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The murder trial has spawned podcasts, documentaries, thousands of column inches, viral social media posts – and a rapt global audience.
After a week of deliberation, a supreme court jury found Victorian woman Erin Patterson guilty of three counts of murder and one of attempted murder after three guests died and one almost died after eating her homemade beef wellington lunch.
Here’s how newspapers in Australia and around the world responded to Monday’s verdict.
In London, the case made the Guardian’s front page as well as two inside pages, where the verdict was reported, alongside details around how Patterson covered up – and repeatedly lied about – the death cap mushroom poisoning of her relatives.
The Sydney Morning Herald’s front page was dominated by a photo taken of Patterson recoiling from camera flashes through the window of a police vehicle in May – an image only allowed to be published after a verdict was reached. The paper reported the mother-of-two “did not react, staring at the jury as the verdict was read out: guilty”.
The Age ran with Patterson’s “death cap stare” and, as with many media outlets, a photo from the same series taken in May. A newly public image of the beef wellington leftovers, a key exhibit in the investigation, also ran on the paper’s front page, along with images of the murder victims, Don and Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson.
The Australian opted for “killer in the kitchen”. Much of the national broadsheet’s front page was given to its reporting from Morwell, including that Patterson “could die in jail as the nation’s most notorious female prisoner”.
“Fungi fatale” led the West Australian’s coverage, alongside an image of Patterson inside the same police vehicle. “Death cap cook found guilty of three murders”, the paper said.
To the Courier Mail, the killer is cooked. “Finally revealed: how evil Erin first gave herself up”, stated the Queensland tabloid.
The Herald Sun maintained the “cooked” theme as it stated justice was “served for cold-blooded killer”. Inside, alongside its main story, the paper reported on revelations Patterson “was crazy” and why the “quiet country mum turned wicked”.
The UK’s Daily Mail featured a six-page special focusing on the “definitive inside story” of the “mushroom murderer” – and nudged readers towards its YouTube video and podcast coverage of the trial.
“The verdict ends one of Australia’s most intriguing homicide cases”, the paper’s Melbourne correspondent reported.
Over at the BBC, a raft of online stories around the verdict was led by the headline “Australian woman guilty of murdering relatives with toxic mushroom meal”. A newly released video of Patterson discharging herself from Leongatha hospital – another key piece of evidence seen in court – featured prominently in the report.
In the US, the “mushroom poisoning case” also made headlines at the New York Times, which reported Patterson’s conviction came after a trial that had “gripped” Australia.
“The contrast between the banality of the lunch – a quaint small town in dairy country, the familiar menu item, the seemingly typical mother of two – and its lethal outcome seemed to foment more public fascination with the case than with any other murder trial in recent memory”, reported the Times.
