BACKGROUND: (BBC NEWS: )The deadly mushroom case that has gripped Australia - and much of the world: {"After hearing nine weeks of evidence, a jury has found Erin Patterson, 50, guilty of murdering three relatives and attempting to kill another." She served up beef Wellingtons containing death cap mushrooms at her home in Leongatha, regional Victoria in 2023. The meal led to the deaths of her in-laws Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson. Heather's husband Ian was in a coma for weeks, but survived. Prosecutors argued Patterson knowingly added the toxic mushrooms, lied to police and disposed of evidence - though they acknowledged she had no clear motive. Patterson denied guilt, saying she accidentally included the poisonous fungi and lied out of panic. She can still appeal her conviction. Victoria Police thanked the officers and prosecutors who worked on the case, and asked that the privacy of the victims' families be respected. One local man told the BBC: “I hope they will have a sense of closure and a sense of justice.” Now that Patterson has been found guilty, she'll be remanded while prosecutors and the defence team make proposals on her sentencing. The date for this has not yet been set. In the meantime, you can read our story on all the twists and turns of the case.
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cm26eq093myt
————————————————————————-
PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "I’m guilty of wandering that line myself, as a crime fiction author who keeps a close eye on court cases as a means of research. I’ve wondered many times during the mushroom trial how I’d fictionalise something like this, where I’d set it, whose perspective I would write it from. I worry that the true crime and crime fiction industry, of which I am a maker and a consumer, is making a professional crime-solver of all of us."
——————————————————————
COMMENTARY: "We all became detectives in Erin Patterson’s trial. But as a crime writer I can’t help wonder, at what cost?," by best-selling Australian crime novelist Candice Fox, who muses: "
SUB-HEADING: "The true crime industry is making professional crime solvers of all of us. We must not lose sight of the victims."
From the moment we saw Erin Patterson sobbing and wiping her eyes in her driveway in Leongatha, we started to judge her. The tone of her voice. The mournful tilting back of her head as she tried to control her emotion. The strange examining of her own fingers for tears. Was the performance real, or was she faking it? We had to decide. We had to participate.
The public’s natural hunger for participation in solving crimes has fuelled a billion-dollar podcast industry rooted in true crime.
It’s elevated crime fiction to the leading genre in the book world.
Overwhelmingly, true crime podcasts that deal with unsolved mysteries dominate the hit lists, and the industry celebrates crime novels with unexpected twists and unreliable narrators.
That’s because the public wants to get involved. To join in. The human brain is made for solving puzzles and we hate to be fed answers. The media is riddled with advertising for opportunities to be a crime-fighting hero, from subscriptions to mail-out mystery solving games to in-person crime nights.
Sydney-siders can now experience a simulated courtroom environment and be seated on a mock jury with The Jury Experience. The website boasts that “the power to deliver justice is entirely in your hands!” Just $39 a ticket.
The problem is that armchair detectives and their untrained analysis of apparent shock and grief has been historically (and, for the victims, very painfully) wrong.
The plight of Joanne Lees, whose boyfriend Peter Falconio disappeared during a terrifying abduction attempt by Bradley John Murdoch in the Australian outback, is an example of the savagery of mob crime-solving.
Deep-breathing and tearless, her seemingly calm walk down a corridor to front the press, and her choice of a singlet top emblazoned with the words “cheeky monkey”, turned the tide of opinions against her.
Her account of crouching in bushland, evading her would-be attacker and his dog, was shredded at watercooler conversations nationwide. The whole time, Joanne was telling the truth. She was traumatised and grieving and being called a liar.
Australian mushroom murders: Erin Patterson guilty verdict ends weeks of laborious detail and ghoulish fascination
The wrongful public-opinion (and legal) convictions of Kathleen Folbigg and Lindy Chamberlain should have made us cautious about believing we can spot a killer by how they appear and behave. They didn’t. Erin’s driveway performance was viewed with suspicion. So it was time to examine the evidence.
What didn’t make sense in the mushroom saga is the apparent weight of the premeditation against Erin’s utter lack of after-crime planning. We were told by the prosecution of the coldness and calculation with which she researched, accessed and concealed the deadly mushrooms, going so far as to dehydrate and blitz them in a blender. There was, they argued, a conceited lie constructed to make the victims come to the lunch. Stringent physical measures taken to ensure only her victims, and not herself or her children, fell ill. It seemed that Erin risked her own life, and those of her kids, to make this murder plot come to fruition. She apparently wanted her in-laws dead that badly.
What then did we make of Erin’s lack of any real plan to explain why three people had suddenly died after attending the lunch? Erin’s accounting for her actions in court seemed half-hearted and ham-fisted. I lied. I panicked. I was mistaken. I don’t remember. TikTok-trained psychoanalysis of Erin’s explanations was bandied around WhatsApp group chats and office lunch rooms. She’s a narcissist. She’s a sociopath. She’s an idiot.
What makes the public’s insatiable hunger to play detective, jury member, behavioural analyst and forensic scientist so worrying is that, when we do it, we lose sight of the victims entirely. The Pattersons, the Wilkinsons and their community will never recover from Erin’s senseless act. Erin herself will likely spend her life behind bars and her children will have to somehow get through the loss of their grandparents, a great-aunt and their own mother. Right now, that family is trying to learn how to function again, having been hit with unfathomable pain. And they’ll have to do it while mushroom murder memes are shared around and influencers break down the case into 60-second soundbites over trending audio. The line between real life and fiction is blurring, helped along by AI, the fake news movement and the pursuit of likes. But it comes at the expense of truth.
I’m guilty of wandering that line myself, as a crime fiction author who keeps a close eye on court cases as a means of research. I’ve wondered many times during the mushroom trial how I’d fictionalise something like this, where I’d set it, whose perspective I would write it from. I worry that the true crime and crime fiction industry, of which I am a maker and a consumer, is making a professional crime-solver of all of us."
The entire story can be read at:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
———————————————————————————————
FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
—————————————————————————————————
FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
-------------------------------------------------------------------
