.png)
5 months ago
15
Nearly a year before former Jetstar pilot Greg Lynn was arrested over the deaths of Russell Hill and Carol Clay, police had begun listening to him through covert recording devices.
These captured him talking to himself and saying things such as 'They're sitting on a beach in f****** Queensland. Nudist beach. Butt naked.'
Police had placed a tracker and listening devices on his Nissan Patrol, and bugged his home in Caroline Springs, while they drip fed details on Mr Hill and Ms Clay's disappearance to the media, hoping to catch him speaking about the case.
Following extensive pre-trial hearings, Justice Michael Croucher barred significant portions of evidence, including these recordings, from being put to the jury, finding it had been obtained through 'reprehensible' conduct of some officers.
'In my view, these failures are inconsistent with the minimum standards which a society such as ours should expect and require of those entrusted with powers of law enforcement,' he wrote in a scathing judgement three days before Christmas.
Following the jury's verdict on Tuesday, where Mr Lynn was found not guilty of the murder of Russell Hill and guilty of the murder of Carol Clay, his utterances can now be revealed.
Driving alone on May 4 2021, after a radio story about the couple's disappearance, Mr Lynn said to himself; 'They're sitting on a beach in f****** Queensland. Nudist beach. Butt naked. Playing on his f****** drone.
'Running up and down the beach. Taking pictures of the young people. Who's got the biggest d***?'
Nearly a year before former Jetstar pilot Greg Lynn (pictured) was arrested over the deaths of Russell Hill and Carol Clay, police had begun listening to him through covert recording devices
Former Jetstar pilot Greg Lynn was pictured changing the colour of his 4WD vehicle
Another story about the couple had played on the radio earlier that day as he was driving. The court had heard Mr Lynn then turned up the volume on his radio and said: 'I put a f****** trigger lock on it. You've gotta get a second set of trigger lock f****** keys and stick them in there. ... They've just got to keep pushing all the time, don't they?'
The police had scoured through hours of recordings to find instances where they believed he was talking about Mr Hill and Mrs Clay.
Mr Lynn appeared to discuss the couple several times between December 15 and 16 2020, while on a solo camping trip near Howitt Plains.
Speaking to himself, he said the following things:
• 'Let's see if the cops turn up. If they do, we know that they can put a tracker on it.'
• 'f****** white people, that's all it is who can we annoy now. Who can we annoy?'
• 'Who decides what's right and what's wrong? That's the thing, judgment, judge does, the law does, the community does.'
• 'Ballistics, you'd think they would want samples of my ammo, you would. Until that.'
Justice Croucher said each of the Howitt Plains utterances and the recording about the trigger lock had not been proven relevant to the case.
'I consider it rationally impossible safely to construe any of these remarks as related to Mr Hill and Mrs Clay,' he said.
'The only way to do so is via speculation.'
He found Lynn's comments about the nude beach could be rationally linked to the couple.
However, the recording was ruled inadmissable because, as the prosecution case would be that he allegedly killed the pair 14 months earlier, it would force the jury to speculate on his sanity, and because the references to taking photos and anatomy 'risks unfairly blackening Mr Lynn's character for no rationally probative reason'.
The judge heard Mr Lynn had been first identified by Victoria Police's missing person squad less than three months after Russell Hill and Carol Clay vanished in March 2020.
(Left to right) a courtroom sketch of former Jetstar pilot Greg Lynn at the Supreme Court of Victoria, and campers Carol Clay and Russell Hill
Melanie Lynn (left), wife of Greg Lynn and Geordie Lynn (right), son of Greg Lynn arrive at Supreme court Melbourne
Four automatic licence plate recognition cameras, set up on either side of the Hotham Alpine resort to ensure visitors paid entry fees, had captured him leaving the valley.
When police swooped in November the following year, the avid camper had been the only suspect in the couple's disappearance for about 16 months.
Aside from a short visit by detectives in July 2020, Lynn had no idea he was under surveillance.
'Yeah, mate, you're not in any strife or anything,' Detective Sergeant Brett Florence told him on July 14, explaining they were 'chatting' with everyone in the region.
'We've sort of expanded our search zone for possible witnesses. So I just wanted to … just ask you a few questions to see … if you can help us.'
The then-Jetstar captain provided a statement about his trip, including the dates he'd been camping and the routes taken.
He claimed at the time not to have met Mr Hill and Mrs Clay during the trip.
But detectives believed he was not telling the full story about his movements, and noticed he had repainted his car – which Mr Lynn said was a 'Covid project' with his children.
