Mushroom killer Erin Patterson set to die in prison after appeal spectacularly backfires and increases her sentence

MUSHROOM killer Erin Patterson is set to die in prison after her appeal spectacularly backfired and increased her sentence instead.

with a non-parole period of 33 years for serving her estranged husbands relatives poisoned beef Wellingtons laced with death cap mushrooms.

But an Australian appeals court on Friday ordered to never be released from after agreeing with prosecutors that her parole period was inadequate.

The three judges of the Victoria state Court of Appeal also dismissed Pattersons challenge to her convictions that stemmed from a family meal she hosted at her rural home in Leongatha in July 2023.

Patterson, 51, insisted she added death cap mushrooms to the meals accidentally.

Her mum-in-law Gail Patterson, dad-in-law Donald Patterson and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson died in hospital within six days of .

Patterson was also convicted for the attempted murder of Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson, a small-town local pastor who was the sole survivor of the poisoning.

She was for murder and 25 years for attempted murder with eligibility for parole after 33 years.

Patterson appealed the verdict and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) appealed the sentence, arguing her non-parole period was “manifestly inadequate”.

Central to Patterson’s bid to overturn her conviction was the “catastrophic” decision to place members of the jury in the same hotel as a witness, journalists and members of the prosecution.

Barrister Richard Edney argued that the move “fatally undermined the integrity of the verdicts” and means the verdicts should be quashed and a retrial should take place “so that justice can be done”.

But Justice Stephen McLeish today dismissed the arguments and denied the appeal.

Instead, the judge sided with the DPP’s appeal, meaning Patterson will spend the remainder of her years behind bars, reports 7News .

McLeish blasted Patterson’s crimes as “extraordinarily cold and calculated” and a “cruel breach of trust”.

Patterson will still be able to challenge the decision at ‘s High Court.

During the appeal, the court heard that, despite Edney’s complaints, there was no evidence that the jury came into contact with anyone at trial.

While the defence acknowledged that there was no evidence that the jury spoke with the witness or prosecution, they highlighted that the crossover occurred during jury deliberation week.

Another contentious point concerned the prosecution’s use of evidence about Patterson’s activity on the foraging website iNaturalist and mobile phone tower data.

At the trial, the prosecution argued that Patterson found two sightings of death cap mushrooms reported online near her home.

The court heard how her phone connected to cell towers in both areas, with the prosecution indicating she’d visited both spots.

Hours after visiting one of the locations, Patterson bought a food dehydrator to prepare the mushrooms for the fateful beef Wellingtons.

CCTV captured Patterson travelling to a local dump and disposing of the dehydrator, which was later found to have traces of the deadly mushrooms.

When sentencing Patterson, the judge said that it didn’t necessarily matter where she sourced the mushrooms from as it was abundantly clear that she had.

Patterson has maintained she unknowingly used foraged death cap mushrooms in the meal.

There were also complaints that prosecutors had been “unfair” in the court proceedings, as they made 35 complaints throughout.

have also alleged Patterson may have attempted to poison her ex-husband, Simon Patterson, on three separate occasions between 2021 and 2022.