The camera on Victoria’s Mount Hotham was designed to catch anyone who was avoiding paying a resort entry fee – about $60 during ski season.
But police allege that at 9.48am on 21 March 2020 it captured something else: a Nissan Patrol being driven by a man who had just committed a double murder.
Of all the evidence that police allege they have against Greg Lynn, it was this photo that first led detectives investigating the disappearance of Russell Hill and Carol Clay, to the former airline pilot’s door.
Lynn was committed to stand trial this week for murdering Hill and Clay in the remote Wonnangatta Valley. He has pleaded not guilty.
In May 2020, an analysis of Hill’s phone data found that between 9.26am and 9.50am on 21 March 2020 the device appeared to be travelling between Dargo and Mount Hotham, according to a statement tendered to the court.
Hill had not been in contact with anyone since 6pm the previous day, when he joined a regular evening call with fellow amateur radio enthusiasts.
On 3 June 2020, after detectives had visited local businesses seeking CCTV footage which might show cars that could be investigated for links to the missing campers, they were provided footage from the automatic numberplate recognition cameras for a 10-minute period on Mount Hotham.
The cameras showed 12 cars, but only one of them – Lynn’s – went through at the same time as Hill’s phone appeared to be travelling in the area, police allege.
According to the statement of Detective Acting Sergeant Brett Florence, the lead investigator in the case, police spent the next five weeks gathering further information about Lynn, including speaking with Parks Victoria about whether he was a registered camper or hunter (Parks Victoria in fact nominated another person of interest in the case, who was later cleared).
On 14 July 2020, Florence and another detective from the missing persons squad, Detective Senior Constable Abbey Justin, arrived at Lynn’s Caroline Springs home.
Florence told the court this week that at this stage Lynn was a person of interest – he was more than merely a witness, but police would need to gather “substantial information to progress to the next level, which would be a suspect”.
When police arrived at the home, they noticed that Lynn’s Nissan Patrol had been painted since his trip to Mount Hotham.
Justin recorded the following conversation without Lynn’s knowledge, and Lynn provided a statement later that day.
What Lynn said during this conversation, and the contents of his statement, are the subject of a suppression order.
Between July and December, Florence said in his statement, police checked further information regarding Lynn with banks and government agencies, obtained further photos from the Mount Hotham cameras, spoke to a witness who had been spraying blackberries in the area at the time of the disappearance, and made multiple trips to the high country searching for any sign of Hill and Clay, or their missing belongings.
In early December, police obtained warrants to intercept Lynn’s calls, and place surveillance devices in his house and four-wheel drive, Florence outlines in his statement.
The next 11 months were spent conducting further searches of the high country, including at Howitt Plains, where cadaver dogs were used after Lynn was believed to have camped in the region.
All the while, police listened to Lynn’s conversations, including with himself. Eventually, there would be more than 5,000 recordings made from the surveillance devices.
Florence said in his statement that he and another detective were listening to Lynn speaking to himself on 22 November 2021 when “the accused appeared to be crying and started talking in the past tense and he was engaged in self-talk that was concerning and seemed to indicate a propensity for self-harm”.
He believed Lynn had been travelling to Gippsland to go camping and hunting, but Florence said that after fearing the now-suspect would self-harm, he met with “senior command” and formulated a strategy to arrest him.
Lynn was arrested near Arbuckle Junction and taken to Sale police station. He was then interviewed over the next four days. The contents of this police interview are also suppressed.
Florence said in his statement that a week after the arrest, he travelled with other detectives, crime scene examiners and a team from the Victoria Institute of Forensic Medicine to Wongungarra, where the remains of Hill and Clay were discovered.
At no point in the 16-page statement of Florence that was released to the media is there any mention of how or why Lynn is alleged to have killed Hill and Clay.
But a picture emerged from other evidence provided to the Melbourne magistrates court during Lynn’s committal hearing about scenarios considered by police.
A statement by police forensics officer Mark Gellatly that was also released to the media showed detectives investigating the case asked him to investigate whether it was possible the deaths occurred after a specific scenario: that Lynn was annoyed by a drone flown by Hill and Clay, and confronted them about it before retreating to his own camp site.
Hill allegedly then grabbed Lynn’s gun from his car, the pair wrestled for control of the weapon, causing it to discharge and shoot Clay dead, and, as the fight progressed, Lynn stabbed Hill to death.
A large number of guns and knives were later seized from Lynn’s house, but the court heard that none had been forensically linked to the crime.
A redacted police summary of evidence released to the media provided more detail about how Lynn is alleged to have carried out the crime.
In releasing the summary, magistrate Brett Sonnet said it merely gave an overview of the police case and did not comprise all their evidence, and that much of it was contested by Lynn.
In the summary, police allege Lynn had a confrontation with Hill and/or Clay on the night of 20 March 2020 which led to him killing them.
“The circumstances of their deaths and the accused’s behaviour afterwards are consistent with the accused having intended to cause death or at least cause each of them really serious injury,” police said in the summary.
“The accused contaminated and staged the crime scene, intentionally destroyed evidence within the crime scene, and removed evidence from the crime scene before transporting and disposing of the bodies and mobile devices to further conceal his involvement and distance himself from the crimes.”
The summary stated that after he allegedly killed the couple he set fire to their camp to conceal the crime.
He is alleged to have then packed up his own camp and fled with the bodies in his box trailer – disposing of them as he left the area. This trailer was later sold by Lynn and has not been recovered, police allege.
Surveillance devices recorded Lynn allegedly talking to himself about the deaths of Hill and Clay at home and while camping, the summary stated, and Lynn was also alleged to have returned to the crime scene in May and November 2020 “where he further tampered with the human remains [...by] burning, dispersing and partially interring them”.
On Wednesday, Sonnet said he was required to take the prosecution’s case at its highest during a committal, and having done so found there was “evidence of sufficient weight to record a conviction”.
He noted that the families of Hill and Clay had been in court during the committal, and said “I understand that it would have been a very difficult experience…so I thank you for your dignity that has been on display”.
Lynn’s wife and a son were also seen to be monitoring the hearing online.
Lynn will face the Victorian supreme court for a directions hearing on 9 February.
