One Saturday afternoon last August, a gumbootclad Nathan Hersey was in the paddock, checking on his beloved Scottish Highland cattle, when his phone rang. The call was from a journalist seeking comment on rumours that a triple murder had occurred in the area.
Taken aback, the first-term councillor, who’d only recently been elected Mayor of the South Gippsland Shire, politely declined to speak, then rang his council colleagues to alert them to “the most unusual call”.
“I just thought that was the end of that,” he tells The Weekly, adding, “clearly, it wasn’t.”
The next morning, as he was attending a ‘community cuppa’ with constituents, news broke that police were investigating the shock deaths of three local people, with another fighting for life – a suspected poisoning by Death Cap (Amanita phalloides) mushrooms.
The deceased were much loved and well known around the pretty rural township of Korumburra in Victoria’s south-east, and their bizarre deaths, after a seemingly innocent family lunch, rocked the tight-knit community and sent media newsrooms into a spin.
Journalists from every corner of the globe descended on the shell-shocked town, digging for clues as to whether this was a terrible accident or something more sinister.
Within hours, the ‘Mushroom Mystery’ headline led the news bulletins of CNN, CBS, Al Jazeera and famed broadsheets The New York Times, UK’s The Times and The Irish Times. “It’s the kind of story a mystery novelist might conjure,” said one broadcaster on America’s National Public Radio.
The BBC ran with “Fatal Family Lunch Mystery Grips Australia” and the trusted Washington Post channelled Agatha Christie: “She invited four over for lunch. A week later, three were dead.”
“My phone blew up with media calls from all over the world. It became a circus, and it was relentless for months,” Nathan recalls. “When a message came from a community in Africa saying, ‘our hearts go out to your community, you are in our thoughts’, I realised how far the story had spread.”
The magnitude of such a traumatic event – the cyclone of suspicion and speculation that whirls around it – and the glare of the world’s spotlight can deliver aftershocks to a small town for decades to come, as the residents of nearby Moe, South Australia’s Snowtown and the Northern Territory’s Larrimah will attest.
Yet the community of Korumburra wasn’t having any of it. They closed ranks and rallied behind closed doors, determined to write a different final chapter to this extraordinary story.
“The community reaction was instant,” Nathan explains. “People came together to look after one another with an unwavering message of positivity and caring. They’ve responded with overwhelming grace and dignity.
“They want this story to be about our area as a beautiful place with great people who care very deeply about one another, rather than the sensationalised version we have been seeing, which does not reflect who we are. We are not a bizarre backwater as has been depicted. People have lifted together, and their attitude has only deepened my respect and love of the community.”
A 90-minute drive from Melbourne, the first things that strike you about Korumburra are the luminous green hills and lush South Gippsland countryside that roll down to meet the inky blue of Bass Strait at the horizon.
At the region’s heart, perched high on the edge of the Strzelecki Ranges, Korumburra is a popular stop on the way to tourism mecca Wilsons Promontory.
In recent years, the historic coal mining and prime dairy farming region has become a popular weekend escape for Melbourne gastronomes, eager to explore the truffle-rich hills, boutique breweries, cellar-door distilleries and emerging arts scene. Miner’s cottages have been transformed into luxury B&Bs, and veer off the South Gippsland rail trail and you’ll find yourself at one of many world-class vineyards. That’s the story the people of South Gippsland want you to know.
However, for the past 12 months, all eyes have been on Korumburra and nearby Leongatha for a very different reason.
“This investigation has been subjected to incredibly intense levels of public scrutiny and curiosity,” says Homicide Squad Detective Inspector Dean Thomas. “I cannot think of another investigation that has generated this level of media and public interest, not only here in Victoria, but also nationally and internationally.”
“I was in Mexico last year. No one knew where I came from until mushrooms were mentioned, then bang, everyone knew about the mushroom story,” says Ben Fisher, whose pub, The Middle, in the heart of Korumburra, recently scooped the Victorian hotel industry awards, crowned best regional pub and home of Victoria’s best parma (that’s a parmy for readers north of the border!).
