After forty days, the jury in the trial of Aaron Patterson was ready to deliberate. But before that could happen, the Associate to Justice Christopher Bill how a box over his head. He shuffled some papers inside, pulled out two and read what was on them to the court. What was on these papers were numbers.
Dura one oh five, Dura one oh six.
These were the numbers of the two jurors who would no longer be required. They handed in their court iPads and left. And with that the jury of seven men and five women retired to consider their verdicts, the fate of Aaron Patterson in their hands. I'm Brooke Greebert Craig, and this is the Mushroom Cook. It's the start of week ten of Aaron Patterson's murder trial, and once again I'm joined by my colleague, court reporter Laura Plaseller, and.
We're coming to our listeners from our new podcast studio. We had to shift Airbnbs, so we've set up in a new place here, inter realgen So if we sound a little bit different, that's why.
It almost feels strange after forty episodes to be in a new place. But here we are and let's get started. So listeners would have heard at the start of the episode about the ballot process where fourteen jurors got cut to twelve, but we'll speak more on that a bit later. First up today, Justice Bill continued his charge to the jury and returned to the topic of credit lies alleged
by the prosecution last week. He explained to the jury that credit lies can only be used to assess and accuse credibility and cannot be used as evidence they committed the offenses.
Our listeners may remember that Justice Beal said last week that there were four credit lies alleged by the prosecution. The first was erin lying to police about being very very helpful during the Department of Health investigation, and today
he touched on the remaining three. He said the prosecution also alleged that Aaron lied about the reason she invited her guests to the lunch, lied about what she said at the lunch about ovarian cancer, and lied about planning to undergo gastric bypass surgery at the Enrich Clinic in Melbourne.
Justice Bill then moved on to how the jury can use the alleged credit lies if they find them to be lies. He said, they can be used to determine whether the other things Aaron said to other witnesses and during her testimony were true. He warned the jury not to reason that simply because a person is shown to have told lies, they must be guilty. After this, Justice Bill moved on to circumstantial or indirect evidence versus direct evidence.
He said it was not safe in a criminal trial for a jury to engage in guesswork.
He returned to the analogy used by the prosecution in its close address in relation to thinking about the evidence as puzzle pieces, but this was something that defense barrister Colin Mandy took some issue with in his own closing address, so before reiterating the analogy, he actually said it was at the risk of upsetting mister Mandy, which prompted some laughs around the courtroom. This is more of what he said. These are his words, but not his voice.
While one piece may not be very helpful by itself, when all the pieces are put together, the picture may become clear. However, when putting all the pieces together, you must take care not to jump to conclusions.
Justice Bill then reminded the jurors that they must be satisfied that the prosecution has proved its case beyond reasonable doubt, but he added that it was almost impossible to prove anything with absolute certainty, and that was not what the prosecution were being required to do.
A reasonable doubt is not an imaginary or fanciful doubt or an unrealistic possible. You cannot be satisfied that the accused is guilty of an offense if you have a reasonable doubt about whether she is guilty of the offense.
Justice Spill then went on to speak about motive. He reminded the jury that the prosecution does not need to prove motive, only the elements of murder and attempted murder, but he added that did not mean a lack of evidence of motive is irrelevant. Here's what he said.
It is a relevant consideration which you must take into account in the accused's favor when weighing all the evidence in this case. Moreover, if you find the accused had good reasons not to kill or attempt to kill her lunch guests, in short, she had a motive not to commit the alleged offenses, that is a significant consideration.
Justice Spill said to find Erring guilty of murder, her conduct must have been conscious, voluntary, and deliberate.
When running through the elements of murder, he started with consciousness and said that this element excludes the acts of an unconscious person, for example, someone who was sleepwalking. He then moved on to voluntariness. He said this excluded conduct where someone was not in control of their own actions. Turning to deliberateness, he said this element means that the
accused conduct cannot be an accident. It was at this point that he reminded the jury that the defense claim that this was the element that had not been satisfied. They say that Aaron added the death cut mushrooms into the meal by accident.
Turning to the final element, which was intention, Justice spil said the prosecution must prove beyond reasonable doubt that at the time Aaron served up Beef Wellington's she intended to kill her guests or cause them really serious injury.
The prosecution contends that you should infer from the evidence that Aaron Patterson had the appropriate state of minds at the relevant time.
He reminded the jury that this was also an element that the defense says has not been so satisfied. They say that Aaron did not have an intention to kill, but rather she actually had a motive to keep these people in her life. Justice Bill explained that a person's intention can be inferred from what they said and what they did, as well as what they failed to say
and failed to do. He told the jury that they can consider Erin's actions both before, at the time of and after the lunch, but he said if they had any doubts, the benefit of those doubts must be given to the accused. I will note at this point Brook that the jury was not instructed by Justice Biale to consider the alternate charge of manslaughder, meaning that in this case they will only be able to return a guilty or not guilty verdict in relation to the charge of murder and attempted murder.
On that topic of attempted murder, Justice Spiel said the alleged conduct must have been more than merely preparatory immediately and not remotely connected with Ian Wilkinson's illness, and then must been an intention to kill.
Justice phil said it was not in dispute that Ian came very close to dying, and that Aaron's conduct in serving him a poisoned beef Wellington was more than merely preparatory and not remotely connected to causing his illness. He added that for an attempted murder charge, the intention, unlike murder, is nothing less than an intention to kill. Intent to cause really serious injury is not enough, he explained.
