This is Life and Crimes. I'm Laura Placella, standing in for Andrew Rawle, who's on assignment. I'm joined by my colleague at The Herald's son, Myles Proust, to continue discussing one of the most compelling trials that we've seen in recent years. If you 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 Waningata Valley in Victoria's North. The men accused
of their murder is former Jetstar pilot Greg Lynn. He is standing trial in the Supreme Court where Miles has been practically living for the past couple of weeks. To be able to break down the trial for our readers and listeners, this episode will unpack the evidence of the last seven days as the prosecution continues to present its case to the jury. Thanks again for joining us, Myles.
Great to be back, Laura.
So last week, most of the witnesses we heard from were people who knew Russell Hill and Carol Clay personally. But this week there's been a bit of a shift and now we're hearing from police officers and experts. Can you tell us a bit more about the evidence the cops gave.
Yeah, that's right. So there has been a bit of a shift in the evidence. I think at the start of the trial we're hearing from family friends, different campers, other hunters who had interactions with mister Hill and missus Clay, and now we're moving more into the police investigation side of things and also forensics. So last week we heard
from a woman called Abbi Justin. She's a detective with the Missing Persons squad, so she is the first police officer who was part of the unit that investigated this case to give evidence. She gave some interesting evidence about how mister Lynn was tracked and connected to the disappearance of the missing campers. She spoke about how mister Hill's phone data indicated his mobile phone traveled along the Great Alpine Road around ten am or March twenty one, twenty twenty,
This is the morning after the alleged murders. Then mister Lynn's miss and patrol was captured on automatic number plate recognition cameras near Mount Hotham. These are cameras like traffic cameras that are set up to catch people who are driving up into the ski resort and parking and just to ensure that they're paid to be there. So mister Lynn's car is captured on these cameras at the same time or a similar time as mister Hill's phone was
traveling in the area. And so she said this enabled police to track down mister Lynn, and they paid mister Lynn a visit at his Caroline Springs home in July twenty twenty, so a few months after the couple's disappearance. And one of the things she said is she noticed mister Lynn's dark colored forward drive. So it was a dark sort of navy gray color in the traffic cameras, it had been repainted to a light brown, and she took a photo of it.
So mister Lynn's car was repainted by the time police paid him a visit.
That's right. So when police paid him a visit in July twenty twenty, it had been repainted since the couple had disappeared in March twenty twenty, and mister Lynn was captured on these traffic cameras. Now it's the prosecution case that mister Lynn repainted his car to avoid being linked to the alleged murders of mister Hill and missus Clay, and the jury was actually shown images of the different
painted cars. So there were the traffic camera images which showed this dark colored forward drive and then they were shown pictures of the car after it had been taken by police and it showed it was a sort of light brown Beiji color.
Did any other police officers give evidence?
Yep, we heard from another cop called Amy Frost. So she's from Sale Police, which is the area sort of closest to where the couple disappeared, and she spoke about the early stage of the investigation. She actually met with mister Hill and missus Clay's families in Druen and Pakenham in April twenty twenty, so just a few weeks after they disappeared, and she obtained statements and looked for evidence
that might assist in their investment. Part of that included taking items so they could be used for DNA comparison later on if remains were found. So they took a shaver from mister Hill and a toothbrush from missus Clay.
What else did she find.
Well, she also revealed she found a ripped up box of viagra in mister Hill's name in the bathroom bin of missus Clay's home.
Very interesting. Yeah, So we've also been hearing from a number of experts this week. Can you tell our listeners what exactly is expert evidence.
So expert evidence or expert witnesses are a little bit different to other witnesses. So they're not people who have any connection to the case. They're not people who were eyewitnesses or family members or friends. They are typically experts who were specialists within a specific field. So this could be anything from weapons, ballistics, health. We even had one expert who was specialized in insects, all different types, and
they are usually asked to make a written report. They presented evidence, asked to give in an opinion, they write up a report, that report is tended, and then they are asked about it in court.
So at this point we will be discussing some evidence which may involve discussing details that could be confronting or gruesome for some. So if that isn't your type of thing, you may want to skip ahead. So with that disclaimer out of the way, can you tell us what we heard from some of their experts.
