Former Jetstar pilot Greg Lynn has been sentenced to 32 years in jail over the murder of secret lover camper Carol Clay.
Lynn, 57, had pleaded not guilty in the Supreme Court of Victoria to the murders of Russell Hill, 74, and Ms Clay, 73, in the Wonnangatta Valley, in Victoria’s Alpine region, on March 20, 2020.
He must serve at least 24 years before he becomes eligible for parole, meaning he will be close to death upon release.
His flight attendant wife Melanie Lynn, who had attended every day of his trial, was notably absent.
As was Lynn’s son Geordie, who often sat within the body of the courtroom hand-in-hand with his step mother.
They both face eviction from the family home in Caroline Springs, west of Melbourne, as police work to confiscate it due to it being linked to Lynn’s crime.
Lynn, sat quietly throughout his sentence, which was delivered before a packed courtroom.
In June, a jury of 12 unanimously found Lynn murdered Ms Clay in cold blood before attempting to cover his tracks by burning and destroying the evidence.
However they acquitted him over the murder of Mr Hill, paving the way for a Supreme Court of Victoria appeal that could see Lynn sent back to trial or set free altogether.
Greg Lynn walks into the Supreme Court of Victoria on Friday to learn his fate
Carol Clay was shot through the head while Russell Hill was impaled by his own knife, Greg Lynn claimed
In a self-serving and unrepentant letter to the court, Lynn expressed his dismay at the split verdict and reiterated his plans to appeal his conviction.
The disgraced pilot had banked on convincing the jury the campers had died as a result of a tragic accident.
On Friday, Justice Michael Croucher condemned Lynn for the cold-blooded murder of Ms Clay and callous disposal of their bodies.
In a sentence that took almost 90 minutes to deliver, Justice Croucher meticulously retold the entire case against Lynn from start to finish.
The court heard Lynn was never looking at a life sentence for the brutal crime.
Justice Croucher found Ms Clay likely died instantly after Lynn blasted her in the face with his shotgun.
‘Her death would have been instantaneous,’ he said.
The respected judge said she was likely murdered after Lynn got into a heated argument with Mr Hill over the use of his drone and distaste for deer hunters.
‘It was a violent, brutal, horrific death, effected with a weapon designed to kill,’ he said.
In sentencing, Justice Croucher said Lynn’s vile efforts to dispose of the bodies further aggravated his offending.
‘I consider My Lynn’s moral culpability for the offence is very high,’ he said.
However, Justice Croucher commended Lynn for eventually leading detectives to the shattered remains of his victim.
During his trial, Lynn had entered the witness box to tell the jury in his own words how he claimed the campers died.
While Lynn always denied murdering the couple, the jury heard he freely admitted to cleaning up the crime scene and destroying the evidence.
‘It was despicable,’ Lynn conceded.
‘All I can say to the families is that I am very sorry for all of your suffering that I’ve caused … yes I should be punished for it. For what I did.’
Melanie Lynn (left) had attended her husband’s trial hand-in-hand with Lynn’s son Geordie. Both failed to show up for his sentencing
The 12 Gauge ‘Barathrum Arms’ Model S/P 12 Semi-Automatic Shotgun used to kill Carol Clay
The deadly struggle happened at the front of Russell Hill’s Landcruiser (pictured)
The jury heard Lynn had offered to plead guilty to the destruction of evidence before going on trial, but it had been rejected by the prosecution.
‘I am innocent of murder,’ he said. ‘I am innocent (of manslaughter too). I haven’t killed anyone.’
The former pilot spoke in a cool and calm manner as he took the jury through the bloody details of what police alleged was cold-blooded murder.
The jury heard Lynn claimed the couple died after Mr Hill stole his shotgun and the pair engaged in a deadly struggle for control.
‘I don’t know if he intended to shoot me or not, probably not,’ Lynn told the jury. ‘I think he was just trying to keep the shotgun for himself and scare me off.’
The jury heard Lynn had been sitting near his campfire by the river when he saw Mr Hill take his shotgun and load the magazine.
The doors of Lynn’s Nissan Patrol had been left wide open to ‘liberate all the music’ from his car stereo, which in the pilot’s own words was done in a ‘childish effort’ to annoy Mr Hill after a previous run-in with him.
Lynn created a sketch of the scene to help jurors work out how he claimed Mr Hill gained access to his Nissan Patrol to steal his shotgun.
Russell Hill’s wife Robyn (left) and daughter Deborah arrive at the Supreme Court in Melbourne on Friday
The side mirror was destroyed with the same shot that killed Carol Clay, Greg Lynn told the jury
The image showed a depiction of Lynn’s 4WD with all of its doors open, allowing Mr Hill to take Lynn’s shotgun from the rear and ammunition clip from the front.
Lynn claimed Mr Hill accidentally shot Ms Clay through the head as he attempted to wrestle the shotgun away from him.
Pressed against the bullbar of Mr Hill’s Landcruiser, Lynn claimed Mr Hill pulled the trigger, blasting off the side mirror and hitting Ms Clay directly in the head.
Mr Hill died moments later after falling on his own knife during another struggle, Lynn claimed.
