May 22, 2025 • 12 mins
A digital forensics officer who analysed a device seized from Erin Patterson’s home gave evidence today about a tranche of messages relating to the deceased lunch guests.
The Mushroom Cook team is Brooke Grebert-Craig, Laura Placella, Anthony Dowsley, Jordy Atkinson and Jonty Burton. Our intern is Jasmine Geddes.
The Mushroom Cook is a Herald Sun production for True Crime Australia.
Go to themushroomcook.com.au for news, features, previous episodes and more
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
I'm sick of this shit. I want nothing to do
with them. I thought his parents would want him to
do the right thing, but it seems they're concerned about
not wanting to feel uncomfortable and not wanting to get
involved in their son's personal matters are overriding that. So fuckam.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
On August five, twenty twenty three, police search the home
of Aaron Pattison, the woman who is now on trial
for murder over the deadly Mushroom Mill. Investigators seized multiple devices,
but on one particular mobile phone they found Facebook messages
sent from an account linked to Erin messages sent to
(00:36):
friends in a group chat.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
So Don said they can't adjudicate if they don't know
both sides, and Simon won't give his side, so he
said all he can ask is that Simon and I
get together and pray for the children this family. I
swear to fooking God.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
These messages, along with images, screenshots, and other evidence taken
from different devices, were shown to the jury. Here in
my well, I'm Brooke Greebert Craig, and this is the
Mushroom Cook. And once again with my colleague, court reporter
Laura passella Hey Brook, it was a busy day in court,
(01:12):
wasn't it.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Yes, it was definitely a jam pack day.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Let's start with Digital forensic Officer Shaman fox Henry. We
spoke about him yesterday. He was in court again today
continuing his evidence.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
That's right. Our listeners may remember that yesterday he was
speaking about a Cooler Master computer that was seized from
Aaron's house during one of the search warrants, and he
spoke about what was found on that device. But today
he focused on the phones and a tablet that was seized.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Let's talk about one of the mobile phones first. We
heard grabs from a voice actor at the start of
the episode that we're reading some of the messages that
were found on that device.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Yes, that's right. This was a Samsung phone analyzed by
one of mister fox Henry's colleagues, and there are a
raft of messages that were extracted and they were all
shown to the jury on screens in the courtroom and
read out by Crown Prosecutor Jane Warren. As you would
have heard at the top of the episode, these are
messages from a Facebook group chat that had members including
(02:17):
Danielle Barkley and Jenny Hay, who were witnesses who gave
evidence at the beginning of this trial. They were some
of the friends Erin had made over the internet.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Now, these messages were sent from an account called Aaron
Aaron Eron.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Yes, you've got that right. In the prosecution opening, the
jury heard that Erin spoke to her online friends under
three account names, and at the time the prosecution said
these were Aaron Patterson Erin Erin and the one you
just mentioned, Brook Aeron Erin Erin, And the messages that
were brought up on the screen today were all in
(02:53):
relation to that third account name. The messages were sent
in early December twenty twenty two and reference the child
support dispute between Aaron and Simon. In the messages, Aaron Aaron,
Aaron writes to her friends about Don's response to this
ongoing dispute.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Here are some of those messages.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
I said to him about fifty times yesterday that I
didn't want them to adjudicate nobody bloody listens to me.
At least I know they're a lost cause. I wonder
if they've got any capacity for self reflection at all.
I mean, clearly, the fact that Simon refused to talk
about personal issues in part stems from the behavior of
his parents and how they operate.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Days later, on December nine, another message was sent.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
His mum was horrified I'd claimed child support. Why isn't
she horrified her son is such a deadbeat that I
had no choice but to claim.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
So it's really important to note that these texts were
read into the record today, but mister fox Henry wasn't
asked anything about what they meant or anything about their contents.
He simply explained that these messages were found on the
device and linked to the account name Aaron eron Erin,
and I will just add that there were other messages
today shown to the jury.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Now, mister fox Henry continued his evidence and he was
asked questions around a Samsung tablet seized from Aaron's home.
