[0:00]Hey guys, it's Bella. Welcome back to another Mystery Monday. How are we all? Hope you guys all had the best weekend. If you're new here, welcome. We talk about true crime cases here on Mondays. So if that's something you're interested in, then please come and join us and make sure to subscribe so you don't miss any future videos. So today we're going to be talking about a case that is currently going on in Australia. This is the case of the Mushroom Matters, and if you're in Australia, I'm certain that you've heard of this. But if you're, I mean, even around the world, I think this case has just been huge everywhere. It is one of the biggest cases in Australia in recent times. The verdict for the case, for the trial of this case, actually just came out this month. At the time I'm filming this, it's July right now, and the verdict just came out at the start of this month. If you guys haven't heard of this case, basically in 2023, a woman named Aaron Patterson had four guests over at her house in Leongatha in Victoria, Australia for lunch. Within 24 hours of this lunch, all four of her guests, Don and Gail Patterson, and Heather and Ian Wilkinson, had become extremely, extremely ill. They believed it was food poisoning at first, but they all went to the hospital, and by the 5th of August, Don and Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson had tragically passed away. Ian was the only guest of Aaron's at this lunch that miraculously survived. He spent weeks in the hospital fighting for his life before he was eventually released. As it turns out, the cause of their illness and the three deaths was poisoned by death cap mushrooms, which Aaron Patterson had served to them in a beef Wellington. Now, before we do get into the case, I just quickly want to thank today's sponsor NordVPN. You guys know I love NordVPN. I've been using them for years and years, and it is the one thing I recommend to all of my friends, family, strangers on the street. I recommend it to literally everybody because I genuinely use it every single day. Whether it's to access articles and documentaries on the cases that I research, whether it is to access shows and movies in the country I'm in. Like when I'm traveling, I use it to watch shows that aren't available in the country that I'm traveling to, or even just to keep the progress on the shows that I've been watching here in the UK when I travel. I use it to buy books on Kindle because pro tip, I don't know about anywhere else, but if you're in the UK, Kindle books are actually cheaper on Kindle Australia than Kindle UK. And if there's a new release coming out, you can get it quicker in Australia as well because of the time difference. I also have my VPN on just all the time. When I'm out in public, if I have to get on public Wi-Fi, public Wi-Fi terrifies me, not anymore, because if you have Nord VPN on, then you don't have to worry. It protects you from scammers, phishing links, malware, from fake shops. I mean, I could go on, I could go on all day. It is truly the best guys, so please make sure you check it out. They have a 30-day money-back guarantee and also if you go to nordvpn.com/bellafiori, you can get a huge discount when you purchase a two-year plan plus you'll get an extra four months free. So I will leave all of the information for that in the description box down below. Make sure you guys check it out and let's go ahead and get into today's case. So Aaron Patterson, born Aaron Trudy Cutter, was born on the 30th of September 1974 to parents Heather and Ethan Cutter. And both of them were very respected in the community. Her mom, Heather, was a respected lecturer at Monash University. She taught and was considered an expert in children's literature, and she also wrote books, academic articles, and her father Eton was a director for multiple Australian companies. They raised both Aaron and her older sister in Glen Waverley, which is a suburb in Melbourne. Apparently, growing up, Aaron really struggled with body image issues, low self-esteem, and eating disorders for her entire life, which she claimed was because her mum from a young age would weigh her and her sister every week to make sure they weren't gaining weight. Aaron said, quote, I've been fighting an never-ending battle of low self-esteem most of my adult life. And the further inroads I made it into being middle-aged, the less good I felt about myself. Despite how she felt about herself, though, many who knew her growing up described her as smart and witty, and just like their parents, both Aaron and her sister were known to be very smart, very intelligent girls. Her sister actually went on to work as a scientist at Monash University, and Aaron attended the same university pursuing science, though she left that course to study accounting. She also trained as an air traffic controller.
