Former Jetstar pilot Greg Lynn told detectives how an elderly woman was accidentally shot dead while fighting with her secret lover, who was then fatally stabbed as his video interview with police was shown to a jury for the first time.
Lynn, 57, has pleaded not guilty in the Supreme Court of Victoria to the murders of Russell Hill, 74, and Carol Clay, 73, in the Wonnanangatta Valley in Victoria’s alpine region on 20 March 2020.
A video recording of the interview showed Lynn dressed in a gray windbreaker, glasses and a surgical mask as he recalled the fateful night police said he murdered the couple.
He claimed he had been in a deadly fight with Hill as they fought for control of a shotgun when it went off, killing Clay.
The jury heard Lynn approach Mr Hill, where a fight over the firearm quickly took place.
“I confronted him. ‘Give it back to me. What are you doing?’ And he said he was going to take it to the police,” Lynn said.
‘Then when I advanced on him, he already had the clip in the shotgun, pulled back the action and fired a couple of bullets into the air.’
Greg Lynn’s taped account to police played before jury
Lynn told police that the side mirror (circled) was shot out with the same explosion that killed Carol Clay.
Detective Sergeant Brett Florence was assigned the task of interviewing Greg Lynn. On Monday he gave evidence at Lynn’s trial (pictured outside court)
Lynn claimed she ran for her life before sneaking up on Mr Hill from the shadows.
“I stayed under the shade and got closer,” Lynn said.
“To try to disarm him, I jumped up, grabbed the barrel of the shotgun with my right arm, spun around to face him…I had my left hand on the stock, my right hand on the barrel, and we fought.” .
‘The shotgun was pointed this way and it went off. My hand wasn’t on the trigger, it was on the barrel… he didn’t let go, it went off. She went through the left rearview mirror and killed Mrs. Clay.
Lynn claimed he hid the shotgun when Mr Hill dropped it only to be confronted again moments later armed with a kitchen knife.
‘He advances towards me with a knife in his right hand and a clenched fist in his left. First he hits with his left hand, I blocked it,” Lynn said.
‘With his right hand, he swung the knife, I broke his wrist and with my left arm I went over his right and he pushed me to the ground and the knife stabbed into his chest.
‘He turned around and when I got off him he crawled a little and then stopped moving. And I thought “what am I going to do?”
Lynn claimed she looked for signs of life in both campers, but quickly realized they were both dead.
‘And from here I panicked. You know, that’s my shotgun, a dead person, he’s dead now too. And I’m going to be found guilty of this,” Lynn said.
The jury heard Lynn worked quickly to cover up the bloody crime scene.
“It was very messy and that’s why I put the tables and things inside the store,” Lynn said.
The jury heard Lynn set fire to the campers’ tent before hauling their bodies away in his trailer.
The jury will see just under four hours of the interview, conducted by Missing Persons Unit detectives Brett Florence and Daniel Passingham at Sale police station on November 23, 2021.
Speaking in a soft, calm tone, Lynn told police that she hoped to simply forget what happened in the bush and move on with her life.
“I just wanted it all to go away and move on and not think about it again, but that’s not really going to happen,” Lynn told detectives.
‘I’ve just been trying to keep my head down and get on with life and forget about it. But she has caught up with me.
Fire damage was detected on Mr Hill’s Landcruiser. Lynn admitted to burning their camp and then her body.
Among the mangled remains of her body was a ring believed to have belonged to Carol Clay.
Lynn told police she wished she had come forward immediately after claiming the “tragic accident” occurred.
‘I wish I had shown up now too, but I just wanted it to go away. No matter what happened, he was screwed.
The jury heard Lynn calmly describe what was left of the elderly campers after he returned to the crime scene months later to finish disposing of their bodies.
‘The snow has dissipated. Now it’s November and I thought, ‘I have to finish this because I don’t want to have to deal with that again,'” she said.
‘I went back there and just set them on fire. And there is nothing there. You will see where it is but you will not find anything there. There is nothing to bury. I’m sorry.
‘That’s the truth and that’s the best I can give you. It won’t be a great relief for the family. There is nothing to see, nothing to find.
‘Go and have a look. You will find evidence of the fire. It is what it is.’
Lynn described the moment she first saw Mr. Hill and Mrs. Clay as they were heading to a camp very close to hers at a place known as ‘Bucks Camp.’
‘I saw them stop. “I remember he braked at a high speed and she seemed quite alarmed in the car,” she said.
Lynn told detectives that while she would have preferred Mr. Hill to have camped further away, she thought nothing of it.
“There were hundreds of other places to camp, but if you want to camp here, it’s free country and you can do whatever you want,” Lynn said.
‘Good. Yes, I would have preferred to have it on my own, but I don’t mind.’
While the first night ended without incident, Lynn claimed that Hill told him a strange story the next morning about “a colleague” who had recently died on a deer hunting trip.
“He was smiling as he said it,” Lynn said.
The 12-gauge shotgun Lynn claims Hill stole from her before accidentally shooting her secret lover
Carol Clay was shot in the head before Hill died from a knife wound to the chest, Lynn claims.
Later that day, Lynn claimed he was surprised to see a drone flying above him piloted by Mr Hill..
“That was weird…I thought, ‘What’s this all about?'” Lynn said.
The jury heard that Lynn decided to confront Mr Hill about the drone that same night.
“I walked up there and asked him why he was using the drone and he told me he didn’t like deer hunters and that he had some video footage of me hunting near the campground,” Lynn told police.
Hill allegedly told Lynn he planned to take those images to police.
“I think the only purpose was that he just wanted me to go,” Lynn said.
The jury heard that Lynn retreated to his own campsite to eat dinner before turning up the volume on his car stereo.
‘Yes, I was upset. “I didn’t do anything about it, but I turned on the stereo and played loud music, which was kind of childish,” he said.
It was around 10 p.m. when Lynn claimed she heard the doors of her Nissan Patrol open.
His shotgun and ammunition were stored inside.
“I could see Mr Hill walking away from the car. “He had the Barathrum shotgun in his hands and he had the magazine that he had foolishly loaded there and he walked back to his car,” Lynn said.
Then, he said, the deadly fight for control of the gun began.
Greg Lynn leaves the desert after his deadly confrontation in March 2020
Lynn’s attorney, Dermot Dann, KC, previously told the jury Lynn’s version of events.
When detectives asked her if she felt okay trusting them, Lynn stated yes.
‘I guess so. I just wish it had never happened. I just wanted it to go away when it happened and it’s been stressful,” she said.
The jury heard that Lynn had not told anyone his side of the story, not even his wife Melanie, until his arrest in November of that year.
Lynn told detectives she felt like Jim Carey’s character in the 1998 movie ‘The Truman Show’ after watching a 60 Minutes segment about the missing campers.
‘Well, I know I’ve been on the radar for a while and do you know how many people have just said weird things… a bit like The Truman Show, where everyone knows what’s going on but you don’t? As if Truman doesn’t know he’s really on TV,” he said.
