A small town with a shady past is about to hit the world stage when alleged mushroom killer Erin Patterson enters court.
The first in a series of pre-trial hearings concluded last week, with more expected to be held in October and again in December ahead of next year’s murder trial.
All of the hearings, details of which cannot be published to avoid prejudice to a jury trial, are being held at the Supreme Court of Victoria in Melbourne.
But Patterson’s trial will take place in the Victorian Supreme Court at Morwell, 150 kilometres east of Melbourne in the state’s Latrobe Valley in Gippsland, when it begins on April 28.
That date was set on the first day of the five-day pre-trial hearing last week, sparking immediate media attention around the world.
Almost all available accommodation within a 13km radius of Morwell (including in Traralgon) has already been taken by media organisations flocking to the trial.
The trial is expected to last up to six weeks, with throngs of photographers and camera crews expected alongside a horde of court and police reporters in Morwell.
True crime podcasters and documentary crews will also converge on the town, which is set among lush green fields and has a population of less than 15,000.
Media gather outside the Latrobe Valley courthouse during an earlier hearing for Erin Patterson
Erin Patterson is accused of murdering members of her extended family during a lunch meeting.
The city is known for its role as a major energy production centre for Victoria, as the centre of a major coal mining and fossil fuel power generation industry.
The Victorian Supreme Court has yet to reveal its plans for how to handle the world’s media at Morwell when Daily Mail Australia launched an inquiry last week.
But the region is no stranger to large-scale media circuses and has previously made global headlines for being the centre of a series of unrelated high-profile crimes.
Among them is the tragic death of little Jaidyn Leskie in the town of Moe in the Latrobe Valley, a 20-minute drive from the courthouse where Patterson’s trial will take place.
Greg Domaszewicz was charged with murdering 13-month-old Jaidyn in 1997 but was found not guilty at trial.
Domaszewicz, then 28, was babysitting Jaidyn at the boy’s mother’s home when a pig’s head was bizarrely thrown into the front yard of the home in an unrelated dispute.
Jaidyn disappeared that same night, but six months later was found dead in a creek with horrific injuries, including a badly broken arm that was poorly treated.
Domaszewicz He admitted to police that the one-year-old boy had been injured that night and that he “cleaned up the blood,” but denied killing him.
Police investigators thought at the time that Domaszewicz was working on a car that may have fallen off his jack and injured the child playing nearby.
They believed Domaszewicz panicked, gave Jaidyn a drug and killed him with a blow to the head before dumping his body at the dam.
But the jury rejected that theory and acquitted Domaszewicz of killing the boy.
The trial, which unlike Patterson’s upcoming trial was held in Melbourne, attracted widespread media coverage.
Hazelwood Power Station can be seen from Morwell
Greg Domaszewicz after being charged with murder
Jaidyn Leskie and her mother
A subsequent forensic investigation in 2003 heard testimony from more than 50 witnesses.
In his opening statement, former Attorney General Jim Kennan, SC, said there was evidence that Domaszewicz had abused Jaidyn in the weeks leading up to her death.
The investigation lasted almost a month, but when it came to an end, the coroner still could not determine who had killed the boy.
In June last year, the Latrobe Valley was back in the news for the gruesome death of a “gentle giant”, who died after being lured to his death by a glamorous barista.
Jarrad Lovison, a 38-year-old Moe man, was killed by Jake Brown, 31, and his friend Andrew Price, 50, who forced him to take a toxic overdose of GHB and left him in the woods in 2019.
Barista Samantha Guillerme, who received a non-parole sentence of just 15 months after pleading guilty to manslaughter and accepting a deal to inform on the others, had made Lovison part of a deadly love triangle.
And just months later, Albert Thorn, from East Gippsland, was sentenced to life in prison for the horrific murder of father-of-eight Bradley “BJ” Lyons.
Mr Lyons, from Lakes Entrance, was tortured and executed after being betrayed by his methamphetamine-addicted wife, Jana Hooper, who falsely accused him of sexually assaulting their daughters.
The trial, which also attracted much media attention, was also held in Melbourne.
Samantha Guillerme became the centre of attention in the Gippsland region after tricking a man into dying.
Don and Gail Patterson were allegedly murdered
Patterson faces three counts of murder in the deaths of his father-in-law Don Patterson, mother-in-law Gail Patterson and relative Heather Wilkinson, after inviting the trio to lunch at his home in July last year.
She is charged with the attempted murder of her ex-husband Simon Patterson, who was invited to the lunch but did not attend, and two other alleged attempted murders against him in 2022 and another in 2021.
Patterson is also charged with the attempted murder of pastor Ian Wilkinson, who was at the lunch but survived after a long fight for his life in hospital.
The court had previously heard that Patterson wanted the trial to take place near his home town of Leongatha, which is about 60 kilometres southwest of Morwell.
Patterson has always denied wrongdoing and broke down in tears when he broke his silence before his arrest last year.