The jury were then showed images that were extracted from
that device. These images were of a black dehydrator from
April thirty, twenty twenty three, and images of mushrooms on
(04:24):
a set of kitchen scales from May four, twenty twenty three,
so this was about two months before that deadly lunch.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Mister fox Henry explained that these photos were extracted from
a Google Photos cash folder, and the dates that you
mentioned just then, Brooke, were the last modified dates that
were pulled from the tablet. Beyond these photos that were
taken of the dehydrator and the kitchen scales, some photos
(04:53):
were also extracted from the device that appeared to be
screenshots taken of a web browser. The search results in
the screenshot were shown to the jury and there were
four in total, all referencing cancer. There were three relating
to ovarian cancer and one about lymphoma. One of the screenshots,
(05:13):
which had a last modified date of May tenth, twenty
twenty three, had reference to a website called Stage four
ovarian Cancer, and the text on the screen read stage
four ovarian cancer means the cancer has spread to other
body organs some distance away from the ovaries, such as
the liver or the lungs. Again, mister Fox, Henry wasn't
(05:36):
asked any questions about what these screenshots or these photos meant,
simply that they were extracted from this tablet.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
And just to remind the listeners, the prosecution alleges Aarin
falsely claimed to have had cancer to explain why the
children were not at that lunch on July twenty nine,
while the defense has suggested Aaron only told the lunch
guests she had as suspected diagnosis of cancer.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
We've heard evidence as well from Professor Andrew Burston who
has examined Aaron's medical records and confirmed she has never
been diagnosed with cancer.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
And there was another phone that mister fox Henry spoke
about today, wasn't there?
Speaker 3 (06:17):
There was? This was another Samsung mobile phone. So there
are two Samsungs that have been seized in this case.
And this phone is being referred to as Phone B.
It was the phone that Aaron handed to investigators during
the search warrant. It was analyzed by again one of
mister fox Henry's colleagues, and he told the court that
(06:38):
when it came time to examine the device, they found
that four factory resets had been conducted. A report was
shown to the jury of those factory resets, and it
could be seen that they were made on February twelve,
August two, August five, and August eighth, twenty twenty three.
(06:59):
August five was the date of the warrant itself, and
August eighth was three days afterwards, after the phone had
already been seized. Mister fox Henry told the court that
no user data had been extracted from this device.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Now let's move on. The jury heard more about the
investigation the City of Monash Council did into mushrooms at
Asian grosers. Our listeners will remember that Erin claimed to
multiple different medical experts that she bought the dried mushrooms
that she used in the beef Wellington dish from an
Asian grosser.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
The jury heard about this investigation through one of the
Monash City Council's Environmental health officers. His name was Troy
schwan neckt I think I've pronounced that wrong, so I
apologized Troy, So I'm just going to call him by
his first name for this little bit of the episode.
He explained to the jury that he was tasked with
first coming up with a list of all of the
(07:55):
Asian grossers in Oakley, Clayton and Matt Waverley were some
of the suburbs Erin had mentioned to these experts. You
spoke about Brook. She said she couldn't remember which suburb
the Asian grocer was located, but she said it may
have been in one of these three.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
So it was really up to him to attend those premises,
take photos of the mushrooms and then establish a supply
chain and understand whether there were any changes to it.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
In total, he attended fourteen grocers. There were five in Oakley,
five in Clayton, and four in Mount Waverley, and he
told the court that across his investigation he took more
than three hundred photos, and some of those were shown
to the jury today on the screens.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
The jury also heard that Aaron told officials that she
bought mushrooms from a store in a strip shopping center.
She said the mushrooms were in a sea through packet
and the label on the packet was white with typing
on it. She also said that the mushrooms were either
Shitaki mushrooms or Porcini mushrooms.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
So this really helped guide Troy's investigation. He made sure
that when he was going to these premises he was
really looking for mushrooms that matched this description. When it
came time for him to write up his findings, which
were again shown on the screen to the jury, he
said that it was only one store in Oakley that
(09:20):
had repackaged mushrooms. He explained that this particular shop got
the mushrooms in bulk and due to the preferences of
their customers, put those mushrooms into smaller bags for sale.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
And through cross examination, the jury heard that this was
the store where some of the mushrooms were actually taken
off the shelves for some time.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
This was because of the similarities some of these repackaged
mushrooms shared with the information Troy was provided, but the
court heard that ultimately he was unable to find any
product across these fourteen stores that exactly matched the description
Aaron had provided.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Troy was also cross examined about something else, wasn't.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
He Laura, Yeah, there was one final point that defense
barrister Sophie Stafford wanted to make, which was in relation
to the fact that Aaron had told some officials that
the dried mushrooms could have been bought from an Asian
grocer in glen Waverley, but Troy confirmed he was not
asked to attend any Asian grocers in Glen Waverley.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Okay, Laura, now we're going to move on to a
completely different topic. It's a bit jarring, but the jury
was shown a chart of Aaron's BAO movements when she
was in hospital on July thirty one, twenty twenty three. Now, Laura,
this is a bit tmi, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Yes? We have heard quite a lot of medical evidence
in this case, but things definitely got into the nitty
gritties today.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
This evidence came through witness Mariam Cesspon, who was a
nurse who assisted Aaron Attlean at the hospital on July
thirty one.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
This was two days after the lunch and to remind
our listeners, Aaron had presented at the hospital around eight o'clock.
