Erin Patterson will die behind bars alone after her desperate attempt to appeal her conviction failed and her non-parole period was overturned.
On Friday, Supreme Court of Victoria appeal judges Justices Stephen McLeish, Lesley Taylor and Peter Kidd dismissed the cold-blooded killer’s appeal.
Supreme Court of Victoria Justice Christopher Beale had sentenced Patterson to life in prison on September 8, 2025, after she was found guilty of the murders of Don and Gail Patterson and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, after feeding them a poisonous beef Wellington.
Justice Beale had set a non-parole period of 33 years. However, the prosecution succeeded in its bid to have Patterson’s sentence increased, and the panel of judges increased her jail term to life without parole.
Patterson, who appeared in court via video link wearing a blue prison-issued jumper, long brown hair in a pony tail and glasses, showed no emotion as her fate was sealed.
Her lawyers have indicated she will appeal to the High Court, the last available legal avenue for Patterson to fight her conviction and sentence.
Patterson’s victims died after consuming death cap mushrooms served in beef Wellingtons during lunch at her Leongatha home on July 29, 2023.
Pastor Ian Wilkinson, who did not attend Friday’s hearing, survived after being critically ill, with Patterson also convicted of his attempted murder.
Erin Patterson will likely die behind bars alone after her desperate attempt to appeal her conviction failed
Patterson appealed her murder convictions on seven grounds, arguing that multiple errors caused a substantial miscarriage of justice and that her convictions should be quashed.
Her appeal focused largely on her claims a ‘fundamental irregularity’ occurred when the jury was sequestered in the same hotel as police and prosecutors during deliberations, potentially contaminating the verdicts – a ground the judges found had ‘no basis’.
The courtroom was packed with true crime buffs, reporters and Simon Patterson’s brother Matthew.
The short hearing was livestreamed on the court’s internet site, with a television crew also allowed inside the court to capture the final chapter in Patterson’s legal journey.
The sentence means Patterson is only the second woman in Australian history to be sentenced to life without parole.
NSW woman Katherine Knight became the first in 2001 after she stabbed her partner John Price to death, skinned his body and cooked his head with the intention of feeding it to his children.
Reading out the judgment, Justice McLeish said it was ‘inappropriate’ for Justice Beale to fix a non-parole period when sentencing Patterson last year.
Patterson had also argued certain evidence should not have been admitted, or was wrongly excluded, including mobile phone tower data linked to death cap mushroom sightings, Facebook messages and the evidence of ‘friends’ and photos and videos of mushrooms found on an SD card that could have supported her foraging claims.
Don and Gail Patterson were killed by Erin Patterson
Heather Wilkinson was also murdered atthe deadly lunch
Victoria’s Director of Public Prosecutions, Brendan Kissane KC leaves court on Friday after securing Patterson’s life behind bars
She also claimed her lengthy cross-examination by the prosecution was ‘unfair and oppressive’ and that the prosecutor’s closing address contained numerous errors or misstatements and implied she had a motive to kill.
Her failure will now see her transported back to the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre, where she is expected to spend decades among the nation’s worst female villains.
So loathed is Patterson within those walls that she is held in near-solitary confinement in the restrictive Gordon Unit.
There she occupies herself for up to 23 hours a day with crocheting, watching TV, using a computer and reading books or magazines.
Trapped in a small cell with a tiny attached courtyard, she receives meals and medication through a door slot, has almost no contact with other inmates and requires two officers to escort her for any limited movement within the prison.
They are conditions imposed for her own protection due to the notoriety of her crimes.
The end of the drawn-out legal saga might now provide some semblance of peace for the surviving victims.
Detective Sen-Constable Laura Colley, who was the officer who slapped the cuffs on Patterson, beamed as the decision was handed down.
Lone survivor Ian Wilkinson had attended practically every day of Patterson’s ten-week trial in Morwell last year and was there during her appeal hearing in August.
During a pre-sentence hearing, Wilkinson condemned Patterson for the ‘callous and calculated disregard’ for the lives of people who had only good intentions toward her, and questioned the ‘foolishness’ of believing murder could solve problems.
Patterson had black plastic erected outside her home to hide her from media in anticipation of her return in July last year
Patterson at the conclusion of her interview with Detective Leading Senior Constable Stephen Eppingstall
During that hearing he carefully limited his forgiveness, offering it only for the harms done to him and not for the murders of Heather, Gail and Don.
He encouraged Patterson to accept that offer ‘with full confession and repentance’, adding that he bore her no ill will and prayed she would use her time in prison wisely to become a better person.
‘I am no longer Erin Patterson’s victim. She has become the victim of my kindness,’ he said.
Little has been seen recently of Patterson’s former husband Simon, who believed she had repeatedly tried to murder him in the years before she killed his family.
