Erin Patterson mushroom murder trial LIVE updates: Accused killer’s list of purchases at a service station a day after deadly lunch is revealed to jury

Detective Senior Constable Khuong Tran told the court on Tuesday he obtained CCTV footage from the Caldermeade BP on July 30, 2023 – a day after the lunch.

The CCTV, which was played to the jury, depicted Erin Patterson, wearing a grey cotton jumper, white pants and carrying a handbag, pull up out the front of the service station in her red MG at 3.20pm.

A still image showed Patterson entering a toilet inside the servo for nine seconds before exiting and browsing the store.

Patterson was shown going to the food section and having a look around before grabbing an item.

The jury heard she headed to the drinks section in another aisle before paying for her items and leaving.

The items purchased were a type of sour confectionary, a ham, cheese and tomato sandwich, and a sweet chilli chicken wrap, the court heard.

The edited two minute and 34 second CCTV vision along with 11 stills were exhibited.

The court heard earlier in the trial Patterson told hospital staff she had vomiting and diarhhoea in the days following the lunch.

Telecommunications expert Dr Matthew Sorell (pictured) was put under the pump by lead defence barrister Colin Mandy SC on Tuesday.

Mr Mandy attempted to cast doubt on Dr Sorell’s belief Patterson’s phone was detected in two death cap mushroom Gippsland hotspots at Outtrim and Loch.

Mr Fox-Henry told the jury he and other cyber experts were tasked with analysing a device linked to Patterson’s murder trial.

He confirmed the device was a computer sent for analysis after the phone was seized from Patterson’s home on August 5, 2023.

The officer confirmed the device was a Cooler Master personal computer with the PaLM number 202308-C-0124-001.

Mr Fox-Henry said he found three storage devices attached to the computer including a Samsung 120g, 250gb Hitachi hard drive, silicon powered SSD but wasn’t connected to the computer.

Mr Fox-Henry says he commenced his extraction of data from the computer on August 15.

The expert said he found the search terms: death cap, death cap mushroom, death cap mushrooms and poisons during his analysis.

Mr Fox-Henry said Investigators had provided ‘some’ of the search words before he commenced his analysis.

He said he compiled his report for investigators on March 16, 2024.

Mr Fox-Henry, while explaining his powerpoint presentation to the jury, said he can also glean data from an email file and its three parts: the header, the message body and any attachments.

The expert said the user ‘database file’, which includes data of internet searches and their browser history, can be analysed.

Mr Fox-Henry also explained how a user can search a URL in Google Chrome or other browsers including Internet Explorer and Mozilla.

He also told the jury about other lesser-known browsers including Bing.

Mr Fox-Henry said forensic software can track a user’s ‘string’ regarding browser searches and can record cookie data.

He explained the cookies collected by the user are sent from website to website as the user scrolls the net and the cookie data at each site can be recorded.

Mr Fox-Henry explained information from an internet cache is a temporary storage area where a browser saves internet data.

The officer used Google Maps as an example of when information is ‘cached’.

Mr Fox-Henry said he ‘interrogates’ data and tags items of ‘interest to the investigation’.

He said investigative software can generate a report of the tagged items, which includes data about what date an item or artefact was created and modified.

The artefact data can also include the date a website was visited and the ‘terms of the search included’.

Mr Fox-Henry also agreed Google searches can produce multiple artefacts.

The expert explained artefacts can be files, folders and thumbnails.

Victoria Police Cybercrime Squad senior digital forensics officer Shamen Fox-Henry (pictured below) has explained to the jury how he conducts forensic investigations on computers, mobile phones and other devices.

Patterson, who is wearing a black and white striped top, listened as Mr Fox-Henry explained how he uses specialised Victorian Police digital investigation software to ‘examine and determine’ the data.

Mr Fox-Henry told the jury he has conducted data recoveries and extraction from computer and mobile phone systems after joining the Cybercrime Squad in July 2023.

The court was shown a short powerpoint titled ‘digital forensics’ which was prepared by Mr Fox-Henry.

Mr Fox-Henry explained he extracts data from a device hard drive and sends it back to the police investigator as a ‘portable case’.

He said he takes the data and puts the information into ‘human readable form’.

Mr Fox-Henry agreed investigators can view files, images and other data contained in the portable case.

He also said he can find internet search downloads also known as ‘artefacts’.

Erin Patterson, 50, is accused of murdering her in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, after allegedly serving them a beef Wellington lunch with death cap mushrooms.

Patterson is also accused of attempting to murder Heather’s husband, pastor Ian Wilkinson, who survived the lunch after spending several weeks in an intensive care unit.

The court heard Patterson’s estranged husband, Simon, was also invited, but didn’t attend.

Witnesses told the jury Patterson ate her serving from a smaller and differently coloured plate than those of her guests, who ate from four grey plates.

Patterson told authorities she bought dried mushrooms from an unnamed Asian store in the Monash area of Melbourne, but health inspectors could find no evidence of this.

The health department declared the death cap poisoning was ‘isolated’ to Patterson’s deadly lunch.

Multiple witnesses, including Simon Patterson, Ian Wilkinson and other family members, have given emotion-charged evidence to the jury.

Medical staff have told the jury of the painful symptoms the dying lunch guests and Ian Wilkinson suffered.

An expert witness told the court death cap mushrooms were detected in debris taken from a dehydrater Patterson had dumped at a local tip.

Telecommunications expert Dr Matthew Sorell also told the jury Patterson’s phone was detected near areas in Outtrim and Loch where death cap mushrooms had been spotted.

CCTV of a short toilet pitstop at a Gippsland BP service station following the day of the lunch was also shown to the court.