She discharged herself against medical advice five minutes later, but
ultimately returned by around nine point fifty. After she was
admitted and brought into a room. Mariam said that she
asked Erin to tell her every time she needed to
(11:16):
go to the toilet so they could collect these bow
motions and keep a record of them.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
And something was mentioned about witch's hats, wasn't it Yes?
Speaker 3 (11:26):
And this was something I'd never heard of before. But
another term for the pan they used to collect this
matter is actually called a witch's hat. So she explained
how the witch's hat is like an inverted triangle. It's
placed on the toilet seat to collect the bow movements
for examination by a doctor or nurse.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Now, what were actually found on these charts?
Speaker 3 (11:49):
There were five bow movements recorded from ten am to
around eleven fifty am, just before Erin was taken by
ambulance to Monash Medical Center. The three bower movements were
actually in very close proximity, so ten am, ten oh
four and ten o six and Miss Sesspond was tasked
(12:10):
with observing these bower movements and writing a description of them.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Again, this is a bit TMI, but a few of
them were described as medium and had the consistency of liquid.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
And Miss Sespond recalled to the court that at one
stage Erin told her it does look a little like
a we, but it is a bowl motion.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
And on that note, hopefully we don't have to talk
about Aaron's bower movements ever.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Again yes, I hope so too. But just to flag
it is mister Fox Henry who is set again to
take the stand tomorrow for his third day of evidence.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
We'll be back tomorrow, but in the meantime go to
the mushroomcook dot com dot au for more
I'm sick of this shit. I want nothing to do
with them. I thought his parents would want him to
do the right thing, but it seems they're concerned about
not wanting to feel uncomfortable and not wanting to get
involved in their son's personal matters are overriding that. So fuckam.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
On August five, twenty twenty three, police search the home
of Aaron Pattison, the woman who is now on trial
for murder over the deadly Mushroom Mill. Investigators seized multiple devices,
but on one particular mobile phone they found Facebook messages
sent from an account linked to Erin messages sent to
(00:36):
friends in a group chat.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
So Don said they can't adjudicate if they don't know
both sides, and Simon won't give his side, so he
said all he can ask is that Simon and I
get together and pray for the children this family. I
swear to fooking God.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
These messages, along with images, screenshots, and other evidence taken
from different devices, were shown to the jury. Here in
my well, I'm Brooke Greebert Craig, and this is the
Mushroom Cook. And once again with my colleague, court reporter
Laura passella Hey Brook, it was a busy day in court,
(01:12):
wasn't it.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Yes, it was definitely a jam pack day.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Let's start with Digital forensic Officer Shaman fox Henry. We
spoke about him yesterday. He was in court again today
continuing his evidence.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
That's right. Our listeners may remember that yesterday he was
speaking about a Cooler Master computer that was seized from
Aaron's house during one of the search warrants, and he
spoke about what was found on that device. But today
he focused on the phones and a tablet that was seized.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Let's talk about one of the mobile phones first. We
heard grabs from a voice actor at the start of
the episode that we're reading some of the messages that
were found on that device.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Yes, that's right. This was a Samsung phone analyzed by
one of mister fox Henry's colleagues, and there are a
raft of messages that were extracted and they were all
shown to the jury on screens in the courtroom and
read out by Crown Prosecutor Jane Warren. As you would
have heard at the top of the episode, these are
messages from a Facebook group chat that had members including
(02:17):
Danielle Barkley and Jenny Hay, who were witnesses who gave
evidence at the beginning of this trial. They were some
of the friends Erin had made over the internet.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Now, these messages were sent from an account called Aaron
Aaron Eron.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Yes, you've got that right. In the prosecution opening, the
jury heard that Erin spoke to her online friends under
three account names, and at the time the prosecution said
these were Aaron Patterson Erin Erin and the one you
just mentioned, Brook Aeron Erin Erin, And the messages that
were brought up on the screen today were all in
(02:53):
relation to that third account name. The messages were sent
in early December twenty twenty two and reference the child
support dispute between Aaron and Simon. In the messages, Aaron Aaron,
Aaron writes to her friends about Don's response to this
ongoing dispute.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Here are some of those messages.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
I said to him about fifty times yesterday that I
didn't want them to adjudicate nobody bloody listens to me.
