{"id":3521,"date":"2026-10-30T10:03:44","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T05:03:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=3521"},"modified":"2026-10-30T10:03:44","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T05:03:44","slug":"australian-mushroom-murderer-erin-patterson-loses-appeal-bid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=3521","title":{"rendered":"Australian mushroom murderer Erin Patterson loses appeal bid"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

An Australian woman convicted of murdering three of her estranged husband\u2019s relatives with a meal laced with deadly mushrooms lost an attempt on \u200bFriday to appeal her conviction, with a court also quashing her chances of \u200cparole.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Erin Patterson, 51, was found guilty<\/a> last year of murdering her three elderly in-laws by serving them Beef Wellington contaminated with poisonous death cap mushrooms, in a case that captivated Australia.<\/p>\n

She was sentenced to life in \u200bprison with a 33-year non-parole period, among the longest terms ever handed to a \u200bwoman in the country.<\/p>\n

Patterson has always denied wrongdoing, saying the deaths were \u2060accidental.<\/p>\n

She had appealed on multiple grounds, arguing that certain evidence should have been kept from \u200bthe trial, that her cross-examination was unfair, and that a mistake placing the jury in the \u200bsame hotel as other parties to the case compromised the result.<\/p>\n

A panel of three judges on Friday said those grounds were insufficient for an appeal.<\/p>\n

A separate appeal by the prosecution, which argued giving Patterson a non-parole \u200bperiod was inadequate in light of the seriousness of her crimes, was successful.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis offending was \u200bextraordinarily cold and calculated, and stands to be denounced in the strongest terms,\u201d Justice Stephen McLeish, speaking on \u200cbehalf \u2060of a panel of three judges hearing the appeals, told the Supreme Court of Victoria in Melbourne.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn all the circumstances, after anxious consideration, we have concluded that the case involved such shocking criminality that it is inappropriate to fix a non-parole period.\u201d<\/p>\n

Patterson\u2019s lawyer did not immediately respond \u200bto a request for \u200bcomment.<\/p>\n

A jury last \u2060year found Patterson invited her mother-in-law Gail Patterson, father-in-law Donald Patterson and Gail\u2019s sister Heather Wilkinson to a 2023 lunch at her home in \u200bLeongatha, a town of about 6,000 people, some 135 km \u200bsoutheast of \u2060Melbourne, and fed them the poisoned lunch.<\/p>\n

She was also convicted of the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson, Heather\u2019s husband, who survived the meal.<\/p>\n

The 11-week trial, held in the nearby country town of Morwell, \u2060attracted \u200bworldwide attention, and the case has since spawned several \u200bpodcasts and books.<\/p>\n

American streaming service Paramount+ this week announced that New Zealand actor Melanie Lynskey would play Patterson in a six-part \u200bseries dramatising the case.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Australian woman convicted of murdering three of her estranged husband\u2019s relatives with a meal laced with deadly mushrooms lost an attempt on \u200bFriday to appeal her conviction, with a court also quashing her chances of \u200cparole. Erin Patterson, 51, was found guilty last year of murdering her three elderly in-laws by serving them Beef Wellington contaminated with poisonous death cap mushrooms, in a case that captivated Australia. She was sentenced to life in \u200bprison with a 33-year non-parole period, among the longest terms ever handed to a \u200bwoman in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3521\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}