Australian mushroom deaths: Inside the family lunch that killed three | Under Investigation

[Music] it's the mystery mushroom meal that has gripped Australia and the world five people sit down to lunch only two Will Survive our investigation Starts Now [Music] [Music] good evening I'm Liz Hayes and this is under investigation [Music] Saturday July the 29th in the small Victorian town of leongatha family lunch [Music] the guests Don and Gail Patterson local Baptist pastor Ian Wilkinson and his wife Heather tell me how I am the cook and the host Aaron Patterson the meal Beef Wellington [Music] tonight we investigate this fatal Family Feast was it a deadly accident involving one of our most toxic fungi or was there another reason for these terrible deaths in this small town it'd get you in because on one hand you know was it a innocent tragedy or was it a premeditated murder or triple murder [Music] team of experts Birds include former Victorian detective and private investigator Damien Merritt he talked to locals who know the families you've been there you've had a look around what do we know this was a family lunch yeah there's problems in the family and those four people came around because I suppose they're sort of mentors they're there for sort of a referee a Reconciliation between Aaron and her separated husband Simon a lot of people and connected to the Baptist Church say that Simon's parents went to happy about any reconciliation who organized the uh they get together for the lunch uh I believe it was Erica former Victorian major crime Squad detective and an expert Bushman Alex christiech the Garlic's on the face of it it's a Saturday lunch it's what happens in a lot of homes a gathering of people for whatever reason it seemed um on the face of it quite benign well for all intents and purposes it's it's a lunch between five people banana I suppose would probably be the best way to describe it a lot of people do have relationships with in-laws Beyond separation and relationships breaking down that's not completely unusual also joining our table is clinical psychologist Tamara cabinet often yes there's conflict in families I think everyone knows that so just because things give the appearance of being amicable doesn't always mean that they are and things are often unspoken but no matter the family dynamics that Day tragedy would strike the group became sick the following day and went to hospital thinking it was gastro but their conditions deteriorated July the 30th the day after the lunch all four guests are admitted to hospital their symptoms strongly suggest they've been poisoned by a deadly mushroom the death cap six days later on Friday the 4th of August Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson die by the next day Don Patterson is also dead and tonight Pastor Ian Wilkinson remains in hospital can I bring you in here Michael when somebody arrives with symptoms of poisoning and if we are to presume it's from this mushroom well how would you know how quickly can you determine that well that's one of the interesting things with this Toxin and this mushroom is that there's usually a delay of many hours after you've eaten the mushroom and ingested the toxin before you actually start to get sick Dr Michael Robertson is one of Australia's leading forensic toxicologists so they've gone home they've finished lunch I I presume they probably felt okay if we're dealing with the death cup mushroom they're feeling fine they go home it may be that they're on their way to bed later in the day and now they start to feel quite unwell which is why sometimes it can be a little bit difficult to then think what did I have at lunch because enlighten me all patients at the same hospital here yes and the hospital would have been aware that all of this happened in or about the same location at about the same time yep yeah yeah so so some medical sleuthing at least might say to you are this group was together somewhere and they've all turned up sick so perhaps that's where it's come from if the patient was coherent because one of the things that that happened with the toxicity is when you start vomiting you're also partially can be hallucinating Dr haiki newmeister Camp is a Mycologist an expert in mushrooms mushroom poisoning it is so nasty because we don't really have an antidote we don't have an anti-venom that we can oh yeah you just get an injection and now that's over and done bit we've heard about the violent vomiting diarrhea and in fact that first phase can be really quite debilitating in and of itself it's then when the people start to feel better that they think it's over and done with [Music] but in truth the death cap mushroom is a ruthless killing machine it's poisonous toxin Sparks a vicious cycle so that even after it's been excreted the body continues to destroy itself Michael this horrific cycle this toxic cycle that I had no idea happens it's one of those toxins that gets into your system we don't know necessarily how it works completely it gets absorbed into the bloodstream it then gets transported to the liver and it gets absorbed into the liver the body doesn't break this toxin down so we've actually just got to get rid of it usually in the urine but also in the bile and the bile duct drops bile back into the intestines it's triggering a basically the death of the liver cells in in essence you're telling me your body's trying to get rid of it but then it's still in there and it started killing you and and then the toxin leaves but your body's still turning on you that's right all the toxins gone within a few days on a DNA level you literally regurgitating the Toxin and then slowly but consistently your your liver literally dissolves and that that is the