A small town with a dark past is on the verge of world fame when alleged mushroom killer Erin Patterson goes on trial.
The first in a series of preliminary hearings concluded last week, with more scheduled for October and December before her murder trial next year.
These hearings, details of which cannot be made public to avoid prejudice to jury trials, are all held in the Supreme Court of Victoria in the Melbourne District.
But Patterson’s trial will take place in the Supreme Court of Victoria in Morwell – 150km east of Melbourne in the Latrobe Valley in Gippsland – and begins on April 28.
The date was set on the first day of the five-day preliminary hearing last week, which immediately attracted the attention of media around the world.
Virtually all available accommodation within eight miles of Morwell – as far as Traralgon – has now been booked out by media organisations flocking to watch the trial.
The trial could last up to six weeks, with large numbers of photographers and camera crews expected, as well as a horde of court and crime reporters in Morwell.
True crime podcast makers and documentary filmmakers also flock to the city, which is set among lush green fields and has a population of fewer than 15,000.
Media gather outside the Latrobe Valley courthouse during an earlier hearing for Erin Patterson
Erin Patterson is accused of killing members of her extended family at a luncheon
The city is known for its role as a major energy production centre for Victoria, and as the centre of a significant coal mining and fossil fuel industry.
The Supreme Court of Victoria has not yet released plans for how it will serve the global media in Morwell, when Daily Mail Australia launched an investigation last week.
But the region is no stranger to large-scale media circuses, having previously made world news for a series of high-profile, unrelated crimes.
One of these was the tragic death of little Jaidyn Leskie in the Latrobe Valley town of Moe, a 20-minute drive from the courthouse where Patterson’s trial will take place.
Greg Domaszewicz was charged with the murder of 13-month-old Jaidyn in 1997, but was acquitted at trial.
Domaszewicz, then 28, was babysitting Jaidyn for the boy’s mother when a pig’s head was bizarrely thrown into the front yard of the house, leading to an unrelated argument.
Jaidyn disappeared that same night, but six months later he was found dead in a creek with horrific injuries, including a badly broken arm that had been poorly treated.
Domaszewicz admitted to police that the one-year-old boy had been injured that night and that he had “cleaned up the blood,” but denied killing him.
Police officers at the time believed Domaszewicz was working on a car that may have fallen off its jack, injuring the toddler playing next to it.
They suspected that Domaszewicz panicked, gave Jaidyn a drug and killed him with a blow to the head, then dumped his body in the dam.
But the jury rejected that theory and acquitted Domaszewicz of the child’s murder.
The trial, which unlike the upcoming Patterson trial, was held in Melbourne, received widespread media attention.
The Hazelwood power station can be seen from Morwell
Greg Domaszewicz after being accused of murder
Jaidyn Leskie and his mother
At a follow-up coroner’s inquest in 2003, more than 50 witnesses were heard.
In his opening statement, former Attorney General Jim Kennan, SC, alleged there was evidence Domaszewicz had abused Jaidyn in the weeks before his death.
The investigation lasted nearly a month, but when it was completed, the coroner still could not determine who killed the toddler.
In June last year, the Latrobe Valley was again in the news after the gruesome death of a ‘gentle giant’, who died after being lured to his death by a glamorous barista.
Jarrad Lovison, 38, was murdered in 2019 by Jake Brown, 31, and his buddy Andrew Price, 50, who forced him to take a toxic overdose of GHB and left him in the bush.
Barista Samantha Guillerme, who was sentenced to just 15 months in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter and agreeing to a deal to betray the others, had placed Lovison in a deadly love triangle.
And just months later, Albert Thorn from East Gippsland was sentenced to life imprisonment for the gruesome murder of Bradley ‘BJ’ Lyons, a father of eight.
Mr Lyons, from Lakes Entrance, was tortured and executed after being betrayed by his meth-addicted wife Jana Hooper, who falsely accused him of sexually abusing her daughters.
The trial, which also attracted a lot of media attention, also took place in Melbourne.
Samantha Guillerme became the talk of the Gippsland region after luring a man to his death
Don and Gail Patterson are said to have been murdered
Patterson is charged with three counts of murder in the deaths of her father-in-law Don Patterson, mother-in-law Gail Patterson and relative Heather Wilkinson. She invited the trio to her home for lunch last July.
She is accused of attempting to murder her estranged husband Simon Patterson, who was invited to the lunch but failed to turn up, and of two further attempts on his life in 2022 and 2021.
Patterson is also accused of the attempted murder of Reverend Ian Wilkinson, who was present at the lunch but survived in hospital after a long battle for his life.
The court had previously heard that Patterson wanted the trial to take place near her hometown of Leongatha, about 60 kilometres south-west of Morwell.
Patterson has always denied any wrongdoing and burst into tears when she broke her silence last year, just before she was arrested.
