Hey everyone, how's it going?
My name's Andrew and you're listening to the Q -Lips English Podcast, the place where we help you improve your English fluency through listening to real conversations and true stories.
Today, we're returning to one of the most shocking and unforgettable stories that we've ever covered here on Q -Lips, the mushroom murder case in Australia, and now the trial is over and a verdict has been reached.
If you're new here or you haven't listened to the original episode about this case, then I've linked it for you in the description.
You might want to check that out before continuing so you can get the full backstory.
In today's lesson, we'll go through an original news article that explains exactly what happened.
Together, we'll go step by step and break down the key vocabulary that is important for understanding this story, words like jury, convicted, estranged, and verdict.
Mastering these words will help you to build your English fluency and understand how native speakers talk about current event topics.
Now, to get the most out of this lesson, I've linked a free interactive transcript and vocabulary glossary for you.
You can find that in the description for this episode.
And for all QLips members out there, there's also a a comprehension quiz so you can take the quiz after you finish with this episode and see how much you are able to understand.
Now, speaking of Q -Lips members, I wanted to give a special shout out to one of our members from Japan named Calrie, and she mentioned on our Discord server that she listened to the original Mushroom Murder Case episode over 50 times, which is just incredible And a great way to boost your English skills.
Kalari is also a regular during our weekly speaking classes for Q -Lips members.
And I can see her improve week by week by week.
And she's just got a positive energy and a great spirit when it comes to learning English.
So kudos, Kalari. Thank you for listening to that original episode so many times.
And thank you to everybody who has messaged me to let me know that they want a follow -up to the original mushroom murder case.
So yeah, here it is.
everybody that's been waiting patiently for it, I finally have an update for you and we'll go through this news article together.
And we might as well get started right now.
So let's buckle up and dig in and enjoy this English study session together.
Here we go. So let's read through this news article together.
This was an article that I found on cbc .ca, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's website.
It's completely original.
I haven't changed it it in any way.
And I'll put the link to this article in the description for this episode if you want to check it out on your own.
Okay, let's read it together.
The headline says, Australian woman found guilty of murder after serving poisonous mushrooms to in -laws for lunch. So guys, there's the story right there.
She is guilty. Okay, she has been found guilty of murder.
Let's read through the article to find all of the details.
So it says, the first paragraph, Let's go through some of the vocabulary here as we read this article, I'll break it down and explain it for you.
So the first thing that we should know about is a jury.
What is a jury? A jury is a group of people who are tasked, their job is that they have to determine whether the person who is charged with a crime is innocent or guilty.
And I'm no legal expert, but I believe in most countries, a jury for a criminal case is 12 people and they usually have to make a unanimous decision means that they all have to agree that this person is guilty and if they don't agree then sometimes it's a mistrial and they have to do it again or do it over select a new jury something like this again i'm no legal expert but i think for a serious crime like this like a triple murder and an attempted murder probably all All of the jury have to agree that she was in fact guilty.
And if it was like six people say yes, six people say no, then it maybe would have been a mistrial or something else.
But yeah, that doesn't matter.
A jury is the group of people who have to decide if the person charged with the crime is innocent or guilty.
And when we have just an individual member of the jury, we call that person a juror, a juror.
So a jury is made up of several different jurors.
Okay, so the jury convicted Aaron Patterson.
Convicted means that you have to now be punished for doing the crime.
The jury decided, hey, yeah, we think you actually did this and now you must be punished.
So they have convicted Aaron Patterson of this murder and also attempting to kill another.
other. So three murders and one attempted murder.
Yikes. And Beef Wellington.
So she made this dish called a Beef Wellington.
And a Beef Wellington is just a beef dish where there is a steak in the middle and it's coated around the edge with some pastry.
So it's kind of like it almost looks like a round steak in a pie crust. Okay.
You could think of it like that beef Wellington actually looks pretty good.
I wouldn't mind having beef Wellington.
Okay. However, she claimed it was accidental.
Okay. So she said her claim, when you claim something, you're saying, Oh, this is what I think.
This is what I believe.
So she was claiming that.
No, it was an accident.
It was all a big, big accident.
Okay, let's continue on with the article.
Next section. An Australian woman was on Monday convicted of murdering three elderly relatives of her estranged husband with a meal laced with poisonous mushrooms in a case that has gripped the entire country.
