Two days after the Mushroom Lunch and lean gather, a local senior constable was sent on a job to Aaron Patterson's home. He was there to do a welfare check on her. She was the cook of the Beef Wellington mill. Her home was deserted, or at least that's what it looked like to the cop. He stopped at the gate and made a call to get an access code. He was looking for something. Guided by Aaron at the other end of the phone, he started searching. He had gloves
on two pairs. His search took him to a bin with a red lid that sat outside the house. Inside that bin, inside a Woolworth's bag, he found it some samples of what he described as tainted food. It was what was left of a beef Wellington. I'm Brooke Greebert Craig and this is the Mushroom Cook. So it's day eight, Laura.
I can't believe it's Thursday. This week has gone very fast.
I know we're almost at the end of week two. Indeed, what you heard at the top of the episode was a description of a local police officer fetching the leftovers of the Beef Wellington from Aaron's house.
He gave evidence today in court. His name was Adrian Martinez Villalobos and I'm annunciation thank you. I'm relieved I got through that one. He told the jury today that he attended Aaron's property after that triple zero call from doctor Chris Webster which we spoke about yesterday. He arrived at the house but no one appeared to be home, so he rang doctor Webster back to get an update, and it was at that point that he found out
that Aaron had returned to lean Gatha Hospital. But as we heard yesterday, while doctor Webster had the police officer on the phone, he thought he should ask him to have a look around to see if he could find any of the leftover beef Wellington specifically.
In court, the police officer said that he was asked to find any tainted food.
And as you described Brook, he double gloved and needed some information from erin which we heard in court she was happy to provide. He described her as being quite cooperative over the phone and he was able to gain access into her property to search one of her waistbins.
So he said in court today that he didn't actually need to go inside her house because he found the leftovers in a bin on the outside of.
Her house, and he described sifting through the bin and finding the bag that Erin had described. She had told him that a brown paper Woolworth's bag was most likely the one that would contain the leftovers, and once he found a bag that matched that description, he fished it out and he noted to the court that it was actually seeping a little bit and had to find another bag so he could pop it in the police van.
He then transported those leftovers to lean Gatha Hospital where the bag was taken into the urgent care department.
And yesterday we touched on the evidence of doctor Veronica Foot who then retrieved that bag and took photos of the beef Wellington for the doctors at Monash Medical Center.
And Laura, where did that bag of leftovers end up?
We learned a little bit more about that today Paramedic Alan Spencer, she gave evidence about transferring Erin from lean Gatha Hospital to Monash Medical Center and in her evidence she explained how when they were getting her ready for transfer, her and her colleague were also handed this brown Woolworths bag with the leftover beef Wellington, so it could be brought into Melbourne to Monash Medical Center for testing.
And did she say anything about Aaron.
She was asked a few questions about how Aaron presented during this trip. She said the journey from lean Gatha to Monash Medical Center was about an hour and forty minutes. She asked if at any point in that journey Aaron asked them to pull over because she needed to use the bathroom, and she said that didn't happen.
Aaron complained about feeling nauseous, and she also complained about having a headache.
And they wanted to give her panadol, but they needed to check first whether or not that was a smart idea given she was already starting to receive some treatment for suspected mushroom poisoning. They rang the poisons hotline and they suggested fentanyl instead, so Miss Spencer told the court they gave her some fentanyl and then described the rest of their journey as non eventful. When asked how Erin was during the journey, she said that she was fairly calm and nonchalant.
She also said that Aaron was quite chatty throughout the trip. Now, Laura, I think it's a good time to talk about the evidence that Aaron Patterson's daughter gave today in court.
I think I'll start off by noting that while she did give evidence today in court, she actually wasn't there in person. So when children give evidence in trials, it is it's fairly common for their evidence to be pre recorded so they don't need to be there in person
and subjected to cross examination by the defense. Erin's daughter's evidence was recorded back in August twenty twenty three, so only a month after the lunch, and that was played today in front of the jury, and things did become emotional.
Now, that was a thirty three minute video that we saw in court today. How was Erin throughout it?
When the video started to play, she did become emotional. She has a screen in front of her where she can watch the footage, and when her daughter popped up on the screen, she did become quite tearful. She did reach for a tissue at one stage and clutch that. Throughout the recording, her daughter's evidence got underway with her simply being asked by the interviewer for her name, and when she said the name to the interviewer, you could see Erin malving her daughter's name from the dock.
