Erin Patterson: Online searches probed in mushroom murder trial
Lawyers acting for alleged triple-murderer Erin Patterson have begun questioning a digital forensics officer about digital records found on devices taken from the accused woman's house.
Shamen Fox-Henry, from Victoria Police's cybercrime squad, returned to the witness box on Monday for cross-examination after giving evidence over three days last week.
Under questioning by Ms Patterson's barrister Colin Mandy SC, Mr Fox-Henry was taken to a report generated on about 67 data artefacts pulled from more than 2½ million records on a Cooler Master computer.
The jury was told the device was taken from Ms Patterson's home on August 5 and, after processing using proprietary software, investigators used keyword searches to identify items of interest.
Records from the Cooler Master computer captured online activity over about three minutes from 7.20pm to 7.23pm on May 28, 2022.
Last week the jury was told a Bing search for 'iNaturalist' was located at 7.20pm, followed by a visit to the iNaturalist homepage through the Microsoft Edge browser.
Minutes later, at 7.23pm, a specific URL was visited with the recorded headline 'Deathcap from Melbourne, Vic, Australia on May 18 2022 … Bricker Reserve, Moorabbin – iNaturalist'.
Just 21 seconds later another record captures a Google search for Korumburra Middle Pub at 7.23pm, a venue not far from Ms Patterson's home.
Another record captured a phone number and 'Erin Patterson' being auto-filled by Google.
Mr Mandy suggested this appeared to be an 'auto-fill purchase' from the pub, but Mr Fox-Henry confirmed that anyone with access to the computer could use the auto-fill.
He told the jury that he did not examine the computer to check these settings, nor if the date and time of the computer was correct.
He conceded that he could have, if asked, re-examined the records of the computer to look at activity before and after the three minutes of records.
Questioned on if this could have given him more information about the activity, such as who conducted the search or past or subsequent activity, the forensic officer said 'potentially, yes'.
Ms Patterson is facing trial after pleading not guilty to murdering three members of her husband Simon Patterson's family and the attempted murder of one more.
Prosecutors allege she deliberately poisoned a lunch on July 29, 2023 with death cap mushrooms, while her defence argues the poisoning was an unintentional tragic accident.
Don Patterson, Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson died in the week following the beef wellington meal, while Ian Wilkinson survived.
The trial continues.
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