A lockdown project and a fallen tree: Gregory Lynn's sliding doors ...

The missing campers investigation was aided by a literal sting operation, for it was thanks to a bee that police had the chance to build the pressure around Gregory Lynn.

After nearly a year looking into the disappearance of campers Russell Hill, 74, and Carol Clay, 73, police had zeroed in on the commercial pilot as their suspect.

But with no bodies and very little evidence left from the burnt campsite, pulling together their case was going to be a marathon, not a sprint.

Gregory Lynn in hospital after being stung by a bee.Credit: Facebook

An oblivious Lynn, now 57, was carrying on with his family life at home in Caroline Springs.

As a COVID project, Lynn had bought a beehive, but one day, when tending to it with wife Melanie, he was stung and suffered an allergic reaction that put his heart out of rhythm.

He took to social media to tell friends of his near-death experience, revealing the apiary accident required an ambulance and four shots of adrenaline en route to hospital.

“The bees had been smoked, not enough,” he wrote. “We were wearing suits, but they still managed to get through the mask.”

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The heart scare left him unfit for flying, so he was grounded and assigned duties in simulation training.

It was a lucky break for detectives. If Lynn had still been flying, they would have been forced to alert Jetstar of their concerns about him remaining in the air, which would, in turn, have alerted him that he was a suspect in the campers’ disappearances.

But with him safely on solid ground, police were able to start dropping elaborate hints in the media that they were closing in, hoping to flush Lynn into making a mistake while they listened and watched.

Lynn has been trained not to panic. If an engine catches fire when you are 1.2 kilometres in the sky travelling at 1000 km/h, the 335 passengers behind you need a cool head.

To become a commercial pilot, Lynn first had to pass the psychological test that logic and proven procedures would always take priority over gut feelings and emotion.

He was taught to fly by the book, not by the seat of his pants. Professionally and privately, Lynn was so organised he would make checklists on what to do and in what order to do it.

Some would say he was cool-headed, others would say he was cold-blooded.

Clockwise from left: A sketch of the Bucks Camp site Gregory Lynn drew for police; Gregory Lynn; Carol Clay and Russell Hill.

Even with his second love, the outdoors, Lynn always sought control.

On a rafting trip down the pristine Franklin River in Tasmania, when heavy rain caused it to flood, Lynn knew the smart thing was to abort, leading his team up a near sheer cliff, setting up camp in the wilderness and surviving on a few rations while they waited for the flood to abate.

All this is why his court defence to the charges of murdering campers Russell Hill, 74, and Carol Clay, 73, flew in the face of logic, his training, his personality and the evidence (much of which was withheld from the Supreme Court jury following previous legal rulings).

The jury on Tuesday found Lynn guilty of murdering Clay, but not guilty of murdering Hill.

After a trial lasting five weeks, Lynn’s defence can be distilled to the following. On the evening of March 20, 2020, when he was camping at Dry River Creek Road (also known as Bucks Camp) in the Wonnangatta Valley, he had a dispute with Hill, who reportedly leant into Lynn’s car to grab a shotgun.

Lynn told the jury he and Hill fought over the gun, and it accidentally discharged, hitting Clay in the head while she crouched beside the passenger side of Hill’s white Toyota LandCruiser ute. Part of the shot had deflected off the car’s external mirror, he said.

Enraged at Clay’s death, Hill attacked Lynn, produced a knife and then fell, landing on the blade, which caused a fatal stab wound to the chest. Hill didn’t bleed to death, but, in this version, died instantly.

Lynn, his defence lawyers claimed, panicked, disposed of the bodies and fled to his Melbourne home.

Yet, Lynn’s actions after the deaths were as methodical as his pre-flight procedure.

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After dark, by torchlight and headlights, he gathered the couple’s possessions, removed the damaged external mirror from the ute and put them inside their tent.

He then cleaned the area, gathered the couple’s phones and cash, took Hill’s drone, placed their gas bottles inside the tent, slightly opened the valve to cause a hot fire rather than an explosion, and torched the evidence.

For a logical man, this was bizarre. The crime scene was his friend. The evidence there would have proven the highly unlikely scenario of not one, but two, accidental deaths.

The police version is entirely different.

Police describe Lynn as a functioning psychopath, controlling, a person who could be overwhelmed by waves of rage.

They say Lynn was camping at Bucks Camp in the premium spot, when the older couple arrived, set up their site at a respectful distance, but not far enough away from the pilot for his liking.

To get to the river they had to pass close to him – which was a cause of possible friction.

