Traralgon hotel likely to be named in Erin Patterson appeal

THE Supreme Court of Victoria formally advised on Friday, May 29 that the conviction appeal by Erin Patterson and a separate appeal against the sentence by the Director of Public Prosecutions have been listed by the Court of Appeal for a hearing on Tuesday, August 19 and Wednesday, August 20, 2026 at 10.15am.

The written cases, that will form the basis of the appeals by convicted Leongatha triple murderer Erin Patterson and the DPP, have not been released at this stage.

However, in court documents submitted to the Court of Appeal last November, Ms Patterson claimed “a fundamental irregularity occurred” likely when the jury was sequestered at a Traralgon hotel, during the first week of July 2025, “that has fatally undermined the integrity of the verdicts and requires the quashing of the convictions”.

It is understood that this grounds for appeal revolves around the fact that members of the police, prosecution and the media were staying in the same hotel, eating their meals and moving around, at the same time as the jury was sequestered there for their trial deliberations, ahead of returning a verdict of guilty on three counts of murder and one of attempted murder on Monday, July 7, 2025 after a 10-week trial at Morwell.

The fact that there were only a limited number of suitable hotels in the regional area where the trial was staged may be a factor.

In the documents, Ms Patterson calls for a re-trial “so that justice cannot only be done but be seen to be done”.

In other grounds for the appeal, Ms Patterson has challenged the way that cell tower data and evidence of death cap mushroom sightings in Loch and Outtrim, posted to the iNaturalist website, were brought together during the trial to indicate her movements in May 2023.

She claims the evidence wasn’t relevant or that the value of the evidence was outweighed by its unfair prejudice and by allowing it to be admitted into evidence led to a “substantial miscarriage of justice”.

Ms Patterson claims the trial judge erred in ruling that photos and videos related to mushrooms, found on an SD card at her home were inadmissible during the prosecution case, also led to a substantial miscarriage of justice.

The “Facebook evidence” introduced into the trial from so-called Facebook ‘friends’ and other Facebook messages should also not have been allowed on the grounds that they were either irrelevant or that their value was outweighed by unfair prejudice.

She claims that her cross-examination by crown prosecutors during the trial was both “unfair and oppressive”, that the prosecutor’s closing address “caused a substantial miscarriage of justice” and that implications by the prosecution that there was a motive for the murders, despite opening their case on the basis that there was no evidence of motive, also led to a substantial miscarriage of justice.

The Department of Public Prosecutions is expected to argue that the sentence imposed on Ms Patterson of “life”, on each of the three murder counts for killing both her parents-in-law, Don and Gayle Patterson, and Gayle’s sister Heather Wilkinson, and 25 years for the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson, with 33 years to serve, was manifestly inadequate.

In handing down his sentence in the Supreme Court in Melbourne last September, Justice Beale listed the aggravating circumstances he needed to consider when sentencing Ms Patterson.

“Your offending, which resulted in the death of three people and near death of another, involved substantial premeditation. I am satisfied that by 16 July 2023, when you unusually invited Simon, his parents and his aunt and uncle to a lunch without the children to discuss your non-existent medical issues, you did so with the intention of killing them all.

“The dehydrator which you purchased in late April 2023 enabled you to preserve death cap mushrooms, which you put into the individual Beef Wellingtons served to your guests. Whether those death cap mushrooms came from Loch on 28 April 2023,33 or from Loch or Outtrim on 22 May 2023, or from another location in May or June of 2023 (as you suggested in your testimony) is, in my view, of no great moment.”

But he also took into account the likelihood that she would spend most of her time in jail in solitary confinement when deciding to fix a non-parole period of 33 years.

“The harsh prison conditions that you have experienced already and the likely prospect of solitary confinement for the foreseeable future are important and weighty considerations which should count for something in the sentencing exercise. In my view, the only scope for making them count is by the fixing of a non-parole period… Fixing a non-parole period is not to undervalue the horrendous nature of your offending. Your total effective sentence will be life imprisonment and the period during which you will be ineligible for parole will be a very substantial one.”

Erin Paterson, 50, was convicted of the murder of three and the attempted murder of one family member following a family lunch of beef wellington at her Leongatha home on Saturday, July 29, 2023. The visitors became violently ill in the days following the lunch, from death-cap mushroom poisoning, with Justice Beale referring to their suffering in his sentencing remarks.

“The prosecution submitted that you must have anticipated that your victims would suffer in the way they did. I am satisfied, beyond reasonable doubt, that it is implausible that you would have selected death cap mushrooms without ascertaining how they would work upon your victims,” said Justice Beale, referring to the “severe gastro-intestinal illnesses” suffered by the victims.