Erin Patterson will die in prison. Victoria's Court of Appeal on Friday, October 30, dismissed her appeal against her three murder convictions and one attempted murder conviction and granted prosecutors' appeal, removing her 33 year non-parole period.
The three judges, Justices Stephen McLeish, Lesley Taylor and Peter Kidd, called the offending "extraordinarily cold and calculated," ABC News Australia reported. "On any view, these were heinous crimes," they wrote. The Supreme Court of Victoria livestreamed the decisions, which were handed down at 10 a.m. Melbourne time.
The crime and the first sentence
Patterson served a beef Wellington laced with death cap mushrooms at a lunch at her home in Leongatha in July 2023. Her parents-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson, died, along with Gail's sister, Heather Wilkinson. Heather's husband, Ian Wilkinson, a Baptist pastor, survived after weeks in hospital, CBS News and the AP reported.
A jury convicted her after a trial that ran from April to July 2025. Patterson insisted the mushrooms got into the meal by accident. Prosecutors pointed to her destruction of evidence, her denial that she foraged, and a false claim of a cancer diagnosis that she used to explain why her children were not at the lunch. On September 8, 2025, Justice Christopher Beale sentenced her to life with a non-parole period of 33 years.
Why the conviction appeal failed
Patterson's lawyers called it "catastrophic" that the jury was housed in the same hotel as police and prosecutors. The judges said the arrangement "offered fertile grounds for speculation" but found no reason to think a miscarriage of justice occurred, ABC reported. Leave to appeal was granted on two of seven grounds, and both failed, according to ABC's live coverage.
The other grounds attacked cell tower evidence, records from the iNaturalist mushroom app, an old SD card, Facebook messages, the cross-examination by senior prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC and an alleged shift in the prosecution's theory of motive. The court found Rogers was "ably and fairly discharging her obligations." It said her closing address had "some blemishes" but was not unfair.
Why parole came off the table
Victoria's Director of Public Prosecutions argued that the trial judge erred in allowing any chance of parole, that Patterson remained remorseless and that the crimes fell in the worst category. The defence said she spends 22 to 24 hours a day alone, which it described as solitary confinement. Prosecutors answered that her notoriety would fade and that she has access to a library and a chaplain.
Justice McLeish said the conduct deserves to be "denounced in the strongest terms" and described "an elaborate series of deceptions," including the cancer lie, the destruction of evidence, the planning of the lunch and a "cruel breach of trust" toward relatives.
Our analysis: what the change means in years
Patterson is 52, ABC reported. Under the original order she could not have been considered for parole until she was 82, according to the AP. That 33 year period was already just three years more than the 30 the defence had asked for at sentencing, CBS reported. The appeal court has now replaced a release date three decades away with none at all.
Whole life terms are rare in Australia. ABC listed Martin Bryant, John Bunting, Robert Wagner and Peter Dupas among the few killers who serve them. In 2001, Katherine Knight became the first Australian woman sentenced to life without parole, CBS reported. In the United States, by contrast, life without parole is far more common, as in the Georgia case we covered of George Humphreys.
What comes next
Patterson, held in the Gordon Unit at Melbourne's Dame Phyllis Frost Centre, watched the ruling by video link and appeared to stare blankly, ABC reported. Her only remaining route is an application for special leave to the High Court of Australia, where the bar is very high and such appeals are rare. Her lawyers have not said whether they will try.
The case is a reminder that in Victoria, prosecutors can appeal a sentence they consider too lenient, and here they won. For another courtroom on the same day weighing life and death questions, see our story on Christa Pike's statement after Tennessee's failed execution.
Two Taps News stories summarize reporting and the analysis discussed on Two Taps and Friends. They are not legal advice. Read our standards.