really um seat making part here for the the three who have died it was a horrific end yes it would have been a number of days it would have been a horrible if they remained conscious they may have gone into a coma I don't know but if they remained conscious certainly that first day would have been absolutely horrific those who've eaten death cap mushrooms and survived do not forget the Dreadful symptoms cameraman Simon claringbold found the mushrooms in his garden today he feels lucky to be alive I thought geez those mushrooms look great I'll have them on my spaghetti bolognese tonight 18 hours later I started being really violently ill you know I just felt this impending doom because so basically I knew I was poisoned and poison was slowly overcoming my body and there was no way out so um you're just sort of contemplating the fact that uh you're facing the end for 11 days Simon stared at death I was convinced that I was going to die and so I recorded video messages for my children because I knew I was going to be missing that part of the of of their lives it's basically just waiting sort of on death row just just waiting clear people do feel that don't they they do because it's one of those times in life where you were just have your entire brain overwhelmed with the emotions that you're experiencing and the sense of fear this is so big I'm not going to survive absolutely and it can cause traumatic reactions for years to come because they've been through what is essentially near death you struck a house of cards the person at the center of this tragedy is mother of two Aaron Patterson she has been named as the person of interest but only because she was the cook and as police pointed out it doesn't mean she is guilty of a crime it has though put this seemingly shy very private person at the center of a very public and Global media storm it's a tragedy [Music] tell us about the meal that you cooked [Music] devastated by what's happened about the loss of sorry Don is still in hospital there was some Ian and Heather and Gail from some of the best people that I've ever met girls like I'm taking time that I didn't have because my mum passed away four years ago and Gail's never made anything but couldn't kind of me and Ian and Heather were some of the best people I've ever met they never did anything wrong to me I'm so devastating about what's happened to the community it's the families and to my own children I've lost their grandmother everything about Aaron Patterson is under scrutiny how would she be coping tomorrow so I mean obviously should be under incredible stress and pressure absolutely overwhelmed you make the point that with the knowledge that the world is looking at you and you have you know a lot of media at your door it is hard to respond naturally so whenever we have you know intense you know I guess attention to us it can change how we respond you can actually really struggle because it'll kick in your fight and flight and a lot of your responses can often appear incongruent with what people would expect Aaron how are you going I'm going out thanks for asking you guys aren't helping that's where we fall into an unfortunate judgment don't we because this is this is in public now certainly so you know there's historical cases where people have been entirely exonerated or something and people have judged their presentation particularly in front of the media um and have decided whether they believe that that indicates guilt or otherwise Lindy Chambler yes the Australian case that comes to mind and it's simply because we have all of these expectations about what we think is appropriate for a response in high stress [Music] Alex when you look at Aaron Patterson what do you think there are a lot of variables involved in situations like this she may well not have done anything wrong but she may well also be a person of interest or a suspect you can rest assured that there will be no stone unturned regarding Aaron's background her conduct her behavior things that she has been involved with inquiries she's made things that she's done and and as a police officer you do you look at Aaron's public appearances don't you of course you do but you can't you can't allow that to um to sway you as far as investigators she seems so terribly upset as much as you can't be swayed by is she really upset well you know if you've got three people that you love uh have all of a sudden died as a result of having a meal at your place it would you wouldn't be human if you weren't in some way upset or showed some sort of emotion as detectives we don't operate on on emotions we operate on facts in the media scramble to learn more about the mushroom meal can you tell us where the mushrooms came from Aaron Patterson found herself being pushed for answers so the media asking questions intrigues you of course it does and the answer must Intrigue if somebody if there is an an incidental admission or comment made by a suspect that can well become evidentiary material to end Aaron Patterson at that point was asked about the mushrooms you would look at that well of course it's it's it's it's it's probably the most significant aspect of the case we take everything everything's on the table if you're an investigator coming up the deadly dish if you were intended to mask the fact that there was mushrooms in a dish that would probably be a fairly good way I'd earlier and those mushrooms if one wanted to obtain this fungi it is certainly available under the microscope it was not just one mushroom ten or more of these caps at least that's next on under investigation oh [Music] tonight we're investigating the traumatic but curious deaths in country Victoria's tragic story that has gripped not only Australia