I'm Andrew Rule. This is Life in Crimes and it's a special edition of Life and Crimes because we now have a result from the Greek Lynn jury. They have come in and they have pronounced their verdicts. And Miles Prewster has covered this case for many a long day, has rushed to the studio to talk about it. Miles, what do you think of this?
Well, thanks Andrew. It was a big day in court. So Greg Limb was found guilty of murdering Carol Clay, but he was acquitted of murdering Russell Hill.
So sort of an even money bet by the jury.
It was a split decision in the end. The jury had been deliberating for seven days. They began last Monday. I think the feeling, at least among the reporters and I'm sure many people was it would be hung Dury. We had to question earlier from the jury about what happens if they can't reach the unanimous decisions.
Yep.
And then it was about just before twelve thirty on Tuesday when we were alerted at least that the jury had reached a verdicts. So the court reconvenes. It was packed in there the upstairs public gallery was at full capacity. Some people were forced to stand. There were at least twenty journalists, if not more. Mister Lynn's son, Jeordie was seated in the body of the court, and one of mister Hill's daughters, Colleen, and then there were also detectives
and the lawyers and everyone. So the jury was brought into the court and they were asked for their verdict on the charge of murder against mister Hill, and the four women said not guilty. And then they asked for the verdict on the charge of murder against missus Clay and she said guilty. So I think the court was a little bit stunned for a moment. I'm not sure anyone was really expecting a split verdict, but I mean that's the result.
It would seem to me as just someone standing on the sidelines to be a triumph of the jury system where the jury has actually been Some would say the light detective that detected the common sense flaws in this whole defense. I mean, it just it doesn't really make sense that two people were killed, stone dead accidentally thirty seconds apart, and the jury in the end didn't buy that.
It's interesting the result because it's a split verdict, and if you really took the prosecution or the defense case, it was murder or a missap it was one or the other. But the jury's result isn't that. It's saying one was murder and the other one one wasn't murder, or at least it wasn't proven beyond reasonable doubt, And I think that's something you have to consider when you
look at the verdict. The difference between mister Hill and missus Clay or their deaths at least was that Missus Clay there was evidence about the way she was killed. There were skull fragments found at Bucks Camp in place of her death. There was a lead fragment that was a shot from a shotgun which was mangled, and that had her DNA on it, I believe, whereas mister Hill there's no evidence for having except for mister lens count. So that's the only difference between their two deaths legally.
Second, that's the difference, which in this case is bet enough, but it still doesn't stack up really to the pub taste that two people would accidentally meet instant death in the same minute.
I agree, Look, we don't know how the jury right to the decision. But you can safely say that they've discounted mister Len's account. They don't think it's true. No, they've rejected it. And that's shown through, you know, through the murder conviction, at least with missus Clay.
When you say you thought the court was surprised or stunned, the court is a phrase that takes in several people, or perhaps only one. How do you feel it was received by the bench and by the learned friends?
Not a lot of reactions, to be honest, I mean, there wasn't a lot of reaction from everyone. Courtrooms could be places there's you know, they're very tense, they're very you know, they places of high drama. And especially when I heard it comes back, everyone's on the edge of their seats. And then looking around the court, my eyes were trained on mister Lene, who was seated than the dock,
and not a lot of reaction, to be honest. When the first verdic came back not guilty, he didn't seem to show any reaction, And then when the second one was guilty again, he didn't show much for reaction. I think he raised his eyebrows slightly again from the bar table went on to procedural things, so the judge thanked, the jury said they'd done a great job and it was difficult task, and so on. They were the usual routine and then it was moving on to proscedural things.
So I was talking about when mister Lyne would returned to court to set a date for a plea hearing, which is a pre sentenced hearing, So a lot of procedural things. There wasn't a lot of reaction. I couldn't hear any gasps or any auditory reaction. But we stayed in the court and when mister Lynn was led out of the dock by the custody officers, his son Georgie, who was seated on the side of the courtroom, he actually walked past him and he whispered to him, don't stress.
