Why the mushroom killer is back in court

ABC Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music and more. One of Australia's most recognizable broadcasters is facing the biggest battle of his life. Alan Jones has pleaded not guilty to multiple historical sexual assault charges and now the case is before the courts. I'm not going to dwell here on the allegations made about me. Other than to say that I refute them entirely. As witnesses step into the box in the evidence unfolds, the case of podcast will be your eyes and ears inside the courtroom. Search the case of podcast on ABC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts. It was one of the most watched criminal court cases in history. And now it's back. Mushroom killer, Erin Patterson's appeal against her conviction of murdering three lunch guests and attempting to murder a fourth begins this week. Today, criminologist and lawyer, Dr. Brianna Chesa from RMIT. On the seven reasons Patterson's lawyers argue she's been the victim of a miscarriage of justice. I am Sam Hawley, on Gadigal Land in Sydney. This is ABC News Daily. Can you tell us about the milk that you caused? I'm sorry. I'm devastated by what's happened, but the loss of. doing. donnie's still in hospital, the loss of. E and in her. Brianna, it feels like a long time ago now that the press approached Erin Patterson outside her Victorian home and quizzed her about the deaths of these lunch guests. I'm so sorry. That I shouldn't have, because my mum passed away four years ago. And Gayles never been anything good and kind to me. It's a moment that's really hard to forget, isn't it? Yes, I can still sort of picture it back in August 2023, her standing outside of her home. She was quite tearful, and she explained to the reporters that she'd done nothing wrong, that she loved her family and was just completely devastated by what happened. Police say you're a suspect. Do you have anything to say about that? Yes, I say I didn't do anything. I love them. That's what I have to say. And from that moment, the world was just captivated by this case, wasn't it? Yes, well, look, I think the fact that it was in a sort of. through Australian town and that it involved mushrooms as the mode of killing, if you like, it really captured the attention of the world. It's the story that has gripped Australia and got a small town reeling. Police have been searching Erin Patterson's home in the small town of Leon Gatham. New questions swirling about the deadly mushroom mystery. Was it accidental? A fatal foray into foraging that killed three members of the same family? Or was it murder? All right, so Erin Patterson, she is then arrested in November 2023 and in April 2025, her trial starts. Now, that goes for 11 weeks, during which she is cross-examined, just a reminder for everyone, and she has always maintained her innocence, hasn't she? Yes, she has consistently said that she didn't poison her guests intentionally. The defence really consisted of the arguments that it was just a tragic accident. And there was some behaviour that was after the deaths that was. let's call it a little bit odd. The dumping of the food dehydrate, for example. And the defence have said, well, they were acts of panic, rather than acts that evidenced a consciousness of guilt. And then on the 7th of July, a jury found her guilty. And then in September, the Victorian Supreme Court Justice Christopher Bill, he sentenced her to life in prison with a 33-year non-parole period. Your failure to exhibit any remorse pours salt into all the victim's wounds. I have no hesitation in finding that your offending falls into the worst category for the offences of murder and attempted murder. The gravity of your offending warrants the imposition of the maximum penalties for your crimes. So Brianna this week, of course, the case will be back in court because Erin Patterson is appealing her conviction and sentence. How significant is it that this appeal was granted in the first place? Well, look, we've got to remember that appeals are available, but they're not automatic as of right. So they have to apply, this is the defense had to apply within 28 days, and they have to give an indication on what grounds. The court then assesses whether or not an appeal can go ahead. And in the case of Patterson, it was granted. So we've got that appeal starting this week. We're now in August of 2026. So again, a significant amount of time has passed. Yeah, absolutely. And will a jury be hearing the appeal? No. So the first person in Victoria are decided by a bench of senior judges. So it's usually three-quartered appeal judges and definitely not a jury. The purpose of this court of appeal panel is to review legal errors, assess procedural fairness, and to have a look at evidence admissibility. So we've got to remember that they're not there to retry the facts. This is not a retrial. It isn't appeal. So it's going to be limited in terms of what evidence can be put before the court of appeal, and then what they can do with that. Okay, and the court of appeal this time is in Melbourne. Correct. Well, let's now look at what Erin Patterson's Defence Team will be arguing in the court of appeal. Part of this appeal, according to documents lodged before the court already, relates in part to the closing address by the prosecutor, Nenet Rogers. Yes. There are seven grounds of appeal in total and really two of the points, go to the prosecution's closing. The issue that the defence has is that the prosecutor's closing address created a miscarriage of justice because it implied that there was a motive. Now, anyone that's seen the transcript or was following the trial will know that the prosecutor almost, you know, sort of four or five times a day said, "I'm not implying a motive. We're not turning here to motive. I'm not talking about motive." However, in their closing address, it was implied that Patterson had a motive. So the prosecution relied heavily on some angry text messages that Patterson had sent 18 months prior to the lunch, and she said things like, "I'm sick of this. I want nothing to do with them being her family." In the context of the breakup of the marriage between her and her husband, and the prosecution mentioned them in the closing and in doing so, in framing Patterson's testimony in that way, the implication from that was that it was deliberate and that Patterson acted in response to the dispute. So it's not a direct linkage to the motive, but the defence is saying that it is possible that the jury may have been able to have implied a motive from that, and that has now created a substantial miscarriage of justice. So the defence is arguing that the prosecution's case changed, if you like. Correct. Yeah, basically