A jury has been informed that during the hunt for the missing campers Russell Hill and Carol Clay, police found more than 2000 bone fragments.
The Supreme Court in Melbourne was shown pictures of the bones on Wednesday, while airplane pilot Greg Lynn is on trial for the couple’s killings.
He is charged with killing Hill and Clay in the Wonnangatta Valley of Victoria in March 2020 while they were camping, then burning their bodies in the forest.
The 57-year-old has entered a not guilty plea to the two murder charges.
Forensic anthropologist Dr. Soren Blau informed the jury that police had found more than 2100 bone fragments at two locations in Victoria’s High Country.
The couple vanished from Bucks Camp, which was one of the locations, and the Union Spur track, which is located east of the valley, was the other.
After analyzing the pieces, Dr. Blau was able to determine where about 600 bones originally belonged in the skeleton.
Among them were pieces of a skull discovered at Bucks Camp, which according to Dr. Blau indicated evidence of trauma at the moment of death.
Dr. Blau told the jury she lacked the competence to determine if the trauma may have been caused by a gunshot.
However, she claimed that an X-ray of the skull fragments revealed “radio opaqueness,” a clue that metal may be present.
Dermot Dann, the defense attorney, informed the jury that after Hill seized a gun from Lynn’s car, there was a fight at Bucks Camp.
He said that after Hill unintentionally shot Mrs. Clay, the older man approached Lynn holding a knife and unintentionally stabbed him in the chest as Lynn defended himself.
In contrast, the prosecution argues that Lynn killed the couple on purpose after Hill threatened to provide authorities with drone footage showing Lynn deer hunting close to the site.
Later, Lynn acknowledges making what Dann called a “series of terrible choices” that included burning and disposing of the couple’s bodies at Union Spur.
The majority of the bone pieces, according to Dr. Blau, were found at Union Spur within a downed tree trunk.
She couldn’t tell the person’s age, sex, or date of death because most of the shards had been burned and severely degraded.
However, because two of the fragments came from the same area of a person’s forearm, the anthropologist was able to confirm that there were the remains of two people. The trial is still ongoing.
