EVEN a triple murder investigation, it seems, has financial constraints.
As revealed by the police informant in the case, Homicide Detective Leading Senior Constable Stephen Effingstall, under cross-examination by defence counsel for Erin Patterson, Colin Mandy SC, police don’t have unlimited resources to throw at individual cases.
During a discussion about CCRs and EBMs on Thursday, May 29, that is Call Charge Records and Electronic-Based Monitoring data, Mr Mandy asked Detective Effingstall why police didn’t ask for more of the highly-detailed EBM data when establishing the possible location of a mobile phone handset.
He asked Mr Effingstall if he recalled the evidence of Professor Matthew Sorell, a senior lecturer in telecommunications and digital forensic science at University of Adelaide, about the use of CCRs and EBMs.
He said Dr Sorell said there were occasions when EBM data could be more useful in establishing whether or not there was a potential visit to an area even if the CCRs didn't provide a foundation for it.
Detective Effingstall agreed.
Mr Mandy said there were a number of occasions using the CCRs where Dr Sorell said he didn’t think it was a possible visit but that access to EBM data might have changed his opinion.
“You obtained EBM data for a handful of days in the relevant period, why not for all of the days in the relevant period?” asked Mr Mandy.
Detective Effingstall said there was a very good reason, it’s just too cost prohibitive.
“When EBMs first came out a couple of years ago, they cost $1700 for two hours of data. The price has come down a fair bit but for a year, we'd still be talking well into six figures, and my boss isn't real keen when I spend too much money.”
He said it was why requests for EBM data needed to be selective and targeted.
Detective Effingstall was also asked why police didn’t get Dr Sorell to investigate line-of-sight to communication towers information in helping to establish the location of Erin Patterson’s mobile phone on days of interest. He said he didn’t believe that the science had been proven in Australia but in any case, there was always the issue of the overall cost of an investigation.
“It doesn't just come down to me. If I want to engage Professor Sorrell, I have to front a meeting with my commander at Victoria Police and justify my usage of him.
“I want everything. I'm greedy, I'm the informant, I want everything I can get but I don't get everything all the time,” he said, noting earlier that police gave specific instructions to Dr Sorell, partly so the evidence wouldn’t look tainted or biased but also to contain the cost of his research.
It was Day 22 of the Erin Patterson murder trial in the Supreme Court at Morwell with Detective Effingstall still in the witness box and Mr Mandy continuing to probe his evidence and the prosecution case.
The accused, Erin Patterson, was seated in the dock at the back of the court, wearing a paisley patterned shirt in autumnal colours, her mid-length, dark hair out, sometimes wearing glasses and occasionally glancing down at her tablet computer as the proceedings continued in front of her.
The jury was on her right, reduced from 15 people to 14 since Juror 84 was discharged on Day 12 for allegedly discussing the trial with family or friends. The public gallery was filled with an assortment of journalists, family members and others, and the bar table, all business with lawyers, laptops, tablets and piles of reference materials on either side of the lectern.
The judge, Justice Christopher Beale, sits in an elevated position, above the court seeing all, his black robes with red trim a symbol of his high office.
Mr Mandy continued a detailed examination of Detective Effingstall and the prosecution case, following on from prosecution counsel Jane Warren.
He started on Wednesday afternoon, May 28, by establishing with Detective Effingstall that Erin Patterson had no police record and that she had been helpful with the police investigation, directing them to the leftovers from the meal of beef Wellington in the bin at her Gibson Street home.
He went on to ask about Mrs Patterson’s medical records, in the period between 2021 and 2023, which expressed a range of health concerns, including about ovarian cancer, but despite extensive testing, did not establish any reason for those concerns. There was also a record of family history of cancer.
Referring to his client Erin Patterson’s decision to discharge herself from the Leongatha hospital against medical advice, two days after the beef Wellington lunch on Monday, July 31, 2023, Mr Mandy also established that his client had discharged herself from the same hospital against medical advice in January 2015.
The cross-examination continued on Thursday into Friday and is likely to resume on Monday morning, June 2.
Some of the points raised by Mr Mandy with Detective Effingstall on Thursday, May 29 included:
- Erin Patterson’s weight of 111.7kg on admission at Leongatha Hospital on July 31, 2023, and receipts for a large number of diet books from Booktopia
- The significant media interest from August 4, 2023, ramping up on August 6, and following a media conference by Detective Inspector Dean Thomas on August 7 after which the media started camping out at Erin Patterson’s home, also entering her property.
- Detective Effingstall was asked if he was aware passwords were in place at the hospitals due to the media interest.
- They reviewed the involvement of child protection officers after the Patterson children were admitted to hospital for testing.
- Detective Effingstall was asked if he recalled a Bendigo Bank transaction from July 5, 2023, for a purchase at Chou Trading Pty Limited in Glen Waverley and why police had not asked for bank records before July 1, 2023.