[4:25]It's actually a really difficult test that you have to take to become an air traffic controller, but she did pass, and she was one of the few to make it through the training program. The training program was pretty small, it was about 14 people, so everyone got pretty close, except for Aaron. Apparently, she would never go out or would never go to anything that they invited her to any social events or activities or anything like that. One of her classmates said, quote, We always joked and supported each other, and she was never a part of that. She didn't really make any friends during the short time she actually worked as an air traffic controller for the Air Services Australia either. Her colleagues described her as abrupt, abrasive, odd, and a bit of a loner. One colleague described her as, quote, a little bit strange, and another said, quote, She was quite aggressive in the way she spoke to people. And they even at her work started referring to her as crazy Aaron and Scutter the Nutter behind her back. So she doesn't stick around for long. By 2004, she was working as an animal management employee for the RSPCA at Monash City Council. And that is where in 2004, she met Simon Patterson. He was also working at the council as an engineer, and they were kind of seeing each other on lunch breaks, after work drinks, that sort of thing. And they just really hit it off, and they started dating, and they got married in 2007 at Simon's parents' home in Korumburra. And Korumburra is located in the South Gippsland area of Victoria, and it's about 120 km or 75 miles southeast from Melbourne. By the time they got married, Aaron was actually pretty well off. So her grandmother had died the previous year in 2006, and she had left Aaron 2 million in inheritance, which would be paid out starting in 2007 over an eight-year period. So they decide to quit their jobs and go and travel around Australia for a bit. When they get to Perth in Western Australia, Aaron was able to use her inheritance to buy them a house outright, and it also allowed her to have the freedom to not work a full-time job. She instead decided to spend her time learning. She did some online university courses for law, for veterinary science, that sort of thing, and Simon worked at the local council. In 2009, Aaron gave birth to her and Simon's first child, a son, and the birth of their son really helped Aaron to bond with her in-laws. So her and Donald and Gail Patterson, Simon's parents, really started to get close. Aaron had quite a traumatic birth with her son, and in the weeks following the birth, Don and Gail, they flew from Victoria to Perth just to be there for them, to be there for them as new parents, to support them, and also, of course, you know, to see their grandson. But they really started to get a lot closer during this time, and Aaron said, quote, I was really relieved that Gail was there because I felt really out of my depth. I had no idea what to do with a baby, and I was not confident, and she was really supportive, patient, and gentle with me. Simon said that Aaron and Don, quote, shared a love of knowledge and learning and an interest in the world, and I think she loved his gentle nature. And he also said that his parents were really active in maintaining a good relationship with Aaron. Don and Gail had married in 1973 and had four children together. They settled in Korumburra in 1984, but before settling there, they had actually spent several years living and working in Botswana, where Don worked as a science teacher, and he even made a satellite dish out of chicken wire so that people in the remote community where they lived could watch TV. He was described by his son Simon as someone who, quote, always loved chatting to strangers in his travels, particularly people of different faiths and cultures. Gail worked there teaching children how to read and write through a correspondence school, and they were described as kind and gentle people who operated as a team and worked together at life. After moving to Korumburra, they both worked as teachers at various different schools in the area until their retirement in the early 2000s. A former colleague of Don's said that he had inspired generations of students with his wacky methods as a science teacher and said that he was a, quote, caring mentor to staff, young and old. Gail's sister, Heather Wilkinson, and her husband, Ian Wilkinson, also lived in Korumburra. They married in 1979 and had four children and six grandchildren together. They were really an inseparable team. They worked together at the Korumburra Baptist Church when Ian became a pastor there in 1999, which he has continued to do ever since. They were really considered to be pillars in the community. Korumburra was a small, quiet country town of about 4,500 people, and it was the kind of place where everybody knew their neighbor. The kind of place where people left their doors unlocked and they left their keys in the car. One article described the locals as fiercely loyal and