Agatha Christie and Alfred Hitchcock knew the power of a meal gone fatally wrong. From poisoned tarts to deadly dinner parties, their murder mysteries had the knack of transforming the domestic into the diabolical.
Now, real life has delivered its own gothic culinary thriller – and the literary and entertainment worlds are eating it up.
The conviction of Erin Patterson, the Victorian woman found guilty of murdering three members of her estranged husband’s family – and attempting to murder a fourth – with a homemade beef wellington laced with death cap mushrooms, has created an international media maelstrom. Publishing houses, streaming platforms, film studios and podcast producers are circling the story like salivating wolves closing in to make a killing.
Even before the jury delivered its guilty verdict on Monday, Australia’s national public broadcaster, the ABC, confirmed it was turning the Patterson poisoning into a TV drama. Its co-creator Tony Ayres (The Survivors, Clickbait) told Deadline that Toxic would “go beyond the surface – to reveal, not just sensationalise”, and he was working closely with the ABC journalist Rachael Brown, co-podcaster of Mushroom Case Daily, the ABC’s most successful podcast in a decade.
It is one of some half a dozen podcasts that covered the murder trial daily, with reporters from around the world flocking to the Latrobe Valley law courts.
These podcast series are now expected to delve deeper into the forensic science behind mushroom toxicity, the ethics of food preparation, and the cultural fascination with domestic crime.
This Sunday, Seven is promising a Spotlight Special, with a criminal barrister, a forensic psychologist, a former detective, and journalists dissecting the trial and the convicted poisoner’s motives.
And Nine has confirmed a deal with its streaming platform Stan for Death Cap, a documentary that Screen Australia promises will showcase “exclusive access into the investigation and trial” and examine “how one lethal lunch can shatter the myth of small-town security in Australia”.
Comparisons to the 2004 Netflix hit The Staircase, based on the true case of Michael Peterson, an American novelist accused of murdering his wife who was found dead at the bottom of the stairs in their North Carolina home in 2001, abound.
Toni Collette who played the victim in The Staircase, is being touted on social media as an ideal actor to play Patterson.
New Idea threw local names Magda Szubanski, Mandy McElhinney and Jacki Weaver into the mix, along with Hollywood heavyweights Melissa McCarthy and Kathy Bates, and Baby Reindeer’s Jessica Gunning.
With one of Australia’s most lauded novelists Helen Garner spotted in the Morwell court public gallery, there has been speculation that another gripping work of nonfiction, along the lines of This House of Grief, her 2014 work about the trial of Robert Farquharson, convicted of crashing his car into a dam and killing his three sons, is in the works.
And Allen & Unwin has already announced it will publish The Mushroom Murders, a nonfiction work by the Underbelly creator Greg Haddrick – “with details not previously published” – in November. On Wednesday, Hachette Australia announced it had acquired world rights for Recipe for Murder, authored by Duncan McNab.
With global media outlets including CNN, the BBC and Al Jazeera covering the verdict, the story’s reach has been unprecedented for an Australian criminal case.
“It resonated with an audience all over the world,” the UK Daily Mail journalist Caroline Cheetham, who gained a cult following with her The Trial Of Erin Patterson podcast, told the ABC.
“It just feels so totally off the wall, bizarre, crazy, bonkers.”
With so many spin-off projects already confirmed, the Erin Patterson saga may now become one of the most dramatised true crime stories in recent memory.
Whether ethical questions, about how the tragic deaths of Gail and Don Patterson and Heather Wilkinson have become entertainment fodder, will be examined remains to be seen.
