Any deleted files from accused murderer Erin Patterson will likely be recovered

Detectives combed through accused triple murderer Erin Patterson’s home on Friday, seizing items including computers. Now the hard part begins – retrieving potentially deleted files.

Any deleted files on accused triple murderer Erin Patterson’s computer will be uncovered and may be used as evidence in court, experts say.

A police source told the Herald Sun any documents the 49-year-old may have removed from her devices can be traced by the force’s specialist team.

“It’s not easy but it’s doable on most occasions,” he said.

“I would suggest they are looking for evidence of searches she has made in regards to the type of mushrooms she’s allegedly used and which ones would be most likely to have toxins.

“Anything to do within her search engine that relates to poisoning and anything that relates to her behaviours.”

It comes as computer equipment was seized from Ms Patterson’s Leongatha property on Thursday before she was charged with three counts of murder and five counts of attempted murder.

Erin Patterson was charged with three counts of murder and five counts of attempted murder. Picture: Brooke Grebert-Craig.

Melbourne University applied computing systems professor Richard Sinnott said anything on a computer’s hard disk “can always be found”.

“There are lots of software systems available now where you can recover data that’s on disk and you can get everything basically unless someone has used some more secure ways of deleting things,” he said.

“There are some software systems that can copy where that file was on a disk and delete it like 27 times with zeros and ones so that it’s not recoverable any more but the mere mortal wouldn’t do that.

“You’d have some software that you install that can start to recover all the sectors of the disk and all the data that’s been physically on there. Then you can start building up the history of whatever was on the disk and when.”

Computer equipment was seized from Ms Patterson’s Leongatha home. Picture: Ian Currie

Ms Patterson’s social media footprint will also be thoroughly investigated.

“She might be involved in conversations or narratives where she has talked about this stuff on online forums,” the police source said.

“It could be the tiniest thing.

“It all shows a pattern of behaviour.”

It’s believed police would have tracked Ms Patterson’s phone and tapped her property with listening devices.

Erin Patterson at the Wonthaggi police station. Picture: David Caird

“Police would have enough evidence to get the warrant, you don’t just get a warrant because you want one,” the source said.

“You have to provide an affidavit that provides enough evidence to suggest why the warrant is being executed and what will be found.”

Don Patterson, Gail Patterson and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson all died after eating a beef wellington dish cooked by Ms Patterson on July 29.

Ian Wilkinson, Heather’s husband, spent two months in hospital but miraculously survived the fatal meal.