Speaker 1: This is Life in Crimes. I'm Laura Plassella standing in
Speaker 1: for Andrew Ruhle, who's on assignment. I'm joined by my
Speaker 1: colleague at The Herald's son, Myles Prust, to continue discussing
Speaker 1: one of the most compelling trials that we've seen in
Speaker 1: recent years. If you've missed our previous bonus episodes, the
Speaker 1: case centers on the deaths of Russell Hill and Carol Clay,
Speaker 1: an elderly couple who were camping in a remote area
Speaker 1: called the Wanngata Valley in Victoria's North. The man accused
Speaker 1: of their murder is former Jetstar pilot Greg Lynn. He
Speaker 1: is standing trial in the Supreme Court, where this week,
Speaker 1: for the first time, the jury has heard from mister
Speaker 1: Lynn himself, his story in his words. This episode will
Speaker 1: unpack mister Lynn's three hour record of interview with police
Speaker 1: as the prosecution finish presenting their case. Hi, Myles, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us.
Speaker 2: He's Laura, good to be here.
Speaker 1: So can you give our listeners an overview of the
Speaker 1: trial over the last seven days?
Speaker 2: Yep. So we had a few more forensic and police
Speaker 2: experts up dealing with things like ballistics and blood splatter.
Speaker 2: But the major thing that has happened has been a
Speaker 2: portion of Greg Lynn's record of interview being shown.
Speaker 1: To the jury. So can you explain what a record
Speaker 1: of interview actually is?
Speaker 2: So a record of interview is a formal interview police
Speaker 2: have with a suspect that usually takes place at a
Speaker 2: police station. It can be used in court at a
Speaker 2: later date and it's you know, it's recorded as well,
Speaker 2: there's a video or it's taped.
Speaker 1: So in the context of mister Lynn's case, he was
Speaker 1: arrested and brought to a police station, that's right.
Speaker 2: So he was arrested in November twenty twenty one, about
Speaker 2: eighteen months after the alleged murders took place. He was
Speaker 2: taken to Sale police station in Gippsland and he was
Speaker 2: interviewed there by two Missing Person Squad detectives, Brett Florence
Speaker 2: and Daniel Passingham.
Speaker 1: So let's dive in there. What was said in the
Speaker 1: record of interview by mister Lynn.
Speaker 2: So the way it was shown in court, it was
Speaker 2: basically split into two portions on about I think an
Speaker 2: hour and a half or so was played and that
Speaker 2: is essentially mister Lynn giving his account of the deaths
Speaker 2: that happened, So it's mostly him running through. It started
Speaker 2: off with him talking about his camping trip and when
Speaker 2: he left home and the different dates and so on,
Speaker 2: and then moving into what happened between mister Hill and
Speaker 2: missus Clay, and then just sort of one big story
Speaker 2: that he's given to police, and then another portion was
Speaker 2: played the next day on Tuesday. And that's more so
Speaker 2: when police started questioning him about different parts of his story.
Speaker 2: It sort of jumped from place to place, but all
Speaker 2: sorts of questions about where the confrontation took place, questions
Speaker 2: about his firearm, so just sort of actually questioning his story,
Speaker 2: I guess.
Speaker 1: So let's take it from the beginning. What does mister
Speaker 1: Lynn say happened that night?
Speaker 2: So he starts off by drawing a map of Bucks
Speaker 2: Camp and showing where his camp was in relation to
Speaker 2: mister Hill and Missus Clay. He told the detectives he
Speaker 2: would have preferred to have the site to himself, but
Speaker 2: he had pretty friendly interactions with a couple on the
Speaker 2: first night. He spoke with mister Hill the next morning,
Speaker 2: this is the Friday, the twentieth of March twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: where he said the retiree revealed to him that they
Speaker 2: were in the area to remember a friend who'd been
Speaker 2: killed deer hunting. Mister Lynn then said he went hunting
Speaker 2: and later that day he heard a buzzing around his head.
Speaker 2: He thought it might have been some bees or wasps,
Speaker 2: and he could see there was a drone flying above him.
