Murdered camper Russell Hill was hospitalized after suffering from depression and a painful personal problem, a court heard.
Former Jetstar pilot Greg Lynn, 57, has pleaded not guilty in the Victorian Supreme Court to the murders of secret lovers Hill, 74, and Carol Clay, 73, in the region’s Wonnanangatta Valley. alpina of Victoria, in March 2020.
On Tuesday, Hill’s wife, Robyn Hill, explained what she knew about how Hill was started on 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 throughout the years leading up to the day he was allegedly murdered.
Robyn Hill appeared in the Supreme Court of Victoria on Tuesday, 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 Hill was Clay’s first boyfriend but they 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 Ms. Hill only discovered after observing Mr. Hill and Ms. 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.
Carol Clay was allegedly attacked with a shotgun by Lynn before Hill was impaled with a knife during a fight with the former pilot.
Greg Lynn claims Russell Hill tried to steal his shotgun when he was forced to intervene in what became a deadly fight.
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.
Ms Hill broke down in tears as Lynn’s lawyer, Dermot Dann, KC, explained how Mr Hill continued to lie about his secret camping trips with Ms Clay.
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.
A bottle of wine was also later found in the burned camp.
He also gave him $20 or $30 in cash so he could buy lunch.
Mrs Hill agreed with Mr Dann that her husband liked to sit by the fire at night enjoying a few drinks.
On Wednesday, the court heard Lynn claimed Hill and Clay died in a “tragic accident.”
Dann told the jury that Hill stole Lynn’s shotgun after becoming enraged that Lynn was playing loud music the night he was murdered.
“He headed toward Mr. Hill to try to get the gun back, to take control of the gun,” Dann said.
The jury heard that when Lynn tried to grab the firearm from Mr Hill, the gun went off and Ms Clay was hit in the head.
‘A fight developed over the knife. “Mr Lynn is trying to defend himself, they are engaged in this struggle, and as part of that struggle, the two men fall to the ground and the knife goes through Mr Hill’s chest,” Mr Dann said.
Robyn Hill and her daughter Debbie testified Tuesday.
Images obtained by police during the initial search for the missing campers
The court heard that Hill was no stranger to shotguns and had owned two of the firearms himself in the past, which he kept in a closet.
Those weapons were eventually turned over to authorities during a gun amnesty, the jury heard.
The guns originally belonged to his father, and Hill never obtained his own gun license.
Hill’s daughter, Debbie Hill, told jurors she remembered her father hunting ducks when she was about 14, probably in the mid-1980s.
“I only remember one being shot,” he told the jury.
The court heard Hill had become opposed to guns after a tragic accident claimed the life of his relative.
Gary Hill had been shot and killed by his nephew in 1994 after he was mistaken for a deer.
A plaque had been erected in Gary’s honor at a camp known as Hilly’s Camp, which was located near where Mr. Hill and Mrs. Clay were murdered.
“He felt they were not safe,” Debbie told the court.
Debbie told the court she had known about her father’s relationship with Mrs Clay “for a long time”.
Like her mother, she recalled that her father told her he would end the relationship in the mid-2000s.
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
Hill told the court she had married her husband in 1969 and 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 make 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.
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 in the 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.
The trial continues.