He was the only one from the Lynn sort of clan who was in court Tuesday. So Melanie Lynn's wife, she's been in court again most days of the tribe, but she wasn't his shoesday. But you're also got to remember when it comes to a verdict. I mean we've been waiting. This is the seventh day. Yeah, and you only really get I think we had about twenty minutes. So you've really got to be waiting around the court. You've got to be in the court precinct.
To make it, to make it so everyone's talking about this story, Miles, And one of the things they will talk about naturally is the things that we weren't allowed to talk about until now, and that is the existence of mister Lynn's first wife and her death, the circumstances of her death. It will become very interesting to a lot of people. They are very interesting to a lot of people who never knew it, but they're going to read and see more about it in the very near future.
I think, what do you know about her and her death?
So Lisa Lynne is Greg Lynn's first wife, and she died in October nineteen ninety nine, so she was in her thirties yep. And she was found in the fetal position in the front yard the couple's Mount Masden home in October nineteen ninety nine. She was found to have died from combined drug and alcohol toxicity yep. And family photos was found scattered on the lounge room floor as her two sons, then aged three and one, slept in their bedrooms at the time, mister Lynn was estranged from
his wife. They had a pretty nasty breakup, and in the six months before her death, Miss Lynn, who was aged thirty four, alleged her ex husband was assaulting, harassing, threatening, or intimidating her. During this time, mister Lynn broke into his ex wife's home the form of family home, and
stole their car. And then in August nineteen ninety nine, just two months before to her death, she was prescribed antidepressants and there were high levels of these antidepressants found in her system when she died.
Right was she a drinker?
Interestingly, she was not a drinker. She didn't drink at.
All except on this occasion when somehow it crept its way into a system in large quantities, so that police must be interested in that now.
So all of this obviously is very prejudicial and wasn't heard during Greg Lynn's trolls. Of course, the jury didn't know about this, yep. But this is a sort of major story that's come out at least well, at least something we can talk about now that a verdict has been reached and his trial is over. So the Herald Sun has uncovered some statements that were given to the coroner's court. There was a coronial inquest into Lisa Lyn's death, which is what found that she died from suicide and
also found that Missielin was very abusive to her. And as part of the reporting the Herald's son has done to uncover some of these things that went into this coronial inquest. There was a statement from Lisa Lyn's father in which he ledged that Greg had been making very serious death threats against her and that these continued right through to her death.
Right, that's interesting. I wonder who found her body and in what circumstances. That is going to be very intriguing to see that whole thing pulled apart and to see people give sworn evidence about it.
We don't know who found her body, but we do know that police investigating the disappearance of Russell Hill and Carroll Clay this actually formed part of their investigation. When they started looking into mister Lynn. They knew about his former wife and a little bit about what had happened to her.
So the first missus Lynn's death will probably be referred back to the coroner. What do you know about that? When will that happen? Who do you think might be called.
We don't have a timeline, but we do know that the detectives or some of the police are involved in the case are expected to refer this to the coroner to reopen the investigation, the chronical investigation. There was the original investigation twenty almost twenty five years ago, so it's about reopening that investigation and seeing what else can be found. It is a long time, but in light of mister Lynn's conviction, it's something police obviously want to have another look at.
So is any other intriguing information about Lynn and his character and his habits to do with act of violence, that sort of thing, cruelty to animals.
That's right. So Lisa Lynn's mother actually provided a statement to the coroner's court and she said, as far as I'm concerned, Greg is responsible for my daughter's death by mental torture inflicted by him. She spoke a little bit about Lynn's character and some incidents that she was witnessed to. Yep, she used to make repeated trips from Tasmania, so Lisa's and Lynn's mother lived in Tasmania up to Victoria to
come visit her daughter and see the kids. And she described an incident at the Mount Massodon Hotel where mister Lynn flew into a fit of rage after a man spoke to her daughter. She also said miss Lynn killed animals and the neighbor's pets, and had refused to feed their two sons, Charming Bug and another person who knew the Lynz also told the heral son of how a pig went strayed into the couple's Mount Massod and property and Greg bludgeoned it to death with a spade.
