‘I want nothing to do with them’: Text messages and factory resets revealed in Mushroom triple murder trial

Four factory resets of one device, mushroom photos on another and a third containing angry messages about a “gaslighting” and “deadbeat” estranged husband, whose family she wanted nothing to do with.

This was among some of the evidence prosecutors allege had been found on phones, tablets and other devices seized from Erin Patterson’s home, her triple murder trial was told on Thursday.

Patterson, 50, has reached the end of her fourth week on trial before a Supreme Court jury sitting in regional Victoria, charged with three murders and one attempted murder.

She is accused of intentionally poisoning her former in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, 70, and Heather Wilkinson, 66, by serving them a toxic beef Wellington on July 29, 2023.

All three died in hospital in the days after the lunch, while Heather’s husband Ian was the only survivor of the meal.

Patterson has pleaded not guilty to all offences and claims it was a terrible accident.

The trial will resume on Friday after an intense day of evidence, where Victoria Police digital forensics officer Shamen Fox-Henry showed the jury his analysis of devices seized from Patterson’s home.

This included messages prosecutors allege Patterson sent, under the Facebook username of Erin Erin Erin, to her friends on Messenger about seven months before the fatal lunch.

“This family I swear to f***ing god,” said one message sent by Erin Erin Erin, on December 6, 2022.

Another message the following day, said: “I’m sick of this shit, I want nothing to do with them.”

The messages followed attempts by Don and Gail Patterson to help resolve a child support dispute between Erin and estranged husband Simon.

In another message Erin Erin Erin said she did not want to read messages sent the day before from Simon or his parents.

“Simon’s will be horrible, gaslighting and abusive, and it will ruin my day, and his parents’ will be more weasel words,” the message said.

Mr Fox-Henry’s report on a mobile phone Patterson had handed to police after they searched her home revealed four factory resets had been carried out in 2023.

This included one remote wipe of the phone on August 6, the day after she had handed the device to police.

Photos taken of mushrooms in May 2023, including some inside a food dehydrator, were found on a tablet seized by police and also shown to the jury.

The trial will resume at 10.30am on Friday for a half-day.