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Tammy Egglestone was 10 years old when she first became interested in criminal law.
While she was asleep in her unassuming bayside suburb bedroom, an unknown man attempted to kidnap her, something she remains wary of speaking about.
Tammy Egglestone and Kelly Phelan outside court.Credit: Jason South
“After it happened I slept in the lounge for three weeks with my brother holding my hand. Then in the fetal position at the end of bed. It took over a year to lay straight in bed,” she says.
Today the book reviewer and new-build cleaner has more than 600 true-crime books in her home library and a sharp eye for justice.
Over the past 10 weeks she has driven thousands of kilometres between her Clyde North home to Morwell in Victoria’s Gippsland region for a front-row seat at the Supreme Court murder trial of accused mushroom cook Erin Patterson, on level one of the Latrobe Valley court precinct.
Each day for almost 50 days, she lined up in the frosty cold to get a glimpse of her first murder trial.
“I am a true-crime addict, but ironically I have a friend who sent me a message saying ‘you need to go to court’. I had a day off in the first week and thought I’d come down and see what it’s all about. I had a day off in the first week and from then, I was hooked,” Egglestone said.
Egglestone, an Instagram book reviewer, sat with a notepad in hand and wrote down the evidence while also getting to know those in the courtroom.
She says her interest in true crime goes back to Frankston serial killer Paul Denyer, who was active in the area she grew up in as a teenager.
She was about 16, she says, “the perfect age for him in 1993”, and went on to read The Frankston Serial Killer by Vikki Petraitis.
This, she says, changed her life.
The “three mushkateers” arrive at dawn to beat the crowd looking for a seat in the Supreme Court trial. Credit: Jason South
“Once I read that book, I haven’t read a fiction book since. About 95 per cent of my books are true crime. I have about 600 to 700 true-crime books, a full library,” she says.
“I have a real interest in Easey Street, too,” she says, referring to the brutal deaths of two women in Collingwood in 1977. “Once I started getting into true crime I came across it and became obsessed with it. I will be in the front row for that.”
Erin Patterson’s trial is the first murder trial the Melburnian has attended, and while her true-crime interest helped her understand some parts, she says others were different to what she expected.
“I loved watching the legal brains. Watching [defence lawyers] Colin Mandy and Bill Doogue bounce off each other.”
A Carlton Football Club fan and avid reader of sports biographies, Egglestone says her childhood interaction with the criminal world was also never too far from her mind – particularly on windy nights.
She says her close call as a 10-year-old may have sparked her interest in psychology.
“I really want to know how that brain works. In the ’80s, it was very different, it only nearly happened to you, it was really ‘let’s just forget about it’.”
At the end of the trial, she will leave Morwell with a hefty petrol bill but new friendships.
Lining up some days from 6am in sub-zero temperatures outside the courthouse, huddled inside a small verandah to shield herself from the rain, she bonded with the eclectic assortment of people from all over Victoria who gathered each day of the trial in the hope of getting one of the coveted seats inside courtroom 4.
People waiting to get into the court during the trial.Credit: Jason South
Traralgon local Kelly Phelan, born Patterson but not related to the victims or accused, bonded with Egglestone and another woman, Angela Ely, calling themselves the three “mushkateers” as they try to find humour in the most sinister of situations.
Phelan was driving in her car when she first heard about the case on the radio.
She grew fascinated by the case.
The mother of six, who owns a dairy farm with her husband, says the dinner table became the venue for discussion of the case before it reached the trial stage, with her youngest boy developing a keen interest in crime every time it made its way onto the nightly news.
Phelan lives about 15 minutes’ drive from the courthouse, and while she never thought she’d find herself in a courtroom, her curiosity got the better of her.
“I came alone the first day. It was scary, I was so nervous, I was anxious, yes. We all sat together and yeah, just made friends.” Phelan says.
“I found it really hard to unwind my mind at home, though, always thinking about the case, the evidence. I couldn’t see it all coming together.
“I thought it would be like it is on television, Law and Order, but it’s nothing like I expected.”
Phelan originally planned to attend a five or six-week trial. When it blew out to 10 weeks, it made life at home a little harder, she says.
Members of the public line up early to get a seat in court.Credit: Jason South
Her husband, Brett, has been supportive and taken on a lot of her work during the day – including managing 41 calves and 250 dairy cows – telling her “it’s something you’ve always wanted to do so we’ll make it work”.
“I get up at 4.30am to feed calves, run back up to the house, do school lunches, duck into the shower and yell out, ‘come on, guys’ before the school run,” she laughed.
“When I finish at court for the day, if the calves have not been fed, I’ll feed the calves when I get home, then squeeze in a bit of an overflowing washing basket.
“There hasn’t been much food in the fridge, though. Monday was my shopping day before the trial.”
She says the highlight of the trial was watching Erin Patterson’s defence team in action, especially barrister Colin Mandy, KC.
On her arm she now carries a memento of the trial that took over 10 weeks of her life: a tattoo of a tiny red mushroom.
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