Lynn had painted himself as a caring a respectful airline captain who would go to the effort to help cleaning crews tidy his aircraft after landing.
Asked about a pair of Jetstar-branded gloves he owned, Lynn claimed he would often keep them after helping out.
‘After duty at work when flying, the cabin crew have to clean the plane. It’s not a thorough clean, they just go through and pick-up papers, tidy up the seatbelts and rearrange all of the paperwork in the back of the seat pockets,’ he said.
‘Most of the pilots just take off and leave the cabin crew to do that, but I always grab some gloves, go through and help them clean up.’
The jury heard Lynn had placed a laser sight on the shotgun which killed Ms Clay to ensure he could focus on the heart and lungs of the deer he enjoyed stalking.
Carol Clay was brutally murdered by Lynn. Police claim it was to hide the murder of Russell Hill, but a jury was not convinced
Greg Lynn believed he could get away with murder
Lynn suggested had he wanted to kill Ms Clay, he would not have blasted off the side mirror of Mr Hill’s Landcruiser in the process.
‘Well, the whole point of having a laser sighting on the shotgun … is so that you can put the dot of the laser on the target and you are certain that the round will hit that target,’ Lynn said.
‘So the slug went through the mirror, if I had done what the police have said I’ve done … if someone had shot Carol Clay with the laser sight on, the laser would have illuminated on the mirror, not on Carol Clay.’
Lynn described in gruesome detail the bloody aftermath of the alleged crime scene, which he has admitted to going to great lengths to destroy and clean.
‘The scene was horrendous,’ Lynn said.
‘There was blood splatter on the hitching rails and the tray base of the Toyota Landcruiser. There was some on the inside of the canopy.
‘I wiped all of that off … the solar panels … they had blood and other material on them and over the camp furniture.
‘Some of those pieces were covered in a lot of tissue and blood. There was a very large pool of blood on the ground in between the Landcruiser and the tent where Carol Clay was.’
Greg Lynn was pictured changing the colour of his 4WD
Lynn had been cross-examined by Crown prosecutor Daniel Porceddu, who told the jury to dismiss any ideas the campers died by accident.
‘You’ve heard the accused gave a version of events in his interview and in the witness box last week. For reasons I’ll go into in due course, the prosecution says that that account in completely fanciful,’ he said.
‘You can comfortably reject it as being an elaborate fiction.’
Mr Porceddu ran the jury through all of the evidence they have been presented over the past month.
‘He tells you Mr Hill and Ms Clay both died accidentally in separately instantaneous, or near instantaneous, fatal incidents both brought about by the conduct of Mr Hill,’ Mr Porceddu said.
‘The accused’s story is indeed a series of very unfortunate events. Like the book series of that name, it is also a complete fiction.’
Mr Porceddu claimed Lynn had made further errors in his account to police about the alleged confrontation with Mr Hill.
‘There are a number of reasons the story that the story is completely implausible,’ he said.
Mr Porceddu said Lynn had made a mistake in his account of the supposed struggle with Mr Hill by not taking into account the rope tied from the bullbar of his Landcruiser to the toilet.
The jury heard the struggling men would have become hopelessly entangled in the rope had Lynn’s version of events been true.
‘He knows he’s sunk because he knows that he and Mr Hill would have become tangled up in the guy rope,’ Mr Porceddu said.
Detective Brett Florence (left) led the probe to convict Greg Lynn. He is pictured arriving at court in Melbourne on Friday
Mr Porceddu claimed Lynn came up with his story in the 18-months it took police to arrest him.
‘The so-called struggle for the gun is the whole linchpin in the accused’s story. Once that falls like a house of cards, everything else tumbles with it,’ he said.
‘You don’t believe a word of it. We urge you to see the accused’s account for what it is – a carefully constructed fiction developed over one year, eight months.
‘During that time, the accused was able to gain through the media an understanding of the evidence emerging.
‘It was an account that was clearly carefully rehearsed so much so that he can repeat it almost word-for-word over two separate days of a police interview.
‘It is an account crafted in such a way to shift the blame to Mr Hill.’
The jury heard Lynn’s story about Mr Hill stealing his gun from his car made no sense.
‘If you’re a person concerned about firearm safety, you’ve snuck up to the accused’s campsite to confiscate his gun, and you’re trying to do that without him knowing, why are you loading it when all you’re looking to do is take it back to your campsite?’ the prosecutor said.
Mr Porceddu said it was also unreasonable to think Mr Hill would have taken the shotgun and left Lynn’s rifle in the car.
‘If you’re going to confiscate the gun of a person you’ve not been on the best of terms with, who you’ve allegedly been provocative towards and you’re doing it to eventually report him to the police, don’t you think you’d make he wasn’t left with another gun?’ he said.
The jury heard police alleged Lynn likely murdered Mr Hill after some kind of dispute before eliminating Ms Clay because she was the only witness.
‘Had she been allowed to live, Ms Clay would have been in a position to identify the accused,’ Mr Porceddu said.
‘While it is not known how Mr Hill was killed because the accused deliberately burnt the body of Mr Hill and obliterated any forensic evidence … the evidence establishes Ms Clay was killed by a gunshot to the head.’
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