but now it have become one of the most talked about Mysteries around the world that massive Saga going on down under new questions swirling about the deadly mushroom mystery three people are dead and a fourth is critically ill a Saturday lunch where only two of the five diners survive the deaths are unexplained and for that purpose we are involved a meal to have in it a deadly and toxic mushroom it's certainly looking like you know the symptoms are consistent with death cap mushrooms [Music] served up to guests was the quintessentially British dish Beef Wellington it's a challenging choice for any home cook recipes vary but it involves beef coated with a mushroom paste and then rolled in pastry it's not only difficult to make but for diners the mushrooms are not easy to detect as they're blitzed and often mixed with other ingredients Alex christiech well as an investigator I would want to get down to the nitty ingredients what do you need to know I would go all the way back to the preparation of the meal preparation the process the processes of obtaining the ingredients preparing the ingredients where everything came from did I taste it for flavor and then how the meal was distributed it has been reported that Aaron Patterson the host and cook told police everyone at the Fatal lunch chose their own portions of the beef wellington she said everybody selected their own plates she then took the plate and ate a serve of beef wellington herself yeah every detail of that meal from preparation aspect right through to the completion of the meal and and starting with why did you choose that meal if you were intended to mask the fact that there was mushrooms in a dish would probably be a fairly good way of doing it yeah yeah what I'm talking what I was trying to establish is whether or not the people were actually aware that it was mushrooms that they were eating could you taste them if there's a bad mushroom can you taste it bad no she wouldn't you wouldn't taste you wouldn't taste a bad mushroom so it's not that it tastes bitter or or anyhow unpleasant so it would be probably nice to consume mushroom expert Mycologist Dr hiki newmeister Kemp says if the toxic death cap mushroom is the culprit the guests at the lunch would have had to consume more than one I tried to calculate how much mushrooms if if you have for five people you probably need 10 full mushrooms to actually get enough paste to to to have that in there so there should be a far amount of this mushroom for preparing one of those meals Michael Robertson it was not just one mushroom that was a rogue in the system well I think if mushroom toxins have caused these illnesses then it's almost certainly more than just one again we know that one per person will make them quite ill you might need two per person to uh to lead to death just to be clear when we look at the mushrooms and we're talking about the cap the top here that's where the majority of the toxin sits what is intriguing is why the four guests became so so cook Erin Patterson did not and nor did her children whom she says later ate the dish as leftovers after she had scraped the mushroom paste away as investigators we've got to keep an open mind if if she says that she's scraped the mushrooms from from the plights before she served it to her children you would ask her why she did that she does say she scraped the mushrooms from that dish because they don't like mushrooms but I thought that the mushroom was actually as a paste how could you actually physically scrape it off there are so many questions what was then the possibility of somebody ingesting how much of what how come the children did not get sick or how was it that three people die and the first person didn't I mean is it is it possible to have such a difference in reactions well I would have thought if they had the same amount of toxin you will have some subtle differences perhaps based on the the health of an individual and how fit young perhaps you might suffer less but this is a highly toxic component of these mushrooms and I would have expected to have seen quite significant toxicity regardless I was just going to ask Michael if she had to cook those poisonous mushrooms within that meal the beef wellington would the toxins have gone into other parts of that meal yes so these toxins are interesting in so far as they're fairly heat stable snake venom and Marine Venom and all those other types of Venom and toxins are often able to be degraded when they're heated up um and that's often why we pour hot water on people when they've had a sting these toxins in the mushrooms are fairly stable when you ate heat but they're also quite water-soluble so once you have a mushroom in a liquid you're then going to have leaching of some of the toxin not all of it but some of the toxin then will move into other parts of the food [Music] so how did one of the world's deadliest of mushrooms get into Aaron Patterson's Beef Wellington it's a central question in this tragic story Erin Patterson says she used fresh button mushrooms from a local supermarket and dried mushrooms she had bought in an Asian grocery store months before Michael we know the button mushrooms should not have been a problem so it would have to be in the dried mushrooms that um Erin Patterson has told us she added to the mixture that would mean just about every Mushroom in the packet would be a if it's a death cap be a death cap and How likely is that and and how lucky is the rest of the community that they too didn't get sick if that is where it's sourced from and I guess that's a you know a lot of good questions that I suspect there's a lot of people out there trying to answer but that's in effect what you would need you would need a good