It was 11 weeks in a country Victorian town. What happened behind the scenes for journalists covering the mushroom murder trial? We held an event to hear (off the record) all about it. Guardian Australia’s Justice and Courts reporter (and Press Club board member) Nino Bucci reflects on the experience.
The Melbourne Press Club’s Inside the Mushroom Murders Trial event, held at RMIT earlier this month, was a fascinating discussion about the highest profile criminal case in Australia this century.
While the exact details of that discussion will remain known only to those who attended, in essence it focused on why the case was so gripping, what compelled the fascination into Erin Patterson, and how journalists tried to balance the insatiable appetite for content with the need to report ethically and respectfully on the murders of Don and Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson.
Our panel of Rachael Brown, Gil Marsden and Laura Placella, moderated by me, spent every day of the trial in Morwell, reporting on the case in different ways. Brown was overseeing and hosting an ABC podcast, as well as working on longer term projects, Marsden was producing a documentary TV series for Stan, and Placella worked on multiple mediums every day for the Herald Sun, filing stories, blog posts, social videos, and a daily podcast.
Any triple murder case will be the subject of immense media focus, but this one had so many unique elements: a female killer, death cap mushrooms hidden in beef wellingtons as a murder weapon, in-laws as victims, a Saturday lunch in the country as a crime scene, the seeming lack of motive.
All those elements combined with a particular moment in media: the live blogging and podcasting of court cases has become common, and the true crime genre has reached a zenith that draws audiences from across the world seeking content from documentary TV series to scripted dramas to books.
The trial itself unspooled over 11 weeks in a way that only heightened this interest. There were notable peaks: Ian Wilkinson and Simon Patterson taking the stand, Erin Patterson also giving evidence, and of course verdict day, which saw a swarm of almost 100 reporters, camera operators and others descend on Morwell.
The town itself occupied a strange place in this story, hosting the trial and yet somewhat removed from the crime itself. There was no escaping the case during court hours, when reporters and jury members and the Wilkinson and Patterson families and lawyers for the DPP and Patterson often found themselves waiting in the same cafes for coffee.
The fact the trial occurred outside Melbourne, and with no way for the public to monitor it remotely (and only an audio feed available for journalists), meant that seats within the court room were extremely limited.
Patterson fronted a plea hearing this week. The victim impact statements heard during this hearing - which is designed so a judge can hear arguments about the sentence a person should receive - made clear the Wilkinson and Patterson families felt as if the reporting on the case had greatly magnified their loss.
I had written about the ghoulish fascination in the case for Guardian Australia after Patterson was found guilty, but the families put it in starker terms: “dehumanising”, “revolting”, “callous”, “deplorable”.
“My kids and I have suffered many days filled with strangers menacing our home, brandishing notebooks, phones, cameras, and microphones,” Simon Patterson, Erin’s estranged husband and the son of Don and Gail, said in his victim impact statement.
“We have faced people waiting in ambush at our front door, inches away with TV camera and microphone at the ready after ringing our door bell. Strangers holding notebooks have banged aggressively on our windows in the early morning trying to peek into my children's bedrooms, always skulking away before the police arrive.
“I have been ambushed by strangers with cameras and microphones waiting by my car when I am parked in public. The children and I have been filmed in cafés and in the street by opportunistic individuals. I doubt I'll get used to being treated in such dehumanising ways by these creepy strangers who regard humans as merely content to further their media careers.”
Amid the frenzy of covering this case, reporters should take the time to consider these statements. Patterson will be sentenced on 8 September.