Internet history details extracted from a device found in Erin Patterson's home have been revealed in court as she stands accused of killing her ex-husband's family with 'death mushrooms'.
The woman from Australia has been accused of killing three of her ex husband's relatives and seriously injuring another by allegedly serving them poisonous mushrooms two years ago.
Patterson, 50, invited former in-laws Gail and Don Patterson, both 70, Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson, 66, and her husband Reverend Ian Wilkinson, 68, to her home in Leongatha, Victoria for lunch on 30 July 2023.
Her ex husband Simon Patterson was invited to the meal, but he decided not to attend the day before.
Advert
As a main course, she served up a poisoned beef wellington with mushrooms, according to the prosecution. However, the defence say the poisonings were not deliberate.
Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson died on 5 August of death cap mushroom poisoning, while Don Patterson died the following day.
A few weeks into the trial, Patterson's not guilty plea of three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder still stands.
The jury heard today (21 May) that death cap mushroom internet searches were found on a computer seized from Patterson's home on 5 August, 2023.
Advert
Online searches for citizen science website iNaturalist were found on the device at the Leongatha property, the jury were told.
Sharmen Fox-Henry, a Victoria Police senior digital forensic officer, gave evidence to the court and suggested that he extracted and processed data from three storage devices located inside a Cooler Master computer.
He applied a word searches of 'death cap, death cap mushroom, death cap mushrooms, mushrooms and poison' to the devices and found a cache of searches from 28 March, 2022.
Fox-Henry's 2024 report of the findings was shown to the jury.
Advert
“The search term iNaturalist was conducted by Bing using the Edge browser,” he said.
At the start of the trial, defence barrister Colin Mandy told the jury what was going through Patterson's mind at time.
"Might people say or do things that are not well thought out... and might make them look bad," Mandy said.
"The defence case is that she panicked because she was overwhelmed by the fact that these four people had become so ill because of the food she had served them. Three people died."
"Lots of people might have opinions or theories," he added. "But they aren’t based on the evidence... none of that should have any bearing on your decision."
Topics: Food And Drink, Crime, Australia, Erin Patterson, World News
Anish Vij