Mr Patterson alleged his wife tried to poison him on multiple occasions in 2021-2022 with meals she prepared, including a Tupperware of penne bolognese, a chicken korma curry during a camping trip, a beef stew while he was recovering at her home and a curry wrap on another outing.
Each time he became seriously ill, requiring hospitalisation; one episode left him in a medically induced coma for more than two weeks and required emergency bowel surgery.
Detective Leading Senior Constable Stephen Eppingstall upon leaving court on Friday. He made no comment, but his face told the story
Detective Sen-Constable Laura Colley (back left) , who was the officer who slapped the cuffs on Patterson, looked like the cat that got the cream upon the decision being handed down
Patterson’s only supporter Ali Rose Porter was mobbed by reporters outside court in Morwell at Patterson’s verdict
Police charged Patterson with three counts of attempted murder based on those incidents, and investigators noted research on her devices into barium carbonate (rat poison) around the time of one illness, but no specific poison was ever forensically confirmed.
Those charges were discontinued before her main trial and never went to a jury.
In April, it was revealed Mr Patterson would pen his memoir with a publishing deal already agreed.
With the appeal over, that book is now expected to finally see the light of day.
Patterson even had black plastic sheeting erected over the entry to her Leongatha home, to hide her from the media when she walked free from court after her trial.
That home will now be officially stripped from her and sold to compensate the victims of her crime.
Her plot to get away with murder had been foiled by Detective Leading Senior Constable Stephen Eppingstall, who formally took over the investigation around August 3, 2023 after the mass poisoning.
Det Eppingstall had attended every single day of Patterson’s pre-trial, trial and subsequent appeal.
On Friday, he maintained a dignified silence as he left the court in respect for those victims he had worked to represent.
Eppingstall had been a long-respected member of the force who in 2024 received a Prince of Wales Award for his service as a Defence Force reservist.
Patterson’s barristers Sophie Stafford and Colin Mandy, SC in Morwell during the epic trial
Lawyer Bill Doogue (right) had complained about Patterson’s jury being briefly housed alongside police, prosecutors and reporters
He conducted Patterson’s first formal police interview on August 5, 2023, in which she denied owning a dehydrator or foraging for mushrooms.
At her trial, he gave extensive evidence as the Crown’s final key witness and was cross-examined at length by the defence.
After bringing Patterson to trial, he also recently brought to justice the teenage killer who murdered 16-year-old Oscar Hamilton.
Crown prosecutor Dr Nanette Rogers, who grilled Patterson for days in the witness box, has all but called it quits as a Victorian prosecutor.
Patterson’s appeal had been doomed from the start.
The main push had hinged on the claim that the court’s decision to house the jury in the same hotel as police and prosecutors was a ‘catastrophic failure’.
In August, Patterson’s barrister Richard Edney claimed the jury’s placement in a hotel alongside journalists, police and prosecutors was 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 vanished from the spotlight, but is expected to release his memoir now the appeal is over
Pastor Ian Wilkinson told Patterson: ‘I am no longer Erin Patterson’s victim. She has become the victim of my kindness.’
‘So what?’ was the short response by Justice Peter Kidd.
The Daily Mail reporters from across the globe had been staying in the same hotel.
The Age’s Chris Vedelago later wrote an article that revealed her lawyer Bill Doogue had complained to the court that the Daily Mail had potentially tainted the jury.
‘There was also an article published by the Daily Mail 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 claimed.
His claim referred to a Daily Mail article reporting that the jury had watched the Carlton and Collingwood game after being sequestered. The article was sourced from someone in no way associated with the jury.
The jury in the high-profile death cap mushroom trial was sequestered at a hotel in the Morwell area while deliberating.
Members of the prosecution team, reporters and a key police witness were also staying there for a period.
Director of Public Prosecutions Brendan Kissane KC shot down the claim by Patterson’s barrister Richard Edney at appeal.
The Patterson trial will be Crown prosecutor Dr Nanette Rogers’ last 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 said during the August hearing.
Mr Kissane argued the evidence showed the system worked exactly as intended.
Mr Edney had raised 35 complaints about the prosecution’s closing address at Patterson’s trial.
At trial, she had been represented by Colin Mandy SC, who tried every avenue to exonerate Patterson.
‘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 Justice Beale should not have set a non‑parole period at all and Patterson should have been sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.
He said that if a non-parole period was to be fixed, 33 years was manifestly inadequate given the gravity of her offending.
As it stood before the appeal, Patterson would be aged 81 when she became eligible for parole.
Mr Kissane said Justice Beale’s reliance on prison conditions to justify a 33‑year non‑parole period was legally and factually flawed.
‘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.’
