I'm Andrew Rule. This is Life and Crimes. I've been away for many weeks and I've missed the entire Greg Lynn trial, the one and Gatta drama. But luckily I've got back and we have here two people in the studio who have spent a large part of their recent life watching this very diligently. I hope Laura Placella and Miles Proost are their names, names that our listeners will be familiar with. And what I'm going to do is just ask them one then the other and let them
tell us what has happened. Laura, ladies, first, thank you Andrew.
Well, we're now in the fifth week of this long trial, but the end is near. There's light at the end of the tunnel. But to catch you up might just provide a bit of a refresher as well for our listeners on what has happened over these five weeks. So at the start of the trial, the prosecution and the
defense lay out their arguments to the jury. Put very simply, the prosecution allege that mister Lynn murdered Missus Clay and mister hill Hip on March twenty during their trip in the Wan and Gunner Valley, but the defense definitely dispute this. They say that the two deaths were tragic accidents. According to mister Lynn, there was a struggle over a shotgun and as a result of that struggle between mister Hill and mister Lynn, the gun discharged and shot miss Clay
in the head. And then following that, mister Hill was distraught. He came at mister Lynn with a knife, saying she's dead. Then the two men struggled over that knife, and as a result, mister Lynn says, mister Hill fell on that knife and died.
That's the defense case.
That's a defense case, and they've said that as a result of there being these two dead bodies, Greg Lynn has panicked and he's made what they say were a series of terrible decisions and have covered up their deaths. And we've heard that that included taking some of their items from the camp, burning the camp, hiding their bodies, and then a few months later returning to burn them.
So that is the defense case. And they both started out with what we call the openings, telling the jury roughly how the trial will proceed and what evidence they were expected to hear. And then we got into the witnesses and I think Marles correct me if I'm wrong. We've heard from maybe close to fifty witnesses.
Yeah, that's right, forty nine witnesses according to the judge, over four weeks.
Yeah.
And the evidence started out from fellow campers who were in the air at the time. I think we had some weed sprayers who were working in the valley. We also heard from some of the family of mister Hill and Missus Clay before we then started to get into some of the forensics evidence, which was probably a little bit more boring but very important to these sorts of trials. We heard from blood splatter experts, people who had expertise
with insects, a whole range of expertise there. And then towards the end of the trial we started getting into mister lyne'sccount himself. The jury listened to his whole three and a half hour record of interview with police where he laid out what he said happened that night in the valley. And then finally we actually heard from mister Lynn himself, and that's something our listeners haven't heard from yet. Mister Lynn took the stand last week and gave his evidence.
The jury heard from him directly in the witness box, Myles, can you tell us what that was like seeing mister Lynn stand.
Well, that was a big day, probably the biggest day of the trial so far. It was a sellout crowd in the Supreme Court. Up in the public gallery, there were dozens of people who was standing room only for some downstairs. We had family of mister Hill and missus Clay. There was I couldn't even say how many, maybe twenty or thirty journalists. It was a full house. So mister Lynn was brought up to the stand first thing on
Thursday morning. He was sworn in and then he's begun his evidence with his defense lawyer Dermit Dan questioning him. One of the first things mister Dan did was ask him about his actions following the pair's deaths, and this is about how mister Lynn took their bodies dumped them in remote bush land before returning eight months later and
setting fire to them. Mister Dan said, well, he asked him, you know your actions caused a measurable pain to their family, loved ones, that people would regard your actions as despicable, and his answer was it was despicable. So that was a big moment. I was seated in the body of the courtroom in an area reserved the media, which is just up from where the family of the victims were. I did put my head back to see their reaction.
Nothing jumped out to me, but it was a big moment where he did actually directly take responsibility for what he's done and you know, call his actions for what they were, which was despicable. He actually apologized as well, directly to the family that all I can say to the families is that I'm very sorry for your suffering that I caused. Through his lawyer, he said he'd offered to plead guilty to destroying evidence and that he deserved
to be punished. But he also asked if he killed the pay He said, I'm innocent of murder.
Is this the first time he's ever apologized for what happened that night?
We believe so. There was nothing in the record of interview when it was played. There was three and a half hours played on Monday and Tuesday, and then we had mister Lynna on the stand on Thursday. That was between police and mister lynn It wasn't so much talking about the families. But now that we're in court and there directly, there was a moment of him taking responsibility for something he's done.
