Australia’s infamous “mushroom murderer” Erin Patterson, 50, has been handed three life sentences after being found guilty of killing her lunch guests with one of the world’s deadliest fungi… the death cap mushroom.
The shocking case, which dominated headlines and inspired multiple podcasts and documentaries, ended Monday in Melbourne’s Supreme Court, where Justice Christopher Beale declared Patterson would serve a minimum of 33 years before parole eligibility.
Patterson hosted what seemed like a family gathering in July 2023 at her home in Leongatha, Victoria. On the table: a beef wellington dish secretly laced with poisonous mushrooms she had foraged nearby.
Her estranged husband Simon Patterson pulled out of the meal at the last minute, but his parents Don and Gail, along with family friends Ian and Heather Wilkinson, attended. By the next day, three of them were dead from multiple organ failure. Pastor Ian Wilkinson was the only survivor.
At sentencing, Wilkinson delivered a heartbreaking victim impact statement… “What foolishness possesses a person to think murder could solve their problems? Erin has brought deep sorrow and grief into my life and the lives of so many others.”
Prosecutors painted Patterson as someone living “two faces”… a polite woman in public, but privately full of resentment toward her in-laws. Jurors were shown Facebook messages in which she expressed anger over their refusal to intervene in her failing marriage.
Her defense team argued the mushrooms were added accidentally. But after a 10-week trial, the jury unanimously convicted her of murder and attempted murder.
The case attracted international media attention, with live court broadcasts, swarms of reporters outside, and endless public fascination. Patterson is now expected to spend the rest of her life in prison, though she has until October 6 to appeal her conviction.