number of however many were in the packet to have been death cup mushrooms former detective Damien Merritt says it's important to know if others have fallen ill particularly if toxic mushrooms were part of a dried batch Erin Patterson says she bought in a packet months before it wouldn't have been the only packet there on the shelf and nobody else has died or got sick that we know of um others would have bought that same packaged mushroom imported dried mushrooms are subject to intense scrutiny by Australian authorities a spokesman for the Department of Agriculture fisheries and Forestry told under investigation there is no evidence of death-capped mushrooms ever being imported into Australia I think it's very very important whether it's an Asian supermarket or any Supermarket the mushroom food industry is so heavy regulated and extremely well guarded because of the knowledge that there could be poisonous mushrooms so it is checked double checked and triple checked there is one other source of death cap mushrooms they grow wild in the area where this tragedy occurred and it is a region known to foragers who are given warnings about what to collect we do know a high key that the death cap as we understand it is in the gippsland area where uh the families lived yeah as a desk cap is actually Amanita fellow items and um lives very closely to where oak trees are and there is certainly a lot of Old Creek there so there is the possibility if one would wanted to obtain this fungi it is certainly available if you've got a poisonous mushroom in in the system here touching them is not necessarily going to make you sick no as a touching the mushroom does not make you sick most of the toxin is actually in the cap and a little bit more also in the stock but if you just touch it and don't actually ingest people did not necessarily fault it mushroom poisoning in Australia does occur but identifying toxic species is still an issue Switzerland takes the threat so seriously it employs mushroom police from the Swiss Capital burn to the smallest towns there are inspection stations for mushrooms called pills control yes it saves life definitely Iris ma Taylor has been an official mushroom inspector for over a decade there are 10 people in Bern controlling but overall Switzerland we have many many they are doing the same thing we have a lot of poison mushrooms that we take off when we control if we can prevent one test that will be wonderful like the rest of the world there has been wide reporting of the Victorian mushroom case in Switzerland I heard that a wife made a Phila Wellington with a mushroom sauce and in the sauce she had cap mushrooms in fact similar poisonings were the reason the Swiss established its inspection program cap mushrooms to have the first symptoms it takes between 8 and 12 hours after you have eaten them if really they would have eaten the mushrooms because that's still a question you know it has to be believed that everyone at the lunch on that Winter's day in Late July had no idea how badly it would end coming up still can't get my head around The Dumping of the dehydrator Erin Patterson says her ex-husband said is that what you use to poison them the cook tills her side of the story if I'd done nothing wrong and telling the truth to get it off my chest and defend myself the truth never changes that's next on under investigation [Music] good [Music] Victoria's deadly mushroom mystery has had an appalling impact a small community has lost three of its residents and a fourth clings to life all would have suffered terribly was it a innocent tragedy or was it a premeditated murder or triple murder and Aaron Patterson the woman who cooked their last lunch has had to endure intense scrutiny Aaron how are you going I'm going thanks for asking you guys aren't helping [Music] Aaron Patterson gave a statement to police after initially choosing not to comment she changed her mind she says because she was extremely stressed and overwhelmed by the deaths of her loved ones Tamara Covenant it's hard isn't it not to want to speak up for yourself it's incredibly hard with media and public scrutiny I think if you speak to anyone who's ever had their reputation damaged publicly or put into question they have a keen desire to speak out for whatever their point of view may be that's what I have to say Erin Patterson's statement according to police was not taken by investigators rather it appears it was supplied to them by her lawyers Alex what's the importance in the difference here a statement that you put out in a statement that the police take well legal practitioners probably would have in the back of their mind that what's best for their clients and sometimes material could be included or excluded depending on what the circumstances are is it smart to get on the front foot in this situation if I'd if I'd for instance I'll speak for myself and if I'd done nothing wrong and telling the truth to get it off my chest and and defend myself is the truth never changes most people where they are genuinely innocent of what's occurred will spill it all out and give it to your warts and all in her written statement is imported in the mid it concerns a food dehydrator a kitchen appliance commonly used to dry fruit vegetables and mushrooms Patterson initially told police she disposed of hers a long time ago then suggested it was after the lunch when she panicked and dumped it at the tip her fears she says were about the consequences after her former husband Simon allegedly said to her at the hospital is that what you use to poison them oh she was conscious of the fact that she hadn't been entirely frankincense investigators that raises questions for you as an investigator it certainly does you're