An Australian appeals court on Friday rejected Erin Patterson's bid to overturn her murder convictions and ruled that she must spend the rest of her life in prison, finding her original sentence too lenient for the poisoning deaths of three relatives.
Three judges of Victoria's Court of Appeal in Melbourne dismissed all seven grounds of appeal.
They agreed with prosecutors that Patterson's earlier sentence, three life terms with a non-parole period of 33 years, was inadequate. That would have made her eligible for release in 2056.
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The court called her crimes "extraordinarily cold and calculated" and said the case involved "such shocking criminality" that fixing a non-parole period was inappropriate, BBC reported.
What Happened At The Lunch
In July 2023, Patterson invited four guests to her home in rural Victoria for lunch. She served individual portions of beef Wellington containing death cap mushrooms. Within hours, the guests suffered severe stomach pain.
Within days, three were dead: Don and Gail Patterson, the parents of her estranged husband Simon, and Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson. Heather's husband Ian Wilkinson, a local pastor, survived after weeks in hospital and still has health problems.
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Simon Patterson was also invited but cancelled at the last minute, partly because he believed his wife had repeatedly tried to poison him over several years.
Patterson did not deny cooking the meal. She said she had accidentally added the mushrooms while trying to improve its flavour. The jury rejected this, finding she picked the mushrooms deliberately and dried them in a dehydrator, which she dumped days after the meal while her guests lay in hospital.
She was convicted in July 2025 and sentenced that September.
Why The Appeal Failed
Her lawyers argued that the jury's stay at a hotel shared with prosecutors, a key police witness and the media was "catastrophic" to her case. The judges found no objective basis to believe the jury had not delivered a verdict according to law.
The defence also challenged the use of mobile phone data placing Patterson near locations where death cap mushrooms had been reported, and of her Facebook posts complaining about her in-laws.
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It argued the trial judge wrongly blocked evidence of her long-time mushroom-foraging hobby, and that the prosecution's five-day cross-examination was "unfair and oppressive". The court held the phone data was admissible as part of the prosecution's wider circumstantial case.
Patterson appeared by video link from prison. Reporters in court said she showed no emotion as the ruling was read.
What Next
She has 28 days to decide whether to ask the High Court of Australia to hear a further appeal.
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