This is Life in Crimes. I'm Laura Plassella standing in for Andrew Ruhle, who's on assignment. I'm joined by my colleague at The Herald's son, Myles Prust, to continue discussing one of the most compelling trials that we've seen in recent years. If you've missed our previous bonus episodes, the case centers on the deaths of Russell Hill and Carol Clay, an elderly couple who were camping in a remote area called the Wanngata Valley in Victoria's North. The man accused
of their murder is former Jetstar pilot Greg Lynn. He is standing trial in the Supreme Court, where this week, for the first time, the jury has heard from mister Lynn himself, his story in his words. This episode will unpack mister Lynn's three hour record of interview with police as the prosecution finish presenting their case. Hi, Myles, thank you so much for joining us.
He's Laura, good to be here.
So can you give our listeners an overview of the trial over the last seven days?
Yep. So we had a few more forensic and police experts up dealing with things like ballistics and blood splatter. But the major thing that has happened has been a portion of Greg Lynn's record of interview being shown.
To the jury. So can you explain what a record of interview actually is?
So a record of interview is a formal interview police have with a suspect that usually takes place at a police station. It can be used in court at a later date and it's you know, it's recorded as well, there's a video or it's taped.
So in the context of mister Lynn's case, he was arrested and brought to a police station, that's right.
So he was arrested in November twenty twenty one, about eighteen months after the alleged murders took place. He was taken to Sale police station in Gippsland and he was interviewed there by two Missing Person Squad detectives, Brett Florence and Daniel Passingham.
So let's dive in there. What was said in the record of interview by mister Lynn.
So the way it was shown in court, it was basically split into two portions on about I think an hour and a half or so was played and that is essentially mister Lynn giving his account of the deaths
that happened, So it's mostly him running through. It started off with him talking about his camping trip and when he left home and the different dates and so on, and then moving into what happened between mister Hill and missus Clay, and then just sort of one big story that he's given to police, and then another portion was played the next day on Tuesday. And that's more so when police started questioning him about different parts of his story.
It sort of jumped from place to place, but all sorts of questions about where the confrontation took place, questions about his firearm, so just sort of actually questioning his story, I guess.
So let's take it from the beginning. What does mister Lynn say happened that night?
So he starts off by drawing a map of Bucks Camp and showing where his camp was in relation to mister Hill and Missus Clay. He told the detectives he would have preferred to have the site to himself, but he had pretty friendly interactions with a couple on the first night. He spoke with mister Hill the next morning, this is the Friday, the twentieth of March twenty twenty, where he said the retiree revealed to him that they were in the area to remember a friend who'd been
killed deer hunting. Mister Lynn then said he went hunting and later that day he heard a buzzing around his head. He thought it might have been some bees or wasps, and he could see there was a drone flying above him. He returns to camp later on he sees mister Hill with a drone. Mister Lynn told police that he sat and thought about the drone for a bit, but he eventually decided to approach mister Hill and ask him about it.
So he said he approached mister Hill at the other camp site and mister Hill had told him he did not like deer hunters, and he had video footage of mister Lynn with a firearm close to the camp site and he'd be taking that to police. Mister Lynn said he told him that was ridiculous, and he thought the purpose of what mister Hill was doing was he just wanted him to go. He wanted the area to himself.
So mister Lynn says he returns to camp and he turned up the stereo on his car and he opens all the doors and that's to annoy obviously, the camp is nearby Hour's lady. He says, it's dark. Mister Lynn said he heard some rustling near the back of his car and he sees mister Hill walking away with his shotgun and a magazine of ammunition. So what happens next,
mister Lynne he told police this in his interview. He acknowledged like it was illegal for him not to have it locked up, but he says he confronts mister Hill. He follows him and says, you know, give it back. What are you doing, and mister Hills tells him, I'm taking it to police. He then claims mister Hith cocked the firearm and the fired a couple of rounds into the air, which prompted mister Lynd to duck for cover
behind mister Hill's land cruisers. So by this time he's followed him to the other campsite, to mister Hill and missus Clay's camp sig. He says he did that because he thought he might cop the next shot, and then he says the safest thing for him to do is try and get the weapon back, and so he grabs
the barrel of the gun and they're wrestling over it. Basically, mister Hill and mister Lynne, and then he actually took a deep breath at this part of the interview and explains there's an accidental discharge which goes through the side mirror of mister Hill's land cruiser and strikes missus Clay in the head, so she was obviously there as well. He later says that she was in her pajamas and that she was yelling out for Russell to stop it.