Justice Bill then turned to summarizing the issues in the case and the related evidence. He said the first issue related to whether Aaron had good reasons to not kill her lunch guests in.
A similar fashion to what he did last week. Justice Bill took the jury back to the evidence. He reminded them of the Facebook messages Aaron sent her online friends about her in laws in December twenty twenty two. As I'm sure our listeners remember, these messages included the phrases this family, I swear to God and at LA least
I know they are a lost cause. Turning to the prosecution argument, Justice Bill said that Crown Prosecutor Nnette Rodgers argued that sometimes the internal motivations for murders are only known to the murderer themselves. Using her words, he told the jury, you don't have to know why a person does something in order to know they did it. On the other hand, Justice Bill said the defense questioned why Aaron would want to kill her in laws, giving they were her children's only grandparents.
He said.
They also questioned why Aaron would commit murder when she was in a good place at the time in July twenty twenty three and would have surely known that suspicion would fall on her as the cook of the meal.
Justice Bill said the second issue related to Aaron's tendency to forage for mushrooms, referring the jury to the directions he gave them on this topic last week. He then moved on to the third issue, related to why Aaron cooked individual beef Wellington's. Here reminded the Jews that Aaron said she used a best selling recipe Tin Eats cookbook that called for a beef wellington log, but he.
Told the jury that Aaron testified that she deviated from this recipe because she could not find a beef tenderloin or a log in her local area. Turning to the arguments, he said the prosecution claimed that Aaron cooked individual beef Wellington's because it was critical for her to maintain control over the meal and to make sure she did not consume a serve laced with death caps. He said. The prosecution also questioned why she would deviate from a recipe
she had never cooked before. He then flagged that the defense did not discuss this topic in its closing address.
Justice Bill then turned to the fourth issue, related to whether Aaron served the lunch on different colored plates. He once again returned to Ian Wilkinson's evidence about the colored plates, where Ian told the jury that the guests ate from larger gray plates while Aaron herself ate from a smaller orange tan plate.
Justice Beale, so the prosecution argued that Ian was a compelling and reliable witness who had no doubt about what he had seen, he said. The prosecution also argued that Heather backed up Ian's claim when she told Simon that she remembered Erin serving the meal on different colored plates.
On the other hand, Justice Bill said that the defense argued that it would have been smarter for Erin if she was planning to commit a murder to mark the pastry of the non poisonous beef Wellington before putting them all in the oven. Justice Bill added that the defense also said that on her evidence, Erin didn't own any gray plates and also said she didn't own a matching set of plates.
Justice Bill then spoke about the fifth issue, related to whether Aaron allocated the plates.
He said the prosecution argued that she allocated her own plate by picking it up and carrying it to the table on Ian's evidence, but the defense argued that without being told, Gail and Heather picked up two plates EA and carried them to the table in accordance with Aaron's testimony.
He said the sixth and final issue related to whether Aaron engaged in incriminating conduct, referring the jury to the directions he gave them on this topic last week. Soon after, Justice Bilm moved onto the final topic of his charge, the verdict. He told the jurors their decision must be unanimous. He said, all twelve jurors must agree on each of the four separate charges that Aaron is guilty or not guilty. Justice Bill then said, the jury will be sequestered to a hotel.
While you are sequestered, locked up. You'll deliberate Mondays to Saturdays here at the court in the privacy of the jury room. You will not deliberate on Sundays, but you'll still be sequested. You don't get to go home on Sundays. I'm sorry.
Justice Bill explained that once they reach their verdicts, they can push a buzzer in the jury room and all the parties, include the prosecution and defense, will be notified to return to court.
It was then time for the ballot. As our listeners will remember, there were fifteen jurors at the start of the trial. Then one got dismissed, so fourteen jurors came into court today. That that was cut to twelve because in trials only twelve jurors decide the fate of the accused. Before the two jurors were balloted off, Justice Bill thanked them. Here's what he said.
Can I say a very warm thank you to those two people who will be balloted off. I don't know if you'll feel relieved or frustrated, but be assured you have made an important contribution to the administration of justice through your service.
As our listeners heard at the top of the episode, the associate to Justice Beal then rose to his feet with that box with everyone's number inside before he called out for during number one hundred and five and number one hundred and six. These were two male jurors. They stood up made their way up out of the jury box, handed in their jury iPads, and then they were escorted out of the courtroom. The remainder of the jurors then took an oath or an affirmation to not discuss the
case with anyone else. It was at this point that they retired to consider their verdicts. So the ballot took place at one pm. Justice Bill told the jury that they had lunch waiting for them in the jury room. After that the weight really began. Two hours went by and by the time it got to four pm no verdict had been reached. The jury were brought back into the courtroom, where Justice Beal wished them a pleasant break
tonight after a long day. The juriors all brought their luggage to court today and after Justice Beal bid them farewell. They would have been busted to the local hotel where they're staying at and will spend the night together, but he gave them very strict instructions that they should not be deliberating or discussing the case while they're at the hotel. Those discussions are meant for the jury room. They will returned to court tomorrow before ten thirty am to recommence their deliberations.
So now it's really just a waiting game, isn't it, Laura.
It really is. We have no idea how long it will take this jury to reach their
Verdicts, and while we wait, we will flag that we don't know when our next episode will be, So make sure you follow the show wherever you are listening to the podcast