It's Mother's Day twenty twenty two and Gail Patterson messages her daughter in law. They were the sort of messages we all send on holidays, greetings and emojis and hugs and kisses. Happy Mother's Day, erin make God bless you, love Don and Gail.
Thanks Gail, Happy Mother's Day to the best mum in law anyone could ask for. Kiss, kiss, hug, huck. Very kind of you XO.
Today.
Though these messages were read to the jury in the murder trial of Aaron Patterson, it gave the court another insight into the relationship between her and the Patterson family. I'm Brooke Greebert Craig and this is the Mushroom Court. We've just reached the end of week five of Aaron Patterson's trial, and as always I'm joined by a court reporter, Laura.
Plassella Day five of week five.
Today was a shorter than usual Friday in court, but the jury really only heard evidence for thirty minutes today.
This is probably the shortest day of the trial so far in terms of how much evidence the jury has heard. They came in today at eleven thirty, Keeping in mind
that the court usually starts sitting at ten thirty. So Justice Beeale apologized when they all took their seats in the jury box, and he said there were still some matters that needed to be sorted out in the background, but he really empathized with them and said, you're probably getting frustrated sitting in the jury room wondering when you're going to be brought into court. So you really thanked them for their patients.
Today, Detective Leading Senior Constable Steping eppens Stall returned to the stand. This was his fourth day of giving evidence.
That's right, and it was his second day of cross examination. Defense Barrister Colin Mandy today brought Constable epping Stall to signal messages which he obtained as part of his investigation. And like you said at the top of the episode, Brook, the messages were really speaking to the relationship in early twenty twenty two between Erin and her estranged husband's parents, as well as the relationship that they had with Erin's children.
I think it was for the first time today that we actually found out that Erin's children referred to Gaale and Don as Nanna and Papa. It has been a while, though, since we've spoken about the Patterson family tree. So, just as a reminder, Aaron and Simon permanently separated in twenty fifteen, but we've heard evidence in this case that they remained friends until late twenty twenty two.
Now let's speak about the messages. You heard one at the top of the episode about Mother's Day in May twenty twenty two. Here's another exchange from February that year. These are their words, but not their voices.
We can pick more books if he wants. Also, if he needs help in any subject I might have some competence in, I'm happy to provide it, probably using jitsy.
I think he would letely love a jitsy session for matts. They're working through algebra, and he says it's one topic that he finds a little tricky. So he actually mentioned last night that he thought a Papa lesson on algebra would really help him about now.
After the tutoring session, there was another exchange between Aaron and Don.
Thank you for the jitsy with him. He said it was great and that you're really good at explaining Matt's Papa.
No worries he is a good student. A class full of students by Kim would be fun and rewarding.
I will just add that Don was a retired school teacher and if anyone's wondering, I did have to google it myself today. But Jitsy is a video conferencing app just like Zoom.
Great, let's move on. Mister Mandy also asked Constable epping Stool about Aaron's phone records. The jury has previously heard a SIM card ending an eight three five was taken out of a tablet and placed into a phone dubbed Phone B. And this all happened on August three, so this was five days after the lunch on July twenty nine, that's right.
And this is the phone that Erin handed to police on August five when they were executing a search warrant at her home. Today, Constable epping Stall was asked some questions about the records relating to Phone B. So these records showed that the text messages were received on August four, so a day after the scene was placed in from apps including Australia Post Center, Link, MyGov, Telstra and even
News Corp Australia, the publisher of this podcast. Constable epping Stall agreed with mister Mandy that these text messages were consistent with a person changing their phone number and updating the apps on their phone. Mister Mandy explained to the court that when a person downloads an app, they may be texted a security code from that app so they can set up their account. Constable epping Stall told the court if you he was setting up a new phone,
that's the type of thing I'd expect. And that was all the evidence that Constable epping Stall gave today, but he is expected to return to the stand next week for further cross examination. I don't think we've used the word informant in a few episodes, but that is the title that Constable epping Stall has in this case, and it pretty much means he's the lead investigator. He was tasked with compiling the brief of evidence against erin, a process that would have taken a number of months after
they first executed that search warrant on August five. He's been sitting in court behind the prosecution team every single day of this trial. So our listeners will remember that in this case, Constable epping Stall has been asked about everything from Erin's book toopia receipts to footage from a Subway store to Erin's Woolworth's transaction history, so there's been a whole range of topics.
Thanks so much, Laura. That's all for today. We know it was a shorter episode, but as we said, it was a shorter day. Stay tuned for our subscriber only episode with veteran crime reporter Anthony Dowsley that will be dropping on Sunday. This is a Herald Sun production for True Crime Australia. It's presented and reported by Brooke Greebert Craig and Laura Plussella reporting and presenting for our weekend subscriber only shows by Anthony Dowsley. Our executive producer is
Jordie Atkinson. The Mushroom Cook is produced, written and edited by John ty Burton.