Erin Patterson trial: SIM cards swapped during police search, court hears
A SIM card allegedly operated by Erin Patterson was swapped out of her phone and into another while investigators were executing a search warrant on her house.
A SIM card allegedly operated by Erin Patterson was swapped out of her phone and into another while investigators were executing a search warrant on her house, a court has heard, with police never locating the original mobile device.
The lead investigator into the alleged mushroom murders on Wednesday told the Victorian Supreme Court that Ms Patterson used multiple mobile phones around the time three people were killed at a lunch at her home in mid-2023.
The jury on Wednesday was also told about searches made from Ms Patterson’s computer for deadly mushrooms on the iNaturalist website on May 28, 2022, around the same time an online order was placed for a Family Meal with a side of garlic bread from the local pub.
Ms Patterson has been charged with the murder of three of her estranged husband’s elderly relatives – and the attempted murder of a fourth – by feeding them poisonous mushrooms in a beef Wellington at a lunch in her home in July 2023.
She has pleaded not guilty.
The court on Wednesday was shown call charge records taken from a phone owned by Ms Patterson that revealed her SIM card was swapped from a Samsung mobile to a Nokia mobile.
The records listed the serial code – known as an IMEI number – of the device in which a SIM card was used at the time.
Detective Senior Constable Stephen Eppingstall told the jury the IMEI number of the device changed about 1.45pm on August 5, 2023, while police were executing a search warrant at Ms Patterson’s home.
Ms Patterson was present at the home during the search.
He said the SIM card had been moved from a Samsung mobile – known to police as Phone A – to a Nokia mobile.
The records indicated the SIM card continued to be used in the Nokia device in August 2023.
Constable Eppingstall told the court Phone A had “never been located by police”.
Earlier in his evidence, he said he spent the majority of the time the search warrant was being executed with Ms Patterson, except when she went to the bathroom.
He also said she was “allowed to use a mobile phone in a room alone without observation”.
The court on Wednesday also heard evidence about a second SIM card allegedly used by Ms Patterson in another Samsung device known as Phone B.
The SIM became connected only on July 11, 2023 and was initially “used in a tablet device”, Constable Eppingstall said.
It was taken out of the tablet and put into Phone B on August 3, 2023, the court heard.
Constable Eppingstall confirmed several factory resets had been performed to wipe Phone B on August 5 and 6, 2023.
The court was also shown a photo of Ms Patterson handing over a phone to police – Phone B – when requested on August 5, 2023.
Constable Eppingstall told the court on Wednesday certain URLs were extracted by digital forensic officers from a Cooler Master computer seized from Ms Patterson’s home.
He said he plugged the URLs – allegedly visited on May 28, 2022 – into a browser in December last year and took screenshots of their contents.
Judge Christopher Beale told the jury the contents of the sites could have changed between 2022 and 2024.
The first screenshot showed the location of death cap mushrooms on a world map on the iNaturalist citizen scientist website. The words “death cap” were in the search bar of the website.
“Every red dot … is an observation of a death cap mushroom,” Constable Eppingstall said.
During the trial, the court has been shown evidence that the locations of death cap mushrooms were posted to the iNaturalist website near Ms Patterson’s home in the months leading up to the lunch.
The second screenshot was similar to the first, but “much more focused on the Melbourne or Victoria area”, Constable Eppingstall said.
The words “death cap” were still in the search bar.
A third screenshot was another landing page from the iNaturalist website citing death cap mushrooms near Bricker Reserve, Moorabbin, in Melbourne.
The fourth screenshot showed a Google search for the Korumburra Middle Pub, the fifth showed the Korumburra Middle Pub website and the sixth showed a “homepage on the Korumburra Middle Hotel website itself where you can place an order for food”, Constable Eppingstall said.
The seventh screenshot showed a Bing search for the iNaturalist website and an eighth screenshot showed the iNaturalist homepage.
Constable Eppingstall said he contacted the Korumburra Middle Pub to see if an order had been placed on May 28, 2022.
The court was shown a receipt that showed a family pack – which included garlic bread, two chicken parmigianas, a kid’s burger, a kid’s fish and a 1.25L Coke No Sugar – was delivered to Ms Patterson’s home on that date.
The bill came to $75 for the food, plus a $2 service fee and $5 delivery fee.
The trial continues.
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