Lynn was a hunter, and if he had fired his Barathrum Arms 12-gauge shotgun in the national park, it is probable Hill would have confronted him. Hill detested shooters, having lost a family member to a hunting accident.

If Hill had filmed Lynn using his lever-style shotgun or his rifle improperly, Lynn would have lost his firearms licence and, possibly, his commercial pilot’s licence.

Lynn’s Barathrum Arms shotgun and his Ruger American rifle, seized by police.

Lynn, a proud member of the exclusive Little River Raiders gun club, owned multiple firearms, including semi-automatic pistols, rifles and shotguns. When he was arrested in November 2021, police seized 20 bladed weapons including throwing knives.

As a pilot, Lynn was methodical. He would check every switch and complete every safety check. He would walk around the plane for a visual inspection. He was an experienced shooter, who knew the rules of safety: keeping guns and ammunition separately and keeping firearms locked away.

Yet this time, he says, he left two guns and the ammunition in his unlocked car, an act of recklessness contrary to his training and personality.

One theory is that Lynn withdrew to his site, began to drink and brood, then – as he readily admits – turned up the volume of his music to annoy his fellow campers. When Hill confronted him again, the prosecution case was that Lynn shot the older camper then went after Clay, shooting her as she cowered by the ute. He killed her because she was a witness.

In this version, a shot had hit the car mirror, as Lynn claimed, but it was not accidental – it was a deliberate shot at Clay, which is why Lynn removed the mirror and burnt it with other evidence.

After cleaning the scene, Lynn loaded the bodies into his box trailer, connected it to his dark-coloured Nissan Patrol and headed off, having completed the first part of his murder checklist.

His planned escape route was along a road that crossed the Wonnangatta River, and he would have headed over the mountains, onto the Hume Freeway, then home to his sprawling house in Caroline Springs in Melbourne’s north-western suburbs.

Then the sliding door, or more accurately, locked gate moment. Lynn’s planned route was blocked by a temporary sign that showed the road was closed because of the fear of falling trees from the summer’s bushfires.

The bull bar on Lynn’s vehicle could easily have pushed over the large metal sign, but there were campers nearby. Forcing the gates could be evidence of someone fleeing and there was the possibility the road was blocked by the trees.

“If he had got through, he would have got away with it,” a senior police officer with knowledge of the case told The Age.

Lynn decided to turn back. Finally, the meticulous pilot was flying by the seat of his pants.

He did a precision 30 point U-turn (heard by a family of campers sleeping nearby), backtracked and then turned off the same road, driving directly through the Grant Historic Area. Finding a remote track, he hid the bodies, but with dawn breaking, he couldn’t fully conceal them. Instead, he covered them with branches and rocks to stop animals getting to them.

He then drove with great skill for more than 120 kilometres on winding gravel roads that are closed in winter and which should be avoided at night, according to official advice.

He broke cover near Mount Hotham just after 9.30am as his car and number plate were one of 12 photographed by automatic number plate recognition cameras near the Hotham Alpine Resort. Hill’s mobile phone also pinged in the same area, at the same time.

After the campers’ burnt site was discovered and the couple reported missing, police and volunteers searched the area again and again.

Investigators search for Russell Hill and Carol Clay’s remains in the High Country in November 2021.Credit: Jason Edwards/Pool

While two runaway lovers formed the most likely theory behind the Hill and Clay disappearances, nothing was ruled out. But there were no suspects as the investigation quickly turned to consider foul play.

Because of the number plate pictures, police went to see Lynn at home. He was not a suspect, but certainly a person of interest. As a matter of completeness, one of the investigators, Detective Senior Constable Abbey Justin, discreetly turned on her tape recorder.

Lynn, who must have suspected this day would come, was casual. Sure, he had camped at the spot, but had left on March 19, the day before the couple arrived. He had moved on to other spots, coming out at Mount Hotham on March 21.

There was another thing. His dark-coloured Nissan was now a beige shade, known as sandbank. Justin noticed it seemed to have been painted, with a roller using house paint.

Why would a meticulous pilot earning more than $300,000 do such a shoddy job?

It was a COVID lockdown project, Lynn said. Something to do with the kids.

Because a detective had pressed “record” on her tape, it would later be judged in court that Lynn was a suspect and should have been cautioned. His first version of events, filled with lies, was kept from the jury.

Lynn was asked about the trailer photographed on the number plate camera. He said he had painted it and then sold it on Gumtree, but the obsessive notetaker had no record of the new owner, other than it being an Asian fellow. Despite nationwide appeals, it has not been found. The smart money is that it has also been destroyed.

