An Australian court on Monday sentenced Erin Patterson to life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 33 years for poisoning three of her estranged husband’s relatives.
Patterson was convicted in July after an 11-week trial for murdering Don and Gail Patterson and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson. They ate beef Wellington pastries laced with deadly death cap mushrooms.
She was also found guilty of attempting to murder Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson, who spent weeks in hospital recovering from consuming the toxic fungi.
“Your victims were all your relatives by marriage. More than that, they had all been good to you and your children over many years, as you acknowledged in your testimony,” Justice Christopher Beale told the Victoria state Supreme Court.
Both the prosecution and defence agreed a life sentence was suitable. Defence lawyers requested parole eligibility after 30 years, while prosecutors argued Patterson did not deserve mercy.
Judge Beale backdated the sentence to November 2023, when Patterson was first charged. She has 28 days to appeal her conviction or the sentence length.
Deceptive Motive and Method
Patterson had invited her victims under the pretext of a cancer diagnosis to seek advice on telling her children. She claimed the deaths were accidental.
“The guests were served grey plates while Patterson ate from an orange-tan plate,” Beale said, citing Ian Wilkinson’s testimony that the deliberate separation prevented her from accidentally consuming the poisoned food.
The judge noted that Patterson would have killed her former husband if he had attended the lunch. “She had also intended to kill her husband if he had accepted her invitation to the gathering,” Beale said.
She was cold and calculating when she dished up a deadly mushroom meal that killed three people and now, Erin Patterson will likely spend most of her life in prison. For the families of her victims, the life sentence is justice. https://t.co/VZ3A1cHvFd @ChrisReason7 #7NEWS pic.twitter.com/hlYYKVw5PF
— 7NEWS Queensland (@7NewsBrisbane) September 8, 2025
The motive remains officially unknown, and the court avoided speculation, focusing on the deliberate and premeditated nature of the killings.
Due to worldwide interest, the court allowed a television camera to film Beale delivering the sentencing remarks—an Australian state first.
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