Speaker 1: This is Life and Crimes. I'm Laura Placella, standing in
Speaker 1: for Andrew Rawle, who's on assignment. I'm joined by my
Speaker 1: colleague at The Herald's son, Myles Proust, to continue discussing
Speaker 1: one of the most compelling trials that we've seen in
Speaker 1: recent years. If you 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 Waningata Valley in Victoria's North. The men accused
Speaker 1: of their murder is former Jetstar pilot Greg Lynn. He
Speaker 1: is standing trial in the Supreme Court where Miles has
Speaker 1: been practically living for the past couple of weeks. To
Speaker 1: be able to break down the trial for our readers
Speaker 1: and listeners, this episode will unpack the evidence of the
Speaker 1: last seven days as the prosecution continues to present its
Speaker 1: case to the jury. Thanks again for joining us, Myles.
Speaker 2: Great to be back, Laura.
Speaker 1: So last week, most of the witnesses we heard from
Speaker 1: were people who knew Russell Hill and Carol Clay personally.
Speaker 1: But this week there's been a bit of a shift
Speaker 1: and now we're hearing from police officers and experts. Can
Speaker 1: you tell us a bit more about the evidence the
Speaker 1: cops gave.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. So there has been a bit of
Speaker 2: a shift in the evidence. I think at the start
Speaker 2: of the trial we're hearing from family friends, different campers,
Speaker 2: other hunters who had interactions with mister Hill and missus Clay,
Speaker 2: and now we're moving more into the police investigation side
Speaker 2: of things and also forensics. So last week we heard
Speaker 2: from a woman called Abbi Justin. She's a detective with
Speaker 2: the Missing Persons squad, so she is the first police
Speaker 2: officer who was part of the unit that investigated this
Speaker 2: case to give evidence. She gave some interesting evidence about
Speaker 2: how mister Lynn was tracked and connected to the disappearance
Speaker 2: of the missing campers. She spoke about how mister Hill's
Speaker 2: phone data indicated his mobile phone traveled along the Great
Speaker 2: Alpine Road around ten am or March twenty one, twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: This is the morning after the alleged murders. Then mister
Speaker 2: Lynn's miss and patrol was captured on automatic number plate
Speaker 2: recognition cameras near Mount Hotham. These are cameras like traffic
Speaker 2: cameras that are set up to catch people who are
Speaker 2: driving up into the ski resort and parking and just
Speaker 2: to ensure that they're paid to be there. So mister
Speaker 2: Lynn's car is captured on these cameras at the same
Speaker 2: time or a similar time as mister Hill's phone was
Speaker 2: traveling in the area. And so she said this enabled
Speaker 2: police to track down mister Lynn, and they paid mister
Speaker 2: Lynn a visit at his Caroline Springs home in July
Speaker 2: twenty twenty, so a few months after the couple's disappearance.
Speaker 2: And one of the things she said is she noticed
Speaker 2: mister Lynn's dark colored forward drive. So it was a
Speaker 2: dark sort of navy gray color in the traffic cameras,
Speaker 2: it had been repainted to a light brown, and she
Speaker 2: took a photo of it.
Speaker 1: So mister Lynn's car was repainted by the time police
Speaker 1: paid him a visit.
Speaker 2: That's right. So when police paid him a visit in
Speaker 2: July twenty twenty, it had been repainted since the couple
Speaker 2: had disappeared in March twenty twenty, and mister Lynn was
Speaker 2: captured on these traffic cameras. Now it's the prosecution case
Speaker 2: that mister Lynn repainted his car to avoid being linked
Speaker 2: to the alleged murders of mister Hill and missus Clay,
Speaker 2: and the jury was actually shown images of the different
Speaker 2: painted cars. So there were the traffic camera images which
Speaker 2: showed this dark colored forward drive and then they were
Speaker 2: shown pictures of the car after it had been taken
Speaker 2: by police and it showed it was a sort of
Speaker 2: light brown Beiji color.
Speaker 1: Did any other police officers give evidence?
