Mushroom murderer Erin Patterson loses appeal and will now serve whole-life sentence

Erin Patterson, the Australian woman convicted of murdering three relatives with a poisoned mushroom lunch, has lost her appeal against her convictions and will now spend the rest of her life in prison. In a ruling delivered on Friday, three judges in Victoria's Court of Appeal dismissed Patterson's challenge and upheld a prosecution claim that her original sentence was inadequate because it allowed for the possibility of eventual release. Patterson, 52, was found guilty after a high-profile trial last year of murdering her in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson. She was also convicted of the attempted murder of Heather's husband Ian Wilkinson, a local pastor who survived after weeks in hospital and continues to suffer ongoing health problems from the poisoning. The victims fell ill after eating individual portions of beef Wellington containing death cap mushrooms at a lunch hosted by Patterson at her home in rural Victoria in 2023. Her estranged husband, Simon Patterson, had been expected to attend the meal but cancelled at the last minute, in part because he believed his wife had repeatedly tried to poison him over several years. Patterson was sentenced last September to life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 33 years. The trial judge set that period partly because of the "harsh prison conditions" Patterson was expected to face. She had been eligible to apply for parole in 2056. Announcing the appeal court's decision, the judges described her crimes as "extraordinarily cold and calculated" and said they had to be denounced in the strongest terms. Speaking on the panel's behalf, Justice Stephen McLeish said the case involved such shocking criminality that it was inappropriate to fix a non-parole period. Her legal team had argued seven grounds for overturning the convictions when the appeal was heard in August. Central to their case was a hotel booking mishap that resulted in the jury staying at the same accommodation as the prosecution, a key police witness and members of the media, which the defence described as catastrophic and damaging to the integrity of the trial. The defence also argued that certain evidence placed before the jury was irrelevant and prejudicial, including cell tower data suggesting Patterson had visited areas where death cap mushrooms might be found and Facebook posts in which she complained about her in-laws. They further contended that the judge wrongly blocked evidence of Patterson's long-time hobby of mushroom foraging, that the prosecution's five-day cross-examination of her was unfair and oppressive, and that the Crown had been inconsistent about a motive. All seven grounds were dismissed on Friday. Patterson now has 28 days to decide whether to seek permission from the High Court of Australia to hear a further appeal in the case.