According to court documents, two campers may have been slain during a struggle over a drone before their alleged killer exited a hotel room drenched in blood.
Russell Hill, 74, and Carol Clay, 73, who vanished in March 2020 while camping in the Wonnangatta Valley, east of Melbourne, are accused of being killed by Greg Lynn, a former airline pilot.
This week, Lynn, 56, appeared before the Melbourne magistrates court for a committal hearing to assess whether there is sufficient evidence to have him stand trial.
According to a statement sent to the media late on Tuesday by the court, Victoria police forensics officer Mark Gellatly was requested to look at case-related materials based on details given by detectives with the missing people squad.
According to the evidence given to Gellatly, Lynn may have became irritated with a drone Hill and Clay were flying and challenged them before leaving for his own camp site. Hill allegedly pulled Lynn’s gun from his car, the two struggled for control of the weapon, which fired and killed Clay. As the struggle continued, Lynn allegedly fatally stabbed Hill.
According to the officer’s statement, the incident left multiple bloodstains in a hotel room in the area, all of which were cleaned, with the probable exception of a stain on a bathmat.
The information in the statement is the first comprehensive account of how the two may have been killed, according to authorities.
There was no information about how or why the two were killed in the redacted summary of the police evidence in the case that was also made available late on Tuesday. It did, however, mention that Lynn had allegedly returned to the crime scene.
This week, a different witness testified in court about seeing a drone in the vicinity the night the campers were allegedly slain.
Hill asked other campers if they would mind if he flew his drone over their sites during a solo camping trip he did earlier in March, according to the police statement.
In addition, according to Gellatly’s statement from July of last year, he examined two swords, a pick-axe, and more than 20 knives, including throwing knives and a Gurkha-style blade, that had been taken from Lynn’s premises after his arrest in November 2021.
Seven of the objects had possible blood on them, but additional testing was unable to establish this, so they were not given more attention, according to Gellatly.
Before the police summary was made public on Tuesday, magistrate Brett Sonnet issued a warning to the media, noting that while it provided a general picture of the police case, it did not include all of the supporting documentation, and that Lynn had opposed a significant portion of the summary.
Although Sonnet stated that it was anticipated that Lynn would enter a not-guilty plea, Lynn is not compelled to do so until the conclusion of the committal hearing.
The police claimed that Lynn had an altercation with Hill and/or Clay on March 20, 2020, sometime after 6 p.m., which led to his death of both of them.
In the summary, police stated that the circumstances surrounding their deaths and the accused’s subsequent actions were “consistent with the accused having intended to cause death or at least give each of them genuinely significant injury.”
“In order to further obscure his connection and distance himself from the crimes, the accused contaminated and staged the crime scene, purposefully destroyed evidence there, and removed evidence from the crime site before transferring and disposing of the bodies and mobile devices.
“The accused went back to the bodies of Hill and Clay in May 2020 and/or November 2020, where he further altered with the corpses to dispose of the dead. This entailed igniting, scattering, and partially enclosing them.
After Lynn was taken into custody, the remains of Hill and Clay were found in some nearby bushland.
On Friday, Sonnet will continue the committal hearing by hearing Lynn’s attorney Dermot Dann KC’s request for a suppression order.
On Monday, the hearing is anticipated to hear witness testimony once more.
