Of Dingoes and Mushrooms

Even minor details in the case made the news, – including the memorable and slightly disturbing series of images captured by press photographer Martin Keep- , of Patterson in a police van.

Local Cases, Global Impact

I cannot think of any two murder trials in Australia that have so transfixed us – and indeed created attention around the world – than those of Lindy Chamberlain and Erin Patterson. If I say “Dingo Lady” we all know who I mean. If I say “Mushroom Lady” we all know who I mean. Just as the Chamberlain events have seared into our national psyche, I suspect the Patterson events will too over time.

I recall the global reach of the Chamberlain trial, springing from Lindy’s anguished declaration that a dingo had taken her baby at Uluru (at that time known as Ayer’s Rock), in 1980 while she and her family were on a camping trip.

My family moved back to Ireland the same month that the disappearance of Azaria Chamberlain occurred and by the time we were in Ireland it was a talking point there too. As it would go on to be for years – decades even – at home and overseas. That both have a “Christian” element to the stories also makes them memorable.

Eventually the Chamberlains’ story was turned into a movie called Evil Angels starring Meryl Streep who passed off a pretty good Aussie accent. Streep must have practiced her accent around a fly-swarmed barbecue, so good was the clenched ‘strine she delivered. Mind you, it was a box office flop. The actual unfolding of the events were far more compelling than anything Hollywood could do with the material.

I doubt if Erin Patterson will receive the movie star treatment. However the global media and commentary around her trial for the mushroom murders of three of her extended ex-family members has spread like a virus (or spores for that matter). Just like the Chamberlains. Though the media in the latter were far more of a salacious judge and jury than has occurred now.

Still it goes without saying that it’s been front page news in Australia for weeks, culminating in the guilty verdict on July 7th. Much separates the two cases, not merely the 43 years apart from convictions.

Australia was a different country back then. Okay, it was a different universe. The past – as they say – is a different country. They do things differently there. And in that instance, more shoddily and shamefully as well.

In 1980 there was no body, no evidence, no motivation for the Azaria Chamberlain murder trial, but go ahead it did in 1982.  The behaviour and gaslighting by the police in that instance was disgraceful. It was amateur hour. The manner in which the Chamberlains were treated-  and the revulsion in the public consciousness of a mother killing her baby – led all the way to a conviction that was, thankfully, overturned.

And there was something miraculous about that overturning.  In an almost Dead Sea Scrolls level of serendipity, Azaria’s matinee jacket was found near a dingo lair in an isolated area near Uluru some six years after her disappearance. Ironically it took the death of another person for that jacket to be found. As the National Museum of Australia reports:

 When British backpacker David Brett fell to his death from Uluru in 1986, few could imagine what it would reveal about one of Australia’s most notorious events. When searchers found Brett’s body near the base of the rock they also found a small, stained matinee jacket. It was instantly recognised and handed to police.

Truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

But also much uglier. Much is different in the Erin Patterson case and much of it is indeed ugly. Perhaps, fortunately, our justice system has been burned by too much bad investigation. Or perhaps Australia has just come into the modern era (1980s Australia was a backwater).

But it’s not just the judicial processes. It the fact that in this case there are bodies (too many bodies), and evidence – plenty of that – dished up on steaming plates.

And as for motivation? Well take your pick of the social media comments by Patterson, there was plenty of hostility towards her ex-family. And there’s a long line up of  “unsavoury” behaviour that lines up with her actions. The backstory of her life does not make for pleasant reading.

It also makes for a compelling case of a narcissistic personality. Not that “unsavoury” is proof of guilt, but her lies and her obfuscation, plus the fact she didn’t get sick at all, stacked up some pretty compelling reasons to convict.

So here are just some initial thoughts on the issues around the case and how we have responded to it. There’s clearly going to be more said about all of these events in the coming months.

Memes and Humour

There’s been a sense of macabre theatre for those blessed to have no skin in this particular game. Which is most of us. Hence the humour. It’s the age of irony and memes. And there has been no shortage of both in the days since the verdict. In fact the internet – as could be expected – has gone into overload on this.

The case itself is shocking. Truly shocking and tragic for the families involved. But humour is never so impactful as when it takes on gallows humour, and laughs darkly. At least not in this ironic age.

Yet some of the humour is just funny for its own sake. Much of the gallows humour in the past pointed out something endearing about suffering. Not so much now. Nothing is sacred in the modern meme age. If it can be said – and quickly and pointedly – it will be said.

