Australian woman who murdered family members with poisonous mushrooms to return to court
Erin Patterson, the Australian woman jailed for life after being convicted of murdering three relatives with poisonous mushrooms, will return to court this week in a bid to overturn her convictions.
Patterson, 51, was found guilty last year of murdering her estranged husband’s parents, Don and Gail Patterson, both 70, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66.
She was also convicted of attempting to murder Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson, who survived after becoming gravely ill.
The case, which transfixed Australia and generated a flood of podcasts, books and television programmes, centres on a family lunch at Patterson’s home in Leongatha, in Victoria’s Gippsland region, on 16 July 2023.
The meal was beef Wellington prepared with death cap mushrooms.
Patterson has always denied deliberately poisoning her relatives.
She maintained during her trial that the inclusion of the highly toxic mushrooms was an accident and that she panicked and attempted to conceal what had happened afterwards.
A two-day hearing at the Victorian Court of Appeal in Melbourne will begin on Wednesday.
It is an application for leave to appeal – the formal stage at which Patterson must persuade the court that her case should proceed to a full appeal.
The prosecution and defence will present written and oral arguments before a panel of three judges decides whether there are grounds for an appeal.
If successful, Patterson could have her convictions quashed, with the court potentially ordering a retrial or acquitting her. If the application fails, her convictions will remain in place.
She could then seek to take the matter to Australia’s highest court, the High Court.
Patterson is not expected to attend the hearing in person and is instead likely to appear by video link from prison.
In documents filed with the court last year, she claimed she had suffered a “miscarriage of justice” during the 11-week trial and set out seven grounds of appeal.
