Australian prosecutors are pushing to ensure convicted killer Erin Patterson never walks free, urging appeal judges to toughen her sentence over what they called a calculated betrayal carried out with deadly mushrooms.
The 51-year-old was found guilty last year of murdering her husband’s parents and an elderly aunt in 2023 after serving them a beef Wellington lunch that contained lethal death cap mushrooms.
Patterson was also convicted of attempting to murder her husband’s uncle, a local small-town pastor who survived the beef-and-pastry meal but spent weeks in hospital.
A two-day hearing in Melbourne ended today with Patterson seeking to overturn her three murder convictions, while prosecutors argued she should remain behind bars for the rest of her life.
Patterson’s crimes involved ‘betrayal’ and represented ‘worst-case offending’, the court heard
After the jury verdict, Patterson received a life sentence.
However, the trial judge set a non-parole period of 33 years — meaning she could apply for release at age 83 — citing, in part, that the notoriety of the case would likely force her to spend much of her imprisonment in isolation.
Prosecutors countered that the material before the court did not support the conclusion Patterson would be kept apart from others for “many years to come”.
In submissions to the Court of Appeal in Melbourne, they described the offending as a “betrayal” and “worst-case offending”.
Director of Public Prosecutions Brendan Kissane told the judges the 33-year minimum term failed to match the gravity of what occurred.
“In our submission 33 years for this offending is manifestly inadequate,” he argued.
“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 turned the rural courthouse in Morwell into a magnet for podcasters, film crews and true-crime followers. The quiet Victorian town — better known for its prize-winning roses — became the unlikely stage for one of the country’s most watched criminal proceedings.
From New York to New Delhi, audiences tracked the case that has come to be widely referred to 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 reason for the killings has never been established.
Patterson observed this week’s hearing from Melbourne’s Supreme Court through a live video link from her maximum-security prison, the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre in the city’s western suburbs.
During Mr Kissane’s submissions, she shook her head and closed her eyes, according to national broadcaster ABC.
On Tuesday, Patterson’s legal team asked the court to set aside her convictions.
They argued she suffered a “substantial” miscarriage of justice, alleging multiple irregularities and the improper use of evidence during the trial.
The Court of Appeal will deliver its decision at a later date.
A 12-person jury in July last year convicted Patterson of murdering her husband Simon’s parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and his aunt, Heather Wilkinson, at her home in the Victorian farming village of Leongatha.
Jurors also found her guilty of attempting to murder Heather’s husband Ian, a pastor who became critically ill but later recovered.
