How Greg Lynn used his training as a Jetstar pilot to clean the evidence of a bloody crime scene

Greg Lynn was a calm and collected pilot who was trained to make quick decisions under pressure and knew how to act in an emergency.

He would help Jetstar flight crews clear out the cabins of the planes he flew.

“Most pilots just take off and leave that to the cabin crew, but I always grab a pair of gloves, go through and help them clean up,” Lynn said during his murder trial.

On the witness stand, he confidently answered every question about his gruesome, yet systematic, disposal of the bodies of two people using those Jetstar gloves.

“The scene was horrible,” Lynn explained.

He admitted dumping the bodies of Russell Hill and Carol Clay on a forest path in March 2020 and returning months later to burn them.

But first he had to clear the scene – a campsite in the middle of the wilderness.

A blood-soaked tent and camping furniture splattered across Mr Hill’s ute, in the seats and on the other side of the passenger door.

“I wiped all of that away,” Lynn told a jury.

“And there was a really big pool of blood on the ground between the LandCruiser and the tent where Carol Clay was.”

Alone in Victoria’s high country, he burned down the couple’s campsite and moved their bodies into his caravan, taking cash, two mobile phones and a drone.

Lynn dropped off the bodies along the Union Spur Track and placed sticks on them to keep the animals at bay, but not to disguise them.

‘I didn’t hide the bodies. I put them there. “I expected them to be found,” he said.

Lynn drove home to Melbourne, but returned to the remains twice.

Once at midnight, at the end of Victoria’s first COVID-19 lockdown, he found the bodies decomposing but still in the same position next to the track.

On his second trip back, six months later, he burned them.

He also sold his trailer, repainted his Nissan Patrol from gray-blue to brown and removed the awning.

Lynn feared he would lose his license to fly planes if he was involved in what he believed were two fatal accidents.

That’s why he had to get rid of the evidence.

Although the prosecution and defense agreed on this part of his story, the two sides are divided on what happened to cause the violent deaths of Mr. Hill and Ms. Clay.

Lynn said he exchanged pleasantries with Mr Hill at Bucks Camp and then saw a drone fly over him while he was deer hunting.

Mr Hill told him he had footage of Lynn shooting near the camp and that he would hand it in to police.

Lynn decided to play loud music from his car radio to annoy Mr. Hill, and then heard a rustling sound. He saw Mr Hill walking away from Lynn’s car with a Barathrum shotgun.

He went to Mr. Hill’s campsite and fired a few warning shorts before pointing the gun at Lynn.

Lynn grabbed the barrel and the pair struggled for the shotgun when it fired, going through the LandCruiser’s side mirror and killing Mrs Clay.

Mr Hill turned on Lynn with a knife, swung at him and ‘the knife went into his chest’.

“From here I panicked and thought, ‘That’s my shotgun, one person is dead and he’s dead now. I will be found guilty of this,” he told police.

Evidence was found among the remains showing that Mrs. Clay died from a gunshot to the head, but there was no evidence as to how Mr. Hill died.

Twelve jurors did not believe much of his story and returned on Tuesday with a divided verdict.

They found him guilty of the murder of Mrs. Clay and not guilty of the murder of Mr. Hill.

It was a trial full of scandal, intrigue and sometimes absurdity, much of which was not told to the jury but can now be revealed.

Two elderly people go missing together, one of them is married, and it is revealed that they were childhood sweethearts who had a secret affair for decades.

Before the trial began, prosecutors said they spoke with the Australian Defense Force about borrowing a Chinook helicopter — one of only two in the country — to transport the jury to the remote location of the campers’ deaths.

Lawyer Dermot Dann joked: ‘I assume Mr Lynn is not required to fly the plane?’

The plan fell through.

Lynn’s wife Melanie, who was present every day of the weeklong trial, blew kisses and made heart shapes at her husband from the public gallery upstairs.

She and Lynn’s son Geordie were moved to sit before the jury in their final days, with his head on her shoulder and their hands intertwined.

Lynn put on a suit and reading glasses and diligently scribbled notes in a journal each day of the trial.

The media was forbidden to take photos of him next to the guards.

Zoomed-in versions of Lynn were allowed, with the guards cut away, after a rare oral ruling was made as his lawyers claimed it would be ‘very prejudicial’, despite the jury seeing him sit next to officers in court every day.

Prosecutors were almost unable to play Lynn’s police interrogation for the jury.

He was interrogated for four days, maintaining his right to remain silent for two and a half days before telling his story.

Officers tried to convince Lynn that confession would be good for his mental health, even offering to take him camping, as if to suggest he would be free once he told his story. Pre-trial hearings were held.

Police admitted pressuring Lynn to tell them where the bodies were to bring closure to the families, and offered a helicopter to take him to the remote bush.

Officers claimed they pressed for a confession and made a hasty arrest out of concern for Lynn’s mental health, although he was offered no psychological support once in custody.

Judge Michael Croucher made a preliminary ruling banning prosecutors from using the interview against Lynn because of “oppressive” police conduct, but the jury was shown portions of that video.

Prosecutor Daniel Porceddu closed the case by describing Lynn’s story as “a series of very unfortunate events” – and like the book series of that name, “also a complete fiction.”

He tried to introduce a number of theories which he claimed made Lynn’s version of events untrue, including that there was a rope tied to Mr Hill’s car which ‘ruined the whole story’ because the men would have become entangled during the struggle.

Judge Croucher castigated the prosecution as the jury left that day, saying he was “shuddered” and “stunned” by Mr Porceddu’s closing speech, calling one of the theories he put forward “frog ***”.

In Mr Dann’s closing, he labeled the prosecutor “Inspector Clouseau” – the inept detective from The Pink Panther – and called police blood spatter expert Mark Gellatly “gelati… given the way he melted in the witness box like ice cream in the sun . ‘.

Mr Gellatly was accused by the defense of lying under oath and colluding with the prosecution by introducing a ‘half-baked’ vacuum theory – that blood could be sucked into the barrel of the gun – in week three of the trial if a person was shot at close range. -range.

But he admitted he didn’t know much about the theory as he was not a ballistics expert.

Lead Senior Constable Paul Griffiths – the prosecution’s ballistics expert – was not asked about the theory.

He held up the shotgun Lynn used in court and at one point pointed it in the direction of the media, prompting Judge Croucher to tell him “you’re scaring the journalists.”

Senator Const Griffiths admitted he had no idea which angle the gun might have been pointed at when it fired at Ms Clay, due to a lack of information from investigating police.

“I wish I knew,” he said.

Furious that his client had not been given the opportunity to respond to the prosecution theories, Mr Dann said he had broken the rules of legal fairness and asked the judge to put this right.

Judge Croucher agreed and, before dismissing the jurors, told them they could reject the prosecution’s closing arguments and accept Lynn’s evidence.