He would later tell police he may have 'appeared calm', but inside he was panicking during the exchange.
By the end of the year his phone, car and home were bugged as investigators collected thousands of recordings.
Heavily armed officers from the Special Operations Group arrived by helicopter and arrested Mr Lynn in the afternoon of November 22, 2021, at a campsite in Moroka Junction.
When detectives arrived on scene, he asked if the whole show was 'really necessary'.
Last year, investigators from the Missing Persons Squad told the Victorian Supreme Court they had no plans to arrest him at the time, but his conduct on the drive up made them fear he planned to take his own life.
'I have a bad feeling about what I've just listened to,' former Detective Senior Constable Passingham said after he raised the alarm.
Police believed Lynn's self-talk was 'concerning' and it appeared he was crying, but would later tell Justice Croucher perhaps they misunderstood.
The shotgun used to murder Carol Clay is pictured. Greg Lynn was found guilty of her murder
Greg Lynn (pictured) claimed Russell Hill attempted to steal his shotgun when he was forced to intervene in what became a deadly struggle
Much of what occurred as he was repeatedly questioned over the next four days, was kept from the jury after the judge found the investigators had at times engaged in 'reprehensible' oppressive conduct.
After a two-hour drive from the remote camping spot to Sale Police Station, Mr Lynn spent nine hours over the following four days sitting in an interview room with two detectives.
They repeatedly peppered him with questions about the deaths and pushed him to answer the questions.
After a phone call with a lawyer in the morning of November 23, he repeatedly declined to answer their questions but became increasingly desperate as time went on.
'My lawyer is telling me to say "no comment" to every single (thing) that you ask me. And yet you come back and keep asking question after question after question,' he said.
'Can we please do it the way (the lawyer) recommended to me? She's the cavalry and I'm in over my head.'
Both Sergeant Florence and Senior Constable Passingham were found by the court to have engaged in deliberate efforts to undermine his lawyer's advice.
In one example, Senior Constable Passingham compared the lawyer to a 'flight attendant'.
'Yeah, but I wouldn't say she's the expert. It'd be like — be like a flight attendant telling the captain something,' he said.
'The way I look at it, this is the rest of your life. So please help me help you.'
Detective Acting Sergeant Brett Florence is pictured at the Supreme court of Victoria
The Wonnangatta Valley, in Victoria's Alpine region, where Russell Hill and Carol Clay died
Each of the detectives would later tell Justice Croucher the arrest was 'rushed' and they had not planned the interview, claiming they simply made bad choices in how they framed the questions.
'The questions are bad and I should have stopped and reassessed,' Sergeant Florence conceded.
Mr Lynn's lawyer, Dermott Dann KC, argued the detectives had 'flagrantly abused' his client's rights.
After 45 hours in custody, over two and a half days, Mr Lynn broke, saying he was going to 'ignore my solicitor's advice and tell you what happened right from the start'.
He provided an account of how both Carol Clay and Russell Hill died – Mrs Clay accidentally shot in the head as the two men wrestled over a gun.
Mr Hill, he said, attacked him with a knife a short time later, leading to his accidental death as the two men fell to the ground.
Mr Lynn told police he feared he would be blamed for the deaths and 'panicked', torching the camp site and disposing of the bodies.
'Look, the assumption is that I'm the villain. In fact, ah, I think I'm the victim of all of this,' he said.
'I'm innocent of murder. I've — I haven't behaved well, I've made some poor decisions. But murder, as I understand it, I'm innocent of.'
On the fourth day, he led the two detectives to where he had dumped and incinerated the bodies, with forensic officers later finding some personal items and more than 2,100 bone fragments.
Investigators believed his account, which amounted to accidental deaths and self-defence, was untrue and he was charged with two counts of murder.
'He gave that account, Your Honour, and there were some things within that account that I felt were incorrect,' Sergeant Florence said.
Before Mr Lynn's trial, Victoria's Supreme Court held extensive pre-trial arguments over several months about the admissibility of much of the evidence prosecutors intended to rely on.
Ultimately, Justice Croucher ruled against police and barred significant portions of evidence from being put to the jury, finding it had been obtained improperly by their 'oppressive' conduct.
He found Mr Lynn's first statement to police on July 14, and a secret recording of the conversation, were inadmissable because any 'competent rational detective' would have considered him a suspect at the time.
