When Carol Clay rekindled her relationship with her childhood sweetheart, Russell Hill, she believed fate had decided they should be together.
So when the couple disappeared in the Wonnangatta Valley in Victoria’s alpine region in March 2020, those closest to the couple He believed it possible that they had faked their own disappearance to live their best lives together a world away.
In reality, their fates were sealed the moment they made the mistake of pitching their tent alongside former Jetstar pilot Greg Lynn, who was found guilty in the Victorian Supreme Court of murdering Clay but not guilty of Hill.
Lynn was found guilty of the murder of Carol Clay and not guilty of Russell Hill. They were in a secret relationship.
Former Jetstar pilot Greg Lynn has pleaded not guilty to the murder of the elderly campers. He was found guilty of murdering Clay, but not Hill, on Tuesday.
In closing the prosecution’s case, prosecutor Daniel Porceddu examined the relevance of the elderly couple’s secret relationship and whether or not it contributed to their deaths.
Lynn’s own lawyer, Dermott Dann, KC, later told the jury: “It’s not irrelevant.”
The former driver claimed Clay was dressed in pajamas when Hill made the mistake of stealing his shotgun from the back seat of his Nissan Patrol.
He told the court that the ensuing struggle for control of the gun led to the death of the elderly couple.
Lynn told police he had turned up the volume on his stereo to annoy Mr Hill after an earlier confrontation over his drone.
“He’s trying to have fun in bed and I was playing the music loud and he lost his temper,” Lynn said.
During the trial, Robyn Hill, Mr Hill’s long-suffering wife, explained what she knew about her husband’s sordid relationship with his mistress.
Part of that story delved into Mr. Hill’s personal struggles with depression.
She told the jury Hill began taking antidepressants after an incident in the mid-1970s in the bush where he worked in the logging industry.
“I have to say that when he went to the hospital his penis was very enlarged and it wouldn’t go down and that was apparently part of the depression,” he told the jury.
The court heard Hill continued to take antidepressants intermittently in the years following the day he was allegedly murdered.
Robyn Hill appeared before the Supreme Court of Victoria, where she was questioned about her husband’s secret life.
Russell Hill was about 187 cm tall and weighed about 93 kg at the time of his death.
Hill told the court that her husband had long lied about his relationship with Clay, who Lynn said was shot by Hill in a tragic accident before dying after falling on a knife in the following fight.
The jury heard that Hill was Clay’s first boyfriend, but they had dated again in the early 2000s.
Hill told the court she and her husband were going on holiday to Phillip Island with Clay and her then-husband oblivious to their secret relationship.
She told the court she had known Clay since her husband, who had told her Clay was his first cousin.
It was a lie that Mrs. Hill only discovered after observing Mr. Hill and Mrs. Clay behaving in “strange ways,” such as going for walks together on those trips.
The secret relationship finally came to a head when a neighbor of the Hills threatened to expose Mr. Hill’s behavior to his wife.
The court heard Mr Hill confessed to the relationship but assured his wife he would end the affair immediately – a lie he maintained until his alleged murder.
Hill said she believed her husband was alone when he set out on his final camping trip to Mt.
The jury heard that Hill had told his entire family he would be alone.
The court heard Hill had bought her husband a new box of antidepressants along with cans of bourbon and coke and a bottle of Bundaberg rum for the trip.
Greg Lynn claims Russell Hill tried to steal his shotgun when he was forced to intervene in what became a deadly fight.
Police later found a label for the erectile dysfunction pill Viagra belonging to Mr Hill in the bin in Ms Clay’s bathroom.
Hill broke down in tears as she remembered how her husband continued to lie about her relationship with Clay.
Hill said her husband liked to sit by the campfire at night enjoying a few drinks.
She told the court she had married him in 1969 and he initially lived in Lilydale before moving to an apartment in Nayook, east of Melbourne.
Hill had worked his entire life in the logging industry, hauling logs out of the woods with a bulldozer.
He had helped create some of the tracks he last drove on in the Wonnangatta Valley, where he died.
Hill said she would also camp with her husband in the same rugged areas where he took Clay.
“When Debbie was very little we used to camp in a caravan there during Christmas because he would be laying tracks,” she said.
Robyn Hill and her daughter Debbie testified during the trial.
Hill had lived with him in Drouin, in Melbourne’s south-east, at the time of his death.
The court heard that Hill had taken up flying a drone during his retirement, where he liked to get an aerial view of the landscape below.
He also talked about his love for amateur radio and how he talked to his friends every day.
The court heard she briefly listened to radio calls Hill made two days before his death.
“A lot of times I didn’t listen to all that because it was just a man’s thing,” she said.
Hill said her husband seemed jovial before embarking on what would be his last adventure.
‘He was happy because he liked going up there. It’s a lovely place,’ she said.
Hill’s daughter, Debbie Hill, told jurors that she knew about her father’s relationship with Clay “for a long time.”
Like her mother, she recalled that her father told her he would end the relationship in the mid-2000s.
Images obtained by police during the initial search for the missing campers
A witness stated that Greg Lynn was camped in the surrounded area. Mr Hill’s vehicle was found about 30 meters from the exposed river.
The Wonnanangatta Valley in the alpine region of Victoria, where Russell Hill and Carol Clay were allegedly murdered
Dann told jurors that the couple’s relationship remained an enigma to many who knew them.
“He had been living a double life for a long, long time,” Mr Dann said.
He told the jury that Mr Hill, who was described as a tall, fit man, was probably drunk and agitated when Lynn claimed he stole his shotgun.
‘It was late at night. “We say the inference is that Mr Hill was fueled by alcohol,” Mr Dann said.
‘I had only been there a couple of nights or one night before. She has the alcohol. She is in the store with Mrs. Clay and she has someone playing loud music.
Dann reminded the jury of what Lynn told police about what she thought the couple was doing when she bothered them that night.
‘Mr Lynn says in his minutes of the interview that he thought they were having fun in bed. Now, are you making this up? Are you just making it up? Mr. Dann said.
‘It matches (what another witness) said was his impression of the relationship. It was an intimate relationship.
‘We have to back up Mr Lynn’s account again, not that he could know, possibly know anything about this, we have Viagra records that (a police officer) saw the prescription in the bin, obviously a recent prescription.
“There are still some lights on in their camp, so they won’t sleep at night.”
On Tuesday, a jury could not conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Lynn murdered Mr. Hill, but found him guilty of killing Ms. Clay.