“It was crazy how quickly this story spread, but hopefully the parma can put Korumburra back on the map for the right reasons … not the mushrooms!” he quips.
Bad things don’t happen in Korumburra, a sleepy town that has almost twice as many churches as pubs. But on July 29 last year the town’s innocence was shattered.
That day, much-loved locals Don and Gail Patterson were invited to lunch at the home of their former daughter-in-law, Erin, a 10-minute drive away in Leongatha. They were joined by Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, and her husband, Ian. And Erin served them Beef Wellington – prime steak layered with mushrooms and wrapped in buttery pastry.
It is alleged that Erin, a former air traffic controller, was hoping for a reconciliation with her ex-husband, Simon Patterson, who had been invited to the lunch too, but declined the invitation. The couple’s children were away for the afternoon.
Hours after consuming the meal the four lunch guests presented at the local hospital with what they believed to be gastro, but very quickly it became clear that this was something much worse.
On August 4, sisters Gail and Heather tragically died. Don died the following day, while Ian remained in intensive care fighting for his life. He miraculously survived but spent months in hospital and required a liver transplant.
Erin Patterson was arrested in November 2023 and charged with three counts of murder and five counts of attempted murder, including the attempted murder of her former husband, following three separate incidents several years earlier.
“I collapsed at home, then was in an induced coma for 16 days through which I had three emergency operations mainly on my small intestine, plus an additional planned operation,” Simon wrote on social media in June 2022. “My family were asked to come and say goodbye to me twice, as I was not expected to live.”
Erin has repeatedly maintained her innocence and pleaded not guilty to all charges. Her trial has been fasttracked to the Supreme Court to be heard later this year.
Ben Fisher vividly remembers the moment he heard the news: “It was a Saturday afternoon, the races were on and the pub was busy. A journalist came in and asked if we’d heard anything about a mushroom poisoning. We hadn’t. We jumped online and the story was already running – we couldn’t believe it. From that moment it snowballed. By the next morning there were cameras and journalists everywhere … We all know someone connected to the families involved and people were genuinely very concerned about them.
“The pub has always been a bit of a hub for people to come together, in good times and bad, and people gathered to try to understand what on earth had happened and to console one another. With live television crosses happening outside and cameras filming up and down the street, it was surreal.”
The deceased were pillars of the community – the embodiment of the spirit for which the town is known. Korumburra is a close-knit village with enviably high rates of volunteering and community participation.
Don Patterson had been a teacher at the local high school for 25 years. His wife, Gail, also spent many years volunteering at the school as a teacher’s aide and later working in administration. They were inseparable and just a few months shy of their 50th wedding anniversary when they died. The couple had founded The Burra Flyer, the town’s popular community newsletter, which they ran until handing the reins to their then daughter-in-law, Erin, in 2018.
Heather Wilkinson, a mother of four and grandmother of six, was also deeply involved in the community. She worked as an integration aide at Korumburra Secondary College and taught English to new migrants in her spare time. Her husband, Ian, who miraculously survived the lunch but spent months in hospital, is a pastor at the local Baptist church. Ian is also known for hand-crafting wooden toys for children in need and dedicating his time to helping maintain the local aged-care home.
Between the couples, they’d christened, taught, married, counselled and buried many of the town’s 4766 residents, and 12 months on from the lunch the weight of the community’s loss hasn’t dissipated.
“Don, Gail, Heather and Ian were the first ones to reach out when someone in the community was in need. They were all known for the kindness and kind gestures they showed others,” says a friend, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
“They were the ones who brought the community together, who’d put a casserole on the doorstep or arrange a coffee in a crisis. They were always thinking of others and putting others ahead of themselves and this is just so upsetting.”