Speaker 2: He returns to camp later on he sees mister Hill
Speaker 2: with a drone. Mister Lynn told police that he sat
Speaker 2: and thought about the drone for a bit, but he
Speaker 2: eventually decided to approach mister Hill and ask him about it.
Speaker 2: So he said he approached mister Hill at the other
Speaker 2: camp site and mister Hill had told him he did
Speaker 2: not like deer hunters, and he had video footage of
Speaker 2: mister Lynn with a firearm close to the camp site
Speaker 2: and he'd be taking that to police. Mister Lynn said
Speaker 2: he told him that was ridiculous, and he thought the
Speaker 2: purpose of what mister Hill was doing was he just
Speaker 2: wanted him to go. He wanted the area to himself.
Speaker 2: So mister Lynn says he returns to camp and he
Speaker 2: turned up the stereo on his car and he opens
Speaker 2: all the doors and that's to annoy obviously, the camp
Speaker 2: is nearby Hour's lady. He says, it's dark. Mister Lynn
Speaker 2: said he heard some rustling near the back of his
Speaker 2: car and he sees mister Hill walking away with his
Speaker 2: shotgun and a magazine of ammunition. So what happens next,
Speaker 2: mister Lynne he told police this in his interview. He
Speaker 2: acknowledged like it was illegal for him not to have
Speaker 2: it locked up, but he says he confronts mister Hill.
Speaker 2: He follows him and says, you know, give it back.
Speaker 2: What are you doing, and mister Hills tells him, I'm
Speaker 2: taking it to police. He then claims mister Hith cocked
Speaker 2: the firearm and the fired a couple of rounds into
Speaker 2: the air, which prompted mister Lynd to duck for cover
Speaker 2: behind mister Hill's land cruisers. So by this time he's
Speaker 2: followed him to the other campsite, to mister Hill and
Speaker 2: missus Clay's camp sig. He says he did that because
Speaker 2: he thought he might cop the next shot, and then
Speaker 2: he says the safest thing for him to do is
Speaker 2: try and get the weapon back, and so he grabs
Speaker 2: the barrel of the gun and they're wrestling over it. Basically,
Speaker 2: mister Hill and mister Lynne, and then he actually took
Speaker 2: a deep breath at this part of the interview and
Speaker 2: explains there's an accidental discharge which goes through the side
Speaker 2: mirror of mister Hill's land cruiser and strikes missus Clay
Speaker 2: in the head, so she was obviously there as well.
Speaker 2: He later says that she was in her pajamas and
Speaker 2: that she was yelling out for Russell to stop it.
Speaker 2: He says, then mister Hill drops the gun, which enables
Speaker 2: mister Lynn to take it back to his campsite and
Speaker 2: out of harm's way, and then he says it takes
Speaker 2: them a minute to get back to the camp and
Speaker 2: then he sees mister Hill charging towards him holding a knife,
Speaker 2: saying she's dead. He says, mister Hill attacks him and
Speaker 2: he's able to block one of his punches, and they
Speaker 2: have a wrestle. Anding that wrestle, mister Hill falls onto
Speaker 2: the ground and the knife plunges into his chest. He says,
Speaker 2: he rolled over and he got off him, and he
Speaker 2: could see mister Hill was drooling a little bit, and
Speaker 2: then he stopped moving and he checked for a pulse
Speaker 2: and he was clearly dead, is what he said.
Speaker 1: Did he then go and check on missus Clay.
Speaker 2: He did say he went and checked on Missus Clay,
Speaker 2: but she was dead as well. And then he said
Speaker 2: he just panicked because he thought he would be blamed.
Speaker 2: The quote was, I panicked and I thought, you know,
Speaker 2: it's my shotgun. One person dad, He's dead. Now I'm
Speaker 2: going to be found guilty of this. So he decides
Speaker 2: to then torch the campsite, pack up his own camp,
Speaker 2: grab their bodies, and flee. He spoke a bit about
Speaker 2: how he did that. He put some of their belongings
Speaker 2: into the tent and used a gas bottle to ignite
Speaker 2: their tent and that actually flared and that's left scorch
Speaker 2: marks on the land cruiser. He's then driven them to
Speaker 2: a spot called Union Spurred Truck, which is where he
Speaker 2: dumped their bodies. He said he only covered them with
Speaker 2: six it wasn't super well hidden. And then he's returned
Speaker 2: home and he obviously doesn't tell anyone about this.