He says, then mister Hill drops the gun, which enables mister Lynn to take it back to his campsite and out of harm's way, and then he says it takes them a minute to get back to the camp and then he sees mister Hill charging towards him holding a knife, saying she's dead. He says, mister Hill attacks him and he's able to block one of his punches, and they have a wrestle. Anding that wrestle, mister Hill falls onto
the ground and the knife plunges into his chest. He says, he rolled over and he got off him, and he could see mister Hill was drooling a little bit, and then he stopped moving and he checked for a pulse and he was clearly dead, is what he said.
Did he then go and check on missus Clay.
He did say he went and checked on Missus Clay, but she was dead as well. And then he said he just panicked because he thought he would be blamed. The quote was, I panicked and I thought, you know, it's my shotgun. One person dad, He's dead. Now I'm going to be found guilty of this. So he decides to then torch the campsite, pack up his own camp, grab their bodies, and flee. He spoke a bit about
how he did that. He put some of their belongings into the tent and used a gas bottle to ignite their tent and that actually flared and that's left scorch marks on the land cruiser. He's then driven them to a spot called Union Spurred Truck, which is where he dumped their bodies. He said he only covered them with six it wasn't super well hidden. And then he's returned home and he obviously doesn't tell anyone about this.
So just to be clear, this is mister Lynn's version of events, Is that right?
That's right.
This is mister Lynn's account that he gave police, which is all disputed by the prosecution. They say he murdered them. Just to set the scene a little bit more for you. So this is playing in the Supreme Court on a big screen that's above an area in the court reserve for the media, which is opposite the jury box. The lights are dimmed while it's playing, and the video footage actually shows mister Lynn seated at a desk in sudden interview room. There's not much to see in the room itself,
just looks like a sort of white room. He's seated at a desk, he's wearing a gray jumper, he's got a mask on, he's got glasses on, and you can't actually see the detectives who are seated opposite him out of you.
So he's run and center. That's right. So in the context of the court room, mister Lynn's in the dock. Is he watching his record of interview?
That's correct. So mister Lynn is watching all of this unfold while he's in the dock, which is up at the back of the court. He's watching it on the screens like everyone else. Miss Linne hasn't shown too much emotion. I don't think this trial he hasn't given away much. He's often just taking notes or intently listening on. But there were portions of this three and a half hour
roughly how long it went. This interview where he's watching himself discuss why he made the decisions he made, particularly around covering the body's up and destroying evidence and that sort of thing. And while he's watching himself speak about this to police, he actually bowed his head and looked down for parts of it.
So it's March twenty twenty, it's the start of the pandemic, and Lynn is returning home Bromby's camping trip to his wife.
Yeap, So miss Lynne told detectives a little bit about as he returned from the camping trip. He spoke to his wife on the phone. This is just before we went into the first lockdown, and she was saying, you can't buy toilet paper, you can't buy cleaning stuff. It's absolute pandemonium out there. He said. When he returned home, she didn't ask anything about the camping trip, you know,
there was just too much going on. Camping wasn't her thing anyway, and that was a bit of a relief to him, and that way he was able to just sort of pretend nothing happened. And the way mister Lyne explained this detectives is he just wanted to pretend he covered it up. He's gone home and he's just gonna try and forget about it and try and live a
normal life. Under questioning when they sort of questioned his story a little bit, he said he was making quick decisions to try and get the best outcome, which is what he did as a pilot. And he said when he dumped the bodies near Union Sper Track, he didn't cover them up that well, and the object was not to make them disappear, as it was to make me disappear. And so he said that was his plan going forward,
but his plan quickly unraveled. So in July twenty twenty, this is a few months after the couple disappeared, I think around the time we've come out of lockdown, just before we've got into the second one, police pay him a visit to his home, and this is because they've linked him through as we've spoke about in earlier episodes, the traffic cameras out up at Mount Hotham, and so when that happens, he realizes, this is what he tells
police that the first option of making himself disappear hasn't worked, and so he says he needs to make the evidence disappear, and this is when he decides to return to Union Spur track. Quote. He said, I steeled myself the task and allowed myself one night to do it. Then returned to the site in November twenty twenty, where he found the remains, he says, decomposed and missus Clay missing a large section of her head. Remember, he says she was
accidentally shot in the head with a shotgun. He says he uses a small amount of fuel of kerosene and sticks to light the remains on fire, and he tells the police it was a horrific thing to deal with. I was sick several times. He also said he thought a wild dog had interfered with the remains, which he described as gruesome, and police also ask him what made you throw up? And he said the smell, the memories, the task at hand that I had to do. But I just thought, it's one night, I've got to do it,
finish it, and then it's done. He said he started the fire at sunset and it burned until sunrise.