right look telling lies to police isn't an offense and uh she might have told the life of a specific purpose but if she was doing it to exculpate herself from any activity that's something that you can draw conclusions from and it's certainly something that if it was to be presented to a jury Jew would be allowed to draw their conclusions based on them it's devastating and I'm grieving too we must point out that Aaron Patterson says the reason for all of this is that she was at the hospital with her children discussing the food dehydrator when her ex-husband said is that what you use to poison them and she said that she was worried that she might lose custody of the children the couple's children she panicked look when people are under any type of pressure stress anxiety and confusion they can give all of the signs of someone who is both lying so they can appear nervous fidgety they can contradict Their Own Story certainly make changes to a story that they've told and all of that is actually perfectly predicted of someone who's in high anxiety and high stress as much as it's perfectly predictive of someone who's lying we don't we can't actually tell when people are lying very well and we do know in in a court of law lies alone are not evidence you have to know why the lie is being told in fact I think it's very clearly stated that a lie alone isn't necessarily appointed to guilt no but it's something that that may indicate a Consciousness or a level of culpability our investigator on the ground is former Victorian detective Damien Merritt he followed a number of leads and they included Aaron Patterson's disposal of the food dehydrator at the local refuse Center there's two tips there's one in kurumburra which is 13 K's from leongatha and there's another tip in kunwara but that's about half that distance so she's decided to go to the kumwera tip and on speaking with workers there interestingly without saying when did she come or anything like that one of them stated to us that I don't know because I wasn't working Saturday morning now this is after Saturday morning that's the morning of the lunch yeah which doesn't make sense there was CCTV footage so the police would have that and they can work out when it was and there were other kitchen utensils we understand in the dump what they um what a lot of the workers said down there because look they've been told not to say anything to Media so they basically said the police were here on Tuesday um looking for I think it was microwave trays and other utensils so you know obviously they're wondering what she did dump there and whether there's a chance she dumped uh other sort of kitchen utensils and things there they wouldn't have gone just to that tip they would have gone to every tip in the in the area and they would have interviewed all the relevant Witnesses the people that were present and and obtained all their exhibits according to my colleges Dr hiki new master Camp police will be testing the food dehydrator for traces of death cap mushrooms there would be certainly spores in the drying process there would be certainly parts of the mushroom the spores or other bits be available on which you then could do um DNA testing so you would expect that perhaps there might be some remnants of the mushrooms in the dehydrator if in fact it was used for that which we have no knowledge of but anything that is dried in there of course would leave a imprint and a mushroom would leave a sport imprint does drying the mushroom change anything hiking no frying mushrooms is used very widely for preservation it looks different but the the dried mushroom will have the same capacity um as an eighth taste and B the toxicity that is uh inside it what would occur is obviously the the water in the mushroom disappears so you concentrate the toxin in in the amount that's left but of course the weight is less when you're dehydrated so the amount of toxin stays the same in the whole mushroom but you're now concentrating it into the cap [Music] all those those stuffed at the lunch and including those who were originally to be there will be of interest to police and that includes Simon Patterson Aaron's former husband Simon was to be at the lunch but she says in her statement that prior to the day he told her he would not be attending in an extraordinary coincidence more than 12 months before the lunch Simon Patterson fell victim to a near fatal gut illness himself which he documented in a Facebook post Michael he was in a coma for 16 days he thought he was going to die that's a serious illness isn't it yeah it's a serious illness that's right do you think from what he says in his post his symptoms could be similar to the the kind of uh symptoms we've seen elsewhere in this kind of poisoning well there's some of the symptoms that are similar certainly the that gastrointestinal violent gastrointestinal component I I don't know whether he experienced any liver related toxicity that would be something that I would be interested in knowing but it's certainly a significant illness if he's in hospital for that period of time could other mushrooms poisonous mushrooms not overtact the liver yes if the illness occurs quite quickly after you've eaten the mushroom then you've got a different type of mushroom what is somewhat unique to this death cup mushroom is that six eight hour lag and then you get better and then that liver toxicity High key the first question I would ask did you actually eat mushrooms back then or where their mushrooms consumed in and around that sickness we are not suggesting in any way that Aaron Patterson was involved in her ex-husband's illness in a case that's so baffling it is just another mystery coming up oh Lord it looks like these