So on Thursday, the jury was shown photos of bone fragments and teeth found in remote bushland during search for the remains of mister Hill and Missus Clay. This evidence was part of the testimony of George Sidius. He's a forensic officer from the Fire Explosives Unit of the Victorian Police Forensic Services Center. He's someone who sort of specializes in arson and evidence that has been burnt. Now, he was part of this search of this area known as
Union Sper Track in November twenty twenty one. So just to recap mister Lind's account is mister Hill and Missus Clay were accidentally killed and then he feared he would be blamed for their deaths, and so he removed their bodies, took them up to this Union Spur track site which is in Bushland. It's a remote track in bushland north of Dargo, and he's dumped the bodies there and then he's actually come back eight months later and set fire to their remains. So mister Zidius, he was part of
his search. He found bone fragments, teeth, remnants of a wristwatch, and what he thought was some part of an article of a clothing. Across two search areas, so a small depression in a little clearing just off the track and the base of a fallen tree about fifteen sixteen meters away. The jury was shown some of the things that were found as part of his search, and there were quite a few photographs, and mister Zidios was taken through them
and identified different things. You could see small charred bone fragments and several teeth in some of the images. Missus Hidious explained that it appeared a fire had been lit in the clearing before the remnants were deposited in the base of the fallen tree not far away. And during cross examination, Dermitt Dan, the defense barrister, spoke about this
a little bit. He said Miss Lynn told police he used a small amount of kerosene to burn the missing campus bodies before he used the dustpan to move their remains to the other spot.
And I remember you saying with the defense openings that apparently doing so made mister Linge physically sick.
Yeah, that's what he's told police.
Did we hear from any other experts.
We did. We heard from a woman called Dadna Hartman. So she was a molecular biologist at the Victorian Institute of forensic Medicine. She told the court her lab received multiple bone fragments from this search and they tested it DNA analysis of one bone. This was the only bone that was found suitable. A lot of them were burnt and there was over two thousand bones found up at
unionsper track. Wow, there was only one at least among the ones her laboratory received, which was suitable for DNA analysis. She said it was likely a match for mister Hill. While a fragment recovered from Bucks Camp, so Bucks Camp is where the alleged murders took place, that was found to likely belong to missus Clay. Then the next day,
on Friday, we heard from Lyndall Smyth. She is a dental expert with the same place Vifim Victorian Institute a forensic medicine, and she was tasked with examining some of these teeth that were found up there. She compared the teeth with the dental records of mister Hill and missus Clay and this was quite interesting. She spoke about how mister Hill didn't have complete sort of full dental records, he had partial records, but missus Clay did so that
included things like full mouth X rays. The teeth, she said, some of which were partially missing, likely belonged to mister Hill, but only two could be matched with his records. And the jury was again shown images and X rays of these five teeth and something called a dental bridge, which is an artificial tooth held in place by other teeth, as doctor Smythe pointed out where they were located in the mouth.
So I remember you saying that there were even experts that specialized in things like insects. Did we hear from one of those experts?
We did. We heard from a woman called Melanie Archer, again working for VIFAM. I can't even pronounce how you say the expert in insects, but I'll give it a go. A forensic entomologist. Hey, not bad, thank you. So she examined some blowfly puperia, which is these little cocoons that blowflies have as they grow from a maggot to a fly, quite similar to a cocoon. They were found alongside the remains, and she said that suggested some decomposition had taken place
before the bodies were burnt. Under cross examination by mister Dan's defense lawyer, she said those findings were consistent with mister Lind's account that he had burnt their remains sometime after the bodies were dumbed.
Were the jury shown any photos of those insects?
They were, so there were more so shown images of I think there were a couple that maybe had some maggots in them, but it looked like a sort of outer casing, sort of like a cocoon, you know, a butterfly cocoon, but an outer casing that's actually used by these fliers.
Can you tell our listeners just a little bit more about how photos are shown in court and what's the process for tendering them.
So photos are shown to the jury during examination of a witness, So the witness gets up on the stand, they talk through their evidence or a statement while they're being questioned from the prosecution, and then images are also shown on a big sort of screen so the whole dury conceit, and also on a tablet in front of the witness, and the witness can actually interact with the tablet and perhaps be asked to circle or identify different
things that are seen in that image. And because they're an expert winn is, they can take the jury through complex issues and identify different parts of different things. And then once that's happened, these photos and not just photos, it can be footage or documents or things like that. They attended as exhibits and so that means it's now part of the evidence.
And can those photos be released to the media.
They can. So we have been getting quite a lot of these exhibits. So if you've been reading the stories online and also in the newspaper, you'll see there are new images with each story. And that's because after an image has been tended in evidence, we can then request it. Often they are released. We don't get everything, for example, and I don't think the media did request this just because we thought it would be too graphic to show to our readers and viewers. But we didn't request the
bone fragments, for example. They're not necessarily gruesome. They were just these tiny sort of bone fragments that have been quite charred, kind of looked like cold. But again, it's just not something that's appropriate to request and probably not something that's appropriate to publish given the sensitivities around the case.
Yeah, of course, so let's move on from the gruesome stuff. Can you tell us about some of the other experts that gave evidence maybe in some other specific fields.