Estranged husband. If you are estranged from your husband or your wife, it means that you are not currently together.
Maybe you're not divorced, but you're not together right now.
So you are estranged.
You're not in a healthy relationship.
You are separated, but not officially divorced yet.
And she was convicted of killing these elderly people with a meal laced with poisonous mushrooms. So laced, if something is laced, it means there are small amounts of it.
it it's usually a poison or a drug like sometimes we hear of some people well you hear these stories on the news from time to time of people who maybe buy a drug and consume a drug like say for example cocaine but it was actually laced with some other kind of drug and they got really sick or died or overdosed because what they thought was like pure cocaine was actually laced with some other more or dangerous kind of drug.
So if we put some small amounts of a poison or a drug into a different kind of food, then that is that action of lacing something.
Laced. It's not like a super common daily word, but it is a good verb to use in this kind of situation.
And finally, it says, in a case that has gripped the country.
So I think this case gripped the country, but it really gripped the entire world and people from around the world have been following it.
So grip means to grab something tightly to grip it, right?
So if this case has gripped the country and gripped the world, it means that many people are interested in paying attention to it.
Let's continue. you.
Next paragraph. Erin Patterson, 50, was charged with the murders of her mother -in -law, Gail Patterson, father -in -law, Donald Patterson, and Gail's sister, Heather Wilkinson.
So these are the three people that died, unfortunately, along with the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson, Heather's husband.
Okay, so her mother -in -law, father -in -law, and her mother -in -law's sister, and the mother -in -law's sister's husband, those four people.
Next paragraph. The four gathered at Aaron Patterson's home in Leangatha, a town of about 6 ,000 people, some 135 kilometers southeast of Melbourne, where the mother of two served them a meal of individual beef wellingtons accompanied by mashed potato and green beans, which were later found to contain death cap mushrooms okay so small town in australia 6 000 people here it says some 135 kilometers southeast of melbourne it means like approximately approximately 135 kilometers southeast of melbourne okay and they had this sounds like a really good meal maybe i'm just hungry right now but But Beef
Wellington, mashed potatoes, green beans, this is like comfort food.
Sounds great. But unfortunately, yeah, not so good because they were later found to contain death cap mushrooms, right?
So they had these poisonous mushrooms in the Beef Wellington.
Continuing on with the article, on Monday, the jury in the case found her guilty of all four charges.
The court heard in Morwell, a town around two hours east of Melbourne, where the trial was being held.
And a charge is just another way of saying the individual crimes that the prosecution and the prosecution are the people who charge you with doing something.
So Aaron Patterson here, the prosecution, the government, the police, they said, hey, you did these four crimes.
You tried to kill one person and you killed three other people.
So we are saying that you did four crimes and each one of those individual crimes is called a charge.
So she has been charged with these four crimes.
Okay, continuing on with the article.
Her barrister, Colin Mandy, made no comments as he left the court through a scrum of journalists.
So in Australia, lawyers or attorneys are called barristers.
I believe they also call them that in the UK, and I've heard this term in Canada.
I don't think that it would be used in the United States.
I believe this is like a common law, Commonwealth term, more common to UK English.
In Canada, I would say lawyer or attorney.
I wouldn't say barrister.
But you do see this word in the UK and in Australia.
And so the lawyer here, the barrister, Colin Mandy, made no comments as he left the court.
So the court case is finished and he just leaves and didn't say anything, didn't make any comments to the scrum of journalists.
So a scrum of journalists here is like a big group of journalists.
You could imagine how many journalists were waiting outside of the courthouse and as soon as the lawyers come out, they would rush up to the lawyers to interview them, but he just kept going, probably got straight into his car and drove away and didn't make any comments.
The article continues, Jessica O'Donnell, a spokesperson for Patterson's estranged husband, Simon Patterson, and his siblings also declined to comment.
So the other side, right, there's Aaron Patterson, the murderer, and there's the husband side of the family.
Simon Patterson is the estranged husband, and you've got to feel pretty bad for him.
Like, his parents died, his aunt died, he's like his, well, I'm assuming that now it's going to be his his ex -wife got into all this trouble and really just totally ripped apart his whole life, right?
Threw his whole life upside down.
So Simon Patterson and his side of the family, they hired a spokesperson.
