Aaron (not Erin) Patterson found guilty of mushroom deaths

The Reframer: Notes from the Margins

This article was originally published as a LinkedIn post.

What would the headlines say if 𝗔𝗔𝗥𝗢𝗡 (𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗘𝗿𝗶𝗻) 𝗣𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻 was found guilty this week of murdering his in-laws with a poisoned pie? Of course, Aaron would have used a gun. Poison is historically a woman's weapon of choice.

If you’re not Australian and you don’t know the case (unlikely since it’s garnered international coverage in our true-crime obsessed milieu), a quick web search will bring you up to speed.

Erin has been punished not just for her crime, but for breaking the rules of femininity. I'm not surprised by the media and public's treatment of her. Lindy Chamberlain comes to mind. A woman steps outside the bounds of the 'mother' archetype, and suddenly she’s a monster.

The media were salacious. They hunted down old colleagues to tell tales of the unattractive woman who dared inspire male desire. She was unnatural - witch-like - because how else had an ‘ugly’ woman done it?

I’ve been waiting for the armchair psychiatrists to parade out the most in-vogue diagnosis right now: 𝗻𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗶𝘀𝘁! No in-person assessment - just a faux label pathologising someone else's pain and weakness. And here it comes - but from a real psychologist this time: Mary Hahn-Thomsen for The Age.

I felt a strange sense of relief when the jury exhibits were released this week. There was more to the story. My empathy for Erin as a human - killer she may be - was not misplaced.

Erin Patterson was once wealthy after an inheritance. She invested in property and built her dream home. She was generous - perhaps too much so.

Her husband Simon enjoyed the fruits of her wealth. She gave him half her money after they separated, despite having primary custody. A year later she inherited more. He told the court he thought it was “not unreasonable” to expect a share.

Then he stopped paying child support. He tried to change his tax status back to ‘married,’ which would cut her child benefits - her only income.

Erin demanded her due. In reality, she was asking for more: for her ex to do his share and to take responsibility as a man.

She brought in his parents, asking them to help. They refused. Simon texted that he was too “uncomfortable” to attend the fatal lunch. I’ll bet he was. No man wants to be scolded in front of his mum.

If Erin had been Aaron - if she were a man - would we have been so quick to project deviance, wickedness, or pathology on her actions?

Three people are dead. Erin Patterson has been found guilty. But before you settle into certainty, ask yourself:

❓Who gets cast as evil?
❓Who gets the benefit of the doubt?
❓Who writes the script?
❓What is left out, so the ‘story’ fits the agenda?

I've heard that Helen Garner was in the public gallery during the trial. She brings a razor sharp lense to public crimes like this, revealing the human in the monster, the monster in the human, and the judgemental voyeur in all of us. I hope we get her take one day.

Until then, please digest this alternative newspaper article my alter ego Mike Newell has written as Aaron gets convicted of murder manslaughter.

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