are poison mushrooms the mushroom meal in America and that in fact was the cause of death that ended in a murder conviction if they're able to identify the death cap for the laboratory that's that's you're halfway there that's next on under investigation [Music] [Music] um really has a case received so much media attention tragic story three people are dead serving a deadly meal and that's because there is still much to learn new questions swirling about the deadly mushroom mystery tonight we've examined what we do know we've got three people that are deceased and one meddling for their life where it is believed that they've consumed mushrooms and what police will want to know we are working as hard as we can to try and identify why these deaths have happened what was the cause of the poisoning and if it is because of death cap mushrooms as suspected how did this toxic fungi come to be in Aaron Patterson's Beef Wellington if you intended to mask the fact that there was mushrooms in a dish that would probably be a fairly good way of doing it and then there's the food dehydrator I still can't get my head around The Dumping of the dehydrator the kitchen appliance Aaron Patterson admits to disposing of and not being truthful about when she threw it away a lot of the items that we have seized will be forensically tested in the hope that Quebec can shed some light on what has occurred at the lunch investigations involving mushroom poisoning are complex weeks to months can be spent determining the toxins which deteriorate in the body quickly each one of these cases are as individual as people are it's like looking for a needle in a haystack John chalfin is a former U.S County coroner in Indiana three years ago he investigated the baffling death of software entrepreneur David Fouts working along the side of this rarely traveled Road in Hamilton County a woman discovered a man's body in late April our office received a call and we responded and there was a body in the ditch and it was apparent that it had been moved it there right away that indicated something nefarious was going on there are virtually no injuries there were a few scrape marks which would then from when he his body was transferred the lack of any obvious cause of death hampered the investigation of David fout's murder although his wife Katrina was an early suspect ahiyan Katrina had been married for some time and what ensued in the investigation was that she had a boyfriend who was a retired policeman and the two of them conspired to get rid of the husband [Music] an autopsy was carried out in the hope of finding answers and the forensic pathologist when he opened up the stomach the first thing he said oh Lord he said looks like these are poison mushrooms DNA testing identified them as the potentially deadly white Dome cap mushroom and extensive toxicology tests revealed traces of their poison in David fout's liver and kidneys so we knew that systemically he had absorbed the poison and that in fact was the cause of death the investigators discovered Katrina Fouts had been researching deadly mushrooms but they couldn't prove she'd fed the toxic fungi to her husband the one thing that we were never able to determine was how it was introduced it was ingested obviously but was it the boyfriend was it the wife officially the crime was described as homicide by unspecified means and in April last year Katrina Fouts was sentenced to 34 years for conspiracy to murder and John chalfam believes he knows how the killing happened they had two homes one was a summer home that was in our County when they searched the summer home they found a pizza box I believe that he had eaten a pizza and they dusted it with mushrooms Corona chauvin's experience illustrates how demanding it is for police investigating possible poisonings poisonings are very remote and then you have to be able to prove was there intent to to kill somebody what was the motive what was the opportunity what was the agent so all those things have to be satisfied in order to successfully prosecute someone [Music] in Australia Victorian police have warned their investigation into the tragedy of Leon gether will not be speedy they still need to determine with certainty that the beef wellington Aaron Patterson served to her guests had in it the poisonous death cap mushrooms that requires long and complex testing to identify the toxin something that may need International assistance toxicology Laboratories are set up for routine toxicology testing this wouldn't be seen by routine toxicology they would have to look for it now the Victorian Institute of forensic medicine which would be responsible for doing this testing that's as good a laboratory as you'll find anywhere in the world now whether they are able to do the testing I don't know it may be that they send the samples to Europe perhaps because that's where they see it more often it may be that they get some expertise brought in from overseas yes but if they're able to identify the death cap for the laboratory that's that's you're halfway there we know that the four elderly guests became desperately ill but we also know according to Aaron Patterson she felt unwell and she handed leftovers of the meat to the hospital toxicologists so if that's correct they have a specimen right there of the lunch how important is that that would be critically important if they've kept it that there would be a critical piece of evidence part of the police investigations will be to determine whether or not there has been Foul Play we have to keep an open mind in relation to this that it could be very innocent and that will be about proving intent just because you're a careless cook doesn't make you a murderer named Aaron Patterson