So we heard it from a guy called Matthew Sorrel. He's a digital forensic expert who examined the phone records and data for mister Lynn and the missing campers phones, and he had a great way of explaining quite complex evidence about how phones worked and the cellular network and what you could take away from that in quite a simple way that I think the jury really understood and
everyone in court really understood. And through his evidence he had shown maps, I think he said he actually created them himselves, which basically showed the movement of the different mobile phones as they moved through different areas in the high country, and he could identify where a phone was when it connected to it, particularly a cell tower, and
he'd had a great way of explaining that. So, for example, he said, the data showed mister Hill and missus Clay meeting at Paknam on the morning of March nineteen, twenty twenty. That's the day they left for the camping trip to the Wanagata Valley, and this map showed them plotting along as they traveled east, then north, and then into the
high country before it lost signal. The last phone tower it connected to was at Hotham Heights, and he also explained about why there is no phone coverage up in the high country. He said, for example, there's just no commercial reason to have it. But for example, there are base stations at Hotham Heights and Mount Buller, and just because of the elevation where they are, they spread quite far out. But you can only get that signal when
you're also at a sort of similar elevation. So that means if you're down in the valleys, he said, you won't get a signal, but if you go up to someone like the Howard High Plaines area quite above the tree, then you probably will get a signal. And just myself, I've been up there, I've been hiking in the area, and you can get signals when you're at the top of Mount Bogong, but not down the bottom of the mountain. So you just had good evidence of explaining how this
data works and what we can tell from it. And probably one of the most interesting things he spoke about was data from mister Lynn's phone in November twenty twenty, so this is time and mister Lind's admitted this himself when he went back up into the high country to
burn the remains the bodies of the missing campus. So the data showed that mister Lynn's phone last connected to a cell network in Thomastown at about eleven forty am on November eighteen, twenty twenty, and then it did not reconnect to another cell tower until two days later about ten am in Roville, sort of Heathmont area. So doctor Sorell said that's because the phone was essentially switched off.
And when he said that, he doesn't mean it was just turned off like it could also mean, you know, it was put into flight mode or it might have gone flat.
So just to clarify, it's over those two days where mister Lynn's phone can't be detected by any cellular towers, he has gone back to the one and Gata Valley and burnt the bodies of mister Hill and missus Clay.
Yes, we do think that because under cross examination by Michael McGrath, this is miss Lynn's other lawyer, Dr Sorrel, he agreed it was not inconsistent with the scenario in which the phone was turned off or put in flight mode as it returned to the alpine region. And that's again mister Lynn has admitted to this. This is the account he gave to police that he did return in November twenty twenty and he burnt the bodies.
But did he return to the bodies sometime around May to check up on them? Is that right?
Yeah? So we've previously heard that mister Lynn did actually return to Union's Spur Track twice May twenty twenty, so a couple months after and that was to check if the remains had been uncovered, if they were still there, I guess, And then he's come back again in November twenty twenty and that's when he's actually burnt them.
And to round out the week. Is it right to say we heard from a ballistics expert.
YEP, that's right. So we heard from a guy called Paul Griffiths. He is a leading Senior Constable of Police and he's a ballistics and firearms expert with the Forensic Services Center. So he examined mister Lynn's shotgun. He's barathium twelve gage shotgun and he carried out trajectory testing, so that involved actually firing the firearm in different scenarios to see what would happen to the shot and so Constable
Griffiths conducted three of these tests, the trajectory tests. There was one where missus Clay one hundred and sixty centimeters tool is in a standing position, she's in a semi crouch position, and she's in a crouch position, and he found it was plausible that she was shot in the head while in a standing position. Now, of course, mister lind'sccount is she was crouched. So this is a real issue in dispute and part of why mister Dan went hard on him during cross examination.
So last week we ended on a light note, and I think to keep that tradition going, Is there anything you can tell our listeners that was maybe less serious and all the things we've heard so far.
Perhaps it doesn't sound so light. But actually brought the shotgun into courts of mister Lynn's gun. So this is quite a large weapon. I think it was almost a meter long. It's quite big, sort of big black shotgun and Costable Griffiths. Instead of being in the witness box, he actually went into a little area that's reserved for the media where the journalists usually sit, and he demonstrated to the jury how this gun operates. And how it was loaded. It obviously didn't have any ammunition in it.
You would hope not.
No, definitely not.
And then he actually got asked because he was pointing it down the table and that was where the reporters were all sitting. And then I think the judge actually asked him to turn it around and pointed out the walls so it wasn't out of anyone's way and he just sort of equipped, you're frightening the journalists, is what Justice Michael Croucher said, which is a bit of a light moment.
Well, thanks so much again Miles for your time. Andrew. I'll be back this Saturday for his regular show, and we'll be back next week with another bonus episode outlining all the latest in this trial. But Miles will continue to be in court every day, so be sure to check the Herald Sun website and the paper for his daily updates. Thanks again, Thanks.
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 sold. And if you want further information about this episode, links are in the description.
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