And a spokesperson is somebody who represents the family and talks with the media so that they can update the media with their side, their perspective, their side of things.
So she also, Jessica O'Donnell, the spokesperson, also didn't make any comments.
The article continues, Dean Thomas, a detective with Victoria Police, thanked investigators for their work on the case.
I think it's very important that we remember that three people have died, and we've had a person that nearly died and was seriously injured, he said in a brief statement outside the court.
Okay, so that's what the police said.
So really we didn't hear anything from Aaron's side, from Simon's side, and just the police made this comment where they really didn't provide too many details, did they?
Okay, the article continues.
The families of the victims have requested privacy and would not be making a statement, he added.
Okay, so nobody's really saying too much after the conviction.
Let's continue with the article.
biblical. Patterson, Erin Patterson, the woman Patterson who had pleaded not guilty to all charges saying the deaths were accidental will be sentenced at a later date.
Okay. So she pleaded when you plead in court, it means that you are saying this is my side of the story.
So she went to the court and she pleaded her case.
She said to the judge and to the jury, I didn't do it.
I'm innocent. Okay.
This is what we call not guilty.
So she pleaded not guilty to all charges saying the deaths were accidental and she will be sentenced at a later date.
The sentencing is done by the judge and the judge will determine how long she should go to prison or what her punishment will be.
And once that punishment is decided upon, they'll come back to the courthouse and the judge will sentence Aaron Patterson to what I imagine will be a very long time in prison.
I don't think they have the death penalty in Australia, so I imagine it will probably be a life sentence or a very, very long sentence and time in prison.
But that's what we call the sentencing, is when the judge tells you what your punishment will be, and that will be taking place at a later date.
So we We don't know.
We know that she is guilty.
The jury has found her guilty and said, hey, you're going to be punished for these crimes, but we don't know what the punishment will be yet.
That will be determined at a later time.
Okay, continuing with the article, the 10 -week trial attracted huge global interest with local and international media descending on court four at the Latrobe Valley Magistrate's Court in Morwell, the nearest court to Patterson's home where she had requested to be tried despite being warned of lengthy delays.
Okay, so it was a 10 -week trial, a pretty lengthy trial.
Huge global interest as we've talked about with local and international media descending on Court 4.
So you can imagine the global reporters and the media from all over the world descending means to come down, come down onto the small town and the courthouse in Morwell.
which was the court that was nearest to her home.
Remember, she lived in this small place, only 6 ,000 people, so obviously they don't have a courthouse there.
So instead they chose to do it in Morwell, which is the closest place to her home.
But I guess for whatever reason, they anticipated some lengthy delays doing it in Morwell.
I don't know why it doesn't explain that, but yeah, that's maybe why it took 10 weeks.
I'm not sure. Anyways, let's continue with the article.
State broadcaster ABC's daily podcast on proceedings was consistently among the most popular in Australia during the trial, while several documentaries on the case are already in production.
So yeah, state broadcaster ABC.
It's funny, in Australia, they have ABC, Australia Broadcasting Corporation.
In England and the UK, they have the BBC, British Broadcasting Corporation.
Corporation. In Canada, we have CBC, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
So you have ABC, BBC, CBC.
I love that. Anyways, they produced a daily podcast with updates about this case.
And I've seen in my podcast app that this is like a number one top podcast. It's trending.
I haven't listened to it myself, but if you're really interested in knowing more of the details about the case, So you could listen to that and probably learn about them.
And also several documentaries about the case are already in production.
And I can imagine there'll be like books about this story and movies.
And yeah, Netflix documentaries probably will be coming out sooner than later.
Okay, and let's continue with the article.
So the next paragraph says, Patterson, 50, grew up in Melbourne, the daughter of an academic.
She qualified as an air traffic controller and had been accepted to study nursing at the time of her arrest after a life marred by a tempestuous marriage and problems with her weight and low self -esteem, the court heard. OK, so some interesting vocabulary in this paragraph.
So she's 50 years old.
She grew up in Melbourne.
She was the daughter of an academic.
So I guess either her mother or father was like a professor or an academic working in a university.
She had qualified as an air traffic controller.
Interesting. So she studied and was qualified.
She got the degree or the certification that you need to be an air traffic controller, but she never worked in that position.
