The sleepy Latrobe Valley town of Morwell is having quite the moment.

Journalists, podcasters and an award-winning author or two have descended on the Victorian town for the mushroom murder trial of Leongatha woman Erin Patterson.

The trial has garnered worldwide attention for the unusual allegations that sit before a locally drawn jury and Supreme Court Judge Christopher Beale. Patterson, 50, faces three charges of murder and one charge of attempted murder in relation to a beef wellington lunch she served at her home in 2023. 

Media from around the world have joined in, with the BBC and Reuters having a presence, and rumours swirling of alarmingly high numbers of ABC journos on the ground (at one point, 19???).

The national broadcaster, Seven, Nine, Ten and their regional equivalents are all in town to cover the final days of the six-week trial, as well as print and online reporters from The Australian, the Herald Sun, AAP, Newswire, The Age, the BBC, the Daily Mail and The Guardian. Several outlets have daily podcasts breaking down events in court.

So Crikey has gone to take a look, too. We believe ourselves to be the beneficiary of a little bit of local knowledge — Gippsland is home for this correspondent; his first heartbreak was experienced on a V/Line replacement service bound for Sale. 

Leongatha is not known for much more than being “Heppell country”, as it was described multiple times over the course of Monday (a reference to Essendon AFL great Dyson, a local boy), but it has become the centre of the country’s most high-profile murder trial in living memory. 

The atmosphere among the approximately 20-strong cohort in the media room (six of whom are chosen by random ballot every day to sit in the courtroom proper) is collegial — as it would be when you share close quarters for over a month, as some of them have. The staff at the local cafe were all too happy to describe the behaviour of the visiting media scrum as “delightful” — a far cry from some of the behaviour more commonly seen by their counterparts north of the Murray. 

The friendliness isn’t unconditional, however, with voices dropping an octave for grumpy recollections of some loose-lipped reporters that have passed through Latrobe Valley Law Courts over the past few weeks.

The day in court itself was fairly dry — until lead counsel Colin Mandy SC informed the court that he would seek to call Patterson. 

With the last hour of proceedings spent meandering through Patterson’s life story, focusing on key elements of her relationship with now ex-husband Simon and son Sam, it is likely that much of today will focus on a continuation of the examination-in-chief.

Patterson had not spoken previously in the trial, and was unheard from in recent months outside of a tape of her police interview being played in court last Friday. The last time Patterson faced court, a court sketch had to be recalled after the contracted artist included a tiny mushroom in the bottom right corner.

The trial, and the many, many, many podcasts born of it, continues.