said, quote, It's the sort of place that you can be embraced very quickly and made to feel that you're a part of it. All four of them were a major part of the community. Heather and Ian spent their spare time volunteering to help others, and they also worked on community projects. Heather, as well, just like her sister and brother-in-law, worked at local schools, and she and Gail had also been a part of a learner assistance program helping disadvantaged children. The manager of the program, a woman named Andrea, said, quote, The way they worked with those children and what they were able to bring out in them was just phenomenal. Heather also spent time teaching migrant women, and the principal, the former principal of Korumburra Secondary College, said, quote, Heather loved her students, and they had such fun together. Heather was all about caring for people and helping them. Andrea said that she believed it was their faith that led them to lead such selfless lives, and she said, quote, I think that they believed that we all had a greater mission or purpose beyond ourselves. We had to just get out there and help others. We're in a fortunate position, and we had to go out there and make things better for others. She also said, quote, The world would be a better place if we could all be a bit more like them. They had actually influenced Aaron's view on religion as well. She was an atheist, and she had tried to convert Simon to atheism, but in doing so, she kind of had, or it kind of had the reverse effect where she ended up becoming a Christian. I think she did have a very difficult, or up and down relationship with religion because she was an atheist for so long, tried to convert Simon because she was so atheist. And then Simon took her to a service in 2005 at Korumburra Baptist Church, where Ian was the pastor. And she said that she had, quote, what basically could be described as a spiritual experience. So some of her friends said that she had a complex relationship with religion. Ian and Heather had actually traveled the world as missionaries at a time, and Heather was described by neighbors as a warm and kind woman who would bake biscuits for her neighbors and would lend a helping hand whenever it was needed. One of her grandchildren said, quote, Every Christmas, she would give each cousin a stocking filled with goodies and treats. She was the kind of person to leave a permanent mark on your heart. And those that knew all four of them, Gail, Don, Heather, and Ian, said that they were all just generous and kind people. One local in the community said, quote, You couldn't have met more gentle, giving, kind people. They were just lovely. They were funny, they were the nicest people. So in April 2009, Aaron and Simon decide to pack their whole lives up into a four-wheel drive. And they're planning to just kind of drive around Australia, making stops around the way with their tent and just kind of camping out. After a couple of months, they make it to Townsville, which is about 4,500 km or 2,700 miles away from Perth in Western Australia. So it's like on the complete opposite side almost of Australia. And Aaron one day, she just up and leaves. She gets on a plane by herself. She flies from Townsville back to Perth, and she leaves Simon and her son in Townsville. And Simon said, quote, I packed up everything and my son, and I drove across Australia through the middle, straight back to Perth. They actually separated for about six months at this time. So Aaron and her son lived in a rental, and Simon lived in a caravan nearby. They went through marriage counseling, and after about six months, they got back together. But this is something that kind of became a pretty common occurrence in their marriage. They would break up and get back together, they would separate and they would reconcile. So it became quite rocky and, you know, they were just constantly breaking up, getting back together over the years. After they reunited after the six-month breakup, they moved around a little bit from York to Quindalup, which is where Aaron opened a second-hand bookshop in nearby Pemberton in 2011. This is about four and a half hours south of Perth. And then in 2013, they moved back to Korumburra in Victoria to be closer to Simon's parents ahead of the birth of their second child. And then in 2014, Aaron gave birth to their daughter. During this time, Aaron really became a lot closer to Simon's sister because they were actually pregnant at the same time, and they gave birth to their babies just three days apart. So a lot of the family often referred to the babies as the twins. Then by late 2015, Aaron and Simon actually separated for good. So they never officially divorced before this case happened, but they were separated. They had even a financial settlement where they both walked away with 50/50. They stayed on pretty good terms at the beginning of the separation. They even traveled together as a family