At least I know they're a lost cause. I wonder
if they've got any capacity for self reflection at all.
I mean, clearly, the fact that Simon refused to talk
about personal issues in part stems from the behavior of
his parents and how they operate.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Days later, on December nine, another message was sent.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
His mum was horrified I'd claimed child support. Why isn't
she horrified her son is such a deadbeat that I
had no choice but to claim.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
So it's really important to note that these texts were
read into the record today, but mister fox Henry wasn't
asked anything about what they meant or anything about their contents.
He simply explained that these messages were found on the
device and linked to the account name Aaron eron Erin,
and I will just add that there were other messages
today shown to the jury.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Now, mister fox Henry continued his evidence and he was
asked questions around a Samsung tablet seized from Aaron's home.
The jury were then showed images that were extracted from
that device. These images were of a black dehydrator from
April thirty, twenty twenty three, and images of mushrooms on
(04:24):
a set of kitchen scales from May four, twenty twenty three,
so this was about two months before that deadly lunch.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Mister fox Henry explained that these photos were extracted from
a Google Photos cash folder, and the dates that you
mentioned just then, Brooke, were the last modified dates that
were pulled from the tablet. Beyond these photos that were
taken of the dehydrator and the kitchen scales, some photos
(04:53):
were also extracted from the device that appeared to be
screenshots taken of a web browser. The search results in
the screenshot were shown to the jury and there were
four in total, all referencing cancer. There were three relating
to ovarian cancer and one about lymphoma. One of the screenshots,
(05:13):
which had a last modified date of May tenth, twenty
twenty three, had reference to a website called Stage four
ovarian Cancer, and the text on the screen read stage
four ovarian cancer means the cancer has spread to other
body organs some distance away from the ovaries, such as
the liver or the lungs. Again, mister Fox, Henry wasn't
(05:36):
asked any questions about what these screenshots or these photos meant,
simply that they were extracted from this tablet.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
And just to remind the listeners, the prosecution alleges Aarin
falsely claimed to have had cancer to explain why the
children were not at that lunch on July twenty nine,
while the defense has suggested Aaron only told the lunch
guests she had as suspected diagnosis of cancer.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
We've heard evidence as well from Professor Andrew Burston who
has examined Aaron's medical records and confirmed she has never
been diagnosed with cancer.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
And there was another phone that mister fox Henry spoke
about today, wasn't there?
Speaker 3 (06:17):
There was? This was another Samsung mobile phone. So there
are two Samsungs that have been seized in this case.
And this phone is being referred to as Phone B.
It was the phone that Aaron handed to investigators during
the search warrant. It was analyzed by again one of
mister fox Henry's colleagues, and he told the court that
(06:38):
when it came time to examine the device, they found
that four factory resets had been conducted. A report was
shown to the jury of those factory resets, and it
could be seen that they were made on February twelve,
August two, August five, and August eighth, twenty twenty three.
(06:59):
August five was the date of the warrant itself, and
August eighth was three days afterwards, after the phone had
already been seized. Mister fox Henry told the court that
no user data had been extracted from this device.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Now let's move on. The jury heard more about the
investigation the City of Monash Council did into mushrooms at
Asian grosers. Our listeners will remember that Erin claimed to
multiple different medical experts that she bought the dried mushrooms
that she used in the beef Wellington dish from an
Asian grosser.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
The jury heard about this investigation through one of the
Monash City Council's Environmental health officers. His name was Troy
schwan neckt I think I've pronounced that wrong, so I
apologized Troy, So I'm just going to call him by
his first name for this little bit of the episode.
