7 key details in accused killer’s account of campers’ deaths
In a three-hour recording, Greg Lynn revealed his account of the deaths of Carol Clay and Russell Hill, including how he burnt their bodies “from sunset to sunrise” in a bid to cover up.
Police & Courts
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When Greg Lynn’s plan to stay off the police radar “started unravelling at the first turn”, the former Jetstar pilot returned to the bush to burn the bodies of the missing campers he’s accused of murdering.
The bodies burnt “from sunset to sunrise”, Mr Lynn said.
His frank account came during his hours-long interview with detectives, which was played to the jury in his Supreme Court murder trial over the past two days.
It was among several shock admissions made by Mr Lynn, 57, during his interview at Sale Police Station in 2021.
He is standing trial for the murders of Russell Hill, 74, and Carol Clay, 73, who vanished during a camping trip to the Wonnangatta Valley in March 2020.
Mr Lynn has pleaded not guilty, claiming the pair were killed accidentally.
He took cash from dead couple’s wallets to buy fuel
Mr Lynn told officers he took cash from the missing campers’ wallets and used it to buy petrol at a service station near Harrietville after he left Wonnangatta.
The pair’s wallets were found in the footwells of Mr Hill’s LandCruiser.
When detectives asked him about the cash he took – about $40 – Mr Lynn said he wasn’t a thief and “I don’t need the money”.
Instead, he said he took it because he didn’t want to be using his credit cards.
Campers were ‘trying to have fun in bed’ moments before deaths
Mr Lynn said he believed the secret lovers were mid-tryst when he blasted music from his car stereo in a “childish” attempt to annoy Mr Hill, as a result of the pair’s earlier verbal spat over a drone.
“(Mr Hill’s) trying to have fun in bed and I was playing the music that he didn’t like loud and he’s lost his temper,” Mr Lynn said.
He admitted to police that turning up the stereo was “a bit of a childish things to do”.
Wife snapped photo of Lynn changing colour of his 4WD
Police seized the phone of Mr Lynn’s wife, Melanie, and found a picture she’d taken of the accused killer painting his 4WD from dark grey to beige.
The image was taken just on June 4, 2020 – just over two months after the alleged murders of Mr Hill and Mrs Clay.
During the interview, Mr Lynn said “it needed a paint anyway” but he was also aware that police were “looking for a dark car”.
Asked what his wife thought about him painting the car, Mr Lynn replied: “Here he goes again, he’s painting his car”.
Carol Clay was shot dead in her pyjamas
Mr Lynn said Mrs Clay was barefoot and wearing her pyjamas when she was shot in the head during an alleged fight over his gun.
He claimed she was standing behind Mr Hill and telling him “stop it, Russell, stop it” when the gun discharged, killing her.
“She was shot through the head, I saw her in the peripheral … she was lying face down on the ground,” he told officers.
He claimed his finger was not on the trigger when the gun fired.
He was ‘paranoid’ police were homing in on him
Mr Lynn said he suspected he was on the police radar when people started taking “a very unusual interest in me”.
When asked by detectives what was going through his head as he watched a 60 Minutes program about the disappearance of the campers alongside his wife, he said: “Well, I know that I’ve been on the radar for a while”.
He said too many people had said too many odd things to him, “like I was on The Truman Show”.
Pilot training helped him make ‘quick decisions for the best outcome’
Mr Lynn told officers he was used to making “quick decisions to try and get the best outcome” thanks to his training as a pilot.
He said covering up the deaths “wasn’t going to make any difference to those two, so yep, I tried to save myself”.
“I just had the potential of living a normal life if I covered it up,” he said.
“I tried to go back to that normal life … odd questions started to be asked, I started to get nervous this plan was unravelling and then you knocked on my door.”
Police tracked Lynn for almost a year before swooping
The former pilot had been under police surveillance for almost a year before his arrest for the murders of the elderly lovers.
Trackers were placed on his car in December 2020 until the end of May 2021, when the 4WD was being repaired.
The tracker was returned after those repairs and remained there until Mr Lynn’s arrest in November 2021.
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