Erin Patterson trial: What alleged killer told detectives following death cap poisoning deaths
A $75 “family pack” online order from a nearby pub was placed just half an hour after the same computer visited a website hosting death cap mushroom sightings, Erin Patterson’s trial has been told.
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The invoice of a $75 online order from a nearby pub has been shown to the jury in Erin Patterson’s triple-murder trial.
Returning to the witness box on Wednesday, Detective Leading Senior Constable Stephen Eppingstall gave evidence about a number of investigative steps he undertook as part of a homicide squad probe into the deadly lunch.
Constable Eppingstall was to take records located on a computer taken from Ms Patterson’s home that captured an online visit to death cap mushroom sightings on the citizen science website iNaturalist on May 28, 2022.
The jury was told records from the same computer captured a visit to the Korumburra Middle Hotel around the same time.
The detective told the court he visited the pub and obtained an invoice for a delivery order for Erin Patterson the same night.
Containing her name, phone number and street address, the $75 order was for garlic bread, 2 chicken Parmigiana, kid’s burger, kid’s fish and a 1.25L Coke no sugar.
Ms Patterson has pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder relating to a deadly beef wellington lunch she hosted with members of her husband Simon Patterson’s family on July 29 the same year.
Gail Patterson and her sister Heather Wilkinson both died on August 4, while Gail’s husband Don Patterson died the following day.
Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson, fell critically ill but recovered after spending more than a month and a half in hospital.
Prosecutors allege Ms Patterson deliberately spiked the lunch with death cap mushrooms, while her defence argues it was a tragic accident and she did not intentionally poison anyone.
Constable Eppingstall, who has sat behind prosecutors for the duration of the five week trial, formally charged Ms Patterson on November 2, 2023.
The jury was told the detective will be the final witness prosecutors called in the triple-murder trial.
Online visit to death cap sighting, pub dinner order found
The topic moved to records extracted from a Cooler Master desktop computer found at Erin Patterson’s home on August 5, 2023.
Previously the jury was told the device was analysed by Victoria Police’s cyber crime squad, which located records of a visit to the iNaturalist website on May 28, 2022, at 7.20pm.
Constable Eppingstall gave evidence he took the URLs recorded in the logs and plugged them into a browser in December 2024, taking a screenshot of the website pages that appeared.
With the caveat that the images depict the site 2 ½ years after the recorded visits and may have changed, the jury was shown a first image of the iNaturalist home page.
The second URL shows an overview of the world with red dots indicating reported sightings of death cap mushrooms.
The third page “zoomed in”, the detective said, on sightings in the Greater Melbourne area, while the fourth captured a death cap report in Bricker Reserve in Moorabbin on May 18, 2022.
Constable Eppingstall was then taken to further records of a visit to the Korumburra Middle Hotel webpage less than a minute after the Bricker Reserve URL was visited.
He told the court in September 2023 he visited the Hotel, where the manager located a delivery order for Erin Patterson at 7.50pm on May 28.
An invoice shown to the jury depicts a family pack order with garlic bread, 2 chicken Parmigiana, kid’s burger, kid’s fish and a 1.25L Coke no sugar for $75.
Erin raised ‘ovarian cancer’ concerns with doctors
Under cross-examination from Ms Patterson’s barrister Colin Mandy SC, Constable Eppingstall was taken through a number of medical records and message logs relating to his client’s health.
Previously the jury was told prosecutors allege Ms Patterson used a “false claim” of a cancer diagnosis to invite her in-laws to lunch.
Constable Eppingstall was taken to records from the Leongatha medical centre that detail consultations with Ms Patterson.
“Erin worries about ovary cancer, has been googling symptoms,” a note on October 21, 2021, read.
Notes from the following month detail Ms Patterson’s concern about a series of “non-specific symptoms” including extreme fatigue, lethargy, weight gain and clumsiness.
On November 11, 2021, a doctor’s note reads; “Erin and both suspect she has MS, ticks all boxes”.
The jury were shown a complete medical history taken on August 11, 2023, which contains self-reported information that Ms Patterson’s father had pancreatic cancer, her mother had breast cancer and both a paternal and maternal aunt had ovarian cancer.
Constable Eppingstall was questioned by Mr Mandy if he accepts there was evidence of Ms Patterson’s concerns about ovarian cancer.
“Yes, sir,” he responds.
‘Never been located’: Phone missing, jury told
Constable Eppingstall was taken to dozens of pages of phone records obtained from Telstra for two mobile phone numbers, one ending in 783 and 835.
He told the court that when Ms Patterson’s home was searched six days after the lunch, on August 5, 2023, she handed over a Samsung Galaxy A23 with the SIM of 835.
“We came to realise that it had only been connected as of July 11, 2023 and it had been used in a tablet device up until August 3, 2023,” the detective said.
