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Australia’s mushroom murderer sentenced to life in jail, no parole for 33 years
An Australian woman convicted of murdering three elderly relatives of her estranged husband with a meal containing poisonous mushrooms was sentenced to a minimum of 33 years in prison on Monday.
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The presiding judge said Erin Patterson’s use of individual portions of beef Wellington laced with death cap mushrooms to poison her in-laws over lunch had a “devastating” impact on the relatives of the deceased.
Patterson was found guilty in July of killing her mother-in-law, Gail Patterson, father-in-law, Donald Patterson and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson in a case that has been globally followed and dubbed the Leongatha mushroom murders.
A jury also found the 50-year-old guilty of the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson, Heather’s husband, who survived the 2023 meal at Patterson’s home in Leongatha, a town of about 6,000 people, some 135km (84 miles) southeast of Melbourne.
On Monday, Justice Christopher Beale said the substantial planning of the murders and Patterson’s lack of remorse meant her sentence should be lengthy, at the sentencing hearing at the Supreme Court of Victoria in Melbourne.
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“Your failure to exhibit any remorse pours salt into all the victims’ wounds,” Beale told Patterson as he read out her sentence.