Topics: Erin Patterson, Australia, Crime, World News
An Australian woman who killed three of her estranged husband’s relatives with a deadly lunch of death cap mushrooms has been sentenced to life in prison.
On Monday (8 September), Erin Patterson was given life in prison with a non-parole period of 33 years by Justice Christopher Beale at the Victoria state Supreme Court.
It comes after she was convicted in July of murdering her in-laws Don and Gail Patterson and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, with a lunch of beef Wellington laced with foraged death cap mushrooms.
Patterson was also convicted of attempting to murder Heather’s husband Ian Wilkinson, who spent weeks in a hospital.
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For those who need a reminder of the shocking case, the 50-year-old mother-of-two was accused of trying to kill her in-laws by serving them a beef wellington in July 2023, in a case that gripped the world for the following two years.
She invited her estranged husband Simon Patterson, her former in-laws Gail and Don Patterson, both 70, as well as Mrs Patterson's sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66, and her husband Reverend Ian Wilkinson, 69, to her home for a meal.
However, Simon cancelled as he felt ‘too uncomfortable,’ given recent tensions between them, but the other four guests attended.
On the day of the fateful lunch, Erin served a homemade meal of beef wellington pastries, which included dried wild mushrooms, later revealed to be deadly death cap mushrooms.
All four of her guests fell ill hours later and were admitted to hospital, before being put on life support with advanced multiple organ failure.
On August 4 and 5, Don and Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson all died from mushroom poisoning. Meanwhile, Ian, the sole survivor, was discharged on 23 September after weeks in an induced coma.
While sentencing today, Judge Beale said: "Your victims were all your relatives by marriage. More than that, they had all been good to you and your children over many years, as you acknowledged in your testimony.
“Not only did you cut short three lives and cause lasting damage to Ian Wilkinson’s health, thereby devastating extended Patterson and Wilkinson families, you inflicted untold suffering on your own children, whom you robbed of their beloved grandparents.”
Both prosecution and defence lawyers had agreed that a life sentence was an appropriate punishment for the then-50-year-old on three counts of murder and one of attempted murder.
Defence lawyers had asked for Patterson to become eligible for parole after serving 30 years, however prosecutors had argued she should never be considered for parole.
Judge Beale said Patterson had also intended to kill her husband if he had accepted his invitation to lunch.
Details have also emerged that the killer had pretended to have been diagnosed with cancer as a reason to bring them together and claimed to have wanted advice on how to break the news to her two children, who were not present at the deadly lunch.
The judge accepted Ian Wilkinson’s account that the guests were served grey plates while Patterson ate from an orange-tan plate, to ensure she did not accidentally eat a poisoned meal, he said.
In response, Judge Beal said he would not speculate on her motive.
Patterson has maintained that she had added foraged mushrooms to the meals by accident and has been in custody since she was charged in November 2023.
Her sentence is backdated until then and she has 28 days from her sentencing to appeal against her convictions and the severity of her sentence.
