Former Jetstar pilot Greg Lynn used his experience as an airline captain to make the quick decision to cover up the “accidental deaths” of secret lovers Russell Hill and Carol Clay.
Lynn claimed that Ms. Clay was dressed in her pajamas when Mr. Hill made the fateful decision to steal her shotgun from the back seat of her Nissan Patrol.
He told the court that the ensuing struggle for control of the gun led to the death of the elderly couple.
Lynn, 57, pleaded not guilty in the Supreme Court of Victoria to the murders of Hill, 74, and Clay, 73, in the Wonnanangatta Valley in Victoria’s alpine region on March 20, 2020. .
On Tuesday, a jury heard Lynn’s account to detectives about how she came up with the plan to cover up the couple’s alleged murders using her experience as a pilot.
Greg Lynn said he used his experience as a pilot to make the quick decision to cover the campers’ bodies.
The Barathrum shotgun that Lynn claims was stolen by Russell Hill.
‘I thought: “What am I going to do?” and my business, my profession, is working with decision-making pathways,” he told police.
“I mean you might think I made a terrible mistake here, but making quick decisions to try to get the best result, that’s what I do.”
Video recording of Lynn’s police interview showed the former pilot dressed in a gray windbreaker, glasses and a surgical mask as he recalled the fateful night police said he murdered the couple.
Lynn claimed he had been in a deadly fight with Mr. Hill as they fought for control of a 12-gauge shotgun when it went off, killing Ms. Clay.
Hill then died in a fatal fight after attacking him with a knife, Lynn claimed.
In the face of bloody consequences, Lynn said he did what he did to try to keep his career in the skies.
“I tried to save myself,” Lynn said.
Lynn claimed that if he had been a doctor or a shopkeeper, the police could have more easily accepted his actions.
Greg Lynn had a license to carry weapons and shoot deer.
Detective Sergeant Brett Florence (pictured on Tuesday) was tasked with interviewing Greg Lynn.
The former driver said the incident occurred when he was at a high point in his life at home and in his racing career.
“And this to me was a disaster and I thought, ‘What else can I do?’ and if I covered it up, not so much cover it up (the crime scene), but cover it up for me. To make me disappear,” Lynn said.
‘I quickly made this assessment. This is the only one that offers any hope, not guaranteed, of avoiding it.
Lynn told police he made a list of tasks to complete by leaving the campers’ bodies hidden under a pile of branches.
“And I set out to do it,” he said. ‘I packed my bags, hitched up the trailer, packed up my camp, put them in the trailer and then looked at the evidence.
“There was no evidence that I was there now, there were questions about who had seen me there, but I never really talked to anyone other than the blackberry sprayers and that was two days before,” Lynn said.
“So I chose that path, but it quickly fell apart at the first turn.”
The jury heard that Lynn was torn apart by CCTV cameras on the mountain which captured him in the area at the time of the alleged murders.
Carol Clay and Russell Hill had been in a secret relationship when they met Greg Lynn in the remote desert.
The deadly fight allegedly took place in the front of Hill’s Landcruiser (pictured)
The data from his phone and that of the campers would also point the police to his address.
The jury heard that detectives traveled to Lynn’s property in July that year, where they observed that his Nissan Patrol had changed color from what they had observed on CCTV at the time of the alleged murders.
But he was able to return to the crime scene in November, where Lynn cremated what was left of the couple’s bodies.
Lynn claimed he set the bodies on fire using a small amount of kerosene and firewood, burning their corpses throughout the night until nothing was left among the mangled remains.
The jury heard that Lynn’s first contact with Mr Hill had been a “jovial affair” even though he camped very close to his own camp along the river at a location known as Bucks Camp.
Things got ugly the next day when Lynn claimed Hill started filming him with his drone.
Russell Hill’s antics with a drone indirectly led to his own disappearance, Greg Lynn claimed
The charred remains of the Russell Hill camp after Lynn set it on fire
Lynn told police that Hill had accused him of hunting too close to camp and told him he planned to take the drone footage he had captured to police.
Tensions escalated later that night after Lynn claimed to have disturbed Mr Hill by turning up the volume on his car stereo.
On Tuesday, the jury heard new details about how Lynn claimed the elderly couple spent their last moments alive.
Lynn claimed that Ms. Clay was dressed in her pajamas when Mr. Hill made the fateful decision to steal her shotgun from the back seat of her Nissan Patrol.
Lynn claimed that Ms. Clay begged Mr. Hill to drop the gun while she tried to disarm him.
“Stop it, Russell,” he allegedly shouted.
Crouching in front of the couple’s store, Mr Hill would shoot her in the head, killing her instantly, Lynn claimed.
The jury heard that Lynn had become involved in a deadly struggle over the loaded shotgun, which carried ammunition designed to quickly kill a normal-sized deer.
Lynn told police she had been looking Hill in the eyes when she pulled the trigger.
Moments earlier, Lynn claimed to have begged Mr. Hill to drop the shotgun.
‘I told him to give it back to me, but he refused. He cocked it and released one, not at me, but right over my head, so “I was scared to death,” Lynn later told police.
The jury heard that Mr Hill took the shotgun and loaded it after becoming enraged by the volume of Lynn’s car stereo.
Lynn told police the shot fired by Russell Hill in a deadly struggle flew out of the side mirror of his Landcruiser (pictured) and hit Carol Clay in the head.
Greg Lynn changed the color of his Nissan Patrol from a dark color (pictured on CCTV the night after the alleged murders) to a tan color using paint from his garage and a roller.
Lynn told police she had turned up the volume on her stereo to annoy Mr Hill after their earlier confrontation over the drone.
“He’s trying to have fun in bed and I was playing the music loud and he lost his temper,” Lynn said.
Caught in the face-to-face struggle with the angry camper, Lynn told police he couldn’t drop the gun and run.
“I thought they might shoot me in the back if I ran away,” he said.
The trial continues.