Right now, the police worked on this case for a long time, more than a year, and in that process, I think they had a lot of intercepts, you know, telephone intercepts, also bugs in cars and all the rest of it. What sort of material was harvested from that that we can now talk about.
So the police investigation into the missing campus disappearance is one of the most fascinating parts about this case. They were on to Lin pretty quickly. Within about July twenty twenty, they visited his home and that's when they saw the car was repainted. And later that year, towards the end of the year, they got warrants to bug his car
his home. So this is putting listening devices inside the home that records, conversations, put a tracker on his car, tapped his phones, and eventually put surveillance devices or set them up around the home. So nearly every word or everything miss DeLine was doing around this time was tracked and surveilled right. One of the interesting things these devices picked up, especially in his car his missing patrol, was
some of the things Miss Lynn said to himself. So he was a person who spoke to himself about different things, and he actually spoke a little bit about Russell Hill and Carol Clay. One example is in May twenty twenty one, he turned up the volume on his stereo after a news story about the couple's disappearance came on, and he said, I put an effing trigger lock on it. You've got to get a second set of trigger lock effing keys and stick them in there. They've just got to keep
pushing all the time, don't they. Later that day, he muttered to himself after another story about the missing campus came on, They're sitting on a beach in effing Queensland, nudice beach, butt naked, playing on his effing drone, running up and down the beach, taking pictures of the young
people who's got the biggest dick. He said that he said that to himself when a story about the missing campus came on, and this obviously wasn't heard by the jury, and the reason for that is the judge just decided they just have to speculate about what it means. They might think he's insane. That was part of his reasoning for excluding these things, because what he said doesn't really
make sense if anything goes against the prosecution case. Is talking about them being in Queensland, and there was more examples of this as well, where he would speak about he's worried about ballistics and if police came to his house they would want samples of his ammunition. So it was just a very interesting thing that was picked up by these intercepts and one of the detectives who was part of the missing person squad, his job, it seems, was more more or less just to listen in on
what Lynn was saying. He listened to I think it was more than three thy one hundred individual recordings of mister Lynn talking to himself from these bugs that were set up in his home and his car for about almost a year from the end of twenty twenty up until his arrest in November twenty one.
Not totally normal behavior, definitely. Not.
One other thing that was interesting about that is he's also a lover of Nick Cave and recited his songs with other dark lyrics.
Now, Myles, one of the big things about this case is that the police viewed Greg Lynn at Sale Police station for days. I think he was asked what fifteen hundred questions or whatever. And much was made by the defense of this process of him being interviewed over a long time, saying that he was oppressed by this process. What do we now hear about any of that? Is there been any backwash about that since.
The So the record of interview was a crucial piece of evidence in his trial. So Lynn was arrested in November twenty twenty one, he was transferred to Sale Police station, and he did he undertook what's called a record of interview, which is where you're seated at a table when you're questioned by police and the things recorded and can be
used in court at a later date. So three and a half hours of this was played to the Supreme Court, shown to the jury, but it just showed Lynn giving his account the same account you know, we've heard and we've reported on the fact that they were accidentally killed and so on. But what the jury didn't know and is that it took quite a while for police to
get that account from mister Lynn. Right he was arrested, transferred to the police station, and he spoke to a lawyer on the phone legally and they told him, don't say anything. It's just usually pretty good advice. And the police started questioning him and he was just saying, no comment, no comment, no comment. And this went on for hours and hours and hours.
So that the actual stuff that ended up being played in court was you know, day two, day three, or whatever. It was well down the track.
It was well down the track. It was about six hours or nearly six hours of questioning, over a thousand questions, forty five hours in custody before miss ln finally gave his account. And what's interesting about that is that the defense painted mister Lynn as being honest and coming forward and telling police, you know, once he was caught, it was sort of you got me, and this is what's happened.
And the truth is, perhaps otherwise.