A witness has claimed Greg Lynn was camped in the area circled. Mr Hill's vehicle was found about 30 metres from the river displayed
An image supplied during the Greg Lynn trial by the Supreme Court of Victoria is pictured
Police, therefore, should have cautioned and informed Mr Lynn of his rights but failed to do so.
Both detectives present at the time told the court they considered Lynn a person of interest, not a suspect, but Justice Croucher found this was 'untruthful'.
'This evidence also adds to my grave concern about the approach of the Missing Persons Squad during this investigation to their obligations to caution and to advise suspects of their rights, and about their inaccurate and misleading note-taking vis-a-vis suspects and persons of interest,' he wrote.
'If this approach has not ceased already, it should be stopped immediately.
'In my view, these failures are inconsistent with the minimum standards which a society such as ours should expect and require of those entrusted with powers of law enforcement.'
Similarly, Justice Croucher ruled prosecutors could not include the parts of Mr Lynn's interview they hoped to rely on after Sergeant Florence and Senior Constable Passingham admitted they'd 'ridden roughshod' over his rights.
Senior Constable Passingham, the judge heard, quit the force soon after he was grilled during the pre-trial hearings.
Justice Croucher found the two detectives had deliberately and egregiously undermined the solicitor's advice through a 'withering barrage of oppressive and improper inducements' to influence Mr Lynn's decision to make admissions and reveal the location of the remains.
'I have no doubt that Detective Florence and Detective Passingham are decent, capable and hard-working members of Victoria Police who were under great pressure to give some comfort to the families of Mr Hill and Mrs Clay,' he said.
'The difficulty, however, is that the manner in which they pursued those aims must have significant consequences.'
The ruling also barred prosecutors from using portions of evidence that flowed from the interview as fruit of the poisonous tree, including the discovery of the remains and forensic testing.
Ultimately parts of the case were allowed back in after Mr Lynn decided he wanted his account of the deaths to go before the jury.
Pictured is an image obtained by police upon the initial search for the missing campers
An image supplied by the Supreme Court of Victoria during the Greg Lynn trial is pictured
Victims' families' full statement on the trial verdict
Russell Hill and Carol Clay's families are both relieved and devastated at the verdicts in the trial of Gregory Lynn for the murder of Russell Hill and Carol Clay, delivered today.
The jury have only decided murder in one case, that of Carol Clay.
The verdict of guilty was the only charge. The possibility of a verdict of 'manslaughter' was ruled out. We thank the jury for their verdict of guilty in the murder of Carol Clay. It was an extremely difficult task given that the accused destroyed so much evidence.
The verdict of not guilty in relation to the murder Russell Hill is devastating. There was not enough evidence to be sure of how he died.
Our families were always aware that the prosecutor had an enormous burden of proof as there were no eyewitnesses. The accused was the only person who saw and experienced what happened. He was also the only person who emerged alive.
We thank the crown prosecutors wholeheartedly for their diligent effort in presenting the pretrial and the trial. They had an enormous job putting a case together with limited evidence. They fought hard to keep all their evidence allowed in court, so the jury could make an informed decision, but this was not the case.
We also thank the Victoria Police Missing Persons Squad, particularly Detective Inspector Andrew Stamper and Sergeant Brett Florence for their tireless investigative work over four and a half years. They have gone above and beyond in their duties to solve this case and we sincerely thank them for their time, effort, persistence, care and professionalism to bring us answers.
For the wider Victoria Police involvement, thank you, we appreciated the efforts of you all and are extremely grateful for your expertise, your hard work and support. Plus, we thank all the wonderful volunteers who spent weeks searching for our loved ones.
Finally, Carol Clay and Russell Hill's families would like to thank all our friends and family who have given their support throughout this harrowing experience, over the last four years.
We are heartbroken at the loss of our loved ones. It will take time to absorb the verdicts, put this behind us and set about healing and getting on with our lives. Right now, we ask you to respect our privacy while we do this.
On behalf of both,
The Hill Family and the Clay Family
Hours of the interview were cut from the record, including Mr Lynn's claim to not have seen the campers, and an almost four-hour video was played to his jury in early June.
Justice Croucher also barred any material from the listening devices from going before the jury, finding each failed 'the test of relevance' and posed a danger of unfair prejudice.
'I consider it rationally impossible safely to construe any of these remarks as related to Mr Hill and Mrs Clay,' he wrote.
'For example, if the references to cops, trackers, judges, ammo and little old people are considered together, a juror might be able to speculate that this all has something to do with the present case, but speculation is all it could be.'
English (US)