The ‘catastrophic failure’ that could win mushroom murderer Erin Patterson a retrial

A hotel bungle is at the centre of death cap mushroom killer Erin Patterson’s fight for freedom as her new legal team fleshes out seven reasons it says she was wrongly convicted of murdering her in-laws.

The 51-year-old’s new barrister, Richard Edney, told a panel of three Court of Appeal judges in Melbourne on Wednesday that an “inexplicable failure” to separate the jury from the public, prosecution and police during deliberations created a potential miscarriage of justice.

In the days after an 11-week-long trial wrapped up in Morwell in Victoria’s east in mid-2025, the court heard, jurors were sequestered for their deliberations in the same Traralgon hotel as prosecution and police involved in the case, which Edney said was a catastrophic and fundamental failure to comply with the rules.

He also raised concerns that members of the media seemed to know more about potential interactions between the jury and others at the Latrobe Valley hotel than the prosecution did, with no CCTV to ease concerns when jury keepers reported no contact had occurred with anyone outside the jury pool.

It was the first time in the state’s history, he said, this was believed to have occurred.

“This wasn’t the case where the only possible accommodation was this hotel.”

Director of Public Prosecutions Brendan Kissane, KC, dismissed the claim, saying it had no substance.

He said while it wasn’t ideal and was perhaps nothing more than an accident, jurors had been housed on a separate floor and ate in a separate conference room to other hotel guests.

Kissane said he agreed with a July 2025 email from the trial judge that the bungle had occurred due to a shortage of accommodation in the district and that the arrangement was undesirable.

“No interaction [occurred]. If something went on … we would know,” Kissane said.

On September 8, now retired Supreme Court judge Christopher Beale sentenced Patterson to life in prison, with a non-parole period of 33 years, after she was convicted of the murder of her in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson.

She was also convicted of the attempted murder of Baptist pastor Ian Wilkinson. The four had been fed beef Wellington laced with death cap mushrooms during a lunch at Erin Patterson’s Leongatha home in July 2023 but Ian Wilkinson survived.

Simon Patterson, the killer’s estranged husband, had also been invited to the lunch but cancelled the evening before.

In October, the DPP launched an appeal against Erin Patterson’s 33-year jail sentence, arguing it was “manifestly inadequate” for her crimes.