Terry Barnes

Erin Patterson’s mushroom murder case is Australia’s Trial of the Century

Erin Patterson outside the Supreme Court in Melbourne (Credit: Alamy)

Since its general election a month ago, Australia’s politics have endured their biggest upheaval in fifty years. Its Labor government was re-elected by a massive majority, when just months ago it was in danger of being tossed out, and the conservative opposition parties are in existential turmoil and even briefly severed their coalition.

Erin Patterson is a a frumpy, middle-aged woman, with a mien unfortunately drawn by nature as a mask of permanent misery

Yet Australia’s epicentre of interest this past month hasn’t been the nation’s capital, Canberra. Instead, it’s been Morwell, a dying industrial town in the Gippsland region of the state of Victoria. There, Australia’s Trial of the Century is playing out a sordid tale of love, hate, lust and intrigue. And mushrooms.

Erin Patterson is a a frumpy, middle-aged woman, with a mien unfortunately drawn by nature as a mask of permanent misery. She has been estranged from her husband and his family for several years.

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