After two-and-a-half months, more than 50 witnesses and a media frenzy that had journalists sprinting through the streets of Morwell to make the verdict in time, the final moment of Erin Patterson’s trial arrived in silence.
At 2.15pm on Monday at Latrobe Valley law courts in Morwell, about a two-hour drive from Melbourne, courtroom four was packed and humming with tension.
Justice Christopher Beale, who had presided over the supreme court trial, instructed everyone to remain silent during the hearing. He didn’t need to. You could hear a pin drop.
Before the judge entered, Patterson sat between two security guards. She closed her eyes. Her chest rose and fell with slow, deliberate breaths.
But when the doors opened and the judge and jury filed in, her eyes snapped open, focused, unmoving.
One by one, the charges were read aloud.