to South Africa, Botswana, and New Zealand, like a bunch of family trips. Aaron continued to go to family events with Simon's family, and she said, quote, It never changed. I was just their daughter-in-law, and they continued to love me. Simon said, quote, We really liked each other still. It was just the living together that didn't work. In 2019, Aaron's mother actually passed away from cancer, and her dad had actually passed away from cancer as well, eight years earlier in 2011. So following her mom's death, their beach home, her parents' beach home, it was a beachfront home in Eden. It was left to her and her sister, which they sold for 900,000 in 2019, and they split the profits of that. So she is doing still very, very well financially, and this money along with her inheritance allowed her to make smart financial decisions. She invested in property. It also allowed her and Simon to provide interest-free loans to Simon's three siblings and their partners so that they could purchase houses of their own. Aaron also purchased a plot of land in Leongatha, which is about 15 minutes from Korumburra. She purchased it in both her and her estranged husband Simon's names, which Simon believes she did as kind of a gesture to show that she was still committed to their family and that she remained hopeful that they would get back together again. Because like I said, they were constantly splitting up and getting back together, and so I think she was kind of hoping that they would end up back together again. In mid-2019, she also purchased another house in Mount Waverley, which is in Southeast Melbourne, and that is a place where the family often went during school holidays. So she bought a house there, and once again, she bought it in her and Simon's names. Meanwhile, on the Leongatha property, she designed her dream home there. I actually read that she designed it herself on Microsoft Paint. She said, quote, I saw it as the final house, meaning I wanted it to be a house where the children would grow up, where once they moved away from uni or work, they could come back and stay whenever they liked. Bring their children, and I'd grow old there. She moved into the three-acre property in 2022. It had sprawling gardens, and she had sheep and goats and dogs, and she really became a bit of a recluse at this point. Those who lived in the area described her as an outsider with very few friends, and she was really considered an enigma in the area. She was rarely seen outside, and when she did, she just kind of kept her head down and didn't talk to anybody. And a lot of her socializing that she did was online. So in 2020, Melbourne lockdown era, when they were all going through those big lockdowns, she joined a bunch of these true crime Facebook groups, and she met friends that way, and she got really into these Facebook groups. She was actually known as the group's super sleuth, and she was known for having really good tech skills, really good research skills, and being able to dig up information on cases they were discussing. Her friends from these groups described her as a great mom. They said that her children were her greatest joy in life, and that, quote, her life appeared to revolve around them. She said that she just posted photos and videos of her children all the time. She just, she really, really adored her kids, and they said that it seemed like her children were all she cared about in life. So as the years went on, it was reported that her and Simon's relationship really started to deteriorate, which also put a massive strain on her relationship with her in-laws, Don and Gail. In 2022, her and Simon's relationship took a turn for the worst, and things started to get pretty hostile. It's said that Simon filed a tax return, and he for the first time had listed himself as single on his tax return, which turned out to be just a mix-up with his accountant, but it really pissed Aaron off. And it really, really changed their relationship and their dynamic of their relationship, which up until this point had mostly been pretty good. They had been on pretty good terms. Aaron told Simon that the change in relationship status on the tax return would affect the family tax benefit that they had. And so now she was going to have to be obliged to file for child support. She filed for child support through a federal government agency, and despite the fact that Simon, you know, despite his assets, despite the fact that he had a good amount of money, despite the fact that he was also a civil engineer, so he was earning good money too. He was only ordered to pay $38 a month. And that's Australian dollars too, so that is like really not a lot of money. The agency also told him basically not to pay anything outside of this until her financial agreement was reached as well. So basically to stop paying his children's school fees, their medical bills, to only pay his allocated $38 a month. Which obviously