A former airline pilot accused of murdering two elderly campers told police he went through a “decision making pathway” drawn from his experience in the cockpit when considering how to cover up their deaths.
Gregory Stuart Lynn, 57, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Russell Hill and Carol Clay at a remote camping site in Victoria’s alpine region in March 2020.
An excerpt of Lynn’s videoed interview with police is being shown during his trial in the Victorian supreme court.
The video outlines Lynn telling police that the couple were accidentally killed after an argument over deer hunting and Hill’s use of a drone had turned violent.
On Tuesday, the footage showed Lynn giving police a detailed explanation of how and where he says the deaths occurred in relation to their campsite, including by him referring to crime scene photos.
He said his shotgun had accidentally discharged as he wrestled with Hill for control of the weapon, striking Clay in the head and killing her instantly. It was little more than a minute later that Hill then came at him with a knife, he said.
“[He was] marching very quickly towards me … it was dark but I could see the steel flashing in his hand,” Lynn told police.
During the ensuing fight, he said he tried to control the direction of the blade, as he had just done when wrestling Hill for control of the shotgun, but when he was pushed to the ground the knife accidentally plunged into Hill’s chest.
Lynn indicated to an area to the left of his sternum, near the heart, where he said the knife pierced Hill’s chest, the court was shown.
He again told police that, at this point, he “panicked”.
“And then I thought, ‘what am I going to do’, and my business, my profession is working in decision making pathways,” he said.
He told police he was left with bruises on his back and chest after the struggles with Hill, but no cuts.
Lynn said he was trained to make “quick decisions, trying to come to the best outcome, that’s what I was trying to do”.
“None of my decisions, whichever pathway I took, was going to make any difference to these two.”
During the interview, Lynn then took an A4 notepad, turned it horizontally and started writing down for police some of the considerations that crossed his mind, noting that the consequences for him as a pilot would be more severe than if he was a tradie or a doctor.
“I’m not saying I went through this on paper …[but once I did] then I had a list of tasks to do,” Lynn said.
These tasks included cleaning the crime scene, with Lynn telling police he removed all trace of himself there, and felt confident nobody would know he had been in the Wonnangatta Valley at the same time as Hill and Clay, as he had not spoken to anyone other than them in the area for two days.
He also said that his aim in dumping the bodies at a secluded location off the Union Spur Track was not so it seemed they had disappeared, but because it meant he could.
One of the two missing persons squad detectives involved in the interview, Daniel Passingham, described Lynn as “meticulous” but asked him why, when “shit has gone down in this campsite”, he did not decide to “go … and tell the coppers what the go is” rather than making “100 more decisions about what I’m going to do”.
“We’re all different, we’re all different,” Lynn responded.
Lynn also told the detectives he believed the pair had been in bed shortly before the confrontation.
“He was trying to have fun in bed, and I was playing music that he didn’t like [that was] loud, and he lost his temper,” Lynn said, adding that Hill and Clay appeared to be in pyjamas.
He said the music he played was “not offensive albums or anything, but from my generation, not his”.
Lynn told police it was confronting and he vomited several times when he returned to the high country to burn the bodies of Hill and Clay in November 2020.
He said he lit a fire, using sticks and logs, and some kerosene he brought with him, and the blaze burned from sunset to sunrise, before he set about scattering the remains.
At the end of the interview, the officers tell him he is going to be charged with the murders of Hill and Clay.
Lynn is then asked if he wishes to say anything regarding those charges.
“I’m innocent of murder,” he responds.
“I haven’t behaved well, I’ve made some poor decisions, but murder as I understand it, I’m innocent of.”
Lynn was then asked if he wished to make a handwritten statement, to which he responded: “I think it’s pretty much covered here”.
The hearing continues.
