Records from seized computer aired in mushroom cook trial
A computer seized from Erin Patterson’s house was used to visit a web page of a death cap mushroom sighting in Melbourne’s southeast, a jury has heard.
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A computer seized from Erin Patterson’s house was used to visit a web page of a death cap mushroom sighting in Melbourne’s southeast more than a year before the lethal lunch, a jury has heard.
Records from the computer were aired in the Supreme Court on Wednesday after keyword searches for terms including “death cap” were conducted by investigators after extracting data from the device.
Ms Patterson is standing trial in Morwell, accused of murdering her estranged husband’s parents, Don and Gail Patterson, both 70, along with Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson, 66.
She served them individual beef wellingtons allegedly laced with death caps at her home on July 29, 2023.
Heather’s husband, pastor Ian Wilkinson, 71, was the only guest to survive.
Ms Patterson, 50, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder, claiming what happened was a “tragedy and a terrible accident”.
Senior digital forensics officer Shamen Fox-Henry, from the Victoria Police cybercrime squad, confirmed he examined several devices, including a Cooler Master computer.
The jury has previously heard search warrants were executed at Ms Patterson’s house in Leongatha on August 5 and November 2, 2023.
The results of a forensic examination report were shown to the jury after three “storage devices” were located on the computer and analysed.
The court heard records in the report related to the search term “iNaturalist”, with the search made on the computer on May 28, 2022, at 7.20.42pm.
When asked about these records, Mr Fox-Henry said they confirmed a “Bing search was done for iNaturalist”.
The jury has been told iNaturalist is a citizen science website where members of the public post sightings of plants, animals and fungi, including death caps.
The court then heard the URL inaturalist.org was visited by a browser on the computer about 7.21pm, before another URL was visited at 7.23pm.
Crown prosecutor Jane Warren told the court the title of the web page associated with the latter URL was “deathcap from Melbourne, VIC, Australia on May 18, 2022, at 2.36pm by Ivan Margitta. Bricker Reserve Moorabbin – iNaturalist”.
Mr Fox-Henry confirmed this web page had been visited twice by the browser, considering it had a “visit count” of two.
He agreed with Ms Warren that further records extracted from the device were “supporting information” for a visit to the iNaturalist website.
The forensic examination report also showed another record relating to the search term “Korumburra middle pub” made at 7.23.39pm, two minutes after the search for “iNaturalist”.
Earlier, Mr Fox-Henry told the court he created copies of the three storage devices before running a keyword search for the terms death cap, death cap mushroom, death cap mushrooms, mushrooms and poison.
Mr Fox-Henry confirmed the cybercrime team also analysed a Samsung phone belonging to Gail.
He will return to the witness box on Thursday.
The trial, before Justice Christopher Beale, continues.
Need to catch up on the trial? Click here for more coverage.
Originally published as Records from seized computer aired in mushroom cook trial
Searches for iNaturalist made from device seized from Erin Patterson’s home: Court
A device seized from the home of accused mushroom cook killer was used to visit the iNaturalist website, which the jury heard earlier was used to record sightings of various fungi species, including death caps.
Service station CCTV revealed in mushroom murder trial
Footage of accused mushroom cook killer Erin Patterson at a service station the day after the lethal lunch has been played to the jury.