Hire listeners. As we said in our daily show, there is no court sitting today, but we thought we would give you another little taste of our Sunday subscriber show. We're up to the very last days of the trial of Aaron Patterson. The prosecution and the defense have spoken their last words and the only thing the jury has left to hear is from the presiding judge. As always, I'm joined by veteran crime reporter Anthony Dowsley to break it all down. I'm Brooke Greeber Craig and this is
the Mushroom Cook. Hi dows Welcome back for another episode.
Hi Brooke, morewell's treating you well? I hope it's come to the very point to end at last. Was supposed to be what set down for six week five six week trial, then they said it might be a month, and now it's going to be almost nine weeks in the end.
Yes, we're heading into the ninth week. So this week we heard the closings from the prosecution and the defense.
The highlights package. It's where both sides get to sum up their case. It's not actual evidence, it's a summary of the evidence, but it's persuasive argument as well. And that's where both the prosecution and the defense get to try and have their last well lash at the jury to say this is why you should either convict or not convict, guilty or not guilty.
And Crown Prosecutor and Nannette Rogers really focused on five deceptions during her summation, Dows, did you want to talk our listeners through each one of them? Maybe we'll start off with the first one, which was the fabricated cancer claim Aaron used as a reason for the lunch.
And this is an interesting one because it's a deception that caught the ears of everyone that during this lunch, this fatal lunch, Aaron Patterson, as everyone will remember, mentions at the end of it that she has cancer. And there is debate around exactly what she said, but this is what the prosecution of led off with. It was one of the things that was in the opening addresses
and it's something that they've closed with as well. But the defense point out Colin Mandy, who's Aaron Patterson's lawyer, said that it's not a ruse because well, she didn't tell them as a reason to get there. She's not telling them, he says, say I've got cancer, come to lunch. He's saying that this comes at the end of the lunch,
so it's not a ruse. He says that because she never told them she was diagnosed with cancer, that it's more of a like a ploy to get love and attention, that she's an isolated woman, that she's living basically an isolated life. That's the argument he's putting forward. Aaron Patterson, no evidence said, you know, I'm not proud of this, but I led them to believe that I might be needing some treatment in regards to cancer. Ovariant cancer was mentioned.
She admitted to misleading them. Now, from the prosecution side of things, they say that there was never going to be a need for Aaron Patterson to account for her cancer lie because they say she intended to kill her lunch guests. They say her lie would die with them. But there's also a reply from Aaron Patterson's cancel, Colin Mandy. The barrister says, why tell them after the lunch because they've consumed the meal, So what's the point.
Okay, Now, let's move on to the second deception, the lethal doses of poison Aaron secreted in the beef Wellingtons this is something that the prosecution claims.
So murder trials come down to intend. That's one of the key elements of murder. And if you're deliberately secreting poisonous mushrooms into a meal, that goes a long way to intent. Colin Mandy Erin's lawyer disputes this by saying that his client didn't deliberately put death cap mushrooms in the meal. He says the three sources of mushrooms were from Woolworth's, an Asian grosser, and foraged mushrooms, but we
don't know where the forage mushrooms necessarily came from. The Prosecution say that Aaron Patterson's phone data shows that she was in areas of Locke and outram In about April May of twenty twenty three. Now, in those areas, as you know Brook, there was an eye naturalist website where it was indicated that death capt mushrooms were growing in those areas, But there's no direct evidence that she picked any mushrooms from these areas, so that will be something
the jury will likely deliberate on. And I should add that the prosecution have led some evidence which show Aaron Patterson weighing mushrooms during this period of time in twenty twenty three, in April, and they say this is evidence that she's, you know, got some mushrooms. She's weighing them
and she's looking for more. But the defense say there were mushrooms Aaron Patterson foraged that were put into a container, and after everybody gets sick, Aaron Patterson says she started to worry that somehow they got mixed up together and that death Cat mushrooms ended up in this meal by mistake, and that she was never aware that she'd ever had Deathcat mushrooms in her possession.
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