In a few short days, Aaron Patterson will learn her fate when Justice Christopher Bill hands down the sentence for the triple murder and attempted murder she committed at the infamous Beef Wellington Lunch.

But while we wait on Aaron's future, we thought we would take a look at her past.

I'm Brook Greebert Craig and this is the Mushroom Cook.

I'm here with court reporter Laura Plassella, and as promised, we're back with another episode before Aaron's sentencing on Monday.

Yes, and I'm really keen to dive into this one.

So we know a little bit more about Aaron's life in high school.

Is that right?

Yes, that's right.

A colleague and I have been looking into Aaron's early life early years and we managed to figure out what high school she went to and from there it really was a treasure trove.

So before she was married, Aaron Patterson was Aaron Scutter and Brooke.

You touched a little bit upon her life when she was a young woman in season one.

She lived in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, but the high school she attended was in Parkville, and for our listeners, who don't know Melbourne very well.

That's a very inner city suburb.

And this was a very good school.

This was a school parents wanted to send their children to.

And what was that school called.

So the school is University High School and it was colloquially known as Uni High.

And the main reason why parents really wanted to send their kids there was because they had an acceleration program, a place that really gifted and talented students could flourish if they were lucky enough to pass the entry exam and get in.

So you spoke to some of her classmates, what do they say about her?

So the colleague I mentioned earlier, Darren Chapman, and I between us, we spoke to about a dozen of her classmates, and I will say there were some who didn't really remember her, but those who did, what they did say was that she was in this acceleration program.

She was one of those students.

One of the former classmates I spoke to said she remembered Aaron Scudder, but she actually didn't connect the dots when Aaron Patterson hit the headlines back in twenty twenty three.

It wasn't until she spoke with her sister, who said to her.

The woman at the center of this lunch is Aaron Scudder from high school, and she told me some of her recollections of Erin.

She said she was quiet, reserved and didn't really get involved in the wider cohort at Uni High and this was because she was in that much smaller acceleration program.

She said.

All of the students in that program were super bright and spent the first several years of high school whipping through the curriculum.

And the students in this program actually had a name.

She said that everyone else called them the task Force.

She said she didn't really know how this nickname came about, but the mainstream students called the students in the acceleration program the task Force.

That's very interesting.

And now you also found photos of Erin when she was younger.

Can you kind of describe what she looked like at the time.

Yes, And if our listeners want to look at these photos, they can find them on our website at haroldsun dot com dot au.

And the photos were actually quite hard to dig up.

But in one of the photos, Erin can be seen standing next to another young girl.

They've got their arms around each other.

Erin is quite slim in the face.

She's got a very angular jaw, her hair is a dark brown, and she's got a big smile on her face.

She's in an orange knitted jumper as well.

Another photo that was sent to us was of the Uni High class of ninety one, and that was the year Aaron graduated.

In the photo, there's dozens of students and she can be seen in the second row.

She's quite small compared to her classmates.

But again we were told that she was speeding through the curriculum faster than others in the cohort, so she was likely to have been a little bit younger.

And I think a fun fact about this story in particular is some well known Melbournians actually went to the same school as her.

That's right.

This school was known for really nurturing artistic, academic and even political types, and I'd say the most famous alumni that they have is Olivia Newton John But as I said, there were political types and former Victorian Premier Joan Kerner also graduated from the school, although neither of those women were in eron y level.

And was there anything else that these students said about her?

One thing that quite a few of them said was that they remembered she was really passionate about math and science.

These days, we'd say that she was really interested in stem.

They called her a stem girl, and that kind of checks out with what we heard throughout the trial that she was very academic and as we've come to know, was very interested in mushrooms and nature.

We didn't have the opportunity to speak to anyone in the acceleration program who was good friends with Erin, but we have it on good authority that she did have a group of people around her throughout her high school years.

I spoke to the sister of one of her former friends, and this woman told me that through conversations she's had, her sister had actually described Erin as brilliant but unhinged.

And that's very similar to what I've been told about Aaron's time at Air Services Australia.

Our listeners have heard a bit about her career there in season one.

But further to that, I've found out that Aaron was called Scudder the nutter.

She was also called crazy.

Erin and her course mates at the time said that she was a bit strange and she would say some weird off the cuff, things, and apparently she was also super secretive.

How soon after leaving high school did Aaron end up at Air Services Australia.

Yes, so she was in the traffic Control Course number four and she was there between February and November two thousand and one.

So about ten years later.

Yes.

And we also found out that she left Air Services Australia under a bit of a cloud.

So a former colleague told me that management became skeptical that she was leaving work early but claiming the time.

After management checked CCTV footage from the car park, they were able to confirm their suspicions.

They then approached her and confronted her with their suspicions and she replied, Ah, you've got me there.

So we can kind of see Aaron being quite a manipulative person from her younger days.

And is it right, Brook that you actually came across this information quite a while ago, but we couldn't report on it because the trial was on foot.

Yes, that's right.

So I found out about the Scud of the Night comments back when season one was really released, but our lawyers gave us the legal advice to not include that, like you mentioned, because the trial was approaching.

If you want to hear more about Aaron's time at Air Services Australia, you can go back to season one where I talked to reporter Mandy Squires who did the early reporting on that.

So it's fair to say Aaron really did have a colorful past.

Yes, that's correct, but looking forward to her future, she will be sentenced on Monday.

Yes, and I feel like Monday is going to be a very momentous day.

So when a court first here in Victoria, there will be a live stream in court, so members of the public can actually watch Aaron's sentencing for themselves.

And I will say this is pretty huge.

Unlike America, it's very rare that court proceedings are broadcast to the masses, and that's particularly the case when it comes to criminal cases because there's a lot of sensitivities.

But just as Christopher Beale, the judge in this case, it appears he has decided that the public interest in this case is so large that people should be given this opportunity to hear directly from himself in his own words.

Yeah, So it's safe to say that all eyes will be on the television screens on Monday.

I was actually speaking to a colleague yes today about this, and I don't think it will be as big as the murder trial of OJ Simpson in America, but I do feel like on Monday there will be this moment at least across Australia where people will be glued to television screens watching this sentence, and I really do think people will be transfixed on what Justice Biel has to say.

The TV camera will be set up right in the courtroom and Justice Spier will almost be looking down the barrel, so people will really feel like they're there in the courtroom hearing what he's saying to Erin as she ultimately learns her fate.

Yes, and the camera, as you said, will just be on Justice Bill and will not be on Erin or any members in the courtroom.

No, it will just be on him, and it's really his words that are the most important.

On Monday, there won't be many arguments between the lawyers.

It's all about the decision he has ultimately come to.

We had the plea hearing last week and since then he's been taking into consideration what the prosecution and the defense have both put before him.

To remind our listeners, the prosecutioner pushing for life without parole, meaning that Aaron will die behind bars.

But on the other hand, while the defense concede that she should be sentenced to life imprisonment, they're saying she should be given a non parole period so one day she can hopefully apply for release to live out the rest of her days.

And we will bring our listeners the audio of justice Bills, sentencing and our analysis on Monday.

See you then,