Erin Patterson is set to spend the rest of her life behind bars after judges rejected her bid to overturn her convictions and removed the possibility of parole.
On Friday, Supreme Court of Victoria appeal judges Stephen McLeish, Lesley Taylor and Peter Kidd dismissed the convicted killer’s challenge.
Patterson was sentenced to life imprisonment by Supreme Court of Victoria Justice Christopher Beale on September 8, 2025, after being found guilty of murdering Don and Gail Patterson and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, by serving them a poisoned beef Wellington.
Justice Beale originally set a 33-year non-parole period. The prosecution appealed that decision, arguing the sentence was too lenient, and the appeal panel ultimately ordered life imprisonment without parole.
Appearing by video link in a blue prison-issued jumper, with her long brown hair tied back and glasses on, Patterson showed no visible emotion as the ruling was delivered.
Her lawyers have indicated that they will seek leave to appeal to the High Court, the final legal avenue available to challenge her conviction and sentence.
Patterson’s victims died after eating death cap mushrooms concealed in beef Wellingtons at a lunch held at her Leongatha home on July 29, 2023.
Pastor Ian Wilkinson, who was not in court on Friday, survived after becoming critically ill. Patterson was also convicted of attempting to murder him.
Erin Patterson is expected to die in prison after losing her appeal
Patterson challenged her murder convictions on seven grounds, claiming a series of errors had caused a substantial miscarriage of justice and that the verdicts should be set aside.
A central argument involved what she described as a “fundamental irregularity”: the jury was housed at the same hotel as police and prosecutors while deliberating. She argued the arrangement may have compromised the verdicts, but the appeal judges found the claim had “no basis”.
The courtroom was crowded with reporters, true-crime followers and Simon Patterson’s brother, Matthew.
Friday’s brief hearing was livestreamed on the court’s website, while a television crew was permitted inside to record the latest chapter in Patterson’s legal battle.
The ruling makes Patterson only the second woman in Australian history to receive a sentence of life without parole.
Katherine Knight became the first in 2001 after murdering her partner, John Price, skinning his body and cooking his head with the stated intention of feeding it to his children.
Reading the judgment, Justice McLeish said it had been “inappropriate” for Justice Beale to set a non-parole period when sentencing Patterson the previous year.
Patterson also argued that some evidence should never have been admitted, while other material was wrongly excluded. The disputed evidence included mobile phone tower data connected to death cap mushroom sightings, Facebook messages, testimony from acquaintances, and mushroom photographs and videos found on an SD card that she said supported her account of foraging.
Don and Gail Patterson were among the victims of Erin Patterson’s poisoned lunch
Heather Wilkinson was also killed after eating the contaminated meal
Victoria’s Director of Public Prosecutions, Brendan Kissane KC, leaves court after securing Patterson’s life-without-parole sentence
She further claimed that the prosecution’s lengthy cross-examination was unfair and oppressive, and that the closing address contained repeated errors and improperly suggested she had a motive for killing.
Patterson will now be returned to the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre, where she is expected to spend decades in custody alongside some of Australia’s most notorious female prisoners.
Because of the hostility directed towards her inside the prison, Patterson is held in near-solitary confinement in the restrictive Gordon Unit.
She spends up to 23 hours a day in the unit, passing the time by crocheting, watching television, using a computer and reading books and magazines.
Her cell has a small attached courtyard. Meals and medication are delivered through a slot in the door, she has minimal contact with other prisoners and two officers are required to escort her whenever she moves through the facility.
The restrictions are in place for her protection because of the notoriety of her crimes.
The conclusion of the long-running legal case may now offer some measure of relief to the surviving victims.
Detective Sen-Constable Laura Colley, the officer who arrested Patterson, appeared pleased as the decision was announced.
Ian Wilkinson attended almost every day of Patterson’s ten-week trial in Morwell last year and was also present for her appeal hearing in August.
At a pre-sentence hearing, Wilkinson condemned Patterson’s “callous and calculated disregard” for the lives of people who had shown her only good intentions. He also questioned the “foolishness” of believing murder could resolve personal problems.
Black plastic was installed outside Patterson’s home to shield her from reporters after she was expected to return in July last year
Patterson after being interviewed by Detective Leading Senior Constable Stephen Eppingstall
Wilkinson carefully limited the forgiveness he offered, saying it applied only to the harm done to him and not to the murders of Heather, Gail and Don.
He urged Patterson to accept his offer “with full confession and repentance”, saying he held no ill will towards her and hoped she would use her time in prison to become a better person.
“I am no longer Erin Patterson’s victim. She has become the victim of my kindness,” he said.
Simon Patterson, Erin’s former husband, has largely disappeared from public view. He previously said he believed she had tried to kill him several times before his family died.
Mr Patterson alleged that his wife poisoned him on multiple occasions between 2021 and 2022 using meals she prepared, including penne bolognese in a Tupperware container, chicken korma during a camping trip, beef stew while he recovered at her home and a curry wrap on another outing.
He became seriously ill after each incident and required hospital treatment. One episode left him in a medically induced coma for more than two weeks and led to emergency bowel surgery.
