IT’S Thursday, so it must be the fourth day of jury deliberations in the marathon mushroom murder trial at Morwell.

There’s three marquees set up in the forecourt of the justice complex off Commercial Road.

Photographers hover around the footpath outside.

News crews who’ve completed their live morning crosses or snapped photos of the prosecution and defence teams arriving (for the umpteenth time) are huddled together over coffee and conversation in groups of three and four, waiting for something to happen.

At least it isn’t raining.

Inside the courthouse, the normal business of the magistrates’ court day is continuing on the ground floor.

Upstairs, outside Courtroom 4, where the Erin Patterson trial has played out over the past 10 weeks, there’s been a noticeable thinning in the number of people taking an interest in the case, still hoping to catch the verdict.

Some of them have been at the trial most days, writing an amateur blog or just experiencing first-hand a story that has attracted interest worldwide.

Five of them have left small bags or backpacks, four grey, one coloured, in a speculative queue on the left-hand side of the door into the court, possibly hoping it will guarantee them a seat in the courtroom when the jury finally presses the buzzer

There’s 25 journalists in the media room nearby on standby.

Court security staff circulate. Crown Prosecutor Dr Nanette Rogers walks by.

The question on everyone’s lips: “Will this be the day?”

Erin Patterson, the 50-year-old mother of two charged with three counts of murder and one of attempted murder, arising out of a lunch of beef Wellington and death cap mushrooms, also waits, unseen, nearby.

Mrs Patterson has pleaded not guilty to all charges, maintaining that what happened on that day, at her Leongatha home in July 2023, when wild mushrooms inadvertently made their way into the food, was a tragedy and a terrible accident.