really upset Aaron, and so things were just getting more and more tense between them. It's reported that at one point, their son needed a surgery, so Aaron went to Simon, said, can you pay this or pay half, help me pay it. And he said, the Department of Human Services has told me I'm not allowed to pay anything outside my allocated monthly payments. I'm not allowed to pay for anything for you or for the children outside of that, so I can't do it, and, you know, it's it was just really not a good situation. Aaron tried to contact Don and Gail to get them to talk to Simon, to get them to mediate the situation, and they said that they didn't want to because they didn't want to get involved in their son's financial issues. So Aaron sends this big ranting group text to the group family group chat, and she basically says that Simon refusing to pay for these extra payments now is a punishment for her trying to claim child support, and that she would actually be entitled to over $30,000 of child support from like if she backdated it over the years. Aaron wrote, quote, Both parents have a duty to financially support the children they made. Simon is hiding behind the communication from the government, but now I've made a child support claim, he doesn't have to pay any bills outside of it. This is an instruction for people who want to be a bare minimum parent. She also starts complaining about the situation to her online friends, and she's telling them that Simon is a deadbeat, and she's telling them that Don and Gail are a lost cause. She wrote in a group chat to her online friends and said, quote, I'm sick of this. I want nothing to do with them. I thought his parents would want him to do the right thing, but it seems their concern about not wanting to feel uncomfortable and not wanting to get involved in their son's personal matters are overriding that, so fuck em. I don't want to hear it. Simon's will just be horrible and be gaslighting and abusive, and it will ruin my day, and his parents will be more weasel words about not getting involved, so I think I'm going to just move on. This family, I swear to fucking god. And then to another online friend, she wrote, quote, Why isn't she horrified her son is such a deadbeat that I had no choice but to claim? At this point, it seemed like things were really up and down. So sometimes they were fine, sometimes things would cool down. At one time, Aaron would say she hated everybody, and then the next minute she loved them all. The same year that she was sending these awful messages to her online friends about them, Gail sent her a message from Mother's Day, and Aaron responded to her and said, quote, Thanks, Gail. Happy Mother's Day to the best mother-in-law anyone could ask for! So very chipper in comparison to, you know, she goes from sending her her online friends messages saying, fuck them all, they're a lost cause, to sending Gail a message saying, you know, you're the best mother-in-law ever. There was also some tension in October 2022 when Aaron believed that she got a last-minute invite to Gail's 70th birthday lunch, and she was really upset about it. Simon text her the day before her the birthday lunch and asked her if she's coming, and she says, well, I didn't even know about it. And Simon says, well, you know, I thought dad was inviting you, things just must have got mixed up. So Aaron responds to Simon on text, and she says, quote, I'm not too sure how your dad could have been confused. Seems that my invite tomorrow is a bit of an afterthought, and not even from your parents. So I might pass, thanks, as I'd rather not go somewhere I'm not welcome. Then she sends him another text a bit later on, and she says, quote, What I reckon is everyone actually forgot to invite me to this thing, and I feel very, very hurt about that. They get into a bit of an argument about the whole thing. I think at one point Simon allegedly might have called her ridiculous, and then she obviously got very upset by that, and there was a bit of back and forth before eventually he says, look, I get it. I do understand why you're upset, but it's a really important lunch to mum, and mum and dad would really love to have you there. And so she relents and she says, okay, I will come and I'll bring the kids. And they kind of apologize to each other, make up, and cool things down. It was really just a big misunderstanding, but it just shows how things got heated between them very quickly. And Don and Gail also, apparently, they were so stressed through this whole thing. They felt so awful because they thought that they had invited her, and they were so stressed out and so upset that she was so upset about thinking she wasn't invited. But there really was just a lot of ups and downs like this in the relationship. There was a lot of tension between Simon and the in-laws, and it was mostly seem to be coming from Aaron's side. So on the 16th of July 2023, Aaron attends the