The truth of it is he was actually in custody quite a long time and he only gave this account after he was pressured by police. And this is the other interesting thing about this. The reason that's how the jury were told it is because the police, when they did this interview, didn't do it.
By the book in the sense that they didn't have his own lawyer present. But they kept offering him a chance to bring a lawyer, did they not.
So he spoke to a lawyer on the phone and the lawyer gave him that advice. But what they actually did is they were so desperate for answers, or at least this is how the police explained it, that they pressured Lynn into giving an account. They undermine his legal advice. Like when you're an accused person sitting in a police station getting questioned by police, you do have rights. You don't have to say anything, and if you say no comment, the police generally should take that. As you know, this
is no comment. But what they didn't do that they pushed and pushed and pushed and call it on the pressure until they cracked. And Justice Michael Crouch of the judge in this case ruled because of this conduct by the police, which you know was pretty full on. He ruled this interview out and all the evidence that was found in it out of the trial, so that means inadmissible to the trial, and its defense chose to reintroduce it and use it part as part of their case,
but again they only reintroduced the parts they liked. So his account, while admitting the fact that it took him six hours, on nearly six hours to give an account.
Did he not this very honest man that told an honest account eventually? Did he not tell some pooky buys earlier? Did he tell lies to the police at some point, which also, of course is seen admissible, But so he wasn't actually just the fellow says, who says, you've got me and now I'm going to tell you everything that's not true? Is it?
Well, that's how this events like to paint him. They I think that's how events him completely accurate and completely honest, and that's not quite true. It's also in July twenty twenty, the police visited lenn at his home, and this was also excluded from the trial, or at least the contents of the conversation. Then police asked him about his movements and the want to get a valley four months earlier, Misscellyn lied said he hadn't seen the missing campers, and
he lied to them. He said he wasn't he didn't see that. Obviously wasn't true. Jury wasn't told that. The jury was told police visit in him at his home in July twenty twenty and they noticed his car was repainted, but they didn't know what police actually spoke about with Miss Delenn. The reason that was left out essentially comes down to the fact that police, again this just came out in pre trial. Police denied this, but they were they were treating him as a suspect at that stage
of the investigation. When you're a suspect, you to be cautioned, you have to be cautioned. You have to be given a legal caution.
It's a very fine line here. It really comes down to sort of word definition. What's the suspect.
Yeah, well, this is the interesting thing, the difference between a person of interest and a suspect. And they denied it. They said he was just a person of interest, but the judge found against them said no, it was obviously he was a suspect. At this point you didn't caution him, and therefore this conversation you had is inadmissible at trial because you didn't do the right thing.
No comment issues interesting. I presume that if I ask you what your name is and you say no comment, I come back and say, second question, how old are you? And you may well tell me. You know that you can. You can choose whether to say no comment to two hundred questions or pick the ones you want to answer.
That's right. I mean, it's up to you how you answer those questions. I think the police what they were doing in that interview is they were taking him through what they had, yeah, and asking him for a you know what his answer was to each different thing they were putting to.
Him, exposing him to the story they'd built.
At the same time, they were piling the pressure on and the judge found they used oppressive conduct impressive yeah, and they were using things like inducements, which is where you sort of make a false offer which you know you're not going to follow through if you've give an account, and that sort of worked through things like I think that was one point where they made some weird comparison about greg Lynn being a pilot. Greg Lyn would say,
you know my lawyer, I've spoken to my lawyer. They say I should say no comment, and the police then make this weird comparison about how it's a bit like a flight attendant telling a pilot how to fly a plan in saying you wouldn't let your flight attendant tell you how to fly plan. You're the pilot, you're in charge. And so that's just one example of some of the conduct they were doing.
Also pandering to his ego. It's hardly yeah, exactly.
And an inducement, for example, was they kind of said, you haven't given us an account. You know, if you're charged with murder, like that's it, you're going to be in jail, you're going to be on remand. But if you give us an account, maybe you get charged with manslaughter, maybe you get bail. So that's kind of an example of the misconduct by police because after he gave his account, of course, the police just charged them with murder and that was that.
