By LIAM DURKIN
MORWELL still hasn’t seen a bigger story.
It may never.
This week marks 12 months since Erin Patterson was found guilty.
She is currently serving a life sentence with a non-parole period of 33 years for murdering three of her in-laws and attempting to murder another by serving them beef wellingtons laced with poisonous mushrooms.
On the afternoon of Monday, July 7, 2025, a packed Latrobe Valley Law Courts courtroom was the first to hear the bombshell verdicts handed down.
People knew a verdict was coming, and news crews from across the globe stood armed ready to relay the message.
For the murder of Dan Patterson: guilty.
For the murder of Gail Patterson: guilty.
For the murder of Heather Wilkinson: guilty.
For the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson: guilty.
With each delivery of the word ‘guilty’, news rapidly spread to all corners of the globe.
Media had been told at 1.45pm that day that the jury had reached its decision.
The verdict was scheduled to be handed down 30 minutes later.
Media rushed to Morwell, some reportedly emptying out of nearby cafes in an instant without paying.
In one of the great counts of fortune, the Express office is literally 100 or so metres from the Latrobe Valley courts.
Media were instructed to bring as little as possible in order to be whisked through security. With that in mind, all I took was a notepad, pen, my wallet and phone.
Upon arriving, a throng of cameras and reporters congregated in the court’s foyer, as well as a sprinkling of people interested in the case. Some even appeared to be ducking out from their day job to catch a glimpse.
I raced upstairs to the media overflow room – the place where journalists from across the country had made their office over the 10 weeks the trial had been going.
Some familiar faces were there ready to watch the livestream. There was no time for pleasantries however. This was the biggest story of the year, and likely, the biggest of our careers.
With time ticking closer to 2.15pm, anticipation rose.
Would she be guilty or not guilty?
For all that had happened across 10 weeks, the verdicts were delivered in less than 30 seconds.
Some gasps followed the first uttering of ‘guilty’, partly because the charge was for attempted murder.
Given the next three were all for murder, there was hardly any surprise to hear the word ‘guilty’ uttered thrice more.
The accused looked stone-faced and unemotional as each verdict was read out (even through the livestream), just as she had when speaking in court while giving evidence. I had been fortunate enough to get a seat in court on a number of occasions during this period.
Erin Patterson is not ‘as big’ in person as most published photos would have her appear.
Publishing photographs during the trial was tricky. To those wondering why the same photos were used over and over again – it’s because there was only a select handful available. No photography is permitted inside court, and Erin Patterson was brought to the courtroom via an underground passageway straight from the neighbouring cells at Morwell Police Station.
Cameramen deserved much praise for their patience during the trial. Some were stationed outside the gates at Morwell Police Station for hours on end with the task of getting even just one photo of Erin Patterson if she happened to step foot outside. As one of them said to me: “90 per cent of this job is waiting”.
Back downstairs, and it was chaos in the courtyard.
Walking through the automatic doors at the court’s entrance, one got a momentary sense of paparazzi treatment, as a line of cameras stood lined up.
Express journalist Aidan Knight was there, and managed to get a great shot of the defence walking out, as well as Erin Patterson’s friend Ali Rose. There was a literal gravitational pull of journalists toward Ms Rose the second she entered the courtyard.
Making matters more complicated, the verdict was handed down just three hours before print deadline.
That may sound like ample time, but as anyone who has worked in newspaper production will tell you, rearranging pages at the death causes huge delays. When you’re on deadline, literally every minute counts.
A mad but equally measured scramble ensued. Helping ease some of the time pressure was fellow Express journalist, Stefan Bradley. He was busy working on the bulk of the story back in the office before the verdicts were read out. This meant we simply had to fill in the gaps once the final details were known. A lot of the time in major news, much of the story is already written, or rehashed if it develops over multiple weeks.
Time became even more critical after a number of requests for interviews and a few other loose ends needed tidying up. Throughout the trial, I maintained that I would say yes to every interview, because we were one of the few outlets able to tell the story beyond simply what took place in the dock.
The verdict came in at 2.15pm. By 3.15pm I was simultaneously subbing a story on Gippsland Power women’s footy. The life and times of a country journo.
Further messages and calls were flicked between departments and other local media. Our friends at the South Gippsland Sentinel Times (the paper most central to the case) called to see what I thought of the headline: ‘Erin’s cooked’. It was brilliant, if not devilish.
That Monday night was certainly a late one. Leaving work, there was still television presenters operating in the fog, and they were back there the next day in the freezing early morning mist.
The Express may never cover another worldwide news event.
The one time we did it bumped us off our own front page (The Patterson verdict coincided with the Express’ 60th anniversary feature).
Morwell certainly went mad for a few weeks last year.
I’d stood barely two metres from Patterson at times during the trial. She appeared as a regular middle-aged woman. Similar in some ways to the South Gippsland towns she frequented, appearing so far removed and incapable of such evil.
She has appeared at least once, maybe twice, in my dreams since, although I can’t remember exactly what happened.
The last time I saw her was on the day of her sentencing, as she straddled furnishings of Victoria’s Supreme Court on her way out.
There will undoubtedly be stories of greater importance, greater relevance and for the greater good of the Latrobe Valley.
None however may provoke the public quite like this did.
Patterson is set to return to court next month, as she appeals her conviction. The Department of Public Prosectitions is also appealing the sentence, saying it is not enough.