Korumburra Baptist Church, where Ian is the pastor. And while she's there, she invites him, his wife Heather, and Don and Gail to have lunch at her house in Leongatha on the 29th of July 2023. And she wants to talk to them about some medical issues at this lunch. They all say, amazing, we'd love to. They're all very happy to be invited, and they're all very happy to go to the lunch. She also invited her estranged husband Simon to the lunch, but the day before the lunch, on the 28th of July, he sends Aaron a text, and he basically says, you know, I'm not going to come because I just feel too uncomfortable about it. And she is very upset by this. She sends him a text in response within five minutes of his text to cancel, and she says, 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 eye fillet to make beef Wellingtons because I wanted it to be a special meal as I may not be able to host a lunch like this again for sometime. It's important to me you're all here tomorrow, and that I can have the conversations that I need to have. I hope you'll change your mind. Your parents, Heather, and Ian are coming at 12:30, and I hope to see you there. Simon didn't reply to this message. He didn't show up to the lunch. He did tell his parents that he wasn't going to be going as well, so they knew that he wasn't going to be there. And then on the 29th of July 2023, the lunch still went ahead with Gail, Don, Heather, and Ian. Aaron and Simon's children, their nine-year-old daughter and their 14-year-old son also weren't at the lunch because Aaron dropped them at the movies shortly before all of her guests arrived. So when everyone arrives, Gail brought an orange cake with her, Heather brought a fruit platter. They all get to chatting. Heather and Ian had never been to Aaron's house, so Aaron gives them a little bit of the tour, tour of the house, tour of the gardens. Heather is redoing her pantry, so she's really interested in seeing Aaron's pantry at the house, but Aaron was kind of reluctant to show the pantry. It was kind of a weird situation, not overly crazy or anything. Nobody noticed anything, but she was just a little bit reluctant to give them a full pantry tour. And of course, Heather and Gail also, they offered to help Aaron out. They offered to help her in the kitchen, help her serve, and Aaron insists, please no. You know, you guys go out and sit there, and I will serve everything up, and I will bring it out. And so they go and sit down, they wait for their food. Aaron had spent basically all day that day preparing individual beef Wellingtons for everybody with the side of mashed potatoes and green beans. And it is, you know, definitely kind of strange because a beef Wellington, it's normally served family style. You make one big beef Wellington and cut slices from it, but she made everybody an individual beef Wellington. They all eat, they are chatting over lunch, and then after they finish eating, Aaron tells them that the reason she's gathered them all there for this lunch is because she wanted to tell them that she had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and she believed that it was quite serious. She told them that she hadn't told her kids yet, and she was really anxious about telling them and how to tell them, and she told everybody at the lunch that she was going to be needing treatment for it pretty soon. And so they all joined hands, and they all prayed for her. And then eventually, you know, they ate the cake, they ate the fruit platter, and eventually they all went home. By midnight that night, Don, Gail, Ian, and Heather had all become incredibly unwell. And they're thinking, you know, maybe it's gastro, maybe they had eaten something funny and gotten about a food poisoning. But by the next morning, it had gotten so bad that Don at 8:30 a.m. on the 30th of July, had actually called an ambulance to take him and Gail to hospital. Heather called Don that morning to see how they were doing, because obviously, Heather and Ian were also feeling extremely unwell. And so she called Don to see how they were feeling, if they were having any similar symptoms, and Don said, yes, in fact, we've called an ambulance to take us to the hospital. Don also called his son Simon at around 8:45 a.m. that morning just to let him know what was going on. They were very unwell, they were going to the hospital, and that Heather and Ian were also experiencing similar symptoms. The ambulance arrived at their house at 9:15 a.m. that morning. It took them straight to Korumburra Hospital, where they were immediately treated for gastroenteritis. After getting off the phone with his dad, Simon immediately tries to call Heather and Ian and see what's going on, see how they're feeling, but they don't answer. So he makes the decision to drive to their house, and when he gets there, they are very, very unwell. Simon said that Heather was lying on the floor in the lounge room next to a