The mushroom murders gripped a nation, but its the media and opportunists now feasting on Erin Pattersons infamy, writes DrBinoy Kampmark.

SHE HAS BECOME a notorious figure of international interest, shamelessly exploited for news cycles, commercial worth and career advancement. After a trial lasting nine weeks, conducted at the Latrobe Valley Law Courts in Morwell, Victoria,Erin Patterson, a stocky, thick-set mother of two, was found guilty of three murders and an attempted murder.

The date: 29 July 2023, in the town of Leongatha. Patterson's weapon in executing her plot of Sophoclean extravagance: death cap mushrooms (Amanita phalloides) served in a beef Wellington. Her targets: in-laws Don and Gail Patterson, Gails sister, Heather Wilkinson, and Heathers husband, Ian Wilkinson. Of the four, only Ian survived the culinary killings barely. Prudently, estranged husband Simon chose not to attend.

News outlets thought it useful to produce graphics about this Australians terminating exploits. CNNproduced onewith voyeuristic relish, making it appear much like aMidsomer Murdersepisode. Details aplenty are provided, including the gruesome end for the victims.

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According to CNN:

Fortunately, Ian Wilkinson survived, but the rumour-mongering hack journalist can barely take it, almost regretful of that fact: after almost two months of intensive treatment, he was discharged.

Having an opinion on this case has become standard fare, amassing on a turd heap of supposition, second guessing and wonder. The range is positively Chaucerian in its village variety. The former court official interviewed about the killers guilty mind and poisoning stratagems, stating the obvious and dulling. The criminologist, keen on career advancement and pseudo-psychology, attempted to get into Pattersons mind, commenting on her patent ordinariness.

One example of the latter is to be found inThe Conversation, where we are told byXanthe Mallettwith platitudinous and forced certainty how Patterson, speaking days after the incident, presented as your typical, average woman of 50. If attempting to kill four people using fungi is a symptom of average, female ordinariness of a certain age, we all best start making our own meals.

But Mallett thinks it is precisely that sense of the ordinary that led to a public obsession, a mania with crime and motivation:

This is certainly not the view of DrChris Webster, who answered the Leongatha Hospital doorbell when Patterson first presented. Realising her link to the other four victims suffering symptoms of fungi poisoning, Websterexplainedthat death cap mushrooms were suspected.

Asking Patterson where she got them, she replied with one word: Woolworths.

This was enough for the doctor to presume guilt, an attitude which certainly gave one of Australias most ruthless supermarket chains a graceful pardon.

Said Webster:

The marketer, thrilled with branding and promotion, suggests how Patterson Inc. can become an ongoing concern of merchandise, plays and scripts. (Think of a shirt sporting the following: I ate beef Wellington and survived.)

The ABC did not waste much time commissioningToxic, a show created byElise McCredieandTony Ayres, aided by ABC podcasterRachael Brown.

Ayreshams it upby saying that:

Given that this project is a child of frothy publicity born from sensationalism and hysteria, the comment is almost touching.

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The media prompts and updates, mischaracterising Patterson as The Mushroom Murderer, leave the impression that she really did like killing fungi. But an absolute monster must be found and the press hounds duly found it. Papers like theHerald Sunpreferred the old Rupert Murdoch tactic: till the soil to surface level to find requisite dirt.

According to a grimy bit of reporting from that most distinguished of Melbourne rags:

The Australianwas in a didactic mood, unhappy that the judge did not make it even more obvious that a crime, committed by a woman involving poison and not a gun or a knife, was equally grave.

To complete matters was an aggrieved home cook,Nagi Maehashi, who also rode the wave of publicity by expressing sadness that her recipe had become a weapon for lethal effect. (Presumably, Maehashi did not have lethal mushrooms in her original recipe, but precision slides in publicity.)

Overcome with false modesty in this glare of publicity, Maehashi did not wish to take interviews, but felt her misused workdeserved a statementon Instagram:

Those familiar with Maehashi will note hertendency to megalomaniain the kitchen, especially given recipes that have been created long before she turned to knife and spatula.

The ones forgotten will be those victims who died excruciatingly before their loved ones in a richly sadistic exercise. At the end of it all, the entire ensemble of babblers, hucksters and chancers so utterly obsessed with what took place in Leongatha should thank Patterson. Her murders have excited, enthralled and given people purpose. She will start conversations, fill pockets, extend careers and, if we are to believe some recent reporting, make meals for her fellow inmates in prison.

DrBinoy Kampmarkis a Cambridge Scholar and lecturer atRMIT University. You can follow Dr Kampmark@BKampmark.