MELBOURNE — Erin Patterson has lost her appeal against her convictions for murdering three relatives with a beef Wellington laced with death cap mushrooms, and Victoria’s Court of Appeal has ruled she should never be released from prison.
The three judges dismissed her appeal and upheld prosecutors’ challenge to her original sentence of life with a non-parole period of 33 years, The Guardian reported.
“This offending was extraordinarily cold and calculated, and stands to be denounced in the strongest possible terms,” Justice Stephen McLeish said. He said Patterson had sustained an intent to kill for almost three weeks and engaged in an “elaborate series of deceptions,” including falsely claiming to have cancer.
Patterson, 52, was convicted of murdering her estranged husband’s parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and his aunt Heather Wilkinson after a lunch at her home in Leongatha in July 2023, and of attempting to murder Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson, who survived after weeks in hospital.
She watched the ruling by video link from prison. Her only remaining avenue is to seek leave to appeal to Australia’s High Court.
Sources: The Guardian, CBC News, BBC News
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