As someone who likes to throw the odd meme or comment out there for a laugh, can I just urge us to be careful. Especially if we are Christian. That’s for a couple of reasons. Firstly there’s the principle of the thing: Nothing that comes out of our mouths must be for anything less than edification (guilty your Honour). So you will be accountable for every word.

And secondly, There’s the pastoral sensitivity of the thing.  Australia is a small country in terms of its Christian footprint. There are way fewer degrees of separation.  I sat at a lunch at a conference at which I was speaking and asked the lady across from me where she went to church.  That church, as it happened. Things get back to people. Thing hurt people.

Good and Evil

There was a clear cut difference between an evil act by a woman who intended to kill, and the kindly, Christian people she killed. It’s interesting reading the descriptions of the deceased, and that of Patterson’s surviving victim, and her ex-husband who did not attend the lunch.

The quiet, kindly church faith of non-ostentatious Christian folk who were steeped in humility and good works has been mentioned time and time again in the mainstream media. It’s almost as if such unfussy, quiet lives are increasingly rare in our day and age.

Which of course they are. Which is why it was commented upon so often. Even Patterson’s ex-husband has declined to sell off what would be a lucrative story to the media. He is more concerned with starting a podcast for people who have found themselves in similar situations. I have to say my heart swelled every time I read about the loving, kind people that her victims were.

Which makes the evil act appear all the more evil, in the same way that strong light contrasts with pitch black.  The public has been transfixed by this trial not simply because of the lurid details around the meal-making, or that dehydrator, or the awful manner in which her victims perished, but also because of how clear the line between good and evil were in the case.

There has been much good showcased over these weeks, Not-least-of-all a good church community.

Here was a quiet, humble church that was at the centre of the  lives of quiet humble people. It wasn’t flashy or important. It wasn’t an “influencer” church. If it had a platform it was a literal platform from where the likes of Ian Wilkinson, the only surviving victim and the church’s pastor, preached the gospel.

. Have a read of the statement put out by the church leadership:

Once again, just quiet, thoughtful, sober minded goodness. And it brought a lump to my throat reading the doctor’s statement in which the dying Heather Wilkinson thanked him gently for his care, even as she was being airlifted to Melbourne and her agonising death. Dr Chris Webster put it like this:

Heather was one of the gentlest souls, [the] kindest person. Her liver is falling apart inside her body, and the thing that she makes sure she does before she leaves the hospital in an ambulance: thank the doctor.

What a lady! How unshowy, thought-filled and – as Webster says – kind and gentle. If more Christians and more churches responded to adversity in this way we would be doing well. And the societies we live amongst might just take notice.

Truth and Justice

Interesting too that in an age of slippage when it comes to truth, the trial was centred around who was lying about what. For all of our laissez-faire attitude (outwardly at least) to truth claims, when it came down to it, we want truth to be told. We hate it when deceit occurs.

To watch a trial in which trained lawyers and the prosecutor dismantled a web of lies by Patterson, showed up how much the need for truth is ingrained within us, even for the liars among us!  God created us to be truth-tellers – it’s part of our image-bearing. As the truth unfolded in this trial, and as Patterson’s denials and outright lies were exposed, there was something in our core that felt this was right. Even if we felt no joy in seeing the events unfold.

And then there’s the need for justice. All good trials in our world that are untainted by greed or falsity, are pictures of the final day of total justice that is coming when the only Judge who truly counts – the Lord Jesus – will bring every injustice to account.

It’s interesting that we feel a cathartic sense of something right in seeing Patterson convicted, and the assumption that she will die in jail. It scratches that itch for justice. Or does it? I don’t think it truly does so, because justice in this age will not bring those three lives back.

The last day will be the final scratch of the itch, when the resurrection fully justifies and fully condemns. Patterson’s conviction in this age is, if she does not truly repent and throw herself upon the grace of God, a mere shadow of the justice of the last day. As Christians, such worldly judgements should sober us about that last day.

Of course much more is going to be said – and have to be said – about this “mushroom lady”/ Beef Wellington murder trial over the coming months, indeed years.

It’s rare for a trial to so fixate a people, especially given the churn of world events at the moment that can knock such a matter off the front page with relative ease. But there was something about it that caused us to be invested in it at the level we were.