bucket, and that both of them were just exhausted, and they were worn out from how sick they had been. While Aaron was out of the room at one point, Heather makes a comment to Simon, basically saying that Aaron had served them on different plates. So Gail, Heather, Ian, and Don had all been served on larger gray plates, but Aaron had served herself on a smaller tan or orange-colored plate. And this was an observation that Heather made that she mentioned to Simon in the moment and just thought was maybe a little strange. Simon calls Triple Zero, and he's told that it's going to be an hour wait for an ambulance. So he drives Heather and Ian himself straight to Leongatha Hospital, because he was told that Korumburra Hospital was full, that they had no beds. On the drive to Leongatha Hospital, Heather brings up the plates again, and she says, quote, Is Aaron short of crockery? I was wondering why she served herself on a different plate to the rest of us. I've puzzled about it since lunch. They arrived at the hospital at around 11:00 a.m. that morning. They are assessed by a triage nurse, and they're immediately sent to an isolated room for treatment. Simon then drives to Korumburra Hospital, arriving at around 12:15 p.m. to check on his parents and see how his parents are doing. They had been by this point given anti-nausea medication, and they were on an IV drip. And Simon said they were in really, really bad shape. He said, quote, Dad was substantially worse than mum. He was really struggling, he was lying on his side, he was hunched quite noticeably. His voice was strained in a way that was, he wasn't right inside, he was feeling pain. By that afternoon, the blood test results came back, and they showed extremely abnormal results, and they also showed signs of liver failure. And so by 5:00 p.m. on the day after the lunch, so just on the 30th of July, doctors at Korumburra Hospital made the decision to immediately transfer both Don and Gail to Dandenong Hospital, which is in Southeast Melbourne. It's a bigger hospital with more advanced technology, and it also has specialist care facilities to deal with critical care and organ failure management. That morning, so we're still on the 31st of July, Aaron drops her kids off at school, and then she contacts Simon and says, can you please take me into the hospital?. I'm really not feeling well. And Simon tells her basically no, that she's going to have to find another way to get there. So at 8:00 a.m., she takes herself to Leongatha Hospital, and she tells them that she's experiencing nausea, abdominal cramps, and she's needing to go to the toilet every 20 minutes.
[29:59]When she gets into the hospital, obviously, she gives them her name, and the doctor immediately recognizes her as the person that cooked the meal who made four people extremely sick.
[31:10]And so he says to her, you know, you need to be admitted because everybody's really sick. We suspect that it's toxic mushroom poisoning, so we need to treat you immediately. Her response to being told that she has likely consumed deadly mushrooms is to say, Woolworths. Which if you're not from Australia, you might not know Woolworths is one of our biggest, if not the biggest supermarket that we have in Australia, grocery store. So the doctor, his name is Dr. Chris Webber, and immediately he finds this weird. Because if she had said something like, oh my goodness, I found these mushrooms in my backyard, or I forged these mushrooms, I can't believe it. He probably wouldn't have thought that much about it, but or he wouldn't have thought it was suspicious, but blaming one of the biggest, if not the biggest supermarket in Australia, who have very strict food health and safety standards, it just stuck out to him as strange immediately. Aaron also declined to undergo a full examination. She also refuses to be admitted, and she actually leaves the hospital. She's been there all of five minutes. She's told she might have ingested death cap mushrooms, and she just leaves. Dr. Webber tried to call her. He left a voicemail for her. She didn't answer, she never called him back, and so he actually decided to contact the police. This is Dr. Chris Web calling from Leongatha Hospital. Um, and I have a concern regarding a patient that, uh, presented here earlier, but has left the building, um, and is potentially exposed to, uh, a fatal toxin from mushroom poisoning. Uh, and I've tried several times to, uh, get hold of her on her mobile phone. So, uh, before I get all that information in, what address do you need the, um, police to attend, Dr. Chris? Uh, yeah, so, well, should I give the hospital address or the address of the patient? If you know where they are, their address. I, I have the address of the patient. Go ahead with that. Okay. Yeah. Nearest intersection is, is that correct? Um, I'd have to get Google Maps up, but, uh, yes, I, I would say that sounds right. That sounds like a straight in Leongatha. What's her name? So the, the last name is Patterson, P A T T E R S O N. First name. Erin, E R I N. Do you have a date of birth? 30th of September 1974. When did she present at hospital? Um, at 8:05 today. Yes. Um, mushroom poisoning, you said. Yeah, so there were five people that ate a meal on Saturday, and, uh, two of them are in intensive care at, uh, Dandenong Hospital. Uh, two have just been transferred from Leongatha Hospital to Dandenong Hospital, uh, and Erin presented this morning with, uh, symptoms of poisoning. Bear with me, you.
