He invites his relatives home for lunch, but shortly after consuming the meal four of them feel ill: they go to hospital believing they have gastrointestinal problems, but the doctors immediately realize that the situation was much more serious. Three die a few days later. Toxicological tests carried out on their bodies had found traces of phalloid amanita (“amanita phalloides” or greenish tignosa), a type of mushroom that is widespread but lethal to humans.
In recent hours, the Court of Appeal of the State of Victoria, Australia, rejected the appeal of Erin Patterson, the woman who poisoned and killed them with mushrooms served during lunch at her home. The deadly toadstools had been placed in individual portions of Wellington fillet, prepared by the woman. The life sentence established at first instance was confirmed. Furthermore, her eligibility for parole was revoked.
He will never get out of prison
Erin Patterson, 52, was found guilty in July 2025 of the murders and attempted murder of another person, again with the use of those poisonous mushrooms. At first instance she was allowed to ask for parole after 33 years of detention. Two appeals had been lodged against the first instance sentence, but the appeal court found that the circumstances of the murders and attempted murder required “a decidedly more severe sentence”.
Who was at the table
The mushroom poisoning occurred on 29 July 2023 during a lunch at the home of Patterson, who lived in Leongatha, south-east of Melbourne. At the table were Gail and Don Patterson, her ex-husband’s parents, Gail’s sister Heather, and Ian Wilkinson, her husband. In addition to them there were the two children Erin Patterson had with her ex-husband (he was not present). A few hours after lunch, cooked by Patterson, four of them felt ill and so went to a local hospital.
Given their worsening health conditions, they were transferred to a hospital in Melbourne, and a few days later Heather Wilkinson, Gail Patterson and Don Patterson died. Ian Wilkinson, however, survived after a few weeks of hospitalization in serious conditions.
The false pretense
During the trial, Ian Wilkinson said that the woman had invited them to lunch to tell her relatives that she had cancer and wanted him and the other guests to give her advice on how to communicate the bad news to her children. All false, however. According to the prosecution, however, the woman invented a cancer diagnosis as an excuse to invite her relatives to lunch, and pretended to feel sick like other people even though she had not eaten those poisonous mushrooms.