AP/Associated Press
An Australian appeals court has ordered Erin Patterson to never be released from prison after agreeing with prosecutors that her 33-year, non-parole period for poisoning four of her estranged husband’s relatives with death cap mushrooms was inadequate.
The three judges of the Victoria state Court of Appeal also dismissed Patterson’s challenge to her convictions that stemmed from a family meal she hosted at her rural home in Leongatha in July 2023.
“This offending was extraordinarily cold and calculated, and stands to be denounced in the strongest terms,” one of the Court of Appeal justices, Stephen McLeish, said.
“In all the circumstances, after anxious consideration, we have concluded that the case involved such shocking criminality that it is inappropriate to fix a non-parole period.”
Erin Patterson insisted she added death cap mushrooms to the meals accidentally.
Prosecutors argued at an appeal hearing in August that she should never become eligible for parole.
She was sentenced last year to three life sentences for murder and 25 years for attempted murder.
She can challenge the verdict to the Australia’s High Court – her final appeal option.