Constable Eppingstall confirmed the phone handed over, known in the proceedings as Phone B, was allegedly factory reset three times in August.
The officer said police subsequently identified that Ms Patterson was associated with another phone number, ending in 783, with Telstra records going back to 2019.
“The record shows the 783 number is in use for that entire period… and communicates with people we would expect Ms Patterson to communicate with,” he said.
Constable Eppingstall told the jury the records identified the SIM was used in a second Samsung Galaxy A23 with a different unique identifier, or IMIE, from February 2023.
This phone has been known in the proceedings as Phone A.
At 1.45pm on August 5, he told the court, the records show the SIM was moved into a Nokia Mobile phone.
Constable Eppingstall was quizzed by prosecutor Jane Warren where he was at that time.
“I was at Ms Patterson’s house conducting the search warrant,” he said.
He said the Telstra records indicate the SIM card remained in use in the Nokia phone until August 14, 2023.
The jury was told police conducted a second search warrant at Ms Patterson’s Leongatha home on November 2, 2023, looking for Phone A, the Samsung Galaxy A23.
“It’s never been located by police,” he said.
‘I do’: Mushroom juror prompts court laugh
A stray comment by a juror in Erin Patterson’s trial sparked laughter from the public gallery as the alleged poisoner’s Woolworths rewards card record was displayed.
Constable Eppingstall told the jury after Ms Patterson told police she purchased many of the lunch items at Woolworths inLeongatha, he obtained her rewards card records from July 23 to July 28, 2023.
“So the Woolworths rewards card is the card you use every time you go shopping,” he said.
“It wholly depends on you scanning on.”
Going through items of interest in the records, Constable Eppingstall said Ms Patterson purchased two packs of sliced 500g mushrooms, puff pastry, filo pastry and shallots on July 23 at 1.54pm.
On July 27, two days before the lunch, he said the accused woman purchased puff pastry, filo pastry, four items of beef eye fillet steak and two packs of 375g sliced mushrooms.
The following day Constable Eppingstall said she purchased puff pastry, filo pastry, potato mash, 340g of pre-packaged beans and beef eye fillet steak.
Asked to explain by Justice Christopher Beale what the last two columns of the record indicate, Constable said the second last refers to quantity.
But he said he was “not sure” what the right-hand column represented.
After a pause, a juror exclaimed “I do”, prompting laughter from the packed public gallery.
“Keep your comments for the jury room,” Justice Beale retorted.
Prosecutor Jane Warren said there was “no issue” between the parties that it represented the price of the item.
Mushroom cook’s lie to cops: court
Sitting in a police interview room a day after two in-laws had died from death cap mushroom poisoning, Erin Patterson claimed she did not own a dehydrator.
Just under 21 minutes of footage from the August 5, 2023, interview was played for the jury on Tuesday.
In the interview, held at Wonthaggi Police Station, Constable Eppingstall tells Ms Patterson police are trying to understand what has made the quartet so ill and, conversely, why she wasn’t that sick.
Seated across from the two detectives and wearing a brown jumper, Ms Patterson softly indicates she understands.
“I’m sure you understand too that I’ve never been in a situation like this before and I have been very, very helpful with the health department during the week because I wanted to help,” she says.
“I do want to know what happened, so I’ve given them as much information as they’ve asked for.”
Later in the interview, Constable Eppingstall tells Ms Patterson police have “got concerns” about the source of the mushrooms used in the lunch.
He asks if she had ever foraged for mushrooms, with Ms Patterson responding; “never ever”.
Constable Eppingstall questions if she ever “dehydrates things” and receives a shake of the head in response.
Later still, he asks if Ms Patterson owned a dehydrator.
“No,” she responds.
The officer then tells Ms Patterson they located a manual for a Sunbeam dehydrator in her kitchen when they searched the property earlier the same day.
“I’ve got manuals of lots of stuff I collected over the years … I just keep them all,” she said.
The detective continues the line of questioning with; “when did you ever own a dehydrator?”.
Ms Patterson’s reply is not audible, but she then begins to talk about owning a Thermomix.
“When I first got the Thermomix I got really excited about making everything from scratch,” she said.
Earlier in the trial, the jury saw footage of Ms Patterson disposing of a black Sunbeam dehydrator at the Koonwarra transfer station and landfill on August 2.
In his opening address to the jury, her barrister, Colin Mandy SC, told jurors Ms Patterson accepted she lied about owning a dehydrator or ever foraging for mushrooms.
“The defence case is that she panicked because she was overwhelmed by the fact that these four people had become so ill because of the food that she’d served to them,” he said.
“Might someone panic in a situation like that? Is it possible that people might do and say things that are not well thought out and might, in the end, make them look bad?”
Constable Eppingstall will return to the witness box when the hearing resumes at 10.30am on Wednesday.
The trial continues.
Originally published as Erin Patterson trial: What alleged killer told detectives following death cap poisoning deaths
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