Detective Leading Senior Constable Stephen Eppingstall leaves court on Friday without comment
Detective Sen-Constable Laura Colley, seen at the back left, appeared delighted by the appeal decision
Patterson supporter Ali Rose Porter was surrounded by reporters outside court in Morwell after the verdict
Police charged Patterson with three counts of attempted murder over those incidents. Investigators also found research about barium carbonate, a rat poison, on her devices around the time of one illness, but no particular poison was ever confirmed by forensic testing.
The charges were withdrawn before the main trial and were never considered by a jury.
In April, it emerged that Simon Patterson had secured a publishing deal to write a memoir.
With the appeal now concluded, the book is expected to be published.
Patterson had black plastic sheeting erected over the entrance to her Leongatha home in anticipation of being released after her trial, allowing her to avoid the media.
The property will now be taken from her and sold, with the proceeds used to compensate the victims of her crimes.
Patterson’s attempt to evade responsibility was ultimately exposed by Detective Leading Senior Constable Stephen Eppingstall, who formally took charge of the investigation around August 3, 2023, after the mass poisoning.
Detective Eppingstall attended every day of Patterson’s pre-trial hearings, trial and appeal.
He left court silently on Friday, maintaining a dignified stance out of respect for the victims he had worked to represent.
Eppingstall is a respected member of the force and received a Prince of Wales Award in 2024 for his service as a Defence Force reservist.
Patterson’s barristers Sophie Stafford and Colin Mandy SC during the lengthy Morwell trial
Lawyer Bill Doogue raised concerns about the jury being housed briefly with police, prosecutors and reporters
He conducted Patterson’s first formal police interview on August 5, 2023, when she denied owning a dehydrator or foraging for mushrooms.
At trial, Eppingstall gave extensive evidence as the Crown’s final key witness and faced prolonged cross-examination by the defence.
After prosecuting Patterson, he also helped bring to justice the teenage killer responsible for the murder of 16-year-old Oscar Hamilton.
Crown prosecutor Dr Nanette Rogers, who questioned Patterson for days in the witness box, has effectively ended her career as a Victorian prosecutor.
Patterson’s appeal had appeared unlikely to succeed from the outset.
Its primary argument centred on the decision to house the jury in the same hotel as police and prosecutors, which the defence described as a “catastrophic failure”.
During the August hearing, Patterson’s barrister Richard Edney argued that placing the jury in a hotel alongside journalists, police and prosecutors was fundamentally unfair.
“We would describe the sequestration and what occurred during it as catastrophic, and in our submission, what has occurred here is that there has been a fundamental failure to comply with the dictum already referred to,” he said.
Simon Patterson has largely withdrawn from public view but is expected to release his memoir after the appeal
Pastor Ian Wilkinson told Patterson: “I am no longer Erin Patterson’s victim. She has become the victim of my kindness.”
“So what?” Justice Peter Kidd replied.
Reporters from Our News Outlet had also been staying at the same hotel.
The Age journalist Chris Vedelago later reported that Patterson’s lawyer, Bill Doogue, had complained to the court that Our News Outlet may have compromised the jury.
“There was also an article published by Our News Outlet that can only be based on discussions with the jurors, either directly or indirectly, including mention of one of the jurors being allowed to watch an AFL game separately with a jury keeper,” Mr Doogue alleged.
He was referring to an Our News Outlet report that the jury had watched the Carlton and Collingwood match while sequestered. The article was based on information from a source with no connection to the jury.
The jury in the high-profile death cap mushroom case was sequestered at a hotel in the Morwell region during deliberations.
Members of the prosecution team, reporters and a key police witness also stayed at the hotel for part of that period.
Director of Public Prosecutions Brendan Kissane KC rejected the argument put forward by Richard Edney during the appeal.
The Patterson prosecution is expected to be Crown prosecutor Dr Nanette Rogers’ final major trial
“Far from being some sort of catastrophic failure, to use the words that Mr Edney used, there’s no evidence in our submission to support this ground,” he told the court in August.
Mr Kissane said the evidence demonstrated that the process had operated as intended.
Mr Edney raised 35 objections to the prosecution’s closing address at Patterson’s trial.
Patterson had been represented at trial by Colin Mandy SC, who pursued every available argument in an effort to clear her.
“The defence counsel was very alive to the complaints that you’re now making under ground six. So alive was he to them that he raised most of them in his final address,” Justice Lesley Taylor told Mr Edney.
“When one looks at the final address delivered by a very experienced trial counsel, the complaints that you are now raising, they were on the table at the time.
“Nothing was being overlooked here.”
Mr Kissane argued that Justice Beale should not have set any non-parole period and that Patterson should have received life imprisonment without parole.
He submitted that, even if a non-parole period were imposed, 33 years was plainly inadequate given the seriousness of the crimes.
Under the original sentence, Patterson would have been 81 before becoming eligible to apply for parole.
Mr Kissane said Justice Beale had wrongly relied on prison conditions when setting the 33-year non-parole period.
“If somebody’s in their 80s and commits an offence that requires a significant non-parole period, then the court is sentencing somebody in effect, albeit that they may well impose… a non-parole period by the statute, the court is still in effect sentencing somebody beyond what one would normally expect to be the term of their natural life,” Mr Kissane said.
“It has its harsh aspect about it, of course, but we accept that. But in our submission, that is not a matter that’s outweighed by the seriousness of the offending… that’s a harsh, harsh submission to make.
“But we submit that it’s demanded by the nature of the offending in this case.”
