Erin Patterson’s arrest draws global attention from New York, London at first public outing since arrest

She wore tortoise shell glasses and beige jumper. Was that a glare at the waiting media, or a gaze into nothingness? The world’s eyes were on Erin Patterson’s first public appearance since her arrest.

The “Mushroom Woman” is a big deal in New York and London, as well as sleepy Morwell, where she made her first public appearance in custody on Friday.

Overseas media organisations armed with big bags of cash are said to be headed to the alleged victims of the accused poisoner.

Yet Patterson’s arrival went unnoticed by some of the dozens of journalists who had waited hours outside the Latrobe Valley Magistrates Court.

Led into the glass-enclosed dock, flanked by guards, she briefly swept her eyes across the courtroom gallery, then sat, to set her gaze on a spot on the opposite wall.

She wore tortoise shell glasses, her hair tucked behind her ears. Her jumper was beige.

Those hoping for insight into her thinking were to be disappointed. If this was the face of evil, as police allege, then political thinker Hannah Arendt got it right with her famed reference to banality.

Erin Patterson’s courtroom sketch. Picture: Anita Lester

Patterson was marked mostly for her stillness over the 15-minute court appearance.

A study in detachment, she spoke to her lawyer, Bill Doogue, and was addressed by the magistrate, Tim Walsh.

Patterson offered a small smile of acknowledgment when Walsh explained the administrative journey ahead.

“All right, thanks,” she told Doogue who asked how she was after her first night in prison.

Walsh expressed displeasure at a police request for a 20-week adjournment to analyse computer equipment.

His animated style – the sighs and sardonic commentary – breathed freshness into mundane wranglings about the court dates ahead.

“Thank-you, she can be removed,” Walsh said at 10.25am.

The country town of Leongatha, where Patterson lives. Picture: Mell Chun.

Patterson, perhaps understandably, is not fond of media attention. She told a journalist at her Leongatha front door in August that she had been painted as an “evil witch”.

There was another glance at the gallery when Patterson left the courtroom, prompting media speculations afterwards.

Did that count as “a glare”? Or was she looking through the journalists as if they were not there?

Curious onlookers did not throng outside the court. Affected parties were absent.

In keeping with the police’s low-key response to the intense scrutiny, officialdom will not sate the appetite for this story any time soon.

Patterson will be hidden from public view until the next scheduled court appearance in March next year.

In the meantime, however, her alleged victims will be blitzed with offers of payment for their stories.

La Trobe Valley Magistrates Court was a media circus. Picture: Josie Hayden

Sleepy Morwell had a rude awakening when global media arrived in town. Picture: Josie Hayden

The obvious targets are her former husband, Simon, for whom she has been charged with four counts of attempted murder.

Details of an alleged poison attempt which put him in a coma for 16 days in May last year will likely multiply in the days and weeks ahead.

And there’s pastor Ian Wilkinson, who has recovered from months in hospital to grieve the loss of his wife, Heather.

The deaths of three people, and the five attempted murder charges, are wrapped in questions of trust, intent and horror. That the ghastly descriptions of the charges against Patterson went unsaid on Friday will not dim public fascination.

Did the Mushroom Woman love these people, as she has claimed, or did she kill them?

It’s what a London tabloid editor has labelled a “really solid recipe” in “mystery”.