How the world reacted to Erin Patterson's guilty verdict
In 2023, five people sat down to a beef Wellington lunch — only two survived.
One of them was Erin Patterson.
The 50-year-old would be charged with murdering three relatives and attempting to murder a fourth by lacing their meals with poisonous death cap mushrooms.
Over a mammoth trial, this case — and the tiny regional Victorian town of Morwell — were thrust into the global spotlight as a jury heard evidence from more than 50 witnesses.
Overseas journalists joined local media in bringing the high-profile matter to an international audience, working to appease enormous global appetite for details of the infamous "mushroom murder".
Associate professor Xanthe Mallett, a criminologist from Central Queensland University, told the ABC the trial had attracted extraordinary global interest.
"I can't actually remember an Australian case which has garnered quite this much international attention," she said.
On Monday, after 10 marathon weeks, Erin Patterson was found guilty of all charges.
International publications immediately lit up with the news, with several sites including Reuters, CNN, the BBC, Washington Post and New York Times alerting the verdict.
Many outlets also published reports on the trial's outcome, including a number of detailed explainers offering step-by-step accounts of the case.
The BBC poured its resources into covering every moment of the trial's long-awaited outcome in a live blog that led its online page.
The global media heavyweight also published an in-depth breakdown of the trial, which it said had "gripped the world".
The report outlined the weeks of evidence, including that Patterson, a "self-described mushroom lover and amateur forager", had told the court the deaths were a "tragic accident".
"But over nine weeks, the jury heard evidence suggesting she had foraged death cap mushrooms sighted in nearby towns and lured her victims to the fatal meal under the false pretence that she had cancer — before trying to conceal her crimes by lying to police and disposing of evidence," the BBC reported.
Caroline Cheetham, who hosts The Trial of Erin Patterson podcast for Britain's Daily Mail, travelled to the remote town of Morwell to cover the story and spoke to the ABC about the case.
"It just resonated. It resonated with an audience all over the world," she said outside court.
Al Jazeera and the Washington Post also published detailed explainers of the almost two-month trial, described by the Post as "replete with family drama, fungal ingredients and allegations of deception".
"The 'mushroom murder case', as it is known in Australia, transfixed the country," the Washington Post report said.
Meanwhile an online piece from the New York Times detailed the "overwhelming media attention" on the case, which saw the jury carefully sequestered during deliberations.
The US publication highlighted Patterson would now be facing a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, adding it "was not immediately clear" when she would be sentenced.
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