From hero to pariah in 72 hours: The mushroom murder trial’s fallout for Dr Chris Webster
Dr Chris Webster was on holiday in Queensland with his family when the verdict in Erin Patterson’s triple murder trial popped up on his phone.
The jury’s decision, handed down last Monday, was that Ms Patterson had murdered three family members with death cap mushroom-laced beef Wellingtons and attempted to murder a fourth.
It might have marked the end of a two-year saga that had brought Dr Webster face-to-face with a killer and placed him at the centre of a made-for-TV triple murder trial.
It did not.
“I’m getting worse press than the triple murderer has had — and I’m a dedicated country GP,” says Dr Webster, from Leongatha in rural Victoria.
“But it’s been a fascinating adventure into the world of being a nobody, being an interesting person that everybody wants to know, and then being a pariah, all in the space of 72 hours.”
Dr Webster is also facing possible AHPRA complaints following his post-trial comments describing his first impressions of Ms Patterson’s intent and personality.
In July 2023, he was the doctor on call at Leongatha Hospital when Ms Patterson presented briefly, saying she had gastroenteritis symptoms.
Barely an hour before, he had learned that two of his patients had likely eaten death cap mushrooms from her beef Wellington and faced a death sentence.
Ms Patterson told him she was the cook and that she had bought the mushrooms at Woolworths.
In that moment, Dr Webster said he had known she was lying and a killer.
When she discharged herself shortly after presenting at the hospital, Dr Webster made a triple-zero call that would later be played around the world.
His evidence in the eight-week trial contributed to Ms Patterson’s conviction for the murder of her in-laws Gail and Don Patterson, Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson and for the attempted murder of Heather’s husband Ian Wilkinson.
When the trial ended, media were now free to play Dr Webster’s triple-zero call, describing him as the hero doctor who had helped put away the murderer.
The media could also publish their interviews with Dr Webster.
In a Herald Sun article, he described his internal reaction when he first learned that Ms Patterson may have poisoned his two patients and that he was dealing with a “disturbed sociopathic nutbag”.
“My thoughts were, ‘Holy f**king shit, you f**king did it, you crazy bitch, you poisoned them all,’” he had told the paper.
After this was published, at least half a dozen patients — “not a single one of them mine” — complained to his clinic about his language.
Social media commenters called for him to be reported to AHPRA.
The accusations that he was misogynistic, ableist and had breached patient confidentiality made him feel “crushed”, he said.
“One commenter said, ‘Sack the prick.’ Oh my god — sack the prick? Nobody seems hesitant to slam me in public,” he told AusDoc.
“I can’t make sense of why there’s been such intense vitriol and malice and hatred directed at me.
“I’m actually one of the good guys. I’m not sure how it’s sort of been interpreted in such a way that I’m somehow worse than the murderer.”
He said many others had expressed support for him.
“One of my favourite comments was, ‘Do you really want to take down a doctor whose practice sees 60,000 patients a year in the country, where they’re desperately short of doctors. Is that really such a good strategy?’
“I’m not sure which aspect of it people want to label me as a misogynist over — whether it’s based on calling Erin Patterson a sociopathic nut job or a crazy bitch.
“I’m not calling her those things because she’s a woman. I’m saying those things because she’s a cold-blooded triple murderer.”
AusDoc’s story about the backlash attracted over 100 comments, many positive but others questioning Dr Webster’s professionalism.
He defended both his words and his decision to give media interviews, saying he found it therapeutic and cathartic to talk about an experience that had weighed so heavily for so long.
He said he wanted to tell his own story, rather than have anyone else tell it for him.
“A lot of journalists have been asking me about all of this,” Dr Webster said.
“You guys are going to tell my story because I’m a small part of a very big, fascinating narrative.
“But if it’s going to be told, I want to tell my story, because then it’s going to be accurate.”
In a couple of media articles there was talk of a ‘gag order’ having been placed on him.
He said the only person who had placed a gag order on him was his wife — and AusDoc fell outside the gag order, because of his respect for the publication and it being a news site for GPs.
“So I’m happy to talk, but there’s no gag order.
“It’s just a good directive from my wife: ‘How about you shut the hell up now?’
“I can’t be sacked. I’m a GP practice owner.
“I’ve had a board meeting with the other owner — me — and each of us decided that I haven’t done anything wrong, and that I can keep working as a GP in the country.
“So I’ve got a lot of people rallying around me. I’m just going to go back to being a humble south Gippsland, rural GP. I’ve got a great lifestyle there. It’s a great place to live, and it’ll blow over.”
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