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10-09-2025
BRISBANE: The Australian woman convicted of killing three lunch guests with the world’s most toxic mushrooms was sentenced to three life sentences with a non-parole period of 33 years on Monday, bookending a real-life crime drama that’s gripped Australia and spawned multiple podcasts and documentaries.
Erin Patterson, 50, was found guilty in July of murdering three people, including the parents, aunt and uncle of her estranged husband, Simon Patterson, with a beef wellington meal she had deliberately laced with death cap mushrooms picked near her rural home in the state of Victoria in 2023.
The life sentences will be served concurrently with a 25-year sentence for the attempted murder of the sole survivor, Pastor Ian Wilkinson, whose wife of 44 years, Heather, was among the guests who died in hospital in the days after the lunch.
Simon’s parents, Don and Gail Patterson, also died after suffering severe gastrointestinal illness that culminated in multiple organ failure.
The hearing was broadcast live from Melbourne’s Supreme Court, reflecting the intense public interest in the case that thrust Patterson, her family and the small town of Leongatha into the global spotlight.
Media crews jostled for position outside the courthouse as Justice Christopher Beale took his seat in front of a camera inside Court 4 to deliver Patterson’s sentence.
Beale said Patterson’s offenses required “substantial premeditation” and that she had engaged in an “elaborate cover-up” when she realized her initial lies would not work. “I am satisfied by July 16, 2023, when you unusually invited Simon, his parents, and aunt and uncle to a lunch without the children to discuss your non-existent medical issue, you did so with the intention of killing them all,” Beale said.
Crown prosecutors had asked for a life sentence with no parole period, but Beale said he’d taken Patterson’s notoriety into account and the likelihood that she’d spend many years in solitary confinement, for her own protection from other prisoners.
Still, he found that Patterson’s crimes amounted to an “enormous betrayal of trust” that had inflicted “untold suffering” on her own children, who lost their grandparents.
“The devastating impact of your crimes is not limited to your direct victims, your crimes have harmed a great many people,” Beale said.
Patterson had separated from her husband, Simon Patterson, but remained in contact with his parents, Don and Gail Patterson. She’d known his aunt and uncle, Ian and Heather Wilkinson, for years and for a time saw them relatively regularly at local church services.
Patterson invited all five family members to lunch at her house in Leongatha on July 31, 2023. No reason was given for the occasion, Patterson told the court she simply wanted a better relationship with her in-laws.
However, Simon pulled out the night before, saying he didn’t feel comfortable attending, so just his parents, aunt and uncle arrived on Saturday for the meal.
It emerged after the trial that Patterson believed his wife had attempted to poison him multiple times in the two years before the lunch and had been wary of her intentions. Three attempted murder charges related to those accusations were dropped before the main trial.
Over 10 weeks, crown prosecutors presented the mother-of-two as a flawed individual who lied repeatedly to police and health workers.
They offered no real evidence for Patterson’s motive, but suggested she showed “two faces” to the world, a public one that suggested she had a good relationship with the Pattersons and a private one she revealed in messages to Facebook friends that bristled with frustration over the family’s behavior and beliefs. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