- They discussed police extracting 280 text messages between Erin Patterson and Simon Patterson from his phone but no messages over the Signal messaging service connecting Simon, Erin and the wider Patterson family.
- Asked about where else they’d obtained phone messages, Detective Effingstall said police had a full extraction of Gail Patterson’s phone but not much from Don Patterson’s phone. “I don't think he really used his phone much,” he said.
- He was asked about travelling time between Erin Patterson’s home in Gibson Street Leongatha and Neilson Street in Outtrim, taking between 18 to 24 minutes and to the Suspension Bridge at Loch taking between 24 and 29 minutes. Det Effingstall agreed except to say he thought 23 minutes for the Loch trip.
- Asked about how police discovered the posts on death cap mushrooms on the iNaturalist website, Det Effingstall said it was purely by chance during a conversation with Dr Tom May about death cap mushrooms that he revealed he had made his own observation at Outtrim (at 2.50pm on May 21, 2023). It is the prosecution case that Erin Patterson visited the Outtrim area and the Loch area, where there had been another iNaturalist post of death cap mushrooms, the day after Dr May posted his observation.
- Det Effingstall was also asked about looking up the URL addresses of various websites relevant to the case, and the fact that details on those pages would have changed between 2022 and 2023 and when police made screenshots of the pages in December 2024.
- Mr Mandy cross-examined the detective about the search at Erin Patterson’s home on Saturday, August 5, a week after the lunch and following the deaths of Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson the day before. He asked if Mrs Patterson had been warned beforehand, she hadn’t.
- The search went from 11.20am until 3.45 pm with a police officer with Erin Patterson for most of the time except when she went to the toilet and also during a 14-20 minute phone call with a lawyer (Det Effingstall had said “a good 20-30 minutes on her own” in his evidence in chief).
- Mr Mandy probed Mr Effingstall about the seizure of “many. many” electronic devices including laptops and mobile phones by police but not a Samsung Galaxy A23 mobile phone or the SIM card with the number ending in 783.
- Mr Mandy pointed to a number photos taken from still images of a video recording of the search, querying why it appeared that some devices had been seized and others not.
- He was asked about “a black item sitting on the windowsill” in the photo but Det Effingstall said he didn’t believe it was consistent with being a mobile phone.
- There were questions about previous visits to the Koonwarra Trasfer Station, prior to August 2, 2023 when Erin Patterson went there to dispose of her food dehydrator, occasionally paying cash and with a credit card.
- Mr Mandy also put it to Det Effingstall that some CCTV video footage police had obtained from Subway in Leongatha on July 29, 2023 did not depict Mrs Patterson’s son as they claimed it did and he showed some other photos of the child but the detective confirmed he believed it was the Patterson’s son.
- Mr Mandy also provided some context for some earlier evidence about messages between Erin Patterson and her Facebook friends.
The first message discussed was one between Erin and her Facebook friends in December of 2022 following a message from Simon’s father Don in which he said “they can't adjudicate if they don't know both sides and Simon won't give his side”.
Mr Mandy said the following messages was left out of the prosecution's exhibit which was the discussion that flows from that initial message.
Ms Hay (one of Erin’s Facebook friends who appeared as a witness in the trial) said “What morons… anyway you weren't asking them to adjudicate. You just wanted them to hear your story”.
Then she said something else and Erin’s response, which was included in the prosecution evidence:
“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”.
Mr Mandy included that as an example of the context of the discussion left out by the prosecution.
Cross-examination of Detective Effingstall continued on Friday.
It is the defence case that while Erin Patterson now admits that she did forage for mushrooms and acknowledges that the cause of the deaths of her husband’s family members was the death cap mushrooms in the meal, she maintains that what happened that July day in 2023 at her home in Leongatha was a tragedy and a terrible mistake.
They say she panicked in those days following the July 29 lunch of beef Wellington, because she felt so overwhelmed by the fact that four of her husband Simon’s family members had become ill due to the food that she'd served them.
That three people died because of the food she served that day.
“How did she feel in those days after the lunch about serving up a meal that had such tragic consequences? And how might that have impacted on the way she behaved?” Mr Mandy asked on Day Two of the trial back on April 30, 2025.
He put it to the jury that the intense public health scrutiny, police scrutiny, and media scrutiny might have been responsible for her behaviour as a result.
There is of course the issue, also referred to in Mr Mandy’s opening statement, and featured in the prosecution’s evidence that Erin Patterson was never diagnosed with cancer, which was the pretext for inviting her husband Simon and her in-laws to the lunch, clearly a misrepresentation of the truth before any of the public health scrutiny, police investigation or media glare fell on the incident of mushroom poisoning.
The trial continues on Monday, June 2, into the sixth week of Erin Patterson’s triple murder trial.
Mrs Patterson has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