that they impermissively changed their legal strategy between the opening and the closing. We've got to remember that prosecution have a lot more rules for conduct than what the defence do. So the prosecution actually aren't permitted by rules of court to introduce new evidence, and really what the defence is saying here is that the prosecution's skirted not only very close to the line, but have actually overstepped. Okay, so that's one element that will be argued by the defence in this court of appeal. What else is there? Some of it goes to evidence, doesn't it? Yes, it does. We've got three categories. So seven grounds, three real categories. The first one is about the jury's sequestration, so the hotel problem. Okay. The next kind of one, two, three and four, following down that list are about evidence, and then the conducts of the cross-examination. So if we have a look at the evidence, so ground two of the appeal talks about cell tower evidence and evidence from an app called the I naturalist. And you might remember that this is where people post death-cap mushroom sightings basically. That particular evidence was permitted to be admitted, and the defence is saying it ought not to have been admitted ever. Now, I think what the defence is really going to be pointing to is that the prosecution couldn't prove that Patterson even was aware of that app or saw those notifications. So they're really relying on relevance, if you like. Now, look, all of this sounds really quite particular and a little bit strange, but what the defence is saying is that by including this particular evidence, it enabled the prosecution to prove that there was a history of foraging or a pattern of foraging that didn't actually exist. What the prosecution was saying was, well, you know, Patterson foraged all the time so she would know what a death-cap mushroom was or not. So you can see how this kind of goes to the heart of the I naturalist. issue. Brianna, there's also some issues that the defence have over social media videos. Just tell me about that. Yes, that's right. So the fourth ground that the defence have raised particularly relates to Facebook. So Facebook evidence that included testimonies and statements from her friends on Facebook, as well as private messages, shouldn't have been allowed to be in the trial is what the ground is. And the issue here is similar to the Saltaward data that we were talking about before. The defence says that these social media interactions are irrelevant. And the main purpose that they served was to unfairly prejudice the jury against Addison. They were quite cross exchanges. She was talking to people about some of the things that had been going on in her life. And they really didn't paint Addison in a very good light. I will say that this particular ground is a rehashing of what the defence tried to run at the pre-trial hearing and the grounds were admitted. OK, and then, as you mentioned, there's the issue of the hotel. Now just remind me about that because there was a concern about where people were staying during the trial. Yes, so the ground here is framed as a fundamental irregularity occurred when the jury was sequestered at the same hotel as members of the media, police witnesses, the members of the prosecution team. So they all ended up at the same hotel, bridges on Argyle, Inter-Ralgan. Now, this is a little bit of a difficult ground to understand because it really is at the moment a philosophical one. So the defence isn't saying at the moment that there was any sort of impropriety that went on in that particular hotel. However, the defence is saying that this compromise, the perception of a standard of a fair trial. So we know in our legal system that not only does justice need to be done, it needs to be seen to be done. So my question here would be about what actually do the defence have? Do they have any evidence of a particular interaction that's compromised the minds of the jury? Have they obtained statements from witnesses about that? Is there more to what happened or is this a philosophical argument that resulted as a result of a failure of logistical planning? I mean, there aren't very many hotels. So it was really quite limited and just practically because of the amount of people that were interested in this trial, it's highly likely that you're going to have a media police witnesses and the prosecution because everyone's coming in as well as members of the defence team. They're coming into this particular rural community and wouldn't have had anywhere to stay. Brianna, the list goes on. There's many. So just tell me, you know, the other concern that the defence has and it goes to the cross-examination. That's right. So this last ground is looking particularly at the cross-examination. So when Patterson herself was on the stand to give evidence and the ground is that the prosecutors cross-examination was grueling and they're calling it an unfair and oppressive. And that in itself resulted in a miscarriage of justice. So the defence team are saying that because Patterson was on the stand for five days, that the nature of that questioning and the length of it went beyond what was permissible and compromised her right to a fair trial. All right. And what about the Director of Public Prosecutions then? What do we expect from them this week? So you can imagine that they've been doing exactly the same work as the defence in going through the trial. They will of course, we'll not agree with the grounds raised by the defence. And we also know that they're also not very happy with the length of the sentence that was given to Patterson. So if we think about outcomes for a court of appeal proceeding, so there's really three. So the first one is that the appeals dismissed. The second option is a sentence reduction. The third option is a sentence increase and that is part of rolling the dice in heading to the court of appeal in Victoria. You could ask for a sentence reduction, but actually on balance, the court of appeal may find that the sentence was actually not adequate and they could increase it. But if she's successful in this appeal, there is a possibility Brianna that her conviction would be quashed and she would be let go. Yes. They could order a retrial, the conviction could be quashed, it is really quite open now. And I think we're all going to be very interested to see what happens with this appeal. Brianna Chesa is an associate professor in criminology and justice at RMIT. She's also a criminal lawyer and a clinical forensic psychologist. This episode was produced by Alaria Broffy and Louise Mylon, audio production by Sam Downe. Our supervising producer is Sydney Peat. I'm Sam Hawley. Thanks for listening.