‘She really doesn’t have much to lose’: Erin Patterson to take appeal to High Court

Convicted mushroom killer Erin Patterson “really doesn’t have much to lose” by taking her bid for freedom to the High Court, legal experts say.

Criminal defence lawyer Ruth Parker told Today that while “High Court appeals are exceptionally hard, and they rarely succeed” Patterson has few legal avenues remaining after her sentence was upgraded to life behind bars without parole on Friday.

“She really doesn’t have much to lose at this point.

“But in circumstances where she’s fought this through a Court of Appeal appeal here in Victoria, she may as well give it a crack.

“[To see] whether the issue she’s raised or potentially other issues, are of interest to the High Court of Australia.”

Parker said that she was “not surprised” by the judges’ decision to grant the prosecution’s bid to scrap Patterson’s original 33-year non-parole period.

The verdict made the 51-year-old only the second woman in Australian history ordered to serve life without parole.

“I think that there was a very good basis to say that when you kill three people and attempt to kill a fourth, people who were vulnerable because of their age because they trusted you, and in a very calculated, cold and exceptionally painful way, you can expect that the Court of Appeal will not apply a non-parole period,” Parker said.

“The maximum sentence for murder is life. When you commit a number of murders, you should not expect a non-parole period in the circumstances in which she offended.

“That was the message that very clearly came out of the Court of Appeal yesterday,” Parker told Today.

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Mushroom killer Erin Patterson’s appeal loss earns her a dark place in Australian history

The comments come after Patterson sat emotionless via video-link from Dame Phyllis Frost Centre as Justice Stephen McLeish completely dismissed her conviction appeal.

Patterson was convicted in 2025 for the murders of her former in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, alongside the attempted murder of Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson.

The four guests fell critically ill after eating a lethal, death cap mushroom-laced beef Wellington during a lunch Patterson hosted under the false pretence of discussing a cancer diagnosis.

Ian Wilkinson was the sole survivor.

Patterson’s legal team had sought to overturn the verdicts by arguing the jury was improperly sequestered in the same hotel as prosecutors and the lead investigator that Patterson faced an “unduly intense and oppressive” cross-examination, and that a 2020 photograph of wild mushrooms was wrongly excluded.

Rejecting those arguments, Justice McLeish highlighted Patterson’s “elaborate series of deceptions” and ruled her actions involved “such shocking criminality” that parole was entirely inappropriate.

Patterson has until November 27 to seek leave to appeal in the High Court.