We've just come out of court and a major development has happened in the trial of Aaron Patterson.
That's right, Brook, a jura has been dismissed.
And what did Justice Christopher Bill say?
So he brought in all of the jurors to the courtroom this morning. There were fifteen in the beginning, but by this stage only fourteen were brought into the court and he told them that one of their fellow jurors had.
Been discharged and did he give a reason.
He told the jury that he had received information about this juror and that he was allegedly discussing the case with his family and friends against Justice Bill's instructions.
And then Justice Bill reminded the jury that they should only discuss the case with their fellow jurors in the privacy of the jury room.
He reiterated to the jury that he had not made a positive finding that this jury member definitely had discussed the case with his family and friends, but rather he couldn't dismiss the possibility that he had.
Thanks Laura, we'll head back to our makeshift podcast studio in our airbnb to discuss this further. I'm Brook Grabert, Craig and this is the mushroom cook. I'm back with my colleague, court reporter Laura Possella. Laura, what a day.
Yes, it's been a big one.
Let's dissect it a bit more. What does this mean for the trial?
Well, the fact that a juror has been discharged actually doesn't mean too much. So there are fifteen jurors who were mpaneled in this case when it started about three weeks ago, but now we're at fourteen. However, only twelve people will decide this case. So once all the evidence has been heard and the closing addresses have been given, only two jurors will now be balloted off instead of
three to get to that magic number of twelve. And as our listeners may actually remember from one of our first episodes, Justice Beale told the jury once they were unpaneled, that they were allowed to talk about the fact that they were sitting in on the Aaron Patterson trial. They could even mention that the case was expected to run for six weeks and the times they might be required to come to court, But he made it very clear that they weren't to get into a discussion with their
family and friends about the case. He said to them shut down any attempt to draw you into conversation about it.
Great, now let's move on. We've spoken a bit about the leftovers of that beef welling to meal throughout our podcast episodes. So we said that it was fish from a bin by a local police officer, then transported with Aaron in an ambulance to Monash Medical Center, and we described on yesterday's episode how it was examined by doctor Kimille Truong. Today the jury heard from forensic toxicologist Dmitri
giro Stimulis. He was the one that examined the samples of that leftover meal after a came to him from doctor Truon.
Yes, So the journey of these leftovers continues. So, like you mentioned, they've gone from doctor Trung's office at the Royal Botanic Gardens. We're not quite sure exactly where they've been over the course of August, but by August twenty nine they're at a laboratory where they're being tested. Doctor Girista Mulis works for the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine and he spoke today about the analysis of toxicology and how exactly they come to their conclusions. He was asked
today about this by Crown Prosecutor Sarah Lenthal. These are their words, it's not their voices.
I'm going to start with the portions of food before I get to the results of your analysis of the portions of food. The jury has heard evidence in this case from a mycologist called Camille Truong who examined little pieces of mushroom from this same portion of food under a microscope, and she did not find any death cat mushrooms. Can you explain to the jury the difference between that microscopic exam and what you did here.
Microscopic exam is different to what we undertake. We undertake an analysis at much lower levels than what the naked eye can actually detect or identify. We don't rely on visual detection of compounds. We rely on sensitive instruments to be able to detect very low quantities that are not visible. So I'm not saying that they weren't visible in the sample that was analyzed, but they'd be difficult in the small amounts, particularly if they'd been put into food, to
identify as death cap mushrooms. So the only real way of identifying poisons that have been put in food or in other preparations is analytically and that's usually done by labiotories such as ours.
So essentially, he said he was not looking for the visual aspects of mushrooms, but rather the chemical compounds of the death cap mushroom. Laura, what did he actually find in the leftovers?
So, just to take a step back, today really was another lesson for the jury, this time in the toxins you find in death caps, which are called amatoxins, and there's two in particular that are very lethal, alpha amanitan and beta amaniton. The court heard that these leftovers were tested in the lab and they were specifically looking for
these two toxins. Photos were shown to the jury of the leftovers and you could see that the toxicologists had separated the leftovers into pastry samples, mushroom paste, and meat. They ran their tests and the court heard that one sample of the mushroom paste and one sample of the meat tested positive for beta amaneiton. So again that is one of the toxins found in death cap mushrooms.
Now, debris from the dehydrator was also tested. What was found on that at some.
Point in time sample have been taken from this dehydrata of vegetable matter, and this is what the toxicologists were testing at their lab. The jury were shown the results of their tests and four samples of the debris again tested positive for both alpha amaneitan and beta amaniton.
The jury heard samples from the lunch guests were also tested for amatoxins. This included samples of their blood, hair and urine, and even liquid from Don Pattison's eye.
The results of these tests were shown to the jury in a number of tables. The results showed that alpha and beta amatoxins were detected in Don samples. This was the same for Ian Wilkinson's samples, but the court heard that samples taken from Gail and Heather did not show any presence of these two toxins.
Now, samples were also taken from Aaron Pattison and her kids Laura. What were the results.
Again, the court heard that there was no detection of alpha and beta abatoxins. The jury is set to hear from doctor Girista Mulis tomorrow, but it is worth noting that in the prosecution opening, the jury heard that Don, Gail and Heather's autopsy reports all show that their deaths were compatible with the consumption of deathcat mushrooms.
Now, let's move on to our last witness that took to the stand today. Child Protection worker Katrina Cripps spoke to Erin on August one, which was three days after the lunch. She told the jury that Aaron spoke to her about her relationship with Simon.
Our listeners may remember that in twenty twenty two, Simon and Erin had a dispute relating to child support and that formed the basis of some of the discussions between Erin and Miss Cripps. She told the court that Erin had told her that Simon had been mean in the past, but he had never been nasty, but it was at the time of the child support dispute that this changed and she felt he had become nasty.
Miss Cripps also told the jury that Aaron told her that Donn and Gale had been parents she had never had, and they always treated her like a daughter in law, but when her relationship changed with Simon, she felt like they isolated her. Erin also spoke to Miss Cripps about the lunch what was said Laura.
Miss Cripps asked Erin several questions about both the before and the after of the lunch. She said that Erin had told her she started to feel ill in the evening the day of the lunch, so that being July twenty nine, but she described having to drive her son's friend home that evening. Our listeners may remember this evidence
from last week. Miss Cripps told the court that Erin was worried that she was going to have an accident while she was in the car, and when they stopped off at the supermarket, she felt like she couldn't get out of the car for these reasons.
So Miss Cripps told the jury that Aaron sitting down in the car was essentially a cork for her diarrhea. Justice Bill questioned Miss Cripps on the word cork and whether Erin actually said that, and Miss Cripps confirmed that Aaron did use the word.
Miss Cripps was also questioned at length, both during her evidence in chief and cross examination about what Erin told her about the lunch and specifically how much of her Beef Wellington she ate. Miss Cripps was given permission to look at notes that her colleague had made during their interview with Erin back on August one, a few days after the lunch, and according to these notes, Miss Cripps said that Aaron's response when asked how much of the beef wellington meal she ate, was half.
And Miss Cripps also asked Aarin whether she picked the mushrooms. Aaron did not reply and instead was just looking at her phone.
And before we finish off today, we will touch on the fact that a best selling cookbook was drawn into murder trial.
Yes, that's correct. The jury heard that Aaron used a beef Wellington recipe from recipe Tineats by Nagi Mahashi. And that's not the only reason Recipe tin Eads has been in the news recently, but that's another story for now. Head to the mushroomcook dot com dot a U for more updates on the case.