Speaker 1: So just to be clear, this is mister Lynn's version
Speaker 1: of events, Is that right?
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: This is mister Lynn's account that he gave police, which
Speaker 2: is all disputed by the prosecution. They say he murdered them.
Speaker 2: Just to set the scene a little bit more for you.
Speaker 2: So this is playing in the Supreme Court on a
Speaker 2: big screen that's above an area in the court reserve
Speaker 2: for the media, which is opposite the jury box. The
Speaker 2: lights are dimmed while it's playing, and the video footage
Speaker 2: actually shows mister Lynn seated at a desk in sudden
Speaker 2: interview room. There's not much to see in the room itself,
Speaker 2: just looks like a sort of white room. He's seated
Speaker 2: at a desk, he's wearing a gray jumper, he's got
Speaker 2: a mask on, he's got glasses on, and you can't
Speaker 2: actually see the detectives who are seated opposite him out
Speaker 2: of you.
Speaker 1: So he's run and center. That's right. So in the
Speaker 1: context of the court room, mister Lynn's in the dock.
Speaker 1: Is he watching his record of interview?
Speaker 2: That's correct. So mister Lynn is watching all of this
Speaker 2: unfold while he's in the dock, which is up at
Speaker 2: the back of the court. He's watching it on the
Speaker 2: screens like everyone else. Miss Linne hasn't shown too much emotion.
Speaker 2: I don't think this trial he hasn't given away much.
Speaker 2: He's often just taking notes or intently listening on. But
Speaker 2: there were portions of this three and a half hour
Speaker 2: roughly how long it went. This interview where he's watching
Speaker 2: himself discuss why he made the decisions he made, particularly
Speaker 2: around covering the body's up and destroying evidence and that
Speaker 2: sort of thing. And while he's watching himself speak about
Speaker 2: this to police, he actually bowed his head and looked
Speaker 2: down for parts of it.
Speaker 1: So it's March twenty twenty, it's the start of the pandemic,
Speaker 1: and Lynn is returning home Bromby's camping trip to his wife.
Speaker 2: Yeap, So miss Lynne told detectives a little bit about
Speaker 2: as he returned from the camping trip. He spoke to
Speaker 2: his wife on the phone. This is just before we
Speaker 2: went into the first lockdown, and she was saying, you
Speaker 2: can't buy toilet paper, you can't buy cleaning stuff. It's
Speaker 2: absolute pandemonium out there. He said. When he returned home,
Speaker 2: she didn't ask anything about the camping trip, you know,
Speaker 2: there was just too much going on. Camping wasn't her
Speaker 2: thing anyway, and that was a bit of a relief
Speaker 2: to him, and that way he was able to just
Speaker 2: sort of pretend nothing happened. And the way mister Lyne
Speaker 2: explained this detectives is he just wanted to pretend he
Speaker 2: covered it up. He's gone home and he's just gonna
Speaker 2: try and forget about it and try and live a
Speaker 2: normal life. Under questioning when they sort of questioned his
Speaker 2: story a little bit, he said he was making quick
Speaker 2: decisions to try and get the best outcome, which is
Speaker 2: what he did as a pilot. And he said when
Speaker 2: he dumped the bodies near Union Sper Track, he didn't
Speaker 2: cover them up that well, and the object was not
Speaker 2: to make them disappear, as it was to make me disappear.
