Victorian Supreme Court denies parole for Erin Patterson, upholds life sentence

A three-judge panel of the Supreme Court of Victoria on Friday dismissed Erin Patterson's appeal and upheld her life sentence without the possibility of parole. Patterson, 51, was convicted last year of murdering three relatives of her estranged husband by serving them a meal laced with death-cap mushrooms and of attempting to murder a fourth family member who survived.

"This offending was extraordinarily cold and calculated, and stands to be denounced in the strongest terms," Justice Stephen McLeish said on behalf of the panel. "In all the circumstances, after anxious consideration, we have concluded that the case involved such shocking criminality that it is inappropriate to fix a non-parole period."

The court noted that Patterson employed an elaborate series of deceptions, including falsely claiming a cancer diagnosis to explain the absence of her children from the lunch. She was sentenced to life imprisonment with a 33-year non-parole period, one of the longest terms ever imposed on a woman in Australia. Patterson has maintained that the deaths were accidental.

Her legal team argued that certain evidence should have been excluded, that cross-examination was unfair, and that the jury’s accommodation compromised the trial, but the judges found these arguments insufficient. Patterson may seek a further appeal to the High Court, which would be her final avenue.

Patterson is the second woman in Australia to receive a life sentence without parole, following Katherine Knight, who was sentenced in New South Wales in 2001.