At the start of the interview Eron's daughter was asked to describe what happened at the lunch, and she simply replied, I wasn't there, so I don't know what happened.
But while she said she wasn't there, the interviewer did ask her some questions about the things that happened both before and after. She was asked whether she was told about the lunch in advance, and she said her mum told her about it the day before, and she said that it was her understanding that the guests would come
over so they could talk about adult stuff. She was then asked if she remembered what they ate for lunch, and she said she didn't know what it was called, but she recalled seeing it in the oven that morning and saying it involved some sort of meat. She described going to the movies that Saturday afternoon, and then after that she saw her dad, and then by the evening she was back at home at her mum's.
In the interview, Aaron's daughter was asked about Aaron's sickness the morning after the lunch. This is what she said. It's her words, but not her voice.
She just needed to go to the toilet a lot, and she felt seek in her gut.
Did she tell you she wasn't feeling well?
Yes?
And what did she tell you?
She said that she had diarrhea and her tummy was sore.
Okay, she had diarrhea and her tummy was sore. Did she tell you she vomited or anything like that.
I don't think she told me.
Did you see her going to the toilet a lot? How many times do you think she went to the toilet?
I saw her go like ten times.
Ten times, okay? And was that in the morning?
Was it that was.
In the morning through to the afternoon.
She said that they didn't go to church that day because her mum wasn't feeling well, and then talked about having the leftovers. She mentioned remembering eating steak, mashed potato, and green beans, and she also said that they played Monopoly on the Sunday.
And Laura, the interviewer also asked about the plates at Aaron's home.
Yes.
She was asked to describe the plates at her mum's home, and at first she just said they were round plates. The interviewer prompted her further and she said there was a black and red plate and some white ones, before saying I think that's all the colors we have, just to remind our listeners. Ian, the only guest to survive the meal, gave evidence earlier this week about the lunch and said he remembers the guests eating their meals off gray plates while Aaron ate her serve off an orange tan plate.
And we'll hear more of Aaron's daughter's evidence tomorrow in court.
That's right. So who else spoke in court today? We heard from a number of medical witnesses. We've heard from quite a few so far in this trial. We had a nurse called Cindy Munro take to the witness box today and she treated both Heather and Ian when they arrived at Lee and Gath Hospital and then later on
also treated Erin when she represented. But she was asked today to describe Erin when she was treating her and how she appeared, and she said that she did not believe she looked as unwell as Heather and Ian did. She said she recalled Ian being so unwell that he could barely lift his head off his pillow, and said Heather was quite unsteady on her feet, but said in comparison, Aaron was sitting up in her bed and didn't look unwell to her.
Miss Munroe also said that initially Aaron did not want any medical intervention and Aaron said I don't want any of this multiple times.
By the end of Miss Monroe's evidence, she did say, though, that Aaron agreed to treatment before she was transferred to Monash Medical Center.
After Aaron was brought to Monash Medical Center by the paramedic that we heard from earlier, what happened.
Tanya Patterson, who is the wife of Matthew Patterson, So stay with me here, guys. Who is so Jimond's brother, Simon being Erin's estranged husband, I think we got that. She gave evidence in court today about the conversations she had with Erin when she was visiting, and one of the things she said was that Aaron asked how the lunch guests were. But Tanya said she had had a discussion with her husband previously about not wanting to tell Erin too much because they wanted to leave that up
to her husband Simon. So all Tanya said she told Erin was that they were going downhill, but that was all the information she really had.
And she also mentioned something about cruises, didn't she.
That's right. She said she had recently been on a cruise and Erin was interested in taking her children on one, so they had a conversation about that as well. So that's a wrap for today. Was there anything else that
we missed? Yes, there was something that the jury heard at the start of the day that I will mention, just as Christopher Beale, who is the judge presiding over this case, he told them that there was some work happening in the background between both the prosecution and the defense that was speeding things along, and he said to the jurors that he expects the case to conclude earlier than he initially thought.
So that means the trial will be done before the sixth week mark.
Well maybe, but we'll definitely have to wait and see.
Thanks Laura, but rest assured, until the trial is over, we will be here every day giving you new podcast episodes. So for all the latest on this case, go to the mushroomcook dot com dot au