Long road to truth behind the grisly fate of missing campers Russell Hill, Carol Clay

Many of the unanswered questions over the deaths of Russell Hill and Carol Clay were addressed in the opening hours of the Supreme Court case, but as Greg Lynn’s version of events is pressed, a lengthy trial awaits.

Greg Lynn in the Supreme Court. Picture: Paul Tyquin

A lengthy trial awaits Greg Lynn, the pilot accused of murdering older campers Russell Hill and Carol Clay.

The pair went missing in the highland bush as the state braced for the first of the Covid lockdowns in 2020. In the years since, few insights have properly explained their grisly fate.

Yet many of the story’s unanswered questions were addressed in the opening hours of the Supreme Court case on Tuesday.

The prosecution and the defence contested the manner of the violent deaths in a campsite in the Wonnangatta Valley, near Mount Hotham.

Mr Lynn himself took notes and looked over his reading glasses at displayed photos of both the campsite and the tree which marked the spot for the pair’s remains.

Many defendants project a pose, whether it be swagger or smirk, defiance or fear. Mr Lynn offered few clues to his thinking, bar a quick wave to his wife, Melanie, in the front row of the Court 3 upstairs gallery.

Minus his guards, he might have been a public servant considering a financial strategy or grant approval. If Mr Lynn projected an air, it was mildness.

Carol Clay and Russell Hill.

Former pilot Greg Lynn. Picture: Supplied

Yet he was across what the spectators in the packed court were not. He knew what his defence counsel, Dermot Dann KC, was about to say.

Many of the odder mysteries in this sinister story would soon be agreed upon. Many of them, as revealed by Mr Lynn’s barrister, were very unflattering of Mr Lynn.

After Mr Hill, the radio buff who feared guns, and Mrs Clay, the volunteer, died, their bodies were loaded into Mr Lynn’s trailer.

Items, such as phones and Mr Hill’s drone, were disposed of so that they would never be found.

Their remains were dumped at Union Spur Track, a winding drive from the site of their deaths.

Mr Lynn then tried to distance himself from official inquiries. He rid himself of his trailer. He painted his Nissan Patrol a different colour.

He returned to the site of the remains after a 43-day lockdown ended in May, 2020.

And he returned again, in November that year, to burn the remains in an act that Mr Dann said made his client “physically sick”.

The Wonnangatta Valley in Victoria’s alpine region. Picture: Jason Edwards

The burnt-out campsite of Russell Hill and Carol Clay. Picture: ABC

Mr Dann did not defend Mr Lynn’s “series of terrible choices” after the couple died. He could be accused of callousness and “poor decisions”. Yet his client was not guilty of murder or manslaughter.

The case appears to rest on those “chaotic scenes” said to unravel after dinner at the campsite on March 20, 2020.

The prosecution, in a case bolstered by bone fragments and the science of mobile phone tower pings, said it did not know how Mr Hill died. But crown prosecutor Daniel Porceddu theorised that Mr Hill’s death preceded that of Mrs Clay.

Mr Lynn’s version of these events will be pressed in coming weeks.

Mr Dann will argue that both deaths were “tragic” and “accidental”.

That Mr Lynn turned up his car music after Mr Hill threatened to report him for hunting deer too close to the campsite.

That Mr Hill stole a shotgun from Mr Lynn’s vehicle, prompting a scuffle and the discharge of the gun which fatally wounded Mrs Clay in the head.

That an enraged Mr Hill then confronted Mr Lynn with a knife, prompting another tussle and a second accidental death within minutes.

There will be expert witnesses in a procession which Mr Dann said he would welcome.

The defence would “embrace the scrutiny”, he said, which may at least confirm what observers have long suspected – that two people died for the pettiest of reasons.