Australian prosecutors are urging judges to impose a life sentence without parole on Erin Patterson, arguing that the woman convicted of killing three relatives in a poisoned mushroom lunch should never leave prison.
The 51-year-old was found guilty last year of murdering her former husband’s parents and an elderly aunt in 2023 after serving them beef Wellington containing deadly death cap mushrooms.
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Patterson was also convicted of attempting to kill her former husband’s uncle, a pastor from a small town who survived after spending weeks in hospital following the meal.
At a two-day hearing in Melbourne that ended today, Patterson’s lawyers sought to overturn her triple-murder convictions, while prosecutors pressed the Court of Appeal to keep her behind bars for life.
Patterson’s crimes involved ‘betrayal’ and represented ‘worst-case offending’, the court heard
The trial judge previously ruled that Patterson would be eligible to seek parole after serving 33 years. That would place her release date at age 83, with the sentence taking account of the likelihood that much of her imprisonment would be spent in isolation because of the intense notoriety surrounding the case.
Prosecutors rejected the suggestion that the evidence supported an assumption she would remain isolated for “many years to come”.
They told the Court of Appeal in Melbourne that Patterson’s crimes were marked by “betrayal” and amounted to “worst-case offending”.
Director of Public Prosecutions Brendan Kissane argued that the 33-year non-parole period failed to reflect the gravity of the killings.
“In our submission 33 years for this offending is manifestly inadequate,” he told the judges.
“Indeed, our submission is that for this offending the respondent should be sentenced to life without parole,” he said.
“We of course know it’s a harsh submission to make, but we submit it is demanded by the nature of the offending in this case.”
Mushroom murders
Patterson’s trial last year transformed the courthouse in the rural Victorian town of Morwell into a destination for podcasters, film crews and true-crime followers. The quiet town, known for its prize-winning roses, became the center of global attention.
Viewers and listeners from New York to New Delhi tracked the proceedings and their many twists, in a case that has since become widely known as the “mushroom murders”.
Patterson was found guilty of murdering her husband’s parents and an elderly aunt by serving them a beef Wellington lunch laced with death cap mushrooms
The killings’ motive remains unknown.
Patterson followed this week’s arguments from Melbourne’s maximum-security Dame Phyllis Frost Centre through a live video link to the Supreme Court.
National broadcaster ABC reported that she appeared to shake her head and close her eyes while Mr Kissane presented the prosecution’s case.
On the previous day, Patterson’s lawyers asked the judges to overturn her convictions.
They argued that she had suffered a “substantial” miscarriage of justice, citing what they described as a series of irregularities and the improper use of evidence during the trial.
The judges are expected to deliver their decision at a later date.
A 12-person jury convicted Patterson in July last year of murdering her former husband Simon’s parents, Don and Gail Patterson, along with his aunt, Heather Wilkinson, at her home in the Victorian farming village of Leongatha.
She was also convicted of attempting to murder Heather’s husband, Ian, a pastor who became gravely ill after the meal but ultimately recovered.
