Ammon News - Erin Patterson has been sentenced to life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 33 years after murdering three people and attempting to murder a fourth with a lunch laced with death cap mushrooms.

Justice Christopher Beale delivered the sentence during a live broadcast in the Victorian supreme court on Monday morning.

In July, after an 11-week trial, a jury found Patterson, 50, guilty of murdering Don and Gail Patterson – the parents of her estranged husband, Simon Patterson – and Simon’s aunt, Heather Wilkinson. The jury also convicted Patterson of attempting to murder Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson.

Patterson hosted the guests at a lunch in July 2023, deliberately feeding them beef wellingtons laced with death cap mushrooms.

Simon Patterson said his estranged wife’s crimes had robbed their two children, a son born in 2009 and a daughter born in 2014, of “the kind of relationship with their mother that every child yearns for”.

On Monday, Beale said he agreed Patterson should receive the maximum penalty for her crimes. He sentenced her to life in prison for the murders of Heather Wilkinson and Don and Gail Patterson, and 25 years in prison for the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson, to be served concurrently.

Patterson had already served 676 days in pre-sentence detention, the court heard. She will be 82 when she becomes eligible to apply for parole in 2056.

Patterson will have until 6 October to lodge an appeal against her conviction, sentence or both.

She pleaded not guilty to all charges and claimed the deaths were a tragic accident.

The Guardian