Speaker 2: Yep, we heard from another cop called Amy Frost. So
Speaker 2: she's from Sale Police, which is the area sort of
Speaker 2: closest to where the couple disappeared, and she spoke about
Speaker 2: the early stage of the investigation. She actually met with
Speaker 2: mister Hill and missus Clay's families in Druen and Pakenham
Speaker 2: in April twenty twenty, so just a few weeks after
Speaker 2: they disappeared, and she obtained statements and looked for evidence
Speaker 2: that might assist in their investment. Part of that included
Speaker 2: taking items so they could be used for DNA comparison
Speaker 2: later on if remains were found. So they took a
Speaker 2: shaver from mister Hill and a toothbrush from missus Clay.
Speaker 1: What else did she find.
Speaker 2: Well, she also revealed she found a ripped up box
Speaker 2: of viagra in mister Hill's name in the bathroom bin
Speaker 2: of missus Clay's home.
Speaker 1: Very interesting. Yeah, So we've also been hearing from a
Speaker 1: number of experts this week. Can you tell our listeners
Speaker 1: what exactly is expert evidence.
Speaker 2: So expert evidence or expert witnesses are a little bit
Speaker 2: different to other witnesses. So they're not people who have
Speaker 2: any connection to the case. They're not people who were
Speaker 2: eyewitnesses or family members or friends. They are typically experts
Speaker 2: who were specialists within a specific field. So this could
Speaker 2: be anything from weapons, ballistics, health. We even had one
Speaker 2: expert who was specialized in insects, all different types, and
Speaker 2: they are usually asked to make a written report. They
Speaker 2: presented evidence, asked to give in an opinion, they write
Speaker 2: up a report, that report is tended, and then they
Speaker 2: are asked about it in court.
Speaker 1: So at this point we will be discussing some evidence
Speaker 1: which may involve discussing details that could be confronting or
Speaker 1: gruesome for some. So if that isn't your type of thing,
Speaker 1: you may want to skip ahead. So with that disclaimer
Speaker 1: out of the way, can you tell us what we
Speaker 1: heard from some of their experts.
Speaker 2: So on Thursday, the jury was shown photos of bone
Speaker 2: fragments and teeth found in remote bushland during search for
Speaker 2: the remains of mister Hill and Missus Clay. This evidence
Speaker 2: was part of the testimony of George Sidius. He's a
Speaker 2: forensic officer from the Fire Explosives Unit of the Victorian
Speaker 2: Police Forensic Services Center. He's someone who sort of specializes
Speaker 2: in arson and evidence that has been burnt. Now, he
Speaker 2: was part of this search of this area known as
Speaker 2: Union Sper Track in November twenty twenty one. So just
Speaker 2: to recap mister Lind's account is mister Hill and Missus
Speaker 2: Clay were accidentally killed and then he feared he would
Speaker 2: be blamed for their deaths, and so he removed their bodies,
Speaker 2: took them up to this Union Spur track site which
Speaker 2: is in Bushland. It's a remote track in bushland north
Speaker 2: of Dargo, and he's dumped the bodies there and then
Speaker 2: he's actually come back eight months later and set fire
Speaker 2: to their remains. So mister Zidius, he was part of
Speaker 2: his search. He found bone fragments, teeth, remnants of a wristwatch,
Speaker 2: and what he thought was some part of an article
Speaker 2: of a clothing. Across two search areas, so a small
Speaker 2: depression in a little clearing just off the track and
Speaker 2: the base of a fallen tree about fifteen sixteen meters away.
Speaker 2: The jury was shown some of the things that were
Speaker 2: found as part of his search, and there were quite
Speaker 2: a few photographs, and mister Zidios was taken through them
Speaker 2: and identified different things. You could see small charred bone
Speaker 2: fragments and several teeth in some of the images. Missus
Speaker 2: Hidious explained that it appeared a fire had been lit
Speaker 2: in the clearing before the remnants were deposited in the
Speaker 2: base of the fallen tree not far away. And during
Speaker 2: cross examination, Dermitt Dan, the defense barrister, spoke about this
Speaker 2: a little bit. He said Miss Lynn told police he
Speaker 2: used a small amount of kerosene to burn the missing
Speaker 2: campus bodies before he used the dustpan to move their
Speaker 2: remains to the other spot.
Speaker 1: And I remember you saying with the defense openings that
Speaker 1: apparently doing so made mister Linge physically sick.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what he's told police.
