Australian mushroom murderer Erin Patterson’s appeal against conviction set for August

SYDNEY, May 29 — An appeal against an Australian woman’s murder conviction for killing three relatives with a meal laced with toxic mushrooms will be heard in August, a court said today.

A jury in July found Erin Patterson, 51, guilty of murdering three elderly relatives of her estranged husband and attempting to murder a fourth in 2023 in a case that gripped the country and drew global attention for its unusual circumstances.

Patterson was sentenced to life in prison with a non-parole period of 33 years, one of the longest sentences ever given to a woman in Australia.

The conviction appeal and the appeal against Patterson’s sentence has been listed for hearing by the Court of Appeal on August 19 and 20, the Supreme court of Victoria confirmed.

Patterson maintained her innocence throughout the 11-week murder trial and said the poisoning was accidental.

In documents lodged with the court in November, Patterson’s grounds for appeal included that a “fundamental irregularity” occurred while the jury was sequestered. She also said various pieces of evidence introduced, including cell tower location data and messages from Facebook friends, were either irrelevant or unfairly prejudicial.

Additionally, she said she was subjected to an “unfair and oppressive” cross-examination.

Prosecutors have separately filed an appeal against her sentence in October, describing it as “manifestly inadequate”.

Patterson was convicted of killing her mother-in-law Gail Patterson, father-in-law Donald Patterson and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson. The jury of 12 found she lured them to lunch at her home in Leongatha, a town of about 6,000 people, some 135km south-east of Melbourne, and poisoned them with Beef Wellingtons containing death cap mushrooms.

She was also found guilty of the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson, Heather’s husband, who survived the 2023 meal. — Reuters