A former Jetstar pilot accused of killing two elderly campers in the Victorian high country has apologised to their families for the “suffering that I caused” and testified that he did not murder them.
Gregory Stuart Lynn, 57, took the stand in the Victorian supreme court on Thursday, after pleading not guilty to murdering Russell Hill, 74, and Carol Clay, 73, at a remote camping site in the Wonnangatta Valley in March 2020.
The prosecution has alleged he killed the pair with murderous intent, but that police did not know the circumstances or motive behind the alleged murders. Lynn’s lawyer, Dermot Dann KC, previously told the court that the deaths were the result of a tragic accident, and that his client had “made a series of terrible choices” to cover them up.
Under questioning by Dann on Thursday, Lynn said he had no reason to murder Hill or Clay. Asked about the perception of not coming forward immediately after their deaths, Lynn agreed that it was “despicable”.
“All I can say to the families is that I am very sorry for your suffering that I caused,” he said.
Lynn maintained that he is “innocent of murder”, as he told police in a 2021 interview, and said he has offered to plead guilty to destroying the evidence.
He said he told the truth at all times during the police interview, which has been previously played to the jury.
In that interview, Lynn said Clay was shot in the head by accident after a struggle with Hill. Soon after, Hill came at him with a knife, before another struggle in which the blade went through the older man’s chest, Lynn told police.
Lynn began his evidence on Thursday and described the struggle over the shotgun that he says led to Clay being shot.
The former pilot told the court that Hill took his gun from the back seat of his car and was “trying to keep the shotgun for himself and scare me off”.
“I don’t know if he intended to shoot me or not, probably not,” he said.
Lynn said that at the time his shotgun discharged he was “struggling with Russell Hill” for control of the weapon.
“Russell Hill had his back towards the bull bar, and I was pushing him against the bull bar,” he told the court.
Lynn said that when Clay was shot he could only see her in his peripheral vision.
“I was aware of her. She was over there, and she was low,” he said.
He said after the pair’s deaths he used a torch to help him clean up the pair’s campsite.
Lynn described the scene after the deaths as “horrendous” and said he used gloves to clean up.
He told the court there was a large pool of blood near Hill’s Toyota Landcruiser.
Lynn said it was “quite curious” that a lead fragment was discovered almost two years later by a police officer combing the scene where Hill and Clay died.
“It’s quite odd,” he said.
“It wasn’t there. It must have been moved there.”
Lynn said he had not been drinking alcohol on the night of the deaths and that he did not witness Hill drinking.
He told the court he had removed an awning from his Nissan Patrol, after an image of the vehicle was aired on an 60 Minutes episode regarding Hill and Clay’s disappearance in November 2021.
Lynn said the car depicted in the program “did look a lot like my car, it was my car”.
“My family still didn’t believe that it was my car,” he said. “They thought it was quite comical that it looked so familiar.”
Lynn said he removed the awning to make the vehicle “look less like my car”.
During a fiery cross-examination by crown prosecutor Daniel Porceddu, Lynn said he lied to his wife when his car was shown on 60 Minutes and told her he had “nothing to do with it, knew nothing”.
Asked why he was not honest with his wife, he replied: “I was trying to disappear. I wanted it all to go away.”
Lynn said he was also trying to protect his wife but Porceddu told the court he lied to protect himself.
Porceddu also pressed Lynn about whether he was trained to respond in a calm and rational manner during crises due to his career as a pilot.
Porceddu asked why Lynn had testified he panicked on this occasion.
“I had never been faced with two dead people before,” Lynn replied.
Questioned about why he had the clarity of mind to remove his firearm from Hill, discharge another round and put it in his car, Lynn said he had to make it safe but that he was “scared shitless”.
Lynn agreed with Porceddu that immediately reporting the deaths to police or leaving the scene untouched were both options for him at the time.
He said he could have “followed that pathway”.
“I feared that I would be blamed for it. My actions, the improper storage of a firearm, which had resulted in the death of one person, would be devastating for everything that was important to me,” Lynn said.
“Clearly, things are worse for me now, it’s a disaster. It would have been a disaster if I had have gone to the police.”
Lynn said when he dumped the bodies at a secluded location off the Union Spur Track he expected them to be found.
“If I wanted to hide the bodies, I would have dragged them off into the bush,” he said.
Closing arguments in the case will begin on Tuesday when the jury returns.
