Erin Patterson has lost her appeal and, with it, any prospect of parole. On Friday 30 October, Victoria’s Court of Appeal dismissed her appeal against her convictions and allowed the prosecution’s appeal against her sentence.
Justices Lesley Taylor, Stephen McLeish and Peter Kidd resentenced her to life imprisonment with no non-parole period, The Guardian and the ABC reported. In the ABC’s words, the sentence “will expire upon death”.
Patterson, 52, was convicted of murdering Don and Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson, and of attempting to murder Ian Wilkinson, who survived after weeks in hospital. The four had eaten a beef Wellington made with death cap mushrooms at a lunch in 2023, the ABC reported.
She watched the hearing by video link and did not attend in person. The hearing lasted 15 minutes, according to The Guardian, and the court released its written reasons later on Friday 30 October.
Why the Court Removed Parole
Justice Christopher Beale sentenced Patterson in 2025 to life with a non-parole period of 33 years. The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) appealed that sentence on two grounds, The Guardian reported. The first, that the judge was wrong to find she would likely spend much of her sentence in solitary confinement, failed. The second, that the sentence was manifestly inadequate, succeeded.
“This offending was extraordinarily cold and calculated, and stands to be denounced in the strongest possible terms,” Justice McLeish said as he delivered the ruling in court, The Guardian reported.
The written reasons went further. “The taking of three lives (and the attempt on another) in these circumstances called in our view for much stronger denunciation.” The judges also wrote: “The offending was carefully planned and deliberate. It represented a cruel breach of trust to members of the applicant’s extended family,” according to The Guardian.
The ABC reported that the reasons described offending “of such shocking criminality that it is inappropriate to fix a non-parole period”, and stated: “On any view, these were heinous crimes.”
“The applicant’s intent to murder all four victims was sustained for nearly three weeks from when she invited them to lunch, through to preparing and serving the poisoned meal and then throughout the protracted suffering and ultimate deaths that resulted,” Justice McLeish said, as reported by the ABC.
The Guardian described her as “one of only a handful of Victorian offenders” given life without parole, and “one of the only women in Australian history” to receive the sentence.
How the Conviction Appeal Failed
Patterson’s lawyers ran seven grounds against the convictions. The court granted leave to appeal on the first two but dismissed the appeal on them, and dismissed the other five, The Guardian reported. The ABC reported that all grounds failed.
One ground concerned the jury. Jurors had stayed in the same hotel as police and the prosecution. The court called this “highly undesirable”, The Guardian reported, and said the arrangement “offered fertile grounds for speculation”, according to the ABC. But the court found no evidence of wrongdoing, The Guardian reported, and no reason to believe a miscarriage of justice had occurred, according to the ABC.
The ABC listed the other grounds the court rejected. They covered phone-tower evidence and evidence drawn from iNaturalist, a ruling about an SD card, Facebook messages, and a claim that the prosecution had changed its case on motive.
Another ground claimed that the cross-examination by prosecutor Nanette Rogers was “unfair and oppressive”. The court disagreed, finding she was “ably and fairly discharging her obligations”, the ABC reported.
Where the Case Goes From Here
The Court of Appeal’s decision is final at that court. Patterson is held in the maximum security wing of the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre, the ABC reported.
To take the case any further, she would need to seek leave to appeal from the High Court, according to The Guardian. The ABC reported that it is unclear whether her lawyers will do so.
Our Crime & Courts section carries more from Victoria’s courts, including Andre McKechnie’s failed bid to overturn the prison Vegemite ban.
Sources: The Guardian, “Erin Patterson to die in prison after losing bid to overturn mushroom murder convictions”, 30 October 2026 (https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/oct/29/erin-patterson-mushroom-murders-appeal-ruling-ntwnfb); ABC News, “Mushroom murderer Erin Patterson likely to die in jail after failed appeal”, 30 October 2026 (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-30/erin-patterson-loses-mushroom-murder-convictions-appeal/107326714); ABC News, “Erin Patterson’s failed appeal leaves few legal avenues for the mushroom killer”, 30 October 2026 (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-30/erin-patterson-mushroom-murder-appeal-what-next/107315286)
Photo: Stephen Bain, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Stained glass in the dome of the Supreme Court of Victoria Library, Melbourne, photographed in 2019. The Court of Appeal is a division of the Supreme Court.
