How did “Super Sleuth” Erine Patterson become a real crime mania

For years, from behind the computer screen, Irene Patterson has a good reputation in the real online crime community as “Super Sleuth”.

Today, it has become a real crime obsession.

When three people died-another sickly sick-after eating the toxic beef carried by the failed at her home in Victoria’s countryside two years ago, her entire life was placed under a microscope.

Journalists have descended from all over the world to cover the long killing trial, and the spectators on the waiting list daily to get a place in the courtroom, and thousands of people have chosen the details of the case online.

However, although the jury earlier this week was found guilty on all charges, the madness of speculation and the depth of magic may only intensify.

“It has shades of Macbeth,” criminal psychologist Tim Watson Monroe told the BBC.

In one of the smallest halls of Australia, its largest trial occurred in modern history.

For 11 weeks, seven teams made documentary films threw a lens on the small town of Morwell. PodCaster here was ten cents. Journalists compete for the six seats designated for the media within the court every day. Even one of the best beloved authors in Australia, Helen Garner, who has often dropped by LaTrape Valley courts, and feeds rumors that she is preparing to write the best -selling books.

Waiting for the three pregnant women outside the building, most of the morning in the trial was a waiting list from the camp chairs.

Come to rain, frost, or fog, court observers – mostly women, often retreat in Beni and covered with sleeping bags – see the moment when the glass doors will open.

Once they entered, they were putting a set of property – scarves, water bottles, openings, bags – outside the courtroom to reserve their place.

Tami Eugeston exceeded more than an hour to reach Moreuel most of the trial days. “I am a bit of real crime fanatic,” she explained.

She was in court when I heard evidence that Patterson was one day like her.

Patterson was an active member of the Facebook group that focused on Kelly Lynn’s crimes, a woman who was convicted of killing her two -day -old daughter in one of the most famous cases in Australia.

In 2018, Lynn became the subject of the main podcast after writing to a journalist claiming to be wrongly convicted and beg for investigation.

In the Patterson trial, one of her online friends, Christine Hunt, said she was famous among her peers because of her research skills and technical skills.

“It was a little sedition,” she said. “She was very appreciated in that group.”

But when her case was revealed in Morwell, Patterson was also tried in the Public Opinion Court.

It has become new to cold water in workplaces throughout the country, gossip among friends’ groups, and the final theme online discussion.

Thousands of people organized it on a motive for the crime, and they made a comment on parts of the evidence, and even the alleged corrupt forces were behind the case – most of the unfounded discussion, almost all in violating the laws designed to give the defendants a fair trial.

Memat filled social media. On Google Maps, someone has created a restaurant list in Patterson’s home address. Others shared the Bingo experimental cards that they created for those who follow them closely.

Throughout the week, the jury was studying their ruling, wasolated in a hotel to protect them from Maelstrom, and the question that everyone had: What were they thinking?

“What are they doing there?” One of the lawyers heard asking in the Mourwell Café on the fourth day of deliberations.

With the jury members are binding on strict secrecy requirements, we will never know.

“In the United States, they can meet the jury after a trial,” criminal psychologist Tim Watson Monroe told the BBC. “We cannot enter the jury heads in Australia … so it is really difficult to know what they think about and why they have reached this conclusion.”

This leaves a huge vacuum for the audience to fill their speculation.

I am thinking of people like MS Eglestone: If poisoning aims to kill, Patterson will not plan and carry out better?

“I came here (AS) Switzerland,” Mrs. Eglestone explained, and called the speech on the issue “very Pitchformy”.

“You know, (she) is guilty, she is guilty, she is guilty.

“Many of them use thinking too late.” If you are in this position, I will not do this, this. “Well, you don’t know what to do in this situation.”

But people like her were drowning by the legions of Patterson as a sin.

Many said that it was their lies that convinced them. Some claimed that the evidence showed the absence of sympathy and anxiety for those who died.

“What really gave her was wearing white pants when she was” stomach “and she needed to go to the hospital for that!” One person posted, referring to CCTV shots for their movements in the days after the lunch, who was played in the trial.

Indeed, the case inspired a special television series, a silver screen drama series, a group of podcasts, many documentaries and a handful of books.

“She has typical cliché things that make the real crime sell,” said Ms. Igliston, explaining why her herd and others are obsessed with the case.

“The fact that she brought out the family members … (she) is white, female, financially stable, as you know. They are all from the church.”

As for David Peters, the benign conditions that seem to be a crime – and the fact that it was in his local area – attracted it: “The fact that it was a family sitting to do something that you consider safe – eating a meal – then the consequences of that meal …”

Many people inform the BBC that the case reminds them of frenzy on the notorious trial of Lindy Chamberlain in 1982. She was convicted of murder after her infant daughter Azaria took from a camp site by Dingo.

It is not a coincidence that both cases focus on women, as the researchers told Brande Kokran BBC.

The world has always been fascinated by women who kill – part of it because it contradicts their traditional “sponsorship” role, as they explain.

These stereotypes also cast a shadow at the time of Patterson in court.

“She is expected to act in a certain way, and she is not,” says Dr. Kokran, a lecturer at Victoria University.

“It is like,” Oh, it is clear that it is guilty, it does not cry all the time “or” it is clear that it is guilty, it has lied about this. “The legal system itself treats women very differently.”

Away from the ghost of the glycated trial, there is anger – although it is diminished – among the societies in which the victims are through the dissection of the case.

He says that without Jill Patterson and Hasher Wilkenson were respected by many in the South Gibelsland area, but they seem to be forgotten.

“This was a very high -level issue that caught a great attention, and is often unwanted to our local community.

(F) Some people did not have that humanity … They definitely lost their focus for people, there is a loss, there is sadness. “