Speaker 2: And so he said that was his plan going forward,
Speaker 2: but his plan quickly unraveled. So in July twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: this is a few months after the couple disappeared, I
Speaker 2: think around the time we've come out of lockdown, just
Speaker 2: before we've got into the second one, police pay him
Speaker 2: a visit to his home, and this is because they've
Speaker 2: linked him through as we've spoke about in earlier episodes,
Speaker 2: the traffic cameras out up at Mount Hotham, and so
Speaker 2: when that happens, he realizes, this is what he tells
Speaker 2: police that the first option of making himself disappear hasn't worked,
Speaker 2: and so he says he needs to make the evidence disappear,
Speaker 2: and this is when he decides to return to Union
Speaker 2: Spur track. Quote. He said, I steeled myself the task
Speaker 2: and allowed myself one night to do it. Then returned
Speaker 2: to the site in November twenty twenty, where he found
Speaker 2: the remains, he says, decomposed and missus Clay missing a
Speaker 2: large section of her head. Remember, he says she was
Speaker 2: accidentally shot in the head with a shotgun. He says
Speaker 2: he uses a small amount of fuel of kerosene and
Speaker 2: sticks to light the remains on fire, and he tells
Speaker 2: the police it was a horrific thing to deal with.
Speaker 2: I was sick several times. He also said he thought
Speaker 2: a wild dog had interfered with the remains, which he
Speaker 2: described as gruesome, and police also ask him what made
Speaker 2: you throw up? And he said the smell, the memories,
Speaker 2: the task at hand that I had to do. But
Speaker 2: I just thought, it's one night, I've got to do it,
Speaker 2: finish it, and then it's done. He said he started
Speaker 2: the fire at sunset and it burned until sunrise.
Speaker 1: So at this point did mister Lynn tell the detectives
Speaker 1: where the remains were.
Speaker 2: So in the first portion of the interview, which is
Speaker 2: where he sort of just runs through the whole story
Speaker 2: and gives the dates chronologically, he does, at the end
Speaker 2: of that portion tell them where they can find the remains.
Speaker 2: He actually asks to use Google Earth. I think he's
Speaker 2: provided that on a laptop. We can't see the screen,
Speaker 2: but he's provided a laptop and he actually pinpoints the
Speaker 2: location of where they can find the remains. And so
Speaker 2: that was the end of that portion of the interview.
Speaker 2: The detectives pause their interview as well, and they actually
Speaker 2: go out to the site that he's told them to
Speaker 2: go and look for the remains, and they actually take
Speaker 2: a two videos of the area he's described and send
Speaker 2: it back to a colleague at Sale Police who shows
Speaker 2: it to him and he can provide further direction of
Speaker 2: where the remains were. They return later that afternoon and
Speaker 2: the interview recommences. And when the interview recommences, that's when
Speaker 2: the detectives start going through his story in finding detail
Speaker 2: and questioning him about different parts of his story, such
Speaker 2: as where each other's hands were in relation to the
Speaker 2: firearm when it accidentally discharged, and how the firearm worked
Speaker 2: and those sort of granular questions.
Speaker 1: Were there any interesting details that came out of his answers?
Speaker 2: Well, he spoke a little bit more about the scuffle
Speaker 2: or the initial confrontation with mister Hill. He said, he's
Speaker 2: just trying to have fun in bed, and I was
Speaker 2: playing the music that he didn't like loud and he's
Speaker 2: lost his temper. So that's mister Lynn talking about mister Hill.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure exactly what he went by have fun
Speaker 2: in bed, but I'm sure our listeners having an imagination.
Speaker 2: Mister Link claim mister Hill took his shotgun and fired
Speaker 2: it not at him, but over his head. When he
Speaker 2: tried to get it back, he said he ran into
Speaker 2: the shadow behind mister Hill's car. He said they were
Speaker 2: both wearing pajamas and barefoot, so that's why he thought
Speaker 2: they were in bed after the confrontation, and that both
Speaker 2: campers are dead. He said he took cash from their wallets.
Speaker 2: He said he wasn't a thief, but he didn't want
Speaker 2: to use credit cards. He just wanted to use the
Speaker 2: cash to pay for fuel as he returned home. And
Speaker 2: he also admitted cleaning the firearm to get rid of
Speaker 2: any evidence that would link him to the deaths, and
Speaker 2: this is what he said. It was one option for
Speaker 2: a glimmer of hope to a normal life, but it
Speaker 2: hasn't panned.