She was just certified for it, qualified for it.
And she had also been accepted to study nursing.
Okay, so maybe she applied to a university to become a nurse and the university accepted her and said, okay, yeah, you can come study at our university.
But yeah, she never did that.
Obviously, she was arrested.
It said at the time of her arrest. So maybe she just got accepted and then boom, arrested.
Okay. Okay. Continuing after a life marred by a tempestuous marriage.
So marred means to be like stained or ruined by something.
Marred. It's almost like you're eating a sandwich and you get some mustard on your shirt, right?
It's like you got that stain, that mark that you just can't get out, right?
That's like what marred means.
So her life has been stained.
It has been spoiled.
It has has been ruined by this horrible marriage.
Here, the article uses the word, and it's even a little bit hard for me to pronounce to be honest with you, tempestuous, tempestuous.
And tempestuous means like stormy, right?
It's like a storm. It's like up and down.
And you can think of like a boat in the ocean during a major storm with like lots of waves rocking the boat back and forth.
And it's It's not very calm.
It's always like just really, really unpleasant.
That is tempestuous.
This is not a daily word, but it is a word that I think most native speakers will know.
But it is like a higher level word. I wouldn't use this when I'm speaking to people.
It would probably sound a little bit like I'm trying to show off my vocabulary.
However, you will come across it when reading news articles like this.
So it's good to know.
So you also had problems with her weight.
Okay, maybe she was overweight, and low self esteem.
So low self esteem means that you don't value yourself very much. The court heard. So when you read something like this, the court heard, that means that one of the lawyers or one of the witnesses, somebody said this in the courtroom, and the jury heard it, the lawyers heard it, the judge heard it, all of the people in the court heard it.
the court heard this information.
That's what it means when it says the court heard. Continuing on, Patterson, who said during the trial she had inherited large sums of money from her mother and grandmother, retained a four -person legal team led by Colin Mandy, one of Melbourne's top criminal barristers.
Okay, so another interesting piece of information here to this case.
So Patterson inherited large sums of money from her mother and her grandmother.
So I guess she had a lot of money.
When you inherit money, it means that somebody passes away and dies and they leave you money behind.
So her mom and grandma died and left her a lot of money.
And retained means hired okay so she hired in this kind of situation hired a four -person legal team led by colin mandy one of melbourne's top criminal barristers so he's a top lawyer i imagine he's pretty expensive but she was able to afford it because she had all of this money she was the only witness in her defense spending eight days on the stand including five days of cross examination examination.
So she was the only witness on the defendant's side.
And of course, in a court, you usually have two sides, right?
You have the people who are defending themselves.
This would be Aaron Patterson saying like, no, I didn't do it.
Okay. So she was a witness for that side.
And then you have the other side who is prosecuting or accusing somebody of doing the crime.
And so you have these two different sides, right?
She was the only witness on the defense side and she she spent eight days on the stand.
So when you are on the stand, this is when you are speaking to the judge, speaking to the jury, and the lawyers are asking you questions.
And she had five days of cross -examination.
Cross -examination means when your lawyer will ask you questions in the courtroom, and also the lawyer from the other side will ask you questions in the courtroom.
room. So usually when your lawyer is asking questions, they want to make you look innocent, right?
And when the other side, in this case, it would be the prosecution.
When they're asking you questions, they want to make you look guilty.
And then it's the jury's role to decide if you are innocent or guilty.
Okay, let's continue with the article.
The prosecution led by barrister Nanette Rogers told the court that Patterson had employed four major deceptions in order to murder her guests.
Okay, so this was the major claim led by Barrister Nanette Rogers, who was on the other side, right?
Not the defense, but the prosecution, the side saying, hey, you did it, you are guilty, guilty Aaron Patterson.
So four major deceptions.
And a deception is a lie, right?
It's when you're being dishonest. So according to the prosecution, Aaron Patterson was deceptive, was dishonest in four main ways.
So let's take a look at these four main ways that she was deceptive.
She first fabricated a cancer diagnosis to lure the guests to their lunch, poisoning their meals while serving herself an untainted portion, Rogers told the court.
Okay, so fabricated a cancer diagnosis to lure the guests to the lunch. So she actually lied and said, hey guys, I have something to tell you.
And she like sent a message to her in -laws and she was going to tell them, or she did tell them, in fact, that she had cancer.
