High country killer Greg Lynn’s chequered criminal past revealed
A gag order has lifted to reveal that Greg Lynn’s chilling criminal past includes escaping police custody decades before he murdered missing camper Carol Clay.
High country killer Greg Lynn’s first wife “lived in terror” just months before she was found dead, it can be revealed.
The explosive court documents also detail how Lynn once slipped police custody after an incident at the family home.
The Herald Sun can now reveal the new details after a long-running suppression order lapsed overnight.
The disgraced former pilot, serving a 32-year sentence for the murder of missing camper Carol Clay, had previously pleaded guilty to escaping lawful custody.
Mrs Lynn, 34, was found dead at the couple’s Mt Macedon home in 1999, after her husband had taken up with another woman.
Prior to her death, Mrs Lynn banished him from the family home.
He ignored her, once turning up at the house on his son’s birthday to give him a present, and again when he had a “heated” phone call with his wife.
When police took him to retrieve a personal organiser he had removed from the home and hidden in the bush, he simply walked off and kept going to a nearby train station.
The act was charged as an escape from custody.
He admitted the offences in May 1999 and was placed on a good-behaviour bond and fined $300. His escape custody charge was discharged without conviction after he complied with an undertaking.
By October that year, Mrs Lynn was dead.
Her body was found curled up in the front yard of the family home, while the couple’s young sons, aged three and one, slept inside.
Family photo albums were scattered on the loungeroom floor.
A coroner found she died from a combination of drugs and alcohol – despite being a teetotaller – but could not determine whether she intended to take her own life.
“As no suicide note or other definite indications of the deceased’s intentions were found, it is unclear whether she intended to take her own life,” the coroner’s finding stated.
The media was prevented from reporting Lynn’s criminal history to ensure he got a fair trial over the deaths of missing campers Russell Hill and Mrs Clay in Wonnangatta in March 2020.
He was found guilty by a jury of murdering Mrs Clay but not guilty of Mr Hill’s murder in June last year after a five-week Supreme Court trial.
Lynn launched an appeal against his conviction and sentence, heard in the Court of Appeal in October.
Justices Phillip Priest, Karin Emerton and Peter Kidd reserved their judgment.
The Herald Sun last year revealed Mrs Lynn’s death would be referred back to the coroner in a bid for a fresh inquest as an earlier probe heard she “lived in terror” from her estranged husband’s constant death threats and abuse.
Prosecutors tried to introduce details of Mrs Lynn’s death at Lynn’s murder trial. But the evidence was ruled inadmissable.
Originally published as High country killer Greg Lynn’s chequered criminal past revealed
