Australian woman sentenced to life without parole for mushroom murders

Erin Patterson has lost her bid to overturn her convictions and will spend the rest of her life in prison with no chance of release. Victoria’s Court of Appeal dismissed her appeal and granted the prosecution’s request for a longer sentence.

Patterson, aged 52, appeared by video link from the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre during the 15-minute hearing on Friday. She wore a royal blue jumper and glasses and showed no visible reaction as the decision was delivered.

“This offending was extraordinarily cold and calculated and stands to be denounced in the strongest terms.”

The court found she deliberately served death cap mushroom-laced beef Wellingtons to her former in-laws Don and Gail Patterson, aged 70, and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson, aged 66, at her Leongatha home in July 2023. The three guests died after the meal, while Heather’s husband Ian survived after weeks in hospital.

Justices Stephen McLeish, Lesley Taylor and Peter Kidd described the offending as extraordinarily cold and calculated. They said Patterson’s decision to serve the deadly lunch to her in-laws represented a cruel breach of trust.

Patterson had originally been sentenced to life with a 33-year non-parole period. The court ruled that no parole period should be set, making her only the second woman in Australia to receive life without parole.

Her lawyers had argued seven grounds for appeal, including that jurors staying in the same hotel as police and prosecutors during deliberations was a catastrophic failure of the justice system. The court rejected these arguments and found she did not suffer a miscarriage of justice.

The first Australian woman sentenced to life without parole was Katherine Knight, jailed in 2001 in New South Wales after killing her de facto husband.