as a suspect only because she's the cork but they're obliged as you said to investigate whether there has been Foul Play that's just a fact if she was an innocent agent which is something that needs to be considered fine you know we don't know what all the facts are what do you need here now this will be conducted by a team or teams of Detectives uh supported by analysts supported by forensic toxicologists supported by all sorts of state-of-the-art investigative tools I can assure you by the end of this um the police will be fully aware of all of the circumstances [Laughter] or not there is a motive to cause harm you don't just kill somebody without a reason you need to you need in most cases people don't kill people that they don't know they kill people that that they've that they know and that they go to dislike for whatever reason and that's that's your motive aspect of things then you go to an opportunity so you've got a means which is perhaps a a poison an opportunity to deliver it Damien having been on the ground you've gone to these towns you've spoken to the people what did you come away with and what were the questions you might like to ask oh look I think there's too many questions I'd like to ask because not one question on its own is is going to sort of solve anything really if you had one question for Aaron Patterson what might it be did you do it and admission is a good start to an investigation coming up there's a lot of sadness here at the moment the grief of a small town waiting for answers a lot of people that are passed very subtly very unexpectedly and very traumatically and the Survivor who may help solve the mystery there are a lot of things that that person may be in a position to clarify that's next on under investigation [Music] good this case may have the whole world talking but for a small town in Victoria it's been a harrowing experience when a tragedy happens in a small community it has a real hurt people hurt here and it's been a difficult time over the last three weeks people who are feeling very heavy with having lost such wonderful people that have been very much part of the community part of the church part of the school so there's a lot of sadness here at the moment for locals this is not just a mystery it is also a terrible tragedy what would be the psychology in this very small location look it can certainly divide a small community over their beliefs or thoughts on what happened and how how it makes them feel about who they trust and why [Music] a lot of people that have passed very suddenly very unexpectedly and very traumatically [Applause] they've lost three of Their Own Don and Gail Patterson and her sister Heather Wilkinson these are people who've played important roles and Central to the community very known so you can absolutely expect that this will have a dramatic effect and often sometimes for years to come on a community but there is news that the condition of Heather's husband Pastor Ian Wilkinson may be improving there have been poisonings where people have recovered and that's perhaps where we see at the moment one of the individuals in hospital stable but they may or may not I don't know they may be considering uh liver transplants and those sorts of things today is a day of prayer for sole survivor Pastor Ian at and they bring Catholic Church in coromborough as a hospital Ian Wilkinson could become a crucial witness the importance of this surviving member of the lunch there are a lot of things that that person may be in a position to clarify and details that that person can give with regards to all of the circumstances surrounding this he could support or contradict certain things that have happened and that will that will tell a lot and until this case is resolved Aaron Patterson will remain in the spotlight and a person of interest to police devastating and I'm grieving too see you tomorrow I guess this is a prime example of where we have to be thoughtful about our public judgments because it's now in the court of public opinion yeah certainly um you know I see people who have been pulled through you know public trials that have nothing to do with whether the facts on the table are in fact what occurred and huge pressure on them and reputations ruined so yes I do think people need to be really cautious around that yeah can this be resolved I think it'll be resolved I definitely believe that the the place will come to a outcome that will either exonerate her or you know stand up in court it'll literally be yep why are you so definite you've got all of the ingredients that you require you've got you've got you've got a live victim in hospital you've got all of the other material that the police are in the process of collecting analyzing um that they will they will come up with full and detailed reporters to exactly what happened for both of those reasons this is one of the most serious cases of suspected poisoning by mushrooms in Australia and host Aaron Patterson will no doubt forever be burdened with the knowledge that the meal she cooked has resulted in a horrific tragedy has any information we ask you to please call Crime Stoppers on 1-800-33-000 or contact us on our confidential email under investigation at nine.com dot are you I'd like to thank you all very much for joining me tonight and I thank you I'm Liz Hayes good night [Music] foreign [Music] hello I'm Liz Hayes and thank you for watching under investigation subscribe to our Channel now for exclusive clips and don't miss out on full episodes of under investigation on nine now and the nine Now app

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Id: xFRwU47pKic

Length: 52min 11sec (3131 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 23 2023