Speaker 1: Did we hear from any other experts.
Speaker 2: We did. We heard from a woman called Dadna Hartman.
Speaker 2: So she was a molecular biologist at the Victorian Institute
Speaker 2: of forensic Medicine. She told the court her lab received
Speaker 2: multiple bone fragments from this search and they tested it
Speaker 2: DNA analysis of one bone. This was the only bone
Speaker 2: that was found suitable. A lot of them were burnt
Speaker 2: and there was over two thousand bones found up at
Speaker 2: unionsper track. Wow, there was only one at least among
Speaker 2: the ones her laboratory received, which was suitable for DNA analysis.
Speaker 2: She said it was likely a match for mister Hill.
Speaker 2: While a fragment recovered from Bucks Camp, so Bucks Camp
Speaker 2: is where the alleged murders took place, that was found
Speaker 2: to likely belong to missus Clay. Then the next day,
Speaker 2: on Friday, we heard from Lyndall Smyth. She is a
Speaker 2: dental expert with the same place Vifim Victorian Institute a
Speaker 2: forensic medicine, and she was tasked with examining some of
Speaker 2: these teeth that were found up there. She compared the
Speaker 2: teeth with the dental records of mister Hill and missus
Speaker 2: Clay and this was quite interesting. She spoke about how
Speaker 2: mister Hill didn't have complete sort of full dental records,
Speaker 2: he had partial records, but missus Clay did so that
Speaker 2: included things like full mouth X rays. The teeth, she said,
Speaker 2: some of which were partially missing, likely belonged to mister Hill,
Speaker 2: but only two could be matched with his records. And
Speaker 2: the jury was again shown images and X rays of
Speaker 2: these five teeth and something called a dental bridge, which
Speaker 2: is an artificial tooth held in place by other teeth,
Speaker 2: as doctor Smythe pointed out where they were located in
Speaker 2: the mouth.
Speaker 1: So I remember you saying that there were even experts
Speaker 1: that specialized in things like insects. Did we hear from
Speaker 1: one of those experts?
Speaker 2: We did. We heard from a woman called Melanie Archer,
Speaker 2: again working for VIFAM. I can't even pronounce how you
Speaker 2: say the expert in insects, but I'll give it a go.
Speaker 2: A forensic entomologist. Hey, not bad, thank you. So she
Speaker 2: examined some blowfly puperia, which is these little cocoons that
Speaker 2: blowflies have as they grow from a maggot to a fly,
Speaker 2: quite similar to a cocoon. They were found alongside the remains,
Speaker 2: and she said that suggested some decomposition had taken place
Speaker 2: before the bodies were burnt. Under cross examination by mister
Speaker 2: Dan's defense lawyer, she said those findings were consistent with
Speaker 2: mister Lind's account that he had burnt their remains sometime
Speaker 2: after the bodies were dumbed.
Speaker 1: Were the jury shown any photos of those insects?
Speaker 2: They were, so there were more so shown images of
Speaker 2: I think there were a couple that maybe had some
Speaker 2: maggots in them, but it looked like a sort of
Speaker 2: outer casing, sort of like a cocoon, you know, a
Speaker 2: butterfly cocoon, but an outer casing that's actually used by
Speaker 2: these fliers.
Speaker 1: Can you tell our listeners just a little bit more
Speaker 1: about how photos are shown in court and what's the
Speaker 1: process for tendering them.
Speaker 2: So photos are shown to the jury during examination of
Speaker 2: a witness, So the witness gets up on the stand,
Speaker 2: they talk through their evidence or a statement while they're
Speaker 2: being questioned from the prosecution, and then images are also
Speaker 2: shown on a big sort of screen so the whole
Speaker 2: dury conceit, and also on a tablet in front of
Speaker 2: the witness, and the witness can actually interact with the
Speaker 2: tablet and perhaps be asked to circle or identify different
Speaker 2: things that are seen in that image. And because they're
Speaker 2: an expert winn is, they can take the jury through
Speaker 2: complex issues and identify different parts of different things. And
Speaker 2: then once that's happened, these photos and not just photos,
Speaker 2: it can be footage or documents or things like that.
