Digital forensics expert returns in trial of Erin Patterson

ABC NEWS (Australia)

A Victorian Police digital forensics expert has returned to the witness box at the start of the fifth week of Erin Patterson’s triple murder trial. Erin Patterson has pleaded not guilty to the murder of three of her estranged husband's relatives after serving them a meal containing poisonous death cap mushrooms.

Transcript

00:00Shaman Fox Henry, he was tasked with extracting data from devices seized from Ms. Patterson's

00:08home, a computer, phones, a tablet and last week the court heard that data was recovered

00:14from a computer and it included visits to the iNaturalist website and specifically a

00:20web page that included a reference to death cat mushrooms in Melbourne.

00:24So today it was Ms. Patterson's lawyer's turn to question Mr. Fox Henry, he's taken them

00:31through more detail into how he did those data extractions, some of that very technical

00:38and the defence has put to him that he didn't have the qualifications he does now when he

00:44did those data extractions which he conceded.

00:47He conceded that when it came to a photo of a dehydrator that was extracted from a tablet

00:52seized from Ms. Patterson's home that while there was record of that thumbnail he couldn't

00:59confirm whether it was sent from someone else or the original device that that photo was

01:04taken on and when it came to that iNaturalist visit he said he didn't analyse records prior

01:10or after to those visits and so he couldn't tell who had used the computer and the length

01:16of the session. Now Erin Patterson has pleaded not guilty to the murder of three of her estranged

01:22husband's relatives by serving them a beef wellington meal containing death cat mushrooms.

01:28She denies that she deliberately poisoned her guests.

01:31Okay and Alex Friday's witness if we can just recap was a doctor who treated the lunch guests.

01:38Are you able to give a bit of a recap of where we left off from last week?

01:41Yeah that was Dr Stephen Worillo. He's the Director of Intensive Care at the Austin Hospital in Melbourne

01:51and he gave evidence about the rapid decline of those lunch guests after consuming that beef

01:57wellington lunch. He said that when they arrived at the hospital they were suffering multiple organ

02:02failure. They were critically ill and he then went through all of the treatment that the doctors

02:07tried on those lunch guests including you know activated charcoal a medication called NAC that

02:13can protect your liver. He said that one of the guests Dom Patterson received a liver transplant but

02:19unfortunately it didn't work in the end three of those lunch guests died. The sole survivor Ian Wilkinson

02:27was the only guest that survived that lunch and the doctor said that when those other three guests

02:33were passing away he actually turned a corner and started to get better and Ian Wilkinson was sitting

02:39in the court as that evidence was was taking place.

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