Speaker 3: Out that way.
Speaker 1: But the detectives didn't just ask miss de Lynne only
Speaker 1: about the night of the deaths. Did they also ask
Speaker 1: him about the months afterwards? They did.
Speaker 2: They ask all sorts of questions. They asked him what
Speaker 2: he did in the months after, things about how he's
Speaker 2: holding up emotionally, what was his reaction and when police
Speaker 2: arrived on his doorstep in July twenty twenty. Once the
Speaker 2: police started questioning about his story, jumped from place to place.
Speaker 2: One of the things mister Lyne revealed was he himself
Speaker 2: was increasingly paranoid in the lead up to his arrest,
Speaker 2: and he told them he thought he was on the
Speaker 2: police radar. He questioned whether they had enlisted some of
Speaker 2: his colleagues and an associate from a sports club to
Speaker 2: elicit answers from him about mister Hill and missus Clay's disappearance.
Speaker 2: He also was asked about a sixty Minutes episode this
Speaker 2: aired in November twenty twenty one, shortly before he was arrested,
Speaker 2: in which there was a special episode about the missing campers.
Speaker 2: In that program that they actually showed images of mister
Speaker 2: Lynn's forward drive as it passed the traffic camera Mount Hotham.
Speaker 2: You couldn't see the number play, but you could see
Speaker 2: it was his car, and also a sketch image by
Speaker 2: police of his car. And they asked him, you know,
Speaker 2: how did that make him feel? And that's when he said,
Speaker 2: all I already knew I was on your radar. He
Speaker 2: spoke about how it was a bit like being on
Speaker 2: The Truman Show, you know, which is a reference to
Speaker 2: that nineties film about it. Oh but Jim Carrey, Yeah,
Speaker 2: about a guy whose whole life is the premise of
Speaker 2: a TV show, but he doesn't know it. He said
Speaker 2: that because people were saying odd things to him. He says,
Speaker 2: for example, he said, the president of the Little Rivers
Speaker 2: Raiders Club, which we heard later in court is a
Speaker 2: shooting club that mister Lynn was a member of. That
Speaker 2: president had taken an unusual interest in him, often calling
Speaker 2: him and sending him messages. Detectives told him they had
Speaker 2: spoken to him but only a week earlier, and mister
Speaker 2: Lynn said, well, he's a lovely guy. Maybe I'm just paranoid.
Speaker 2: Maybe he's just friendly. Then he also spoke about a colleague,
Speaker 2: a manager at Jetstar, who he said he thought didn't
Speaker 2: like him very much, and you know, he thought maybe
Speaker 2: they'd enlisted him to try and get some information out
Speaker 2: of him.
Speaker 1: We've spoken about police paying mister Lynn a visit in
Speaker 1: July twenty twenty. Did they question him about that?
Speaker 2: The police asked him about the July twenty visit when
Speaker 2: the detectives came to his home. Mister Lynn said he
Speaker 2: might have see him calm on the outside, but he
Speaker 2: was panicking internally. Asked whether he should have come forward
Speaker 2: at that point, he said it was too late by then.
Speaker 2: And that's the visit where police actually noticed his knis
Speaker 2: and patrol had been repainted from a dark gray navy
Speaker 2: to a lighter color of beige, and they asked a
Speaker 2: bit about that. They asked why he did it. He
Speaker 2: said the obvious reason, of course, is the police were
Speaker 2: looking for it, but it also needed a new coat.
Speaker 2: He said he just used paint that he had at
Speaker 2: his home in his garage. And for the first time
Speaker 2: we saw a photo of miss Lynn actually repainting the car.
Speaker 2: So we heard in court that this photo was taken
Speaker 2: by mister Lynn's wife as he's repainting, and it shows
Speaker 2: him I think about the passenger side door with a
Speaker 2: roller like a paint roller, in the middle of painting
Speaker 2: his car. And that photo was taken by his wife.