Was there anything else interesting that he said on the stand.
So he was run through his account again, which you've spoken about a bit earlier, And during cross examination, mister Portudou really grilled him about his story in his account. Mister Portchudo, the prosecutor accused mister Lynn of making things up. So as we know, mister Lynn claimed they were accidentally killed. He's left with this terrible scene and he makes this snap decision to conceal the deaths essentially and try and
make himself disappear. So mister Portudeu ran him through that a little bit, and mister Lynn says he panicked, and then mister Portugeu says, well, you're in crisis mode as you put it. Isn't that something you're trained to deal with as a pilot, Yes, he replied. Mister Portugeu asked, aren't you trained to become irrational? And mister Lynn said he was very stressed right now as in court, and he'd also never been faced with two their people before.
And the prosecutor also asked about why miss de Line made the choices he did. For example, mister Line admitted when he got home he cleaned the firearm, and Portugeue said that would have been the key to his defense, and miss Delynn also agreed that leaving the scene as it was would have corroborated his story. But we all know if his account is true and he left it as it was, the police are going to find evidence
to back up his story. But instead he's destroyed evidence and bundle their bodies and take them up into the bush and burnt them again.
Did mister Portugu also question mister Lynn about his actions at related to his wife. We understand that he lied to her over many months and concealed what he had done in the valley in terms of hiding their bodies and returning to burn them from her.
That's right. So mister Portrageu did grill mister Lynn about this a bit about whether he spoke to his wife about this, and mister Lind said he hadn't. And it sort of related to this sixty Minutes episode that aired in November twenty twenty one, so this is just before mister Lynn was arrested. There was a sixty Minutes episode about the missing campus case, and in that episode, a police sketch. An image of mister Lynn's forward drive is
featured on the episode. Mister Lynn's home was under surveillance at this point. There was secret listening devices in his home, and the jury have been told that mister Lynn's wife commented on the program and said that looks like your car, and then mister Lynn has then gone and taken the awning off his vehicle. A few days after about that sort of exchange with his wife, mister Portu said, why weren't you just honest with her about what had happened?
And mister Linn said, the last thing I wanted to do was tell other people about it, and telling her would involve her in a problem that had nothing to do with her. Mister Portugeu then asked, well, you're prepared to be deceptive then, and then mister Lynn replied he lied to his wife to protect her.
Was she sitting in the court for his evidence?
She was.
I couldn't get a good look of her upstairs in the public gallery. They've got a glass panel and anasta, so I couldn't actually see her reaction. But she was up there, and she has been in there most days.
What is her demeanor?
She hasn't given a lot away. She's been in there with the couple's son, and I believe the son's partner not too much emotion from what I can tell, but she has been in there supporting him. If not maybe not every day, but most days definitely.
Myles, what is an awning on top of a full drive?
So an awning is almost like a roof rack er. It's an attachment to the top of your roof. And the awning they're talking about is it's almost like a camping item and it extends out and turns into a shade. Sale.
So while it's in its compressed form, it's sort of a circular tube. That's right. Then you can pull it out like a blind or something. Yeah, so it becomes like a little tent, yeah, thing to keep the sun off for whatever. Yeah.
And the reason mister Lane removed this from his vehicles because it was shown in this sixty Minutes episode. The images they showed you could see had a distinctive awning on it, and so just to make his vehicle, he admits this, to make it look less like the image on sixty Minutes, he took it off.
Did the case at any stage go into the reasons for that Fowar Drive being painted a new color.
They did during the police interview, they asked him why he repainted the car and his answer was, well, the first one was obviously the police were after and so he was trying to, you know, conceal his involvement. The second one was it just needed a new paint.
It was an old car.
He reckons it was, you know, the paint was almost coming off, and he just looked around the garage and found a tin of paint and he just panted his car. Miss Dilyn's wife actually took a photo of him repainting the car, and police later got ahold of that when they seized her phone and downloaded the images off it, and we have a copy of that photo is very sort of grainy, not high quality, but you can see Miss Selina in it with a roller in the middle of repainting with a roller, I believe.
So.
Do you think it was during lockdown as well? Something to pass the time?
I think it was June four, twenty twenty, so it would have been around lockdown.
Has there been any evidence lead about Gregglynn's early life? He's passed that sort of biographical stuff.
I don't think so, not too much. There's been a little bit about him as a pilot, but sort of touched upon briefly.
Oh he heard about the gloves.