And is that misconduct or is that an allowable device or tactic?
So during pre trial them to two detectives who were in that interview room it's our police station November twenty twenty one, they were grilled about why they treated instantly in this way by the defense and they spoke a bit about the pressure they were under from the public, from the families, from their command, about getting answers from miss DeLine about what had happened. Probably you're going to remember at this stage of the investigation they didn't have
a lot on him. They may not have had enough to charge him, and they may have seen this as their one opportunity to get answers from mister Lynn, because if he talks to a lawyer, he might clam up and that's it. And they also said, at that stage, remember they'd been missing for about twenty months, they wanted to find the remains of the missing campus. And eventually Linn did give his account, and he did tell them
where the campus were. It allowed their remains to be repatriated with the families, and the judge actually made a comment on this. He said he had no doubt the detectives were decent, capable, hard working members of Victoria Police who were under great pressure to provide answers to the families. But without mister Line's account, which the police got, they would have never have found these remains. I mean, that's
the simple fact of it. The Wannagata Valley is a huge fast mountainous area, and he said, without miss Line's account, finding that evidence would have not been just like finding a needle in a haystack, but more like finding a speck in a dust storm, which.
Is I'm sure everyone agrees with the police would agree with that. I'm sure the dury and the public would agree with that. Without him revealing where he put the remains that he burnt, no one would know. That's right, miles where too from here.
So mister Lynn, who's been in custody since November twenty twenty one, he was reminded in his stays in custody. Next thing he'll face is a mentioned hearing next month, July nineteen, and that's going to be a sort of timetabling for what's called a plea hearing or a pre sentenced hearing that'll be held you know, the half of the mansion, and then they all to side on a date for that. At a plea hearing, this is the opportunity of the victim's families to have their say. They
contend the victim impact statements excellent. They can either have them read privately by the judge, or they can read them out and court themselves and they're quiet, emotional, they can be fulln it's it's someone speaking about you know, their murdered loved ones, So that will probably be the
main thing from the pre sentence hearing. But it's also you gets submissions from the prosecution the defense who are pushing for a particular things, so aggravating and mitigating factors, right, goes on, Yeah, yeah, exactly, So it's the different submissions from the two. Then the judge will arrive in a sentence write up his sentence remarks and miss Alene will be senslater this year.
Was the marathon running prosecutor.
That he was so Daniel Porchdu, one of the Crown prosecutors, was there. That's correct. That's good for our listeners who were not he'd not quiet, so this was something funny that happened. Mister Portugeu was away for a couple of days in the trial. Took a Friday and a Monday off, so he had four days well, he had the weekend plus two days off. Jury wasn't told why its just wasn't there. The other prosecutor was up. He was actually running an ultra marathon in the outback good lok yep.
So he had this pre booked. He also was parachuted in. He wasn't the original prosecutor, but he took over the case in April, only about a month or two before the trial began. He had this pre booked. He told the court about it at the start of the trial and said, look, you know the juror wasn't in, but I've got this holiday booked all this well some really holiday but this ultra marathon booked in.
And you know so he had a good run out somewhere near Wolf Creek.
Yeah. I looked at it. We actually found it and we found his results. He did did pretty good.
He did it.
It's twelve and a half hours, it's sixty five k I think it was a it was a runner on the Larapinta trail in Territory, beautiful part of Australia, and it was yeah, twelve and a half hours. It's a long run.
Good god. And was the defense council mister Dermott Dan in court for the verdict.
No, Dermot Dan. We've heard he's on holiday in Africa, but mister Dan was not in court. Dermot Dan main defense barrister, but he's junior. Michael McGrath, also a barrister, was in court for the verdict, So mister dan On I believe it was Friday or Thursday. He said his farewells to the court. The jury again weren't told this. He thanks the custody staff for how they treated his client, and he also, I think, thank the judge.
And that was it, and we look forward to hearing more about all of this later on, and I'm sure it's not over yet. We will hear interesting stories about the life and times of Quiglin.
That's all right, looking forward to it.
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.