Speaker 2: They attended as exhibits and so that means it's now
Speaker 2: part of the evidence.
Speaker 1: And can those photos be released to the media.
Speaker 2: They can. So we have been getting quite a lot
Speaker 2: of these exhibits. So if you've been reading the stories
Speaker 2: online and also in the newspaper, you'll see there are
Speaker 2: new images with each story. And that's because after an
Speaker 2: image has been tended in evidence, we can then request it.
Speaker 2: Often they are released. We don't get everything, for example,
Speaker 2: and I don't think the media did request this just
Speaker 2: because we thought it would be too graphic to show
Speaker 2: to our readers and viewers. But we didn't request the
Speaker 2: bone fragments, for example. They're not necessarily gruesome. They were
Speaker 2: just these tiny sort of bone fragments that have been
Speaker 2: quite charred, kind of looked like cold. But again, it's
Speaker 2: just not something that's appropriate to request and probably not
Speaker 2: something that's appropriate to publish given the sensitivities around the case.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, so let's move on from the gruesome stuff.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us about some of the other experts
Speaker 1: that gave evidence maybe in some other specific fields.
Speaker 2: So we heard it from a guy called Matthew Sorrel.
Speaker 2: He's a digital forensic expert who examined the phone records
Speaker 2: and data for mister Lynn and the missing campers phones,
Speaker 2: and he had a great way of explaining quite complex
Speaker 2: evidence about how phones worked and the cellular network and
Speaker 2: what you could take away from that in quite a
Speaker 2: simple way that I think the jury really understood and
Speaker 2: everyone in court really understood. And through his evidence he
Speaker 2: had shown maps, I think he said he actually created
Speaker 2: them himselves, which basically showed the movement of the different
Speaker 2: mobile phones as they moved through different areas in the
Speaker 2: high country, and he could identify where a phone was
Speaker 2: when it connected to it, particularly a cell tower, and
Speaker 2: he'd had a great way of explaining that. So, for example,
Speaker 2: he said, the data showed mister Hill and missus Clay
Speaker 2: meeting at Paknam on the morning of March nineteen, twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: That's the day they left for the camping trip to
Speaker 2: the Wanagata Valley, and this map showed them plotting along
Speaker 2: as they traveled east, then north, and then into the
Speaker 2: high country before it lost signal. The last phone tower
Speaker 2: it connected to was at Hotham Heights, and he also
Speaker 2: explained about why there is no phone coverage up in
Speaker 2: the high country. He said, for example, there's just no
Speaker 2: commercial reason to have it. But for example, there are
Speaker 2: base stations at Hotham Heights and Mount Buller, and just
Speaker 2: because of the elevation where they are, they spread quite
Speaker 2: far out. But you can only get that signal when
Speaker 2: you're also at a sort of similar elevation. So that
Speaker 2: means if you're down in the valleys, he said, you
Speaker 2: won't get a signal, but if you go up to
Speaker 2: someone like the Howard High Plaines area quite above the tree,
Speaker 2: then you probably will get a signal. And just myself,
Speaker 2: I've been up there, I've been hiking in the area,
Speaker 2: and you can get signals when you're at the top
Speaker 2: of Mount Bogong, but not down the bottom of the mountain.
Speaker 2: So you just had good evidence of explaining how this
Speaker 2: data works and what we can tell from it. And
Speaker 2: probably one of the most interesting things he spoke about
Speaker 2: was data from mister Lynn's phone in November twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: so this is time and mister Lind's admitted this himself
Speaker 2: when he went back up into the high country to
Speaker 2: burn the remains the bodies of the missing campus. So
Speaker 2: the data showed that mister Lynn's phone last connected to
Speaker 2: a cell network in Thomastown at about eleven forty am
Speaker 2: on November eighteen, twenty twenty, and then it did not
Speaker 2: reconnect to another cell tower until two days later about
Speaker 2: ten am in Roville, sort of Heathmont area. So doctor
Speaker 2: Sorell said that's because the phone was essentially switched off.
Speaker 2: And when he said that, he doesn't mean it was
Speaker 2: just turned off like it could also mean, you know,
Speaker 2: it was put into flight mode or it might have
Speaker 2: gone flat.
