Victoria’s highest court dismissed Erin Patterson’s appeal against her convictions this morning, finding Patterson received a fair trial and delivering a harsher punishment to the triple murderer instead.
Patterson’s original life sentence with a 33-year non-parole period has also been upgraded to life without parole following a successful cross-appeal by the Department of Public Prosecutions.
That means Patterson is likely to die in jail.
Patterson was found guilty in July 2025 of murdering her former parents-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson, along with Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson. She was also found guilty of the attempted murder of Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson, after serving the four beef wellington laced with death cap mushrooms at her home in Leongatha, Victoria, in July 2023.
Patterson appealed the guilty verdicts on seven grounds, and the court dismissed five outright. The court then rejected the two grounds she was granted leave to argue.
The court found that Patterson’s intent to murder was sustained for nearly three weeks and described her offending as an “elaborate series of deceptions”. It said it was inappropriate to set a parole period for a “cruel breach of trust”.
Justice Stephen McLeish called the murders “extraordinarily cold and calculated” and said the sentence must “vindicate unequivocally the primary value that our society places on each individual human life.”
The two grounds that got a hearing included jury accommodation — with concerns jurors had stayed at the same hotel as the lead detective and two prosecutors during deliberations. Justice McLeish said the jury could still have reached a correct decision despite the shared hotel. The second was about phone data, with the bench finding the mobile phone evidence was admissible.
Nathan Patterson, whose parents were killed by his ex-wife, was in court to hear the verdict. Ian Wilkinson, the sole survivor of the lunch, was not in court.
Erin Patterson watched the proceedings via video link from a women’s prison. She reportedly stared blankly as the decision was read.
Patterson’s final option will be to challenge the verdict in the High Court; it’s unclear yet whether her legal team will do so.