth when she had this newborn baby. She didn't really know what to do. This was all really new for her, and that's when she began talking about how important she felt her relationship with Gail Patterson was at the time and the help that she was providing.
Here's a little bit of what Aaron Patterson said during her evidence while being questioned by Colin Mandy and how are.
You getting on with Don and Gaile during that week?
I remember being really relieved that Gail was there because I felt really out of my depth. I had no idea what to do with a baby, and I was not confident. She was really supportive and gentle and patient with me.
Did she give you advice?
She did? What about about helping him settle after a feed, about trying to interpret his cries? And she gave me good advice about just relax and enjoy it. You know, you don't have to stick to this timetable, this schedule. Just relax and enjoy your baby.
And after this, Colin Mandy took Aaron Patterson to another element and sort of time in her life with her newborn baby and with Simon Patterson about a big trip they took around Australia, and she sort of explained to the jury that this really began not long after the son being born. He was only around three months old when they took off with this miss and patrol that they bought over with them and on this big adventure around the country.
She said they really wanted to travel across the top of Australia, and so their travels began. She explained that in the beginning it was quite easy with her son. He was really really tiny and really slept all the time, and she even sort of got a little bit jovial as she expressed a memory where she remembered joking about the fact that her son slept so much she'd forgotten about the color of his eyes. But as they traversed the top of Australia and got across and down to Townsville,
she felt things were starting to change. And she said her young son was now trying to stand up, and he was crawling and moving around, and things got quite difficult at that point for her.
Yeah, so she explained it.
Initially this trip they'd sort of gone up to the top of the Northern Territory. They'd ended up coming through Tenant Creek and all the way across to Queensland, up to Cannes, up to Townsville.
That this was really quite a long trip.
Where they spoke about meeting up with other people as well, friends along the way, but that when she'd got to this point, this is where things really started to change. And here's a little bit of what Aaron Patterson told the court while being questioned by her barrister.
It's no one's real voice.
About what month, approximately did you end up in Townsville.
It would have been around November oh nine.
And how are you feeling in November of two thousand and nine in terms of all that travel that you had been doing.
It had been a good holiday, but I'd had enough. I wanted to sleep in a real bed, and it was getting harder to camp with our son. Like when we started off, he was three months old, he slept a lot. I remember joking at the time that I couldn't remember his eye color because his eyes were never open.
Like he slept a lot.
So when we first started traveling, you know, we could drive our long drives of these three hour naps that he had. But by November he was sitting up and crawling and trying to stand and not sleeping as much, and it was a lot harder.
I'd had a gut full.
Did you and Simon talk about that?
Yes, yeah, yeah we did.
And what was the agreement you came to.
The agreement we came to was that I flew back to Perth and Simon followed with the baby in the patrol.
And how long did it take Simon to get back to both?
I think it was about a week five to seven days somewhere around there.
When you got back to Berth and when Simon got back to Birth. So the two of you were together in Perth. Did something about your living arrangements change then?
Yeah, it did. When I got back to Perth, I hired I rented a little cottage for me and the baby to live in, and Simon rented an on site caravan close by.
We've heard evidence that there were periods of separation. Was this one of them?
Yeah, it was the first one.
It was explained by Aaron Patterson that by the time they sort of all returned back to Perth, that, as she said, she was living in this little cottage, Simon was living in the caravan. But she said this period of separation didn't last too long, that sort of by the.
January of the next year they were back together. So it was kind of just a few months.
Yeah. She said that was the first separation that she could recall between the pair, but she did agree when question by her defense barrister that they continued to split up and get back together again over a number of years until ultimately they separated permanently around twenty fifteen.
Yeah, And it was when she was being asked about this a number of times she was sort of asked about what was the tension in the relationship, and.
She described that it was mostly that she and Simon.
That they couldn't communicate very well, was her evidence, but that they didn't disagree on how they should parent their son. And she said something toward the end of her evidence on this day as to the fact that what they had were adult problems, not for a child, and that she felt, at least at that point that things when this baby was little were fairly cohesive.
On wanting to parent him in the same direction.
She said that she didn't recall any conflict at that stage when it came to parenting their son, and she also agreed that continued that way for a number of years. But this was another time Penny where she did become quite emotional again when she was asking about how they were co parenting their son. We know their daughter didn't come along for a few years later, and so a lot of those questions were related to their firstborn son. But yeah, she started to well up again and appeared
a little bit uncomfortable in the docks. Very personal questions, as we know, and that's where the evidence was wrapped up for today. We expect her to be on the stand again tomorrow and I guess we'll wait and see what the rest of the week looks like.
Yeah, and just before we finished with the listeners, people might be wondering how we got to this point. As you mentioned earlier, before Aaron Patterson was called by her defense barrister as their first witness that we heard from the Crown prosecutor we close our case, which is something that's formally said by the prosecution. And the last person on the stand before this was Stephen Eppingstall, the lead detective in the case. His evidence went across five days.
The very end of it came just before Aaron Patterson took the stand, and I do just want to take the listeners to a little bit of some messages that he was sort of shown in the very last bit of his evidence when he was being re examined by
the prosecution. Now, these were messages that the court was shown where it was said to be Aaron Patterson and Gail Patterson texting back and forth, and in them she mentioned Aaron Patterson that Heather had confirmed for Saturday, the twenty ninth of July, is that that was good for.
Them to come to lunch home, hopefully it is for you too, and that.
There had come a reply from Gail, yes, good for us, and that basically less than a minute later there'd been this response great thank you from Erin. And these text messages were in the lead up to the fatal lunch that was heard at Aaron Patterson's home. And there was also some agreed facts that were read to the jury.
Now the jury was told there to take these as being sort of agreed between the accused and the prosecution, and there was a number of those read out, but two of them being that Aaron Patterson agrees as the prosecutors also say that there was some fingerprints that showed sort of three of her finger imprints taken from the Sunbeam dehydrator that was retrieved from the Kunwara transfer station following the lunch, and that also when they were talking
about simcard evidence, there was a bit read out to the jury regarding excepting that when they have heard about some evidence regarding a simcard being taken in and out of a phone on a particular date during a search at Aaron Patterson's home, that there was sort of three different options as to how that could have happened. That the SIM card had been removed, that the battery had been removed from the handset without it being turned off, or that the handset had somehow become damaged in such
a way that it was no longer connecting properly. But as you mentioned, Aaron Patterson were expecting to be back on the stand and we'll bring the listeners more when her evidence and any other evidence continues. Thank you for listening to this episode of Say Grace. Please press the follow button in your app to get our next episodes as soon as we publish.
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We'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land that this podcast was recorded on and wherever you're listening to it now. Say Grace is created and hosted by me Penelope Lesh and me Erin Pearson.
This podcast is produced by Genevieve Rule.