Erin Patterson trial: What police allegedly located on devices taken from alleged poisoner’s home
Facebook messages, images and online searches were uncovered on devices taken from alleged triple-murderer Erin Patterson’s home, her trial has been told.
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Messages complaining about Simon Patterson and his family, alongside records of a visit to a citizen science website were located on devices seized from Erin Patterson’s home.
This week, details of how police interrogated electronic devices and what they found were aired in the fourth week of Ms Patterson’s triple-murder trial in Morwell.
Prosecutors allege the mother of two deliberately spiked a beef Wellington lunch with her in-laws on July 29, 2023, resulting in the deaths of Don and Gail Patterson and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson.
Ms Patterson has pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder relating to lunch survivor Ian Wilkinson.
Her defence have argued the death cap mushroom poisonings were a tragic accident and she did not intend to kill her loved ones.
Giving evidence over three days this week, Senior digital forensics officer Shamen Fox-Henry explained to the jury how Victoria Police’s cybercrime squad interrogated devices taken from Ms Patterson’s home on August 5.
The jury was told investigators use software to create a digital clone of the contents of storage devices before they are then processed for analysis.
After this was carried out, Mr Fox-Henry said detectives could then enter keyword search terms into the digital clone and tag items of interest.
He was taken through reports generated from the contents of five devices; two Samsung mobile phones, a Cooler Master computer, a Samsung tablet, and Gail Patterson’s Samsung phone.
Ms Patterson allegedly vented about husband, in-laws: court
Facebook messages sent from an account linked to Erin Patterson labelled her husband a “deadbeat” dad and described his parents as a “lost cause” eight months before the fatal lunch.
The messages, sent in December 2022, were written by a user named Erin ErinErin, which the jury was previously told was one of three Facebook names used by Ms Patterson to chat with her online friends.
Mr Fox-Henry said the messages were located in cache data found on a Samsung phone.
In the first message located on the thread and dated December 6 at 10.19am, Erin ErinErin wrote to her friends about Donald Patterson’s response to ongoing issues with Simon Patterson.
“Simon’s dad contacted me this morning to say that he and Gail had tried to talk to Simon about the matters I raised and to get ‘his side’ but he refused to talk about it … So don said they can’t adjudicate if they don’t know both sides and Simon won’t give his side,” the message said.
“So he said all that he can ask is that Simon and I get together to pray for the children (Emoji) (Emoji) this family I swear to f--king god.”
Another message timed to 8 minutes later vents “nobody bloody listens to me” and “at least I know they’re a lost cause”.
In a later message, Erin ErinErin wrote that Don told her he didn’t want to “get involved” in the couple’s financial issues.
“I don’t want to hear it. Simon’s will just be horrible and be gaslighting and abusive and it will ruin my day and his parents will be more weasel words about not getting involved so I think I’m going to just move on. I don’t need anything from any of these people,” the message reads.
“They’ve had Simon for tea every night for three months and never once picked up the phone to me since the separation and asked if I’m okay and need help.
“I’m sick of this s--t I want nothing to do with them.”
A final message, dated two days later on December 9 and 9.11pm, complains that “his mum was horrified I had claimed child support”.
“Why isn’t she horrified her son is such a deadbeat that I had no choice but to claim?”
Samsung phone factory reset four times: Court
No data was able to be recovered from a second Samsung phone because the device had been factory reset four times, the jury was told.
Mr Fox-Henry confirmed a report prepared by the police software indicted the phone was examined by a cyber crime squad officer on August 7.
He told the court “no usable data was extracted” from the phone, per the report.
The jury was then shown a table stating the phone was “wiped locally by user” three times on March 12 at 4.53pm, August 1 at 11.09am and August 5 at 12.20pm.
Prosecutor Jane Warren told the court the jury would later hear evidence this phone was handed to investigators by Ms Patterson on August 5 as they probed the mushroom poisonings.
A fourth entry stated the phone was “wiped remotely by user” on August 6 at 5.16pm.
Mr Fox-Henry later explained the date and time listed in the report was the “time and date on the device at the time (the factory reset occurred)”.
At the start of the trial, Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC said it was alleged this phone was not Ms Patterson’s primary device and used a SIM set up on August 3.
Ms Patterson's primary phone, it’s alleged, was never located by police.
Records of online visit to iNaturalist
Mr Fox-Henry told the jury records located inside a Cooler Master computer taken from Ms Patterson’s home contained data indicating a visit to citizen science website iNaturalist.
Earlier in the trial, two witnesses gave evidence that they located death cap mushrooms in towns near Leongatha where Ms Patterson lived and posted details on iNaturalist.
Christine McKenzie told the jury she posted about the mushrooms in Loch on April 18, 2023, while Dr Tom May said he posted a sighting in Outtrim on May 21 the same year.
Records from the Cooler Master computer captured a search using Bing at 7.20pm on May 28, 2022 for “iNaturalist”.
Other records captured a visit to the iNaturalist homepage at 7.20pm through the Microsoft Edge browser and a subsequent visit to a specific web page at 7.23pm.
“Deathcap from Melbourne, Vic, Australia on May 18 2022 … Bricker Reserve, Moorabbin - iNaturalist,” the headline for the page captured in the data read.
Just 21 seconds later another record captures a Google search for Korumburra Middle Pub at 7.23pm, a venue not far from Ms Patterson’s home.
Mr Fox-Henry confirmed if the specific URL captured was entered into a browser it would load the webpage if it remained available online.
The exchange prompted a warning from Justice Christoper Beale that the jury should not test this out themselves.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, but ladies and gentlemen, don’t be tempted overnight to … put any of these URL addresses into Google and conduct your own searches, okay? You’re not investigators,” he said.
Images of mushrooms, cancer queries found on tablet
Mr Fox-Henry was taken to a series of 13 images found in the Google Photos cache data on a Samsung tablet located at Ms Patterson’s Leongatha home on August 5.
The forensics officer said the data on these images indicates they were saved “thumbnails” of the original image.
Several of the images, prosecutor Jane Warren suggested, were of a dehydrator on a kitchen bench, dehydrator trays containing mushrooms and mushrooms being weighed by a scale.
The images are dated as last being modified in May and April 2023.
Several other images found appear to show screenshots of Google search results.
One, dated May 4, gives an answer that “ovarian cancer rarely metastasizes to the brain; if it does it is more likely to course with advanced stage carcinomas more than one year after diagnosis”.
Another dated on the same day contains a text box stating; “Stage 4 ovarian cancer means the cancer has spread to other body organs some distance from the ovaries”.
A third image captures the question and answer for “Is it common for lymphoma to spread to the brain?”
“What is brain lymphoma? Brain lymphoma, also known as primary cerebral lymphoma or primary central nervous system lymphoma, is a rare, highly aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma cancer originating in the lymph tissue.”
Mr Fox-Henry is expected to return to the witness box on Monday, where he will face questioning by Ms Patterson’s defence team.
The trial continues.
Originally published as Erin Patterson trial: What police allegedly located on devices taken from alleged poisoner’s home
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