Police lay out alleged timeline of high country murders of Russell Hill and Carol Clay
For the first time, police have mapped out how they allege Greg Lynn murdered the high country campers then tried to cover his tracks. This is their version of events.
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The police have laid out their alleged timeline of the murders of Russell Hill and Carol Clay.
Former Jetstar pilot Greg Lynn is accused of murdering Mr Hill, 75 and Ms Clay, 73, who vanished while camping in the Wonnangatta Valley in the state’s northeast in March 2020.
Mr Lynn has pleaded not guilty.
11 March, 2020
Russell Hill, 75, goes camping alone at the King Billy Number 2 campground in the Great Alpine National Park.
12 March
Mr Hill speaks with a hunter and asks if he minds that he flies his drone, while stating he knows it’s illegal to use drones in a national park.
The hunter says he has no issue with the drone and later describes Mr Hill as a polite older gentleman.
Mr Hill talks to the hunter about the importance of firearm safety, saying that his relative had been accidentally killed in a tragic accident when mistaken for a deer.
13 March
Mr Hill packs up camp and heads home to Drouin.
16 March
Jetstar pilot Gregory Stuart Lynn, 55, leaves his Caroline Springs home to go camping at the Wonnangatta Valley in the Great Alpine National Park.
He’s driving a blue Nissan Patrol.
His phone, pinging off towers, remains active in the Howitt Plains area until 10.57am on March 18.
18 March
Mr Lynn is given directions by a Parks Victoria ranger to the Zeka Spur Track then Wonnangatta Valley.
The ranger later recognises Mr Lynn’s car after watching 60 Minutes.
Mr Lynn approaches a Parks Victoria contractor spraying blackberries and asks where the best camping spot is.
He’s directed to Buck’s Camp.
19 March
Mr Hill and his childhood sweetheart Carol Clay head off on a camping trip to Wonnangatta.
The pair had rekindled their relationship 15 years earlier, but kept it a secret to spare his family from distress.
At 9.44am, Ms Clay speaks to her friend on the phone, who recalls that “she sounded excited to be on the road”.
They arrive at Buck’s Camp between 2pm and 3pm, where Mr Lynn has already set up.
Hunters Goran Miljkovic and Damir Jovar see them drive into Buck’s Camp, where they note a 4x4 station wagon is already there.
20 March
Mr Lynn’s phone stops pinging off the Hotham Heights tower at 10.42am, indicating he’s turned it off or it ran out of battery.
At about 6pm, Mr Hill speaks over the radio with the East Gippsland Amateur Radio Group telling them he’s at the Wonnangatta Station.
The radio group later recalls that he says “it was a good trip up and made comment that Zeka Track had been graded and how good it was”.
He asks his radio friends how to get to Dargo on a different track.
This is the last contact he has with the radio group.
That night or the next morning, police allege Mr Lynn kills the pair “with murderous intent” then sets fire to their camp by putting their BBQ gas bottle inside their tent “to conceal his crimes”.
Police claim Mr Lynn packs up his camp and flees with their bodies, likely hiding them in bush, and discards Mr Hill’s drone, car keys and their mobile phones, which still haven’t been recovered.
21 March
At 9.48am, Mr Lynn’s blue Nissan Patrol is photographed with a distinctive wooden board covering the top of the trailer by Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras on the Great Alpine Road at Buckland’s Gap.
He’s pictured as the driver and sole occupant.
Ten seconds later, Mr Hill’s phone is clocked near those same cameras.
At 11am, camper Andrew Marquardt finds Mr Hill and Ms Clay’s burnt out campsite and takes two photos, later handing them to police.
At 3pm, Mr Lynn’s phone switches on near Mansfield.
22 March
Mr Lynn returns home before 3pm.
26 March
Mr Hill is reported missing by his wife Robyn at Warragul Police Station after he fails to check in with friends in the amateur radio group for a number of days.
