Australia’s mushroom murder case sparks further true crime content following guilty verdict

Perpetual Entertainment’s Murder by Mushroom debuted on Nine this week

Further true crime content focusing on the case of Australian ‘mushroom killer’ Erin Patterson is being released after she was found guilty earlier this week of murdering three relatives.

Patterson was found guilty of murdering her in-laws Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson, by serving them beef wellington laced with toxic death cap mushrooms in 2023. She was also found guilty of the attempted murder of Heather’s husband Ian, who survived the poisoning after several weeks in an induced coma.

Murder by Mushroom, a documentary produced by Perpetual Entertainment for Australia’s Nine Network, covers the nine-week murder trial. It aired on Nine on Tuesday, the day after the verdict.

Distributed by ITV Studios, it has been sold to the UK’s Channel 5 and New Zealand’s Three/Warner Bros Discovery, on which it will debut next week.

The one-hour special, filmed over the course of the trial, includes previously unseen recounts from the proceedings and an FBI-style profile analysis of Patterson, as well as providing analysis of the events surrounding the fatal lunch in country Victoria, southeastern Australia.

The project follows the news of Tony Ayres Productions series Toxic, a drama series based on the murder case, which Oz pubcaster the ABC announced last week.

Meanwhile, seasoned Australian producer, showrunner and screenwriter Greg Haddrick, who has been covering the trial extensively, will be publishing a book on the case, The Mushroom Murders, with Allen & Unwin.

“There are so many details omitted from the media’s daily summaries of the proceedings that make this a much bigger story than people realise,” said Haddrick. “At the beginning, the public was convinced that Erin Patterson was guilty of deliberately murdering her in-laws. But as the murder trial continued, genuine doubt arose that it may have been a dreadful accident after all.”

Finally, Australian author, journalist and screenwriter Helen Garner announced is co-writing The Mushroom Tapes with true crime authors Chloe Hooper and Sarah Krasnostein.

The book will be published by Text Publishing. Much of Garner’s extensive canon of fictional and factual work has been optioned and developed for the screen, including feature films Monkey Grip, The Last Days of Chez Nous and Two Friends, on which she also served as screenwriter.