Australia’s mushroom trial ends in a guilty verdict. Why Erin Patterson did it remains a mystery

MELBOURNE Australia AP The high-profile development of the so-called Death Cap Mushroom Cook is likely to remain a topic of conversation across Australia for years to come For more than two months the triple-murder trial has gripped the society s attention with details of how Erin Patterson murdered three of her estranged husband s relatives by deliberately serving them a lunch of poisonous mushrooms It is no surprise that on Tuesday the day after the guilty verdict was delivered by the court in Victoria media websites social media and podcasts were scrambling to offer analysis on what motivated her Newspaper headlines described Patterson as a coercive killer with narcissistic characteristics Cold mean and vicious read one Strict Australian court reporting laws prohibit anything that might sway jurors in a trial Specific news outlets had saved up thousands of words awaiting the verdicts scrutiny of Patterson s past work history behavior and psyche The coverage tried to explain why the mother of two meticulously planned the fatal lunch and lured three people she reported she loved to their deaths Any certain answer for now remains a mystery She faces life in jail with sentencing to come at a later date No motive After a nine-week Supreme Court trial in the state of Victoria it took the jury six days to convict Patterson She was guilty of murdering her parents-in-law Don and Gail Patterson and Gail s sister Heather Wilkinson by serving them a lunch of beef Wellington pastries laced with poisonous mushrooms She was also convicted of attempting to murder Heather s husband Ian Wilkinson who survived the meal at Patterson s home in the rural town of Leongatha in Patterson denied the charges and gave a defense that she had no reason to murder her beloved elderly in-laws But the jury disagreed and rejected her claim that the inclusion of toxic mushrooms in the meal was a terrible accident Prosecutors failed to offer a motive for Patterson s crimes and weren t required to People do different things for different reasons Sometimes the reason is obvious enough to others prosecutor Nanette Rogers described the jury At other times the internal motivations are only known by the person themselves But Rogers gave hints At one point the prosecutor had Patterson read aloud scathing messages she d sent which highlighted past friction with her in-laws and tension with her estranged husband who had been invited to the lunch but didn t go You had two faces Rogers disclosed Patterson denied it She had a dilemma With guilty verdicts but no proven reason why Australian news outlets published avid speculation Tuesday What on earth was Erin Patterson s motive The Australian newspaper s editorial director Claire Harvey demanded in a column Harvey pointed at rifts in the killer s relationship with her estranged husband Chris Webster was the first clinical clinician to speak to Patterson after her four lunch guests had been hospitalized and testified in the trial He narrated reporters Tuesday that he became convinced she deliberately poisoned her casualties when she lied about buying the foraged mushrooms she had served from a major supermarket chain She had a dilemma and the method that she chose is sociopathic Webster recounted Nine System television Displayed no emotion The outpouring of scorn for Patterson reflects a national obsession with the affair and a widespread view that she wasn t a sympathetic figure It was an opinion Australians were legally required not to express in the media or online before the trial ended to ensure a fair hearing But newspapers now don t have to hold back Under the headline Death Cap Stare The Age revealed how the killer cook didn t flinch as she learned her fate but stared at the jury as they delivered their verdict Melbourne s Herald Sun newspaper s front page screamed COOKED labelling Patterson Evil Erin and a Cold-Blooded Killer During the trial Patterson chose to testify in her own defense a tactic considered risky in the Australian justice system and one which the majority observers explained didn t serve her well She joked awkwardly at times and became combative with the prosecutor Journalist John Ferguson who won a Melbourne Press Club award for current the story of the fatal lunch revealed Patterson often cried or came close to tears during her trial But when she was convicted she displayed no emotion he noted What the court got on Monday was the full Erin Cold mean and vicious Ferguson wrote in The Australian Tuesday Drama series documentary and books The verdicts also prompted an online frenzy among Australians a great number of of whom turned citizen detectives during the trial By late Monday posts about the verdicts on local Reddit pages had drawn thousands of comments laced with black humor including memes in-jokes and photographs taken at local supermarkets where pre-packaged beef Wellington meals were discounted Fascination about the situation will linger A drama series documentary and books are planned all of them likely to attempt an answer to the question of what motivated Patterson From the date of sentencing Patterson s lawyers will have days to appeal - Graham-McLay released from Wellington New Zealand Source