Yeah, the gloves. Yeah, yeah, so he spoke about how he had some gloves from Jetstar. He's worked for jets.
He likes to clean the plane.
He likes to clean the plane. Yeah, he said, So he has these gloves as a Jetstar pilot and he has these gloves. And he used to describe how he'd always have a pair in his car because he would clean the aircraft after it landed. His job usually left for the flight attendants, but he said he used to help out himself.
Would that be like the judge sweeping out the court each night?
Pretty similar, I think.
Would that happen, You'd have to ask the judges.
I've never seen one do it.
Well. Your court reporters, Oh yeah, yeah.
Busy filing, not to not waiting back to see who cleans the court room.
Yeah, usually see the cleaners in the court. They're out by eight am. I'm coming into work sometimes and they're leaving, so they got there before us.
It's like editors and newspapers. I've seen them filled rubbishpins. I've never seen any of them empty. One is the case so far examined that period where Greg Lynn is leaving the scene and he comes across a gate across his path and he decides in the head of the moment or that he has to turn around, which is difficult because he had a trailer on and go back the other way and read he read the needle and go back out past Hatham, which of course ultimately was
what identified his vehicle. Has that been looked at in depth.
So one of the first witnesses we had was a guy called Tom Matthews. He was another camper in the Wanagata Valley at the time the couple disappeared. He spoke about it was around about midnight. He hears a forward drive. He presumes it's a forward drive. He said it was a petrol sounded like an automatic transmission. Was towing a trailer and he was camping near the river crossing. So this is Wannagata River and it's on the Wanninggata track and that's one of the exits out of the valley
and that was closed off. That was a road closed sign and he was woken up now midnight doesn't know exactly when, and he heard a car come across that exit and have to do a difficult reverse turn. So on Tuesday, the prosecution delive their closing remark. This is after all the evidence has been heard, and now they're kind of summarizing their cases and putting their arguments forward. Mister Portrageu down your portrait of the sort of prosecutor.
He said, mister Lyne's account was complete fiction. He urged the jury to reject his fanciful version of events. He said, the accused stories indeed a series of very unfortunate events, but like the book series of that name, it is a complete fiction.
Do we know what book he's referring to this?
Do you know this?
A series of books?
A series of unfortunate events?
You know them? Yeah? I get it.
The author name has escaped me.
He went through some of the claims mister Lynn had and just took the jury one by one, you know, almost points of why you know some of his account was implausible. For example, he talked about how, according to mister Lynn, mister Hill took mister Lynn's shotgun from his car and took it back to his camp sign and that kind of sparked this confrontation. Well, mister Porcher dou Is, firstly, he pointed that out that mister Hill had taken the wrong gun. So mister Hill was initially angry with mister
Lynn because he'd been hunting with a rifle. But when he goes and takes the gun, and he takes the shotgun instead of the rifle which was left behind. So mister Portrague had pointed that out to make that clear. On mister Lynn's account, mister Hill has told him, I've seen you hunting in the area. I've filmed you on my drone. I'm taking that to police because because he says mister Lynn had been hunting illegally close to the camp site, he's shot through the camp again, this is
what mister Lynn says. Mister Hill tells him mister Lynn had been hunting with his rifle, and so then according to his account, mister Hill comes over and takes his shotgun and just a sort of continuing on that point again, mister Lind's acount is he took the shotgun. He also took a box of ammunition, and then as he's walking back to his campsite, he's loading the gun. He's loading the box of ammunition into the shotgun. This is what this is what Lynn says, and he says he actually
fires it into the air well. Mister portugu said, if you're just looking to confiscate the firearm, why would you load it.
And we've got to keep in mind as well that we do know that mister Hill says him and Harrol were in the area to remember a friend who had died in a deer hunting accident. And that is something that mister Lynn said, mister Hill made clear to him early on when they first met at bucks Camp and exchanged pleasantries.
Yeah, that's right. Mister Lynn had said that mister Hill had spoken to him and told him that they were in the area because if someone they known either were a relative of a friend and they were there to remember them. And just continuing on that point with the weapons, mister Portugeue said, if mister Hill had taken the shotgun but left the rifle and these two groups had been fighting, well why would you do that. You're already hostile towards one another. Why would you leave one one gun?
Ya? It's a good question.
And isn't it the case that both the shotgun and the rifle were left in mister Lynn's vehicle with the doors wide open because he hadn't safely locked them away.
