Mushroom cook's phone act aired in court
Alleged triple-killer Erin Patterson rotated through mobile phones at a 'frequent' pace, moving her SIM nine times over four years, her trial has been told.
On Monday jurors in the trial, now in it's sixth week, continued to hear from Detective leading Senior Constable Stephen Eppingstall.
Under cross examination from defence barrister Colin Mandy SC, Constable Eppingstall was taken through a 'flow chart' that tracked Ms Patterson's phones from 2019 to 2023. Detective Senior Constable Stephen Eppingstall returned to the witness box for his fifth day of giving evidence. NewsWire/ David Crosling Credit: News Corp Australia
The record indicates she changed between seven different phones, from LG, Nokia, Samsung and Oppo, nine times until August 2023.
The detective agreed the chart indicated the 'reasonably frequent setting up' of phones.
Previously the jury was told prosecutors allege a Samsung A23, dubbed Phone B in the trial, was factory reset three times before it was handed over to police on August 5 and once remotely the following day.
Mr Mandy took Constable Eppingstall to a section of the flow chart, that showed a factory reset on February 12 was followed by Ms Patterson's son's SIM card being placed into the phone.
The barrister asked if this was 'consistent' with the son taking over the use of that phone.
'Yes, sir,' the officer responded.
Next Mr Mandy took Constable Eppingstall to phone records from a second Samsung A23 dubbed 'Phone A' in the trial.
Prosecutors allege this was Ms Patterson's phone used in the period preceding and immediately after the lunch.
Last week, Constable Eppingstall told the jury the phone had never been located by police.
Mr Mandy confirmed the Telstra records indicate the SIM card 'lost connection' with the network sometime between 12.01pm and 1.45pm on August 5.
It next connected in a different handset, receiving a text message at 1.44am on August 6, he said.
Constable Eppingstall agreed, saying 'that's my understanding' of the records. Ms Patterson has pleaded not guilty. Brooke Grebert-Craig. Credit: Supplied
Constable Eppingstall, the jury was told last week, was the final witness prosecutors planned to call in their case against Ms Patterson.
The 50-year-old is facing trial after pleading not guilty to murdering three of her husband's relatives and the attempted murder of a fourth.
Prosecutors allege a beef Wellington lunch she served on July 29, 2023, was deliberately poisoned with death cap mushrooms, while her defence argues the case is a tragic accident.
Her husband Simon Patterson's parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and his aunt, Heather Wilkinson died from organ failure in after falling ill following the meal Ms Patterson hosted at her Leongatha home in Victoria's southeast.
Ms Wilkinson's husband, long-serving Korumburra Baptist Church pastor Ian Wilkinson, fell ill following the lunch but recovered after spending about a month and a half in hospital.
The trial continues.
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The sole survivor of the lunch was Heather's husband Ian Wilkinson, who has attended court most days since giving evidence in week two of the trial. He sat silently at the back of the court room on Tuesday as Patterson explained she had begun foraging for wild mushrooms during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Before the end of the day, defence barrister Colin Mandy SC asked Patterson "do you accept there must have been death cap mushrooms" in the lunch she served to her former husband's family. "Yes I do," she told a full court room and 14 jurors. She said she started cooking wild mushrooms in the years before the lunch, and "ate it and then saw what happened". "They tasted good and I didn't get sick," she said. Patterson said she would forage for mushrooms at Korumburra Botanic Gardens, on her three acre properties in Korumburra and Leongatha, and along a rail trail leading out of Leongatha. She said she bought a food dehydrator to begin drying mushrooms because she liked eating them but "it's a very small season" and she wanted to preserve them. Patterson was shown photos of mushrooms in a dehydrator and said she'd picked them from Korumburra gardens and dehydrated them whole as "a bit of an experiment". "They were still a bit mushy inside," she said. "They just didn't dry properly." She said she would dehydrate mushrooms from Woolworths and wild picked mushrooms and put them in containers in her pantry. The trial continues.
