The Trial: Erin's version of events

It was the gathering that formed the center of this trial, the few hours in a country house that propelled Aaron Patterson to international headlines. Four weeks ago. The only guest to survive the Mushroom lunch took to the stand and described these hours, the discussion at the table, and the beef Wellington dish. But today, in the witness box, it was the accused who gave her version of the lunch, how she prepared the meal and what she said happened after.

It's been another big day, hasn't it.

Yes, it has. So today Aaron took the stand for the third day in a row.

Yes, and today was the first day that we heard her speak about the lunch in detail. It was touched upon very briefly yesterday when she was asked a question by her defense barrister Colin Mandy. But we spent hours today unpacking both the events before the lunch, what happened during the lunch, and the days after the lunch. Mister Mandy brought his client through the timeline in chronological order, so we'll do the same today.

So let's start with how Aaron said she prepared the lunch.

She told the court that she went through a long process when it came to deciding what she wanted to cook. She had previously cooked a shepherd's pie for Don and Gale, but she said that she didn't feel like it was special enough for this lunch. She said that her mother would cook beef Wellington on important occasions when she was younger, so she thought she would give it a crack herself.

Aaron told the jury that she couldn't find a big meat log that the recipe called for, so she used individual steaks instead. She said the different meat meant that the quantities of mushroom and pastry would also be changed from the original recipe. Aaron also said that she included no mustard and no presciutto because Don didn't eat pork. The recipe also included a crape player, but Aaron said that she thought it looked complicated, so she used Fillo pastry instead.

She began prepping the meal on the Friday, that is, July twenty eight, by salting the meat and getting the juices out of it, and she even said she took time to google how not to stuff up a beef Wellington. On Saturday morning, she said she woke up early to get started on the mushroom duck cel. The mushroom du cel is the mushroom paste that coats the meat, and that involved her frying garlic and chopping up shalots. She said she added Woolworth's mushrooms into the pan and then

Can you talk us through the rest of the process of preparing the meal?

So, after doing what I needed to do with the duck cell in the frypan, I used the egg flip to transfer it out onto baking paper on an oven tray to put in the fridge for a little while. And I fried off the steaks on each side and let them rest, And then I started doing the process of putting the wellingtons together. Do you want me to go through that?

Yes? Okay.

So after frying off the steaks and letting them rest and cool a bit, I used the egg flip again to, I guess, lift a little bit out of the oven tray and put on each steak.

Lift a little bit of the duck cell.

The duck cell that's right, Like you could lift out a sort of you know that shaped out of the tray and transfer it to the steak. I did that for both. I think I did it for both sides of the steaks, and then wrapped each one in filo and then wrapped each one in puff pastry.

Mister Mandy then took Aaron to messages sent the day before the lunch where Simon told her he wouldn't be coming because he felt too uncomfortable. Simon told the jury Aaron invited him because she wanted to discuss some medical news. Alistoners have heard the messages before, but here's the exchange between Simon and Aaron. Again.

Sorry, I feel too uncomfortable about coming to the lunch with you, mom, Dad, Heather, and Millian tomorrow, but I'm happy to talk to you about your health and implications of that at another time. If you'd like to discuss it on the 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 beef by Philip 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 can have the conversations that I

Mister Mandy asked Erin why she sent that message to Simon. Here's what she said in court.

I was hurt he didn't want to come, but I was also really 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 would have help with the kids or not. So I just wanted him to come so I could talk to with about that.

Aaron said that apart from the small fortune claim and the fact she wanted it to be a special meal, the rest of the message was exaggerated. Here is more of what she said.

I just really wanted him to come so I could talk about the medical stuff and not worry about it anymore. I didn't mean to do any of that. I shouldn't have done any of that, but that's what I was thinking at the time.

What did you want him to feel when he read that message?

I guess I wanted him to feel a little bit bad about canceling at the last minute, after he would have known. I'd done a lot of preparation.

And when you say I've spent many hours this week preparing lunch for tomorrow, was that true.

I didn't do any preparing other than shopping and researching the recipe. So I guess the answer to your question is no, it wasn't true.

Mister Mandy then went on to ask questions about the day of the lunch on July twenty nine. Aaron said she had planned for the dishes to be ready by twelve thirty pm, when her guests were due to arrive. Aaron told the jury Heather brought a fruit platter and Gale brought an orange cake.

She explained that she served five dishes, with the sixth beef Wellington put into the fridge on the tray it was cooked on. She said she told the guests to grab a plate before she grabbed the last one herself and joined them at the table. She said today that she didn't remember what plate she used, as the jury has previously heard Erin said, the Wilkinsons ate all of their meals, don ate all of his as well as

So it was right at the end of the meal, and I mentioned that I'd had a maybe not scare is the right word, but I'd had an issue a year or two earlier where I thought I had ovarian cancer and had various scans about and 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 can you remember what you said about that in any more detail?

Not specifically. I do remember I referred to 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 might need to explain why I was going out 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.

Aaron told the court that the upcoming treatment she had referred to was actually the plan she had to have gastric bypass surgery, but she was too ashamed to tell her guests. Here is another exchange between her and mister Mandy.

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.

After the guest had left, Aaron told the jury she ate a piece of orange cake before eating another, then another. In the end, she said she ate two thirds of that cake. She told the jury that she felt sick and overfull and went to the toilet and brought it back up again. On Tuesday, Aaron told the jury that she had struggled with binge eating and bolimia for most of her life.

