Erin Patterson watched from a maximum-security prison on the outskirts of Melbourne as Victoria’s Court of Appeal ruled that she would remain convicted of murdering three members of her estranged husband’s family. The 52-year-old did not attend the 15-minute hearing in person, and was resentenced to life without parole.
The court ruled on Friday, rejecting all seven grounds of Patterson’s appeal against her convictions.
Justice Stephen McLeish said Patterson’s offending was “extraordinarily cold and calculated and stands to be denounced in the strongest terms”.
Patterson had been convicted of murdering Don and Gail Patterson, her estranged husband’s parents, and Heather Wilkinson, his aunt. She had hosted the three for lunch at her home in the Victorian farming village of Leongatha, serving beef wellington laced with death cap mushrooms.
She was also convicted of attempting to murder Heather Wilkinson’s husband, Ian Wilkinson. He survived the meal after spending weeks in hospital.
Patterson’s original sentence was life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 33 years.
Her lawyers challenged the verdicts on seven grounds. They said the decision to allow jurors to stay in the same hotel as police and the prosecution while deliberating amounted to a “catastrophic” failure of the justice system. They also argued that trial judge Christopher Beale erred in ruling that mushroom-related photos and videos found on an SD card in Patterson’s home were inadmissible.
McLeish said the appeal court had granted Patterson leave to appeal on the first two grounds, then dismissed those arguments along with the remaining five grounds.
At the same time, the court upheld a counter-appeal by the Director of Public Prosecutions, which had argued that Patterson’s original sentence was manifestly inadequate.
Brendan Kissane KC, the director of public prosecution, had argued that the sentence was too lenient even though Patterson would be in her 80s before she could have sought parole.
The appeal court concluded that the criminality was sufficiently calculated that no non-parole period should be set.
McLeish said the court found Patterson’s actions had been “carefully planned and deliberate”, involving an “elaborate series of deceptions”.
He said Patterson had maintained an intention to murder all four people for three weeks, from their invitation to the lunch through the meal and the “protracted suffering and ultimate deaths that resulted”.
The case was heard by Justices Lesley Taylor, Stephen McLeish and Peter Kidd, who considered arguments from Patterson’s lawyers and prosecutors in August.
Ian Wilkinson, the only survivor of the lunch, was not at court.
Patterson’s trial had drawn podcasters, film crews and true-crime fans to the courthouse in the rural town of Morwell.
She is now among only a handful of Victorian offenders sentenced to life without parole, and among the only women in Australian history to receive that sentence.
If Patterson wants to continue her legal challenge, she must apply to the High Court for leave to appeal against her convictions or her new sentence.
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