Speaker 1: So just to clarify, it's over those two days where
Speaker 1: mister Lynn's phone can't be detected by any cellular towers,
Speaker 1: he has gone back to the one and Gata Valley
Speaker 1: and burnt the bodies of mister Hill and missus Clay.
Speaker 2: Yes, we do think that because under cross examination by
Speaker 2: Michael McGrath, this is miss Lynn's other lawyer, Dr Sorrel,
Speaker 2: he agreed it was not inconsistent with the scenario in
Speaker 2: which the phone was turned off or put in flight
Speaker 2: mode as it returned to the alpine region. And that's
Speaker 2: again mister Lynn has admitted to this. This is the
Speaker 2: account he gave to police that he did return in
Speaker 2: November twenty twenty and he burnt the bodies.
Speaker 1: But did he return to the bodies sometime around May
Speaker 1: to check up on them? Is that right?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So we've previously heard that mister Lynn did actually
Speaker 2: return to Union's Spur Track twice May twenty twenty, so
Speaker 2: a couple months after and that was to check if
Speaker 2: the remains had been uncovered, if they were still there,
Speaker 2: I guess, And then he's come back again in November
Speaker 2: twenty twenty and that's when he's actually burnt them.
Speaker 1: And to round out the week. Is it right to
Speaker 1: say we heard from a ballistics expert.
Speaker 2: YEP, that's right. So we heard from a guy called
Speaker 2: Paul Griffiths. He is a leading Senior Constable of Police
Speaker 2: and he's a ballistics and firearms expert with the Forensic
Speaker 2: Services Center. So he examined mister Lynn's shotgun. He's barathium
Speaker 2: twelve gage shotgun and he carried out trajectory testing, so
Speaker 2: that involved actually firing the firearm in different scenarios to
Speaker 2: see what would happen to the shot and so Constable
Speaker 2: Griffiths conducted three of these tests, the trajectory tests. There
Speaker 2: was one where missus Clay one hundred and sixty centimeters
Speaker 2: tool is in a standing position, she's in a semi
Speaker 2: crouch position, and she's in a crouch position, and he
Speaker 2: found it was plausible that she was shot in the
Speaker 2: head while in a standing position. Now, of course, mister
Speaker 2: lind'sccount is she was crouched. So this is a real
Speaker 2: issue in dispute and part of why mister Dan went
Speaker 2: hard on him during cross examination.
Speaker 1: So last week we ended on a light note, and
Speaker 1: I think to keep that tradition going, Is there anything
Speaker 1: you can tell our listeners that was maybe less serious
Speaker 1: and all the things we've heard so far.
Speaker 2: Perhaps it doesn't sound so light. But actually brought the
Speaker 2: shotgun into courts of mister Lynn's gun. So this is
Speaker 2: quite a large weapon. I think it was almost a
Speaker 2: meter long. It's quite big, sort of big black shotgun
Speaker 2: and Costable Griffiths. Instead of being in the witness box,
Speaker 2: he actually went into a little area that's reserved for
Speaker 2: the media where the journalists usually sit, and he demonstrated
Speaker 2: to the jury how this gun operates. And how it
Speaker 2: was loaded. It obviously didn't have any ammunition in it.
Speaker 1: You would hope not.
Speaker 3: No, definitely not.
Speaker 2: And then he actually got asked because he was pointing
Speaker 2: it down the table and that was where the reporters
Speaker 2: were all sitting. And then I think the judge actually
Speaker 2: asked him to turn it around and pointed out the
Speaker 2: walls so it wasn't out of anyone's way and he
Speaker 2: just sort of equipped, you're frightening the journalists, is what
Speaker 2: Justice Michael Croucher said, which is a bit of a
Speaker 2: light moment.
Speaker 1: Well, thanks so much again Miles for your time. Andrew.
Speaker 1: I'll be back this Saturday for his regular show, and
Speaker 1: we'll be back next week with another bonus episode outlining
Speaker 1: all the latest in this trial. But Miles will continue
Speaker 1: to be in court every day, so be sure to
Speaker 1: check the Herald Sun website and the paper for his
Speaker 1: daily updates. Thanks again, Thanks.
Speaker 3: Laura, thanks for listening. Life and Crimes is a Sunday
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