'Mushroom Killer' Loses Appeal, Gets an Even Harsher Sentence

A woman whose deadly lunch of beef Wellington stunned Australia will now spend the rest of her life behind bars, CNN reports. An appeals court on Friday rejected Erin Patterson's bid to overturn her murder conviction—and went further, ruling her original sentence was too lenient. Her final option for an appeal is Australia's High Court, the AP reports. The Guardian reports she "showed no emotion" on a video feed as a justice read the decision.

Patterson, 52, was convicted in July of murdering three people, including her estranged husband's parents and aunt, and attempting to murder his uncle, with a dish containing death cap mushrooms at a 2023 family gathering in rural Victoria. She had initially received three life terms plus 25 years, with a chance of parole after 33 years. But three appellate judges scrapped that non-parole period, calling her conduct "extraordinarily cold and calculated" and, in the words of Justice Stephen McLeish, involving "such shocking criminality" that she should never be released.