Aaron told the court that she felt better later that afternoon, but started experiencing diarrhea from about ten pm. She didn't sleep very much that night, she said, and the next morning she went downstairs to speak with her children before making herself a herbal tea. The court heard that she decided they wouldn't be going to church that day, but that afternoon, she said, she decided to still drive her

So, maybe about half an hour into the trip, I felt like I needed to go to the toilet. So he pulled over on a stretch of the road where there's quite a bit of bush along the way.

Do you remember where that was?

It's before the South Gibson Highway meets the Bass Highway, somewhere around the Noyora turnoffish somewhere around there.

And what happened? You pulled over?

Yes, So, and I went off into the bush and went to the toilet.

What kind of going into the toilet was it?

So?

I had diarrhea and what happened after that?

So I cleaned myself up a little bit with tissues and put them in a dog Pooh bag and put it in my handbag and we hit the road again.

There's evidence that on the way at three twenty pm you stopped at the BP in calder Meat and the internal footage shows you going into the bathrooms. Why did you go into the bathrooms?

I put the dog Pooh bag with the soiled tissues in the bin.

And when you came out of the bathroom you purchased some things I did.

Aaron said. Her diary continued and that she didn't want to cook anything for the kids, so she gave them leftovers of that beef Wellington meal that were in the fridge. She said she removed the pastry and mushrooms from the leftover in Wellington, splitting it onto two plates, which were served with potatoes and beans. She said her children ate both meals.

Mister Mandy then brought erin to the events of July thirty one. The monday. Erin recalled that she still woke up feeling unwell, so she decided she would go to lean Gatha Hospital to get some saline. The jury has previously heard that Erin arrived at the hospital around eight am and was greeted by doctor Chris Webster at the entrance. Erin told the court that she told doctor Webster that she wasn't an urgent patient. She said she just had

As the jury has previously heard, Aaron left the hospital after only being there for five minutes. She discharged herself against medical and she said she left to go feed her animals and organize her daughter's ballet items. The court heard. Hospital records showed that Erin returned at nine forty eight am. She record telling doctor Webster that her children had eden leftovers of that meal on Sunday night.

Erin said that the doctors at the hospital wanted the children to come there themselves because they were concerned the toxins from the death caps had seeped into the meat, despite the fact that Erin said she had scraped them off, They said it was better to be safe than sorry. Erin was taken by ambulance to Monash Medical Center, where eventually she was joined by Simon and their two children. The next day, on August one, the four of them

Did you and Simon have any conversation?

Yeah, So during that conversation with the children about the taste tests, and we're discussed in that conversation that I dried the mushrooms and I don't remember if it was Simon or I that initiated it, but there was a conversation about how I had used a dehydrated to do that, and he said to me, is that how you poisoned my parents using that dehydrader?

And what was your response?

I said, of course not.

Did that comment by Simon cause you to reflect on what might have been in the meal?

It caused me to do a lot of thinking about a lot of things. Yeah, it caused me to reflect a lot on what might have happened.

Okay, well, can you explain to us what crossed your mind then and what you were thinking about?

So it got me thinking about all the times that i'd used it, and I.

Had used the dehydrator that's right.

And how I had dried foraged mushrooms in a weeks earlier, and I was starting to think, what if they'd gone in the container with the Chinese mushrooms?

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.

Aaron told the court that around this time she also thought it was a possibility that the dried mushrooms from the Asian grosser were behind the guest's illnesses.

Let's move on to the next day, August two, Laura, what did Aaron do?

By this stage, she's back at her home in Leengatha after being discharged from one as medical center, and she admitted, as her legal team has done before, that she dumped her dehydrata at the local tip. Mister Mandy asked her about this today.

Why did you do that?

Child protection were coming to my house that afternoon, and I was, I was scared of the conversation that might flow about the meal and the dehydrator, And I was, and I just was. I was scared of that, that they would blame me for it, blame you for for making everyone sick, And I was scared they'd remove the children.

Did you tell anyone that you had come to the realization that death cap mushrooms might have been in the meal?

No, I didn't.

Did you tell anyone that foraged mushrooms might have been in the meal? No, you had been told that the suspicion was that death cap mushrooms had been in the meal. Yes, What did that make you think about weather or what might have been in the dehydrator?

Well, I thought there might be evidence of that, evidence of any forage mushrooms in there.

Aaron went on to tell the jury that two days later, on August four, she told child protection workout Katrina Cripps that she was concerned about Simon.

Erin said she told Miss Cripps that she wanted to change her phone number. She said she was becoming concerned about Simon's behavior and his allegations, and that meant she was feeling concerned for her security, she wanted to make sure he couldn't contact her.

Mister Mandy then asked Aaron about the phone she handed to police the next day on August five, when they searched her Lee and Gatha home. Laura, what did she say about that phone?

Our listeners were probably hoping we would never have to touch on Phone A and Phone B again, but it was touched upon again today by mister Mandy, who first asked her about this phone. You've spoken about, Brooke, the one she handed to police, and this one has been dubbed Phone B. The jury has previously heard that multiple factory resets were conducted on this phone in twenty twenty three.

Phone A was also mentioned today, wasn't it?

That's right? So Phone A was the phone that Erin was using before she set up Phone B. After having that conversation with Miss Cripps, she told the court that on August five, when police were searching her home, Phone A was sitting on a window sill near a charging station. When she returned home that afternoon after her record of interview, she said she was handed a property seizure record by detectives which stated that two devices had been taken, and

Thanks Laura, that was a great explanation. As always, Aerin will be back on the stand tomorrow and she's expected to be cross examined by the prosecution team. To stay updated with this case, go to the mushroomcook dot com dot au