Mushroom killer Erin Patterson could not have contemplated the consequences of her wicked actions.
For all her book smarts, she seemed to somehow believe her slapdash plot to murder her estranged husband and his relatives would lead to happiness and prosperity for her and her two young children.
On Monday, Patterson’s awful existence behind bars was laid bare for all to see.
Caged in a cell alone for up to 23 hours a day, it is a life choice few parents could fathom. But this is the future Patterson chose for herself, almost on a whim.
By now, anyone following the 50-year old’s case is familiar with how police put their case against her.
Detectives claimed she sourced death cap mushrooms on May 28 and used them to murder Don and Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson.
Pastor Ian Wilkinson was lucky to have survived the deadly lunch, which took place at Patterson’s ‘forever home’ in Leongatha on July 29, 2023.
Patterson’s barrister Colin Mandy, SC claimed no one could say with any real surety that Patterson had planned to murder her in-laws in May that year.
For all her book smarts, delusional Erin Patterson seemed to somehow believe her slapdash plot to murder her estranged husband and his relatives would lead to happiness and prosperity
The prosecution itself conceded she likely had her estranged husband Simon in her sights when she picked the deadly mushrooms out in Loch that day.
But by July 16, Patterson had made her deal with the devil.
It was the day the evil killer went to church and invited her victims over for lunch.
Mr Wilkinson’s daughter Ruth Dubois struggles to this day to figure out why Patterson went through with her plot even after her likely target, Simon, pulled out the night before.
‘There were multiple times during this process when she could have stopped, she could have cancelled the plans,’ she said in a victim impact statement on Monday.
Tim Patterson – nephew of Don and Gail – claimed Patterson’s actions could only have been driven by a darker force.
‘For me, it all started on Sunday, July 30. I wrote in my diary, “Don and Gail are in hospital with apparent food poisoning after eating at Erin’s. Coincidence, or is there evil at play here?”‘ he said.
It was an observation not lost on Ian Wilkinson, who also believed the devil’s hands were at work in Leongatha.
Crown prosecutor Jane Warren is pushing for life without parole. She said Patterson’s rotten future was the product of her own making. (Pictured: a court sketch of Patterson on August 25)
A jury convicted Patterson of murdering Don (left) and Gail Patterson (right), the parents of her estranged husband, Simon
Patterson was convicted of murdering her estranged husband’s aunt, Heather Wilkinson (left) and the attempted murder of Heather’s husband, Ian (right)
Patterson sits at the dining room table where she served her guests the lunch as she speaks with police on August 5, 2023
‘It’s one of the distressing [shortcomings] of our society that so much attention is showered on those who do evil and so little on those who do good,’ he said.
Patterson has not tasted freedom since November 3, 2023, when she was cuffed and taken to the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre.
It is the home of some of Australia’s most diabolical women criminals.
Her new quarters were far removed from her sprawling home in Leongatha – a house she had designed herself with a strong focus on catering for her children.
Upon arrival at jail, Patterson was locked in the prison’s infamous Gordon Unit.
Known as a management unit for the jail’s most high-risk offenders, it contains as little as 20 cells for the worst of society’s scum.
There, prisoners are locked down as much as 23 hours a day, with access to a small one-metre-square courtyard at the rear of their cells – if they’re lucky.
Patterson was fortunate that year: 11 days before her first Christmas behind bars, she was transferred to the Murray Protection Unit.
Unlike Gordon, inmates can mix with each other in Murray.
It is more open, with the women able to move around the units and access courtyards with gardens.
They go to a specific factory for work during the day and can access small kitchenettes where some women prepare their own food.
There are televisions and lounge areas for the women to sit together and chat.
Patterson is an inmate at all-female maximum security prison Dame Phyllis Frost Centre
It would be fondly remembered by Patterson as the Taj Mahal compared to where she would soon be moved.
By March 9 last year, Patterson was back wallowing in Gordon in total isolation apart from brief interactions with prison guards who delivered medication and meals to her cell via a trap door.
She had been moved there for her own safety following renewed media attention in her case.
Over the next few months, Patterson went back and forth between Gordon and Murray before her luck ran out.
On June 9 that year, she was moved back to Gordon and there she remains.
So dire are the conditions that jail authorities were forced to seek permission from above to keep her there for longer than 15 days.
While Patterson initially engaged with an internal social worker there, she quickly abandoned it and never returned.
Although granted access to chaplaincy services, Patterson (pictured as a young woman) has refused to engage. She may have reverted to atheism after years as a Christian
Although granted access to chaplaincy services, she has refused to engage.
Perhaps, years after converting to Christianity due to the influence of her husband, Simon, she has now returned to being the ‘fundamental atheist’ she once was.
Access to the library and a small gym are virtually inaccessible, with Patterson requiring two guards to accompany her whenever she attends.
She can access a lounge area for an hour a day, which houses a treadmill, but she can only visit if the circumstances are right.
And they rarely are.
Patterson is considered such a high-value target by other inmates that she cannot be allowed near them.
Her circumstances mean she rarely leaves her cell, spending her time crocheting blankets.
She has her computer in her cell, which she fought to maintain access to while caged in the cells beneath Morwell Police Station during her recent trial.
She also has her own pillows, toiletries, books and magazines.
She has a hair straightener and a fan.
Once sentenced, Patterson will likely seek access to further education, with tertiary studies available by distance education.
Staff shortages within the jail mean prisoners have been subjected to more lockdowns than usual.
Any contact Patterson might wish to have with another inmate must be applied for.
Until now, she has had almost no contact with anyone other than uniformed staff.
The one person she is allowed to speak with is a terrorist with a penchant for violence against prison staff.
Patterson herself has no interest in speaking with the woman – the request had been made by prison staff on her behalf.
Even if she did wish to communicate with that prisoner, it would be through a wire mesh or via the internal intercom.
While Patterson’s time in Gordon is reviewed monthly, she harbours no illusion – she will almost certainly die there.
On Monday, Mr Mandy used Patterson’s lot in life to try to convince Justice Christopher Beale to show his client mercy and set a non-parole period when he sentences her on September 8.
The experienced barrister had little else to work with considering Patterson’s insistence she is innocent and refusal to submit to any kind of medical examination that might help convince the judge of a discount.
Justice Beale expressed his own concerns about Patterson’s ongoing living conditions.
‘Doesn’t sound very humane,’ he told the court.
‘If I consider that there is a substantial chance that what has transpired over the last 14 months could continue for the foreseeable future, that’s a weighty consideration.’
In pushing for a life sentence with no chance of parole, Crown prosecutor Jane Warren did not sugarcoat Patterson’s prospects of ever being moved into general population.
‘And that’s the only way, as we’ve submitted to your honour, that your honour can treat it, is to conclude that for the foreseeable future, it’s reasonable to expect that those conditions will continue,’ she told him.
Ms Warren suggested Patterson’s rotten future was the product of her own making – and she ought to die in jail thinking about her decisions in life.
‘Your Honour should reach the conclusion that because of the seriousness of the offences here, that it would be inappropriate to fix a non-parole period,’ she said.
Ms Warren compared Patterson’s crime to that of evil killer Michael Cardamone.
Cardamone, who was aged 50 like Patterson, sedated Karen Chetcuti, near Wangaratta in 2016, with an animal tranquilliser, bound and gagged her, injected her with methamphetamine and battery acid, fractured her skull and then burnt her alive.