[34:16]Um, and what happened when she presented? She's gotten left. Uh, no, she was, there was time for the nurse to begin observations, and, uh, I, uh, I was managing the other critically unwell patients, so I had a brief chat to her about where the mushrooms were obtained. Um, and, uh, after that, uh, uh, while I was attending the other patients, the nurse, uh, informed me that she had discharged herself against medical advice. Before the police can even contact her or reach her house, she comes back into the hospital at 9:48 a.m. And this time she comes in, she accepts that she's going to do some testing, and they also tell her that she should bring her children in. They really urge her to bring them in because she had told them that she had fed her children the leftovers of that beef Wellington on the 29th of July. So the day that the lunch took place, they had leftovers later that night. Allegedly, neither of them record being told not to eat the food or that the food was dangerous, and neither of them mentioned anything about the mushrooms being scraped off. For this reason, the prosecution suggested that Aaron served, cooked herself and served herself and her children a different portion than she served the rest of the guests.
[35:50]Her children also allegedly told the police that they didn't know their mom to forage for mushrooms, and in fact, nobody in Aaron's life mentioned that she had gotten into foraging at all, or they didn't know her to forage. Now, during this trial, no specific motive was ever presented, but the prosecution did take the jury through what they alleged was growing anger and resentment from Aaron towards Simon and her in-laws. They spoke about Simon's tax return that listed him as single and led to a bunch of disputes between them about child support. They also spoke about Aaron's frustration towards her in-laws for their reluctance to get involved. I'm honestly not sure where Heather and Ian come into it, and yeah, there was no specific motive that was ever presented at the trial.
[36:48]So the trial ended on the 1st of July in 2025, and the jury deliberated for six and a half days before reaching their verdict. On the 7th of July 2025, Aaron Patterson was found guilty of three counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder. Because this is so recent, um, I'm filming this still in July. She hasn't been sentenced yet, so I will definitely keep you guys updated on that, and if she attempts to make any appeals, which hopefully she doesn't. Also at the time of filming this, I thought I would just mention, but just yesterday, the Daily Mail, which I don't know how reputable the Daily Mail is, but I just thought I would mention it. The Daily Mail came out with an article alleging that doctors found her to have Munchausen syndrome. And if you're not familiar with Munchausen's, it's basically a psychological disorder where somebody either pretends to be sick or they actually do things to themselves and take things to make themselves appear sick so that people will care about them and and make them the center of attention. They say in this article, quote, The condition could potentially save Patterson from being jailed for life if it's cited as a mitigating factor for the murders, although that outcome is unlikely. So I will definitely keep you guys updated on that. I'll keep you updated on the sentencing, if there are any appeals, anything about that Munchausen's. I mean, the Daily Mail really isn't that reliable, but it just came out yesterday, so I don't know. I'll I'll definitely make sure to keep you updated on anything that comes out about the case. But it is truly, just, it's just such a tragic case. I mean, her children were just nine and 14 years old. They've lost both their grandparents. They have lost their mother, really. Simon lost both of his parents. Ian lost his wife and his family, and he had to go through weeks and weeks fighting for his life. And of course, Don and Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson lost their lives. It is just tragic beyond words, this case. But that's all from me today, guys. That's all for today's video. I will, like I said, I'll keep you updated. I'll be in the comments to chat to you, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your day. I hope you enjoy the rest of your week, and hopefully, I will see you in my next video. Bye guys.
