Ex-Jetstar pilot Greg Lynn told detectives how an elderly woman was accidentally shot dead as he grappled with her secret lover, who was then fatally stabbed, in his video interview with police which was played 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 Wonnangatta Valley, in Victoria’s Alpine region, on March 20, 2020.
The video recording of his police interview showed Lynn dressed in a grey windcheater, spectacles and surgical mask as he recalled the fateful night police claim he murdered the pair.
He claimed he had been in a deadly fight with Mr Hill as they fought for control of a shotgun when it went off and killed Ms Clay.
The jury heard Lynn approached Mr Hill when a scuffle over the firearm took place.
‘I confronted him. “Give it back. What are you doing”, and he said he was going to take that to the police with him,’ Lynn said.
‘Then when I advanced towards him, he had the magazine in the shotgun at this stage, he pulled the action back and he let a couple of rounds go into the air.’
Lynn claimed he ran for his life before creeping back upon Mr Hill from the shadows.
‘I kept under the shadow and I moved in closer,’ Lynn said.
‘To try and disarm him, I jumped-up, I grabbed the shotgun barrel with my right arm, pivoted around so that I was facing him… I had the left hand on the stock, right hand on the barrel, and we wrestled.
‘The shotgun was pointed over this way and it was discharged. My hand was not on the trigger, it was on the barrel… he wouldn’t let it go, it discharged. It went through the left hand rear view (mirror) and killed Ms Clay dead.’
Lynn claimed he hid the shotgun upon Mr Hill letting go of it only to be confronted by him again moments later armed with a kitchen knife.
‘He advances towards me with a knife in his right hand and a fist clenched in his left. He first takes a swing with his left hand, I blocked it,’ Lynn said.
‘With his right hand, he takes a swing with the knife, I broke his wrist and with my left arm pulled over his right and he pushed me over back on the ground and the knife went into his chest.
‘He rolled over and when I got off him he crawled a little bit then he stopped moving. And I thought, “What am I going to do?”.’
Lynn claimed he checked for signs of life on both the campers but quickly realised they were both dead.
‘And from here I panicked. You know that’s my shotgun, one person dead, he’s dead as well now. And I’m going to be found guilty of this,’ Lynn said.
The jury heard Lynn quickly worked to cover up the bloody crime scene.
‘It was very messy and that’s why I put the tables and things inside the tent,’ Lynn said.
The jury heard Lynn set the campers’ tent on fire before taking away their bodies in his trailer.
The jury is set to watch a little under four hours of the interview, which was conducted by Missing Persons Unit detectives Brett Florence and Daniel Passingham at Sale Police Station on November 23, 2021.
Speaking in a mild and calm tone, Lynn told police he had hoped to simply forget what happened out in the bush and move on with life.
‘I just wanted it to all go away and just move on and never think about it again, but really that’s not going to happen,’ Lynn told the detectives.
‘I’ve just been trying to keep my head down and just move on with life and just forget about it. But it’s caught up with me.’
Lynn told police he wished he had come forward immediately after he claimed the ‘tragic accident’ happened.
‘I wish I had have come forward now too, but I just wanted it to go away. Whatever happened, I 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. It’s now November and I thought, “I’ve got to finish this because I just don’t want to have to deal with it again”,’ he said.
‘I drove back up there and just set fire to them. And there’s nothing there. You’ll see where it is but you’ll find nothing there. There’s nothing to bury. I’m sorry.
‘That’s the truth and that’s the best I can give you. It’s not going to be much relief for the family. There’s nothing to see, nothing to be found.
‘Go and have a look. You’ll find evidence of the fire. It is what it is.’
Lynn described the moment he first laid eyes on Mr Hill and Ms Clay as they made their way into a campsite in close proximity to his own at a location known as ‘Bucks Camp’.
‘I saw them pull up. I remember him coming at quite high speed into a stop and she looked quite alarmed in the car,’ he said.
Lynn told the detectives while he would have preferred Mr Hill to have camped further away, he did not make an issue of it.
‘There were hundreds of other places to camp, but if you wanna camp here it’s a free country and you can do whatever you like,’ Lynn said.
‘Fine. Yes I would have preferred to have it by myself, but it doesn’t bother me.’
While the first night ended without incident, Lynn claimed Mr Hill told him an odd story the next morning about ‘a colleague’ who had recently died on a deer hunting trip.
‘He was smirking as he said it,’ Lynn said.
Later that day, Lynn claimed he was surprised to see a drone hovering over him being flown by Mr Hill.
‘That was bizarre… I thought, “What’s this all about?”,’ Lynn said.
The jury heard Lynn decided to confront Mr Hill about the drone later that night.
‘I walked up there and I asked him why he was using the drone and he said that he didn’t like deer hunters and that he had some video footage of me now hunting close to the camp ,’ Lynn told police.
Mr Hill allegedly told Lynn he planned to take that footage to police.
‘I think the whole purpose of it was he just wanted me to go,’ Lynn said.
The jury heard Lynn retired to his own campsite to have dinner before cranking up the volume on his car stereo.
‘Yes I was annoyed. Didn’t do anything about it, but I did turn the stereo up and played some loud music, which was a childish thing to do,’ he said.
It was about 10pm when Lynn claimed he heard the doors of his Nissan Patrol open.
Packed away inside was his shotgun and ammunition.
‘I could see Mr Hill walking away from the car. He had the Barathrum shotgun in his hands and he had the magazine which foolishly I had loaded there and he walked back to his car,’ Lynn said.
Then, he said, the deadly fight for control of the gun began.
When questioned by detectives if he felt good about confiding in them, Lynn indicated that he did.
‘I guess so. I just wish it never happened. I just wanted it to go away when it did and it has been stressful,’ he said.
The jury heard Lynn had told no-one his version of events, not even his wife Melanie, until his arrest in November that year.
Lynn told the detectives he felt like Jim Carrey’s character in 1998 movie ‘The Truman Show’ after watching a 60 Minutes segment on the missing campers.
‘Well I know that I’ve been on the radar a while and do you know how many people have just said odd things … bit like The Truman Show where everyone knows what’s going on but you don’t. Like Truman doesn’t know that he’s really on TV,’ he said.
Lynn told the detectives he suspected several people may have been suspicious of him and asked specifically if a friend had contacted them.
‘Maybe I’m just being paranoid,’ he said. ‘No-one else has contacted you?’
The trial continues.