So at this point did mister Lynn tell the detectives where the remains were.
So in the first portion of the interview, which is where he sort of just runs through the whole story and gives the dates chronologically, he does, at the end of that portion tell them where they can find the remains. He actually asks to use Google Earth. I think he's provided that on a laptop. We can't see the screen, but he's provided a laptop and he actually pinpoints the location of where they can find the remains. And so that was the end of that portion of the interview.
The detectives pause their interview as well, and they actually go out to the site that he's told them to go and look for the remains, and they actually take a two videos of the area he's described and send it back to a colleague at Sale Police who shows it to him and he can provide further direction of where the remains were. They return later that afternoon and
the interview recommences. And when the interview recommences, that's when the detectives start going through his story in finding detail and questioning him about different parts of his story, such as where each other's hands were in relation to the firearm when it accidentally discharged, and how the firearm worked and those sort of granular questions.
Were there any interesting details that came out of his answers?
Well, he spoke a little bit more about the scuffle or the initial confrontation with mister Hill. He said, he's just trying to have fun in bed, and I was playing the music that he didn't like loud and he's lost his temper. So that's mister Lynn talking about mister Hill. I'm not sure exactly what he went by have fun in bed, but I'm sure our listeners having an imagination. Mister Link claim mister Hill took his shotgun and fired
it not at him, but over his head. When he tried to get it back, he said he ran into the shadow behind mister Hill's car. He said they were both wearing pajamas and barefoot, so that's why he thought they were in bed after the confrontation, and that both campers are dead. He said he took cash from their wallets. He said he wasn't a thief, but he didn't want to use credit cards. He just wanted to use the
cash to pay for fuel as he returned home. And he also admitted cleaning the firearm to get rid of any evidence that would link him to the deaths, and this is what he said. It was one option for a glimmer of hope to a normal life, but it hasn't panned.
Out that way.
But the detectives didn't just ask miss de Lynne only about the night of the deaths. Did they also ask him about the months afterwards? They did.
They ask all sorts of questions. They asked him what he did in the months after, things about how he's holding up emotionally, what was his reaction and when police arrived on his doorstep in July twenty twenty. Once the police started questioning about his story, jumped from place to place. One of the things mister Lyne revealed was he himself was increasingly paranoid in the lead up to his arrest, and he told them he thought he was on the
police radar. He questioned whether they had enlisted some of his colleagues and an associate from a sports club to elicit answers from him about mister Hill and missus Clay's disappearance. He also was asked about a sixty Minutes episode this aired in November twenty twenty one, shortly before he was arrested, in which there was a special episode about the missing campers.
In that program that they actually showed images of mister Lynn's forward drive as it passed the traffic camera Mount Hotham. You couldn't see the number play, but you could see it was his car, and also a sketch image by police of his car. And they asked him, you know, how did that make him feel? And that's when he said, all I already knew I was on your radar. He spoke about how it was a bit like being on The Truman Show, you know, which is a reference to
that nineties film about it. Oh but Jim Carrey, Yeah, about a guy whose whole life is the premise of a TV show, but he doesn't know it. He said that because people were saying odd things to him. He says, for example, he said, the president of the Little Rivers Raiders Club, which we heard later in court is a shooting club that mister Lynn was a member of. That president had taken an unusual interest in him, often calling
him and sending him messages. Detectives told him they had spoken to him but only a week earlier, and mister Lynn said, well, he's a lovely guy. Maybe I'm just paranoid. Maybe he's just friendly. Then he also spoke about a colleague, a manager at Jetstar, who he said he thought didn't like him very much, and you know, he thought maybe they'd enlisted him to try and get some information out of him.