27 March
Police searching for Mr Hill and his LandCruiser notify camper Colin Boyd about 4.30pm, who later finds the burnt out campsite and car.
“We walked up to the site and I could see things didn’t look right and decided we should call the police,” he later recalls.
He drives 45 minutes back along the Zeka Spur to get reception and calls Sale police, giving them coordinates to the location.
28 March
Ms Clay is reported missing by her close friend, Vicky Birch after not hearing from her for several days.
Friends realise Ms Clay and Mr Hill were travelling together.
Police launch a two-week specialist search and rescue investigation but don’t find Mr Hill or Ms Clay.
A search of Mr Hill’s car finds the pair’s wallets “partially open and strewn into the foot wells”, with their bank cards and mobile phones missing.
12 May
Mr Lynn leaves his Caroline Springs home at midnight, with his phone pinging off towers towards Maffra, Sale and Mount Moornapa.
It last connects with a Fernbank tower at 5.04am on May 13, then reconnects at 12.43pm to a Sale tower where it travels back towards Melbourne before connecting to a Caroline Springs tower at 3.49pm.
Police allege it was during this trip, or a later one in November, that Mr Lynn tries to destroy the missing couple’s remains, including by setting fire to their bodies.
4 June
Photographs on Mr Lynn’s phone show him painting his car, with police alleging he did this “to conceal his involvement with the murder” of Mr Hill and Ms Clay.
14 July
Police go to Mr Lynn’s Caroline Springs home where he gives officers an account of his movements from March 16 to 22.
An officer notices his Nissan Patrol had been painted from dark blue to beige.
16 October
Parks Victoria rangers attend the crime scene and collect leftover fire debris from the initial March processing.
18 November
Phone towers indicate Mr Lynn travels back towards the camping area, where his phone stopped pinging for two days.
His phone pings on 20 November in Rowville at 9.48am before connecting to a Caroline Springs tower at 1.22pm.
1 December
Police get a warrant to tap Mr Lynn’s phone and start monitoring all his incoming and outgoing calls, messages, location information and data.
3 December
Police get surveillance warrants for his car and Caroline Springs home, allegedly capturing him having “conversations with himself whilst at various locations … at times referring to the deaths” of Mr Hill and Ms Clay.
April, 2021
The investigation into the disappearance of the pair is referred to the Missing Person Squad, codenamed Operation MPS-Lexicon-2020.
Mr Lynn is identified as a person of interest because his car was one of 12 to travel through the ANPR camera site within a 20-minute window on March 21.
His car was the only one to travel through the site when Mr Hill’s phone was placed travelling in the same direction at the same time.
14 October
The families of Mr Hill and Ms Clay make a public appeal for anyone with information to come forward.
7 November
The Missing Persons Squad seeks public assistance and release a picture of Mr Lynn’s car and trailer passing the ANPR camera site.
22 November
Mr Lynn leaves his home at 5.30am and arrives at an Arbuckle campsite at 12.45pm.
At 5.32pm, he’s arrested by special operations group officers without incident.
A Ruger Rifle is found in his car.
At 7.18pm, police execute two search warrants on his Caroline Springs home and find eight guns and ammunition.
29 November to December 2
Police find human remains “in the form of partial disarticulated skeletal elements”, which are positively identified as Mr Hill’s. Ms Clay’s ring and components of a wrist watch are found.
2 March, 2022
Police further search the original campsite crime scene, finding a piece of human skull later identified as belonging to Ms Clay.
Blood spatter on the canopy of Mr Hill’s LandCruiser was also identified as Ms Clay’s.
9 March
Further campsite searches uncovers a bulk composition of lead — believed to be a spent bullet — four bone fragments believed to be from the skull region and human hair.
6 April
Comparison testing begins between the bullet and shotgun ammunition found at Mr Lynn’s home.
Results are still pending.
16 January, 2023
The committal hearing testing the evidence against Mr Lynn on two counts of murder begins in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court.
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