Behind the scenes, well away from the prying eyes of the world’s media, locals have rallied to support the families and closed ranks around them. There have been coffee meetings at a local bakery, prayer vigils, and locals have formed the Korumburra Staying Strong community group, organising community events to remind one another of the rich fabric that binds them.
In a show of public support, the town’s church leaders from all parishes came together as one to host a special combined Easter service in honour of the families. Hundreds gathered to reflect and pay their respects.
“When Ian returned home people rallied around him and provided meals, transport and day-to-day support to help him keep connected with the community and the church, because he was still quite unwell after discharge,” the friend says. “We wanted him to know he had a huge amount of love and support around him, in a way that was respectful and not intrusive.”
This remarkable alleged murder mystery, with its sinister and salacious twists and turns, has all the hallmarks of an Agatha Christie page-turner, and for months, the tabloid media moths were drawn to its flame.
Some local larrikins, sick of the intrusion, “fed the media chooks” – tall tales which were gobbled up.
“Stories so bogus they couldn’t possibly be true,” Nathan Hersey says. “I got called to verify one rumour that council was going to organise a commemorative mushroom-picking trail – I mean, for goodness sake! I said to the journalist, ‘Just listen to what you are asking me.’ It was just ridiculous.”
The tipping point came when grieving friends of the deceased were confronted in the supermarket and elderly parishioners had to be escorted from a memorial church service.
“At a memorial service at the Baptist church, not long after the event, elderly members of the congregation had to be ushered out through a back door to avoid the thick media pack surrounding the church,” Nathan explains. “People who knew the victims very well, and have been impacted by their loss, have been confronted by journalists in the street. It was pushy and intrusive.”
As Mayor, Nathan was determined Korumburra wouldn’t suffer the same hysteria and devastating social and reputational fallout that he’d witnessed growing up in Moe, an hour’s drive away in Latrobe Valley, during the notorious disappearance and murder of toddler Jaidyn Leskie in 1997.
The search for Jaidyn was believed to have been the largest since the disappearance of former Prime Minister Harold Holt, lasting 20 days, with Moe and its residents in the eye of a media storm.
This writer also grew up in the region and remembers the bizarre circumstances around the tragic death of Jaidyn Leskie and the intense spotlight on Moe which, to this day, has left a bitter taste in the mouths of many locals. The headlines, like ‘Valley of the Dole’ and ‘Little Bogan Lost’, were heartless. One academic described the people involved in that case as “a tableau of freaks”.
“I did not want the narrative [of the mushroom case] to be pulled in a direction that would damage the town or the people locally,” Nathan says.
It was agreed, with his council colleagues and the community, that he would step in and front the cameras on the proviso journalists left locals and the grieving families alone.
Still, dozens of true-crime podcasts are now swirling the globe and police sources have confirmed multiple approaches from filmmakers, with a Netflix series in the wings. Books, podcasts, YouTube shows, television documentaries and acres of newspaper have uncomfortably dissected this case.
The town is bracing for the spotlight to return when the Patterson case goes to trial later this year. But if the queue for The Middle pub’s awardwinning parma or the booked-out truffle hunt is anything to go by, Nathan and those who have quietly kept the community together can consider their work done.
“In many ways, this whole incident has helped people realise what they value about the community, particularly it’s interconnectedness,” says a senior community figure.
It’s a view that Nathan, now the Deputy Mayor, vehemently shares:
“Korumburra is a magnificent feast for the eyes. If anything, this terrible situation has highlighted what’s so fantastic about this place. It’s a beautiful community, with a strong community heartbeat. We have the layers of connections you just don’t get in the city anymore.
“Out of something so sad, it’s shown our sense of togetherness and it’s reinforced, to me, that my family made the right choice in the place we wanted to settle. Through tragedy, it’s cemented what a wonderful community we have.”
“We want people to come here and enjoy the town for all it has to offer,” Ben adds with an irrepressible smile. “Mushrooms are off the menu for now, and we hope the parma has put the town back on the map for all the right reasons.”
