Murder or mishap? How a jury will measure the deaths of two campers in an isolated valley

When crime scene officers arrived at Bucks Camp in the remote Wonnangatta Valley in March 2020, they pulled out a mobile phone to record a mysterious burnt-out campsite.

As an officer filmed the blackened remnants of a tent, filled with twisted metal and glass shards, he walked around it, ducking under a black rope tied up between the bull bar of a nearby four-wheel drive ute and a small blue tent covering a portable camp toilet.

Russell Hill’s Toyota LandCruiser ute with a guy rope attached between it and the blue toilet tent.

It’s this black rope, the Office of Public Prosecutions says, that makes it impossible that airline pilot Gregory Lynn, 57, is innocent of murdering missing campers Russell Hill, 74, and Carol Clay, 73.

They say this is because in Lynn’s version of what happened, the “tragic” events all began when he and Hill struggled for a control over a loaded shotgun while wrestling against the bull bar of a white Toyota LandCruiser ute.

But while questioning the accused man in the Supreme Court this week, Crown prosecutor Daniel Porceddu suggested the rope, seen in crime scene footage, would have been in the way.

“See, the problem is that you never knew that there was a piece of rope between the toilet and the bull bar, did you?” Porceddu asked.

“I didn’t see it,” Lynn said.

“You’re just making this up, aren’t you?” Porceddu asked.

“No, I’m not making it up. That’s the way it happened. The … the … the guy rope never got in the way of the struggle,” Lynn replied.

Lynn is accused of killing Hill and Clay at the campsite, in a valley so remote there’s no phone reception for kilometres, on March 20, 2020 – an accusation he denies.

On Thursday, after 16 days of evidence from more than 40 witnesses, that very man, Lynn, took to the witness box in his own murder trial.

He told a jury that while his actions after the deaths – including burning human remains – were “despicable”, he maintained Hill and Clay died accidental deaths.

During questioning from his defence barrister, Dermot Dann, KC, who had called his client as the defence team’s only witness, Lynn took the jury step by step through what he says happened.

Lynn said Hill had accused him of hunting too close to camp, so Lynn had left the doors of his Nissan Patrol open with music blasting to annoy the older man.

“I wasn’t trying to provoke a response. I just thought if he could be rude, I could be rude, too,” he told the jury.

After Hill took a Barathrum Arms shotgun from Lynn’s car, there was a struggle.

The accused man told the jury he got up from his campfire and followed Hill back to his campsite in the dark, as the 74-year-old fired warning shots into the air.

Lynn said the pair had struggled for control of the shotgun at the front of Hill’s Toyota ute, pushed up against the black bullbar, when the gun accidentally fired and fatally struck Clay as she crouched nearby.

Lynn then recounted how he went to return the loaded shotgun to the safety of his own car, when Hill ran at him with a knife.

He said he then donned his Jetstar-branded gloves and used a torch to find and remove blood and spatter from the “horrendous scene”, including nearby solar panels and camp furniture.

Lynn explained that at the time of the two accidental deaths, it was dark, between 9pm and 10pm. He said he put the bodies into the trailer attached to his Nissan before driving through the night and dumping them alongside the unsealed Union Spur Track, near Dargo.

During his almost four hours on the witness stand, the 57-year-old pointed out drawings he made for police during his questioning at Sale police station before he was charged. He relayed to the jury that he had told police everything he could remember at the time to assist them with their investigation, including finding what remained of Hill and Clay in a bush grave.

He said he continued through with a plan to distance himself from what had occurred for more than 18 months, maintaining he had never told anyone else what he’d done.

An aerial picture of Bucks Camp with Lynn’s drawings. Lynn said his camp was at the top of the image, and Hill and Clay’s at the bottom. He said the alleged knife incident occurred in the middle.Credit: Supreme Court of Victoria

“The whole plan, ill-conceived as it was, was for me to disappear,” he said.

While Lynn maintains both were accidental deaths, the prosecution alleges the airline pilot killed Hill and Clay with murderous intent.

During cross-examination by Porceddu, Lynn was asked if he murdered Hill following a dispute over a drone, and then took aim and killed Clay after she saw what happened – something the accused denied.

He told the jury that in the aftermath of watching Clay die from a gunshot wound to the head while struggling for control of a gun with Hill and then watching Hill fatally fall on his own kitchen knife, he feared he would be blamed and devised a plan to protect his future.

He agreed that while he was trained to be calm as an airline pilot, he had panicked and made a series of bad decisions.

These, he said, included burning the campsite, pulling a knife from Hill’s chest, moving the bodies some distance away, stealing money from the pair to pay for petrol, painting his car, and returning eight months later to the bush to burn the remains, among other things.

Lynn told the court that by the time police visited his family home in Caroline Springs in July 2020 to ask about his car passing through the Mount Hotham area the day after the deaths, he believed he was on the police’s radar and his plan to distance himself from Hill and Clay was fast failing.

Once the hastily devised plan was under way, Lynn said, it was too late to turn back and report what had happened to police. He risked losing everything that meant anything to him – family, career and membership to exclusive clubs.

Porceddu put to Lynn that when he returned to Union Spur Track in November 2020, he had with him a plan to burn the bodies and went on to spend the night there, stoking the fire he’d lit until the sun rose.

“Despite feeling sick, you remained there until the job was done?” Porceddu asked.

“Yes,” Lynn replied.

Ultimately, it’ll be up to a jury of 12 men and women to decide whether the accused man is guilty or not guilty of murder.

They’re due back in court on Tuesday next week, when the prosecution and defence will begin their closing arguments. After that, they’ll be sent away to deliberate.

A new podcast from 9News, The Age and 9Podcasts will follow the court case as it unfolds. The Missing Campers Trial is the first podcast to follow a jury trial in real time in Victoria. It’s presented by Nine reporter Penelope Liersch and Age reporter Erin Pearson.