Accused mushroom chef Erin Patterson is being kept in a protected unit alongside a convicted paedophile rapist amid growing fears for her safety behind bars.
Ms Patterson, who awaits trial for three counts of murder and five counts of attempted murder, is currently being held in Victoria’s Dame Phyllis Frost Centre, a maximum security jail with a capacity for 600 women.
Prisoners at the jail include ‘Black Widow’ serial killer Robyn Lindholm, gangland matriarch and killer Judy Moran, violent ‘tiny terrorist’ Momena Shoma and Ms Patterson’s new cellmate – school principal rapist Malka Liefer.
The ultra-Orthodox Jewish principal was sentenced to 15 years behind bars for the vile sexual abuse of two young high school students in August, 2023.
Ms Patterson, 49, has spent four months rubbing shoulders with some of ‘s most violent women after she was arrested and charged following a death cap mushroom beef Wellington lunch she served at her Leongatha home on July 29.
She was arrested at her home on November 2 and taken to Dame Phyllis Frost, where sources say she requires protection from other inmates due to her alleged crime
‘If Erin got out of protection, the girls would hurt her,’ they told the Herald Sun.
‘She allegedly killed three elderly people. There’s a rule, you don’t touch the elderly and you don’t touch babies so because of that, you go into protection.
‘She would be doing it very, very hard in there as she would only be able to speak to two or three girls and that’s it.’
Accused mushroom chef Erin Patterson is being kept in a protected unit alongside a convicted paedophile rapist amid growing fears for her safety behind bars
Ms Patterson can expect to rub shoulders with the ‘girls’, some of the country’s most evil women at Victoria’s notorious Dame Phyllis Frost Centre (pictured)
Pastor Ian Wilkinson, 70, was the sole survivor of the deadly lunch, which claimed the life of his wife Heather Wilkinson, 66, and Don and Gail Patterson, both 70.
Ms Patterson’s husband Simon pulled out of the lunch at the last minute.
Court documents revealed that Ms Patterson has been charged with trying to murder Simon Patterson on four separate occasions.
These allegedly were between 16 and 17 November 2021, between 25 and 27 May 2022, on 6 September 2022 and at the mushroom lunch in July 2023.
It’s believed Ms Patterson is being housed in a self-contained unit at Dame Phyllis Frost and has use of a bed, shower, toilet, sink, desk and closet.
As she is on remand, she is not required to work and is believed to have access to a kitchen where she can cook her own meals.
Also housed in the jails’ protection wing is Momena Shoma, the Bangladeshi Islamic State fanatic who has continued her violence behind bars.
A typical cell inside the women’s prison where Erin Patterson will be housed, undergoing induction this weekend into the notorious jail
Shoma, jailed for a maximum 42 years for stabbing in the neck a Melbourne homestay host in 2018, attacked a female inmate with garden shears.
After six years were added to her sentence in 2021 she declared: ‘I’m proud of myself.’
Veronica Marie Nelson died alone in her Dame Phyllis Frost prison cell in January 2020, after at least 49 recorded pleas for help were ignored by prison officers.
Earlier this year, an investigation found there had been a cover-up of the gross negligence and discrimination which had contributed to Ms Nelson’s death.
Victoria Police have spent 20 weeks preparing a brief of evidence against Ms Patterson which will be presented on Monday.
The prosecution will rely on the photos and witnesses statements conducted by police as evidence for Ms Patterson’s alleged crimes.
The accused mushroom chef is due to next appear in Latrobe Valley Magistrates’ Court via video-link for a committal hearing on May 3.