He explained to the jury that he was tasked with
first coming up with a list of all of the
(07:55):
Asian grossers in Oakley, Clayton and Matt Waverley were some
of the suburbs Erin had mentioned to these experts. You
spoke about Brook. She said she couldn't remember which suburb
the Asian grocer was located, but she said it may
have been in one of these three.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
So it was really up to him to attend those premises,
take photos of the mushrooms and then establish a supply
chain and understand whether there were any changes to it.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
In total, he attended fourteen grocers. There were five in Oakley,
five in Clayton, and four in Mount Waverley, and he
told the court that across his investigation he took more
than three hundred photos, and some of those were shown
to the jury today on the screens.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
The jury also heard that Aaron told officials that she
bought mushrooms from a store in a strip shopping center.
She said the mushrooms were in a sea through packet
and the label on the packet was white with typing
on it. She also said that the mushrooms were either
Shitaki mushrooms or Porcini mushrooms.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
So this really helped guide Troy's investigation. He made sure
that when he was going to these premises he was
really looking for mushrooms that matched this description. When it
came time for him to write up his findings, which
were again shown on the screen to the jury, he
said that it was only one store in Oakley that
(09:20):
had repackaged mushrooms. He explained that this particular shop got
the mushrooms in bulk and due to the preferences of
their customers, put those mushrooms into smaller bags for sale.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
And through cross examination, the jury heard that this was
the store where some of the mushrooms were actually taken
off the shelves for some time.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
This was because of the similarities some of these repackaged
mushrooms shared with the information Troy was provided, but the
court heard that ultimately he was unable to find any
product across these fourteen stores that exactly matched the description
Aaron had provided.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Troy was also cross examined about something else, wasn't.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
He Laura, Yeah, there was one final point that defense
barrister Sophie Stafford wanted to make, which was in relation
to the fact that Aaron had told some officials that
the dried mushrooms could have been bought from an Asian
grocer in glen Waverley, but Troy confirmed he was not
asked to attend any Asian grocers in Glen Waverley.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Okay, Laura, now we're going to move on to a
completely different topic. It's a bit jarring, but the jury
was shown a chart of Aaron's BAO movements when she
was in hospital on July thirty one, twenty twenty three. Now, Laura,
this is a bit tmi, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Yes? We have heard quite a lot of medical evidence
in this case, but things definitely got into the nitty
gritties today.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
This evidence came through witness Mariam Cesspon, who was a
nurse who assisted Aaron Attlean at the hospital on July
thirty one.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
This was two days after the lunch and to remind
our listeners, Aaron had presented at the hospital around eight o'clock.
She discharged herself against medical advice five minutes later, but
ultimately returned by around nine point fifty. After she was
admitted and brought into a room. Mariam said that she
asked Erin to tell her every time she needed to
(11:16):
go to the toilet so they could collect these bow
motions and keep a record of them.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
And something was mentioned about witch's hats, wasn't it Yes?
Speaker 3 (11:26):
And this was something I'd never heard of before. But
another term for the pan they used to collect this
matter is actually called a witch's hat. So she explained
how the witch's hat is like an inverted triangle. It's
placed on the toilet seat to collect the bow movements
for examination by a doctor or nurse.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Now, what were actually found on these charts?
Speaker 3 (11:49):
There were five bow movements recorded from ten am to
around eleven fifty am, just before Erin was taken by
ambulance to Monash Medical Center. The three bower movements were
actually in very close proximity, so ten am, ten oh
four and ten o six and Miss Sesspond was tasked
(12:10):
with observing these bower movements and writing a description of them.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Again, this is a bit TMI, but a few of
them were described as medium and had the consistency of liquid.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
And Miss Sespond recalled to the court that at one
stage Erin told her it does look a little like
a we, but it is a bowl motion.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
And on that note, hopefully we don't have to talk
about Aaron's bower movements ever.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Again yes, I hope so too. But just to flag
it is mister Fox Henry who is set again to
take the stand tomorrow for his third day of evidence.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
We'll be back tomorrow, but in the meantime go to
the mushroomcook dot com dot au for more
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