Speaker 2: And then police had that photo after his arrest and
Speaker 2: they seized his wife's phone and got it from there.
Speaker 1: So how did the record of interview ultimately?
Speaker 2: And so at the end of the interview, the detectives
Speaker 2: tell mister Lynn they're going to charge him with murder.
Speaker 2: He says he understands that, and then they go do
Speaker 2: you have anything to say about the charges? And he says,
Speaker 2: I'm innocent of murder. I haven't behaved well, I've made
Speaker 2: some poor decisions, but murder, as I understand it, I'm
Speaker 2: innocent of.
Speaker 1: So we have spoken a lot about the record of interview,
Speaker 1: but were there any other highlights from court?
Speaker 2: So last week we had some other police experts up
Speaker 2: with a forensic officer called Mark Jilatte. He's a specialist
Speaker 2: in blood stained pattern analysis. So he's the guy who
Speaker 2: goes to a crime scene and analyzes bloodstains and sees
Speaker 2: what you can tell from it. And he got grilled
Speaker 2: and cross examination. It wasn't pretty. He just got torn
Speaker 2: apart really by Dermit Dan, the defense barrister, and that's
Speaker 2: because he mentioned something called a vacuum theory. So he
Speaker 2: examined mister Lynn's shotgun and he examined the inside barrel
Speaker 2: of it, and he spoke a bit about this vacuum theory,
Speaker 2: which is essentially, if the gun is discharged at close
Speaker 2: to someone, blood can actually suck back in. Mister Dan
Speaker 2: was not happy that this got spoken about during his evidence.
Speaker 2: He during cross examination took him to task and basically
Speaker 2: accused him of colluding with the prosecution to bring this
Speaker 2: theory into evidence. Mister gladly was not a ballistics expert,
Speaker 2: so really probably wasn't qualified to speak about this theory.
Speaker 2: Mister Dan called it half baggs, accused him of lying,
Speaker 2: asked him if he had a bad memories, if he
Speaker 2: couldn't remember different conversations he had with the prosecution, and
Speaker 2: also accused him of breaching the rules of evidence, a
Speaker 2: procedure relating to expects evidence really being that he was
Speaker 2: not qualified to give it an opinion on a theory,
Speaker 2: nor was it relevant to the case. And that's something
Speaker 2: he conceded so it was pretty brutal. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: exactly how long he's up on the stand for, but yeah,
Speaker 2: it was tense. There were quite a few tense exchanges.
Speaker 1: Can you explain to our listeners why mister Dan was
Speaker 1: so upset that there was this reference to the vacuum theory.
Speaker 2: So mister Lyne's account is Missus Clay was accidentally shot
Speaker 2: in the head from about three or four meters away,
Speaker 2: So this vacuum theory it goes against his account. It
Speaker 2: wouldn't work from three or four meters distance.
Speaker 1: So for the last couple of weeks we've been ending
Speaker 1: our episodes on a lighter note, but I think this
Speaker 1: week we might end on a cliffhanger. Miles, can you
Speaker 1: tell us the final witness to be called?
Speaker 2: Well? On Wednesday afternoon, the prosecution closed its case after
Speaker 2: the evidence of Detective Brett Florence finished and mister Dan
Speaker 2: Deermit Dan, the defense barrister got up and said the
Speaker 2: defense only had one witness and that would be mister
Speaker 2: Lynn himself. So by the time you're listening to this
Speaker 2: on Thursday tomorrow, mister Lynn will likely be on the stand.
Speaker 2: He's expected to be in the witness Box from about
Speaker 2: ten to fifteen am on Thursday.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much, Miles. There will be another
Speaker 1: regular episode on Saturday, and we'll be back next week
Speaker 1: with another bonus episode outlining all the latest in the trial.
Speaker 1: But Miles will be in court every day, so be
Speaker 1: sure to check the Herald Sun website for our live
Speaker 1: coverage and the paper for his daily updates. Now go
Speaker 1: get some resk for what I'm sure will be a
Speaker 1: busy day tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Thanks Miles, Thank.
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