The former airline pilot accused of the murder of two elderly campers in Victoria has been committed to stand trial.
Greg Lynn, 56, pleaded not guilty to murdering Russell Hill, 74, and Carol Clay, 73, who went missing in March 2020 while camping in the Wonnangatta Valley, north-east of Melbourne.
He has faced the Melbourne magistrates court over the past week for a committal hearing, which was completed on Wednesday afternoon.
On the final day of his committal, the court heard Lynn was a person of interest when he was first spoken to by police on 14 July 2020.
At that stage, detectives had ruled out a person known as the “button man”, Det Acting Sgt Brett Florence, the officer in charge of the case, told the court.
The button man has been reported to be an almost mythical figure who lives in the high country, only returning to civilisation to sell buttons he has whittled from deer antlers and to gather supplies.
But another person of interest, who had been nominated to police by Parks Victoria and lived in the Wonnangatta Valley region, was yet to be eliminated at the time Florence and another detective spoke to Lynn.
Lynn was a person of interest as his car had been detected on an automatic numberplate recognition camera in the area about the time Hill and Clay disappeared, police allege.
His car also appeared on the camera at about the same time Hill’s phone “pinged” off a mobile phone tower in the region.
Police allege that phone data also showed that Lynn was in the area about the time the campers disappeared, but that his mobile had also been switched off during this period.
When Florence and his colleague, Det Sen Con Abbey Justin, arrived at Lynn’s Caroline Springs home to discuss this evidence, they noticed that the same four-wheel drive which had been detected by the camera had since been painted, Florence told the court.
The court has previously heard that Justin recorded the conversation with Lynn that followed soon after without his knowledge.
When Dermot Dann KC, for Lynn, asked Florence on Wednesday about whether he had “decided” to tape the interview before the conversation occurred, Florence said: “that’s a practice that Abbey Justin follows”.
Dann last week flagged a pre-trial challenge against the admissibility of the evidence gathered during this conversation, a statement given by Lynn the same day, and an interview given by Lynn over four days after he was arrested in November 2021.
The contents of both interviews and the statements are subject to a suppression order granted by magistrate Brett Sonnet on Monday.
Florence’s statement, which was released to the media on Wednesday, revealed that police moved to arrest Lynn after they feared he might self-harm.
On 22 November 2021, Florence and a colleague were monitoring a surveillance device located in Lynn’s car as he travelled to Gippsland to go camping.
Florence said in his statement that as they were performing this monitoring “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”.
In court, Florence agreed with a suggestion from Dann on Wednesday that he had been concerned with Lynn’s mental health in the hours immediately before the former pilot was arrested as he monitored conversations Lynn was having with himself in his car.
Dann questioned why, then, had Florence not arranged for a doctor to assess Lynn’s mental health after he was arrested.
But Florence said he believed these concerns had eased by the time Lynn was arrested, as he had been concerned in the morning but Lynn was not in custody until early that evening.
The remains of Hill and Clay were uncovered in bushland not far from the campsite only days after Lynn was arrested in November 2021. Police allege they were dumped there by Lynn, who later returned twice to the crime scene.
Lynn will face the Victorian supreme court for a directions hearing on 9 February.
• In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 800-273-8255 or chat for support. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