That's right.
So mister Lynn says he left the doors open and was playing loud music to get back at mister Hill over this dispute about the hunting and the drone footage. So that's why they weren't locked up, he says. He says, you know that was illegal on his behalf. They should have been locked up. I think anyone knows that anyone who owns a firearm or or as a hunter would know that you can't just leave your guns lying about
for others to pick up. Mister Dan just began his closing remarks at the end of the day and he's really having a go at the prosecution. He described how there were seventeen low lights of the prosecution case and he's been taking the jury through them one by one. He said Crown Prosecutor Daniel portradh had acted it disgracefully. He said they'd brokenly established court prostigures relating to fairness, and he's going to take the jury through more of
these low lights the following day. I would say he's more on the attack than the prosecution is. He's really trying to poke holes within the prosecution case.
And no one's going to sleep.
No one's going to sleep. No, Okay, it's pretty it is entertaining. Everyone's got back straight, Laura, where do.
We go from here?
So on Wednesday, mister Dan will finish up his defense closings. As we mentioned, he's got those seventeen low lights he wants to walk the jury through and once that's complete, that's pretty much the end of the trial. So the jury would have heard through all forty nine witnesses. They've heard both the prosecution and the defense finalize and finish their cases, and then the attention turns to the judge, who in a couple of days' time will deliver what's
called his charge. So the charge is almost like the instructions that the judge delivers to the jury to help them get to their verdict. So there are many rules that they need to be aware of. The judge will also summarize both the prosecution and the defense case to make it clear to the jury what they need to keep in mind when they begin their deliberations, and it is expected by Friday that the jury will do just that.
But before that, during our first bonus episode, you may have heard us refer to the fact that there were fifteen jurors in paneled. So in a case like this that is expected to run over four to six weeks, they always in panel a few extra durors in case anything goes wrong, if anyone gets sick or can no longer continue on. There is now fourteen jurors in total, but only twelve can deliver a verdict. So what will happen before the deliberations is two durors will be balloted off.
All of their numbers or names will be put into a box. Two names will be pulled out, and those two names or two numbers, those durors will not continue and they will be asked to leave. They are no longer required because it's only twelve people that can deliver a verdict. So that will happen before the deliberations commence, and then it really is a waiting game. We don't know how long the jury will take to determine their verdict. It could be hours, it could be days, it could be weeks, which.
Leads to my final question. If you had to bet on it, do you think the jury will take a long time to deliberate or not.
This has been a long trial. Like I said, we've heard from many witnesses. There's been a lot of evidence, and I think they will really want to comb through that, absorb that, and discuss it. There are some trials that run for only a number of days. Some trials can be over in a week, and when there's less for juries to grapple with, I think it can be easier for them to turn around a verdict. But in a case as serious as this as well, it's high stakes.
I think the jury will want to make sure that they are discussing every single thing they can and they are all on the same page when they do decide on a verdict. So I do feel like it will be definitely more than a few hours. So we might have a verdict next week, but it much could be the week after that or the week after that.
What do you think, Miles, I agree, I think it's going to be long, long deliberations. I think there's an issue of On the one hand, the prosecution says we can't say the motive or in the order which they were killed. We can't exactly say the circumstances of why mister Lynn killed them, but on the defense case he also admits taking their bodies and burning them. So weighing out those two competing things and trying to reach decision, I think it's going to be a very difficult task.
I have to agree, not easy. Who would want to be a durer?
Well that's it from us. It's so great to have you back, Andrew, and thank you again Miles for joining us. We'll be back when the verdict is finally handed down, so stay tuned listeners, but Miles will be in Caught on Wednesday as mister Dan closes the defense case, so be sure to check the Herald's on website and the paper for his update.
Been a pleasure and a privilege to have you here, and I look forward to the final chapter of this absorbing case, which I know I've followed very closely since it happened because I'm from my skips Land and I know these parts.
It's been a marathon, but I'm looking forward to getting towards.
The finish line. Thanks to you both. Thanks Andrew, thank you, thanks for listening. Life and Crimes is a Sunday Herald Sun production for True Crime Australia. Our producer is Johnty Burton. For my columns, features and more, go to Heroldsun dot com dot au, forward slash Andrew Rule one word. For advertising inquiries, go to news podcasts sold at news dot com dot au. That is all one word news podcast's sold. And if you want further information about this episode, links are in the description.