Australian woman jailed for poisoning 3 in-laws with mushrooms

An Australian woman has been sentenced to prison over the murder of three elderly relatives of her estranged husband with a meal containing poisonous mushrooms.

The woman, Erin Patterson, was sentenced to a minimum of 33 years in prison on Monday, September 8, 2025, in one of the longest jail terms ever given to a woman in the country.

The presiding judge, Justice Christopher Beale, said Patterson showed no pity for her in-laws after she served them individual portions of Beef Wellington laced with death cap mushrooms.

Patterson was found guilty in July of killing her mother-in-law, Gail Patterson, father-in-law, Donald Patterson, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, in a case that has been globally followed and dubbed the Leongatha mushroom murders.

A jury also found the 50-year-old woman guilty of the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson, Heather’s husband, who survived the 2023 meal at Patterson’s home in Leongatha, a town of about 6,000 people, some 135 km (84 miles) southeast of Melbourne.

Justice Beale said the substantial planning of the murders and Patterson’s lack of remorse meant her sentence should be lengthy.

“The devastating impact of your crimes is not limited to your direct victims. Your crimes have harmed a great many people,” the judge said at the sentencing hearing at the Supreme Court of Victoria in Melbourne.

“Not only did you cut short three lives and cause lasting damage to Ian Wilkinson’s health, thereby devastating the extended Patterson and Wilkinson families, you inflicted untold suffering on your own children, whom you robbed of their beloved grandparents.”

Ian Wilkinson thanked the police and prosecutors who brought Patterson to justice, as well as medical teams that treated him and the other victims.

“We’re thankful that when things go wrong, there are good people and services and systems available to help us recover,” he told Reuters outside the court.