We've spoken about police paying mister Lynn a visit in July twenty twenty. Did they question him about that?
The police asked him about the July twenty visit when the detectives came to his home. Mister Lynn said he might have see him calm on the outside, but he was panicking internally. Asked whether he should have come forward at that point, he said it was too late by then. And that's the visit where police actually noticed his knis and patrol had been repainted from a dark gray navy to a lighter color of beige, and they asked a
bit about that. They asked why he did it. He said the obvious reason, of course, is the police were looking for it, but it also needed a new coat. He said he just used paint that he had at his home in his garage. And for the first time we saw a photo of miss Lynn actually repainting the car. So we heard in court that this photo was taken by mister Lynn's wife as he's repainting, and it shows him I think about the passenger side door with a roller like a paint roller, in the middle of painting
his car. And that photo was taken by his wife. And then police had that photo after his arrest and they seized his wife's phone and got it from there.
So how did the record of interview ultimately?
And so at the end of the interview, the detectives tell mister Lynn they're going to charge him with murder. He says he understands that, and then they go do you have anything to say about the charges? And he says, I'm innocent of murder. I haven't behaved well, I've made some poor decisions, but murder, as I understand it, I'm innocent of.
So we have spoken a lot about the record of interview, but were there any other highlights from court?
So last week we had some other police experts up with a forensic officer called Mark Jilatte. He's a specialist in blood stained pattern analysis. So he's the guy who goes to a crime scene and analyzes bloodstains and sees what you can tell from it. And he got grilled and cross examination. It wasn't pretty. He just got torn apart really by Dermit Dan, the defense barrister, and that's
because he mentioned something called a vacuum theory. So he examined mister Lynn's shotgun and he examined the inside barrel of it, and he spoke a bit about this vacuum theory, which is essentially, if the gun is discharged at close to someone, blood can actually suck back in. Mister Dan was not happy that this got spoken about during his evidence. He during cross examination took him to task and basically accused him of colluding with the prosecution to bring this
theory into evidence. Mister gladly was not a ballistics expert, so really probably wasn't qualified to speak about this theory. Mister Dan called it half baggs, accused him of lying, asked him if he had a bad memories, if he couldn't remember different conversations he had with the prosecution, and also accused him of breaching the rules of evidence, a procedure relating to expects evidence really being that he was not qualified to give it an opinion on a theory,
nor was it relevant to the case. And that's something he conceded so it was pretty brutal. I'm not sure exactly how long he's up on the stand for, but yeah, it was tense. There were quite a few tense exchanges.
Can you explain to our listeners why mister Dan was so upset that there was this reference to the vacuum theory.
So mister Lyne's account is Missus Clay was accidentally shot in the head from about three or four meters away, So this vacuum theory it goes against his account. It wouldn't work from three or four meters distance.
So for the last couple of weeks we've been ending our episodes on a lighter note, but I think this week we might end on a cliffhanger. Miles, can you tell us the final witness to be called?
Well? On Wednesday afternoon, the prosecution closed its case after the evidence of Detective Brett Florence finished and mister Dan Deermit Dan, the defense barrister got up and said the defense only had one witness and that would be mister Lynn himself. So by the time you're listening to this on Thursday tomorrow, mister Lynn will likely be on the stand. He's expected to be in the witness Box from about ten to fifteen am on Thursday.
Well, thank you so much, Miles. There will be another regular episode on Saturday, and we'll be back next week with another bonus episode outlining all the latest in the trial. But Miles will be in court every day, so be sure to check the Herald Sun website for our live coverage and the paper for his daily updates. Now go get some resk for what I'm sure will be a busy day tomorrow.
Thanks Miles, Thank.
You Laura, 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 sould and if you want further information about this episode, links are in the description.