‘Deathcap from Melbourne’: Web searches before Erin Patterson’s fatal lunch
Forensic records extracted from the computer of accused triple-murderer Erin Patterson have revealed a visit to a web page citing the location of deadly mushrooms.
Forensic records extracted from the computer of accused triple-murderer Erin Patterson have revealed a visit to a web page citing the location of deadly mushrooms in suburban Melbourne.
The jury in the Ms Patterson’s murder trial was on Wednesday shown data pulled from a computer seized from her Leongatha home after she allegedly murdered three of her estranged husband’s relatives with death cap mushrooms.
The data indicated a user of the computer had visited online nature-sharing platform iNaturalist, and looked at a page referencing the location of poisonous mushrooms in Moorabbin, south east of Melbourne’s CBD.
The site was visited seconds before a Google search was made for a pub nearby Ms Patterson’s home.
Ms Patterson is on trial in the Victorian Supreme Court for the alleged murders of Donald Patterson, Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson after serving a deadly beef Wellington at a lunch in her home on July 29, 2023.
She had also been charged with the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson, who was present at the lunch but survived after a lengthy hospital stay.
Ms Patterson has pleaded not guilty and is defending all charges.
Throughout the trial, the jury has been shown evidence that the locations of death cap mushrooms were posted to the iNaturalist website in regional towns near Ms Patterson’s home in the months leading up to the fatal lunch.
Cell phone data has also shown it was possible Ms Patterson’s device was detected in those towns after the posts were made.
Senior digital forensic officer Shamen Fox-Henry on Wednesday gave evidence as to search data he found after analysing a computer taken from Ms Patterson’s home on August 5, 2023.
The jury was shown Ms Patterson’s computer accessed a listing on the iNaturalist website for poisonous mushrooms for Bricker Reserve in Moorabbin about 7.23pm on May 28, 2022.
The title of the page was recorded as: “Deathcap from Melbourne VIC Australia on May 18, 2022 at 2.36pm by Ivan Margitta. Brick or Reserve Moorabbin - iNaturalist”.
“That specific URL has been visited twice by that browser,” Mr Fox-Henry told the court.
About 20 seconds later, the same computer made a Google search for the Korumburra Middle Pub. The data also indicated a Bing search was made for the iNaturalist website about 7.20pm on May 28, 2022.
Questioned about the “focus time” of the user on the site, Mr Fox-Henry said the data indicated the device “had that URL in focus on their browser for three seconds”.
Mr Fox-Henry, who has worked across hundreds of data recovery cases, on Wednesday presented a slide show to the court on digital forensic analysis.
“In my primary role, I have conducted multiple data recoveries and extractions from computer and mobile phone systems and continued extracting from digital mediums as well,” he said.
Mr Fox-Henry said the computer seized from Ms Patterson’s home held three storage devices: a 120gb Samsung EVO SSD, a 250gb Hitchi hard drive and a 120gb silicon powered SSD.
The silicon powered SSD, he said, was “found in the container of the computer but didn’t appear to be connected at the time”.
As part of his analysis, Mr Fox-Henry said he made a series of mushroom-related keyword searches on the storage devices.
The keywords included “death cap, death cap mushroom, death cap mushrooms, mushrooms and poison”.
Mr Wilkinson was in court on Wednesday with his daughter, Ruth Dubois, who gave evidence earlier in the trial.
The trial continues.
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