A former Jetstar pilot accused of murdering two elderly campers in the Victorian high country covered up the deaths because he believed he would be blamed after he incorrectly stored his guns, his defence barrister has told the state’s supreme court.
Gregory Stuart Lynn, 57, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Russell Hill, 74, and Carol Clay, 73, at a remote camping site in the Wonnangatta Valley in March 2020.
Closing arguments in the double murder trial began on Tuesday in the Victorian supreme court.
The prosecution has said Lynn’s claim that the deaths were accidental was “complete fiction”, while the defence said the prosecution’s case was “increasingly desperate”, broke the rule of fairness to an innocent man and failed to demonstrate Lynn’s evidence was false.
Lynn’s lawyer, Dermot Dann KC, continued his closing address on Wednesday morning.
He told the court that his client disposed of and burned the bodies of Hill and Clay because he feared he would be blamed for the deaths after he incorrectly stored his shotgun and rifle while camping.
Crown prosecutor Daniel Porceddu told the jury on Tuesday that the only reasonable explanation for the former pilot to cover up the deaths of the two campers was because “he knew he had murdered them”.
But Dann told the jury to “put themselves in Lynn’s shoes” and consider the context that two accidental deaths had occurred after his client had left two guns and ammunition in his car.
“He thought he was going to be blamed for the deaths and he was 100% correct,” he said.
“Of course he’s thinking about himself, of course he was selfish.”
Dann said his client had already offered to plead guilty to destroying evidence. He said the jury was being asked to find Lynn guilty based on incriminating conduct but had not been presented with the factual evidence that he murdered the pair.
Porceddu said the prosecution’s case was about the “deliberate” and “protracted series of actions taken by the accused to disguise his involvement in and the manner of their deaths”.
“The most extreme of those actions is the burning of the bodies,” he said.
Dann also focused on what he described as the prosecution’s “flimsy rope theory” which he said was insignificant to the case.
On Tuesday, Porceddu told the jury that during Lynn’s police interview, he never mentioned the presence of a rope tied between the bull bar of Hill’s Toyota LandCruiser, which the former pilot says was where they struggled over the shotgun, and a tent used as a toilet. He said that, by Lynn’s account, the pair would have become entangled in the rope.
Lynn told the court last week he did not see the rope and it did not get in the way. But Porceddu said the rope “ruins the whole account”.
Dann on Wednesday said the prosecution only raised the rope theory at the end of the trial and it was not brought up by police during Lynn’s interview.
He said the altercation between Lynn and Hill happened quickly and the presence of a rope would be the “last thing you’re going to be worried about” when you’re “scared shitless”.
Dann said the prosecution had made a number of submissions in its closing address which had not been put directly to Lynn when he testified, including suggesting he was never at the front of Hill’s LandCruiser.
He said his client’s story, including that Hill had been operating a drone and that Clay was shot in the head, was supported by the prosecution’s witnesses.
“Where’s the fantasy? It’s just not there. It’s the opposite. Every time you get a chance to test his account, it’s true.”
The prosecution said it did not know the exact motive or circumstances around the alleged murder, but Porceddu told the court “it was common sense to conclude there was a disagreement”, likely over Hill’s use of a drone.
Porceddu said Lynn then killed Clay because she was a witness in the violent murder of Hill.
Dann previously told the court the deaths were the result of a tragic accident, and that his client had “made a series of terrible choices” to cover them up.
Lynn told the court last week that Clay was shot in the head while he and Hill struggled over control of the former pilot’s shotgun after a dispute. He said Hill died in a subsequent struggle after a knife accidentally plunged into his chest.
The trial continues.