But in fact, this was not true.
So she made this lie that I have cancer in order to get the guests to come over to her home in the first place.
That is luring, right?
You're luring somebody.
You're kind of tricking and trapping them into doing something that they probably don't want to do.
We use this word often when talking about hunting or fishing.
So it's that kind of imagery.
And she poisoned their meals while serving herself an untainted portion.
So she had four guests, right?
Four of them were poisoned with mushrooms, but her meal was actually, I believe I read in a different article that it was served on a different color plate and looked different than the other ones, like a different color.
So I guess she went out of her way to make sure that one of the beef Wellingtons was fine and normal and was obvious which one was the the untainted unpoisoned one to taint something means to like to damage it or to destroy it right in some way and so untainted means just pure and clean and good okay continuing patterson then lied that she was also sick from the food to avoid suspicion before finally embarking on a cover -up when the police began investigating the deaths attempting to destroy evidence and lying to police, the prosecution said.
So after the other guests were sick and went to the hospital and started to die, she said, oh, me too.
I'm sick. I have food poisoning.
I have, I believe she said she was throwing up and had diarrhea, this kind of things, gastrointestinal issues, right?
And so this apparently was also a lie.
And she just tried to destroy some evidence, some of the food dehydrator that she had at her home to dry the mushrooms. I believe she threw that out after the guests got sick, and so she was tampering and trying to destroy some of the evidence.
Okay, continuing, she had lied about having cancer, not to lure the guests to the lunch to kill them, but because she was looking for their help with telling her children and and was embarrassed to say that she actually planned to have weight loss surgery, she told the court.
And the article continues, Patterson had also not become as sick as her lunch guests because she secretly binged on a cake brought by her mother -in -law and then purged herself, she told the court.
So this was another one of the lies that she told.
She didn't get as sick.
Why? Because she binged on a cake brought by her mother -in -law.
So the mother -in -law bought a cake and then she like ate a huge amount of it secretly and then she purged herself to purge yourself means to force yourself to throw up so this was the lie she said i didn't get sick because i ate all of this cake by myself and then made myself throw up okay so the conclusion to the article here the last paragraph it says patterson initially told police she had brought the mushrooms used in the meal from a local supermarket, before then saying she had got them from an Asian grocer in Melbourne.
A 2023 search of Asian grocers in the city found no evidence death cap mushrooms had been sold.
During the trial, Patterson said that she may have forged for the mushrooms, but did not ultimately know where they had come from.
so as we read in the article this case has gripped the world and many people have been following it really quite closely i don't know why it's so fascinating but there's just something about it and i'm wondering what you think about it why do you believe this story has gripped the world i'd be interested to know your thoughts i guess it's not really over yet right we have a conviction we We know that the jury has found Aaron Patterson guilty of these three murders and one attempted murder, but we don't know what the sentencing will be yet.
So we're going to have to wait for that.
It seems like things are moving pretty slowly in this trial, as they usually do for these high profile cases.
And we have this expression in English, the wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine.
so we can think of justice as these like cogs like gears in a machine and they're spinning almost like think of a coffee grinder right and they're turning very very slowly but they will grind exceedingly fine so this idea is that in the end justice will be served and the correct punishment will be given to aaron patterson for committing these murders and yeah we have to to remember that this was a very serious crime.
She murdered three people and almost killed a fourth.
So really quite horrible and a tragic story, but we're getting closer to the end and we'll have to stay tuned for the details about her sentencing.
But I think for now, let's wrap up this episode.
Congratulations on making it to the end of this lesson and completing an English studies session here with me today.
If you enjoyed this kind of lesson, this more advanced lesson, lesson where we take a look at a news article and study it in great detail, let me know.
Drop me a comment and I'll try and make more of these styles of lessons in the future if you would like that because I actually really enjoy it.
I like getting into the nitty gritty and going through an article like this with a fine tooth comb.
And if that's the kind of English study that you're into, then I'll try my best to create some more content like this in the future.
So this lesson And was a little bit of a departure From our regular bonus episodes Usually I tell you a story from my everyday life Here we heard a story from somebody else's life But yeah, back to our regular scheduled programming For the next bonus episode Until then, take care Happy English learning as always And I'll talk to you next time Bye -bye
