Mushroom cook Erin Patterson’s defence team has read to a jury what they described as missing context from frustrated messages about her former in-laws and claimed she was “venting” to online friends about her life.

She is accused of deliberately poisoning her estranged husband Simon’s parents, aunt and uncle by serving them a beef Wellington laced with death cap mushrooms.

Patterson’s former in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, 70, and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson, 66, all died in hospital days after eating the meal at her Leongatha home in July 2023.

The only survivor of the meal was Heather’s husband Ian Wilkinson, who has attended the court in Morwell for much of the trial since he gave evidence in week two.

The prosecution’s final witness, Detective Senior Constable Stephen Eppingstall, spent a third day giving evidence on Thursday as defence lawyers continued to question him on evidence in the case.

Patterson’s barrister Colin Mandy SC took the jury of 14 back to messages they’d been shown previously, between Patterson and some of her Facebook friends in December 2022.

He presented jurors with what was described as “context” around the messages, which he said went for 186 pages, and said some replies from friends had been left out by the prosecution.

“So he said all that he can ask is that Simon and I get together to pray for the children … this family I swear to f***ing god,” one of Patterson’s Facebook messages said.

Her friend replied to this “what morons!” and then said “anyway you weren’t asking them to adjudicate you just wanted them to hear your story”.

“I said to him about 50 times yesterday that I didn’t want them to adjudicate, nobody bloody listens to me. At least I know they’re a lost cause,” Patterson responded.

“You haven’t heard from Simon?” her friend said.

Patterson replied that she wondered if “they’ve got capacity for self-reflection at all?” and then described how Simon “refuses to talk about personal issues” which she said stemmed from behaviour of his parents.

Her friend said “it’s pathetic” and that even if Simon did not want to talk about their marriage “they could at least demand to know how he is financially supporting the kids”.

“Well you have tried. I would wipe them too now,” another message from a friend said.

“I suspect the best thing I can do is just to forget about all of them and live my life. Simon is probably loving how upset I am about all this,” Patterson said.

Her friend said Patterson had “every right to be upset and angry” and if Simon was “loving that then it makes him even worse”.

“Hopefully he will have to pay up soon,” the friend said.

After reading the messages, Mandy asked Det Eppingstall if they appeared to be sent in the context of “venting to each other about their lives”, which the detective agreed.

Earlier on Thursday, Det Eppingstall was questioned on Patterson’s bank statements and call charge records and taken through photos of devices seized from her home during two search warrants in 2023.

Mandy said police obtained receipts for a “large number of books” that Patterson had purchased from Booktopia which related to diets.

He also took the detective through the significant media interest in the case and he confirmed “passwords” had been put in place at hospitals because of this.

Det Eppingstall said he was updating Victoria Police’s media unit over the course of his investigation and that media had been camped outside Patterson’s home in the weeks after the meal.

He will return to the witness box on Friday, as the trial before Justice Christopher Beale continues.