Lynn’s first wife, Lisa Lynn, 34, was found dead in the garden of her home on October, 26, 1999. Her death was found to have been caused by an overdose of prescription drugs and alcohol.

When her body was found in the foetal position in the grass outside her sprawling stone home in Mount Macedon, police found family photo albums spread over the floor inside. The Lynns’ two sons, then aged one and three, were asleep in the house.

Toxicology results showed antidepressants in her system and a blood alcohol reading of .21.

Lisa Lynn.

Coroner Graeme Johnstone found that while it was unclear if Lisa intended to take her own life, there were no suspicious circumstances.

A close friend of Lisa described Gregory Lynn as, “charismatic, intelligent, charming, violent and opinionated”.

“She was scared of him. She just wanted him out of her life.”

Less than two weeks after the bodies of Hill and Clay were hidden, Melbourne went into COVID lockdown. Lynn the perfectionist could only sit and wait, for he had unfinished business.

Eight months later, he returned to where he left the bodies. Overwhelmed by the smell and regularly vomiting, noting animals had got to the remains, he was determined to expunge his victims. Using kerosene (selected because it burns at a high temperature), he doused the bodies and set the fire.

He waited through the night, adding logs to the flames when needed, until the fire was extinguished. Lynn then used a shovel to smash what was left into the size of small coins and move them about 16 metres away to the base of a fallen tree, with the help of a dustpan.

After a fruitless investigation lasting more than 12 months, police finally had a single suspect – Gregory Lynn.

Lynn joined the Royal Australian Air Force in 1986 as a cadet, wanting to be a fighter pilot. When he failed to make the top tier and was likely to be assigned transport planes, he quit to be a commercial pilot, first in Tasmania and then with Ansett Airlines.

When Ansett went bust, he landed a job with Qatar Airlines. When he joined Jetstar six years later, he returned to Australia with physical and personal baggage.

Once Lynn became the only suspect in the missing campers case, police bugged his home, and also placed a tracking device in his vehicle and eventually recorded more than 5000 conversations.

Traffic camera footage of Lynn’s Nissan Patrol and trailer aired on 60 Minutes in 2021. Police told the trial the footage aired as part of their media strategy.Credit: Victoria Police

The recordings captured Lynn often talking to himself – usually narrating what he was doing, perhaps a habit he picked up in the cockpit.

But in November 2021, suspecting that he was now firmly on the police radar, he started referring to himself in the past tense, crying and leading detectives to fear he was considering suicide.

Detectives had planned for a risk-free arrest, possibly at the airport where he was unarmed, but his demeanour forced them to act faster.

Lynn was driving to the High Country with firearms. The dangers of moving in were considered so high police opted to bring in the force’s Special Operations Group.

When briefed, the senior SOG officer on duty channelled Arnold Schwarzenegger, simply saying: “To the choppers.”

Two helicopters with SOG teams headed to the bush, and the officers crept silently to the expert bushman’s camp and arrested him at Arbuckle Junction while he was cooking steak and mushrooms.

Armed with a psychological profile of the suspect, police decided to take a different approach to the interview, one that would later be criticised by the Supreme Court judge in a pretrial hearing. The judge later ruled some of the evidence was inadmissible.

Detectives Daniel Passingham (left) and Brett Florence, pictured in January 2023, questioned Lynn at Sale after his arrest.Credit: Wayne Taylor

After his arrest, police took Lynn to Sale, where he was showered and fed, and then led to an interview room. Instead of the third degree, a policeman with extensive camping experience chatted about four-wheel driving and hunting to establish a rapport.

Lynn was cautioned and given access to a young legal aid duty lawyer by phone. The lawyer told him to refuse to answer questions.

Instead, Lynn chatted happily, first repeating he hadn’t been at the campsite at the time Hill and Clay vanished, but he became uncomfortable when police dismantled his alibi.

He was kept in custody for three days, but was not grilled around the clock, instead given regular breaks and interviewed for about three hours a day. After each break, when he was reminded of his rights, he said: “My lawyer says I shouldn’t talk.” But then he did exactly that.

Lynn’s version was that it was all a horrible accident and that he had panicked, cleaned the crime scene and disposed of the bodies to protect everything he loved.

It wasn’t his fault, he claimed, and told police: “Russell Hill ruined my life.”

Importantly, he nominated where he burnt the remains, in some of the most remote bush in Victoria.

A map Lynn drew for police of Union Spur Track, where he burnt the campers’ remains. On the left is a list of medications he was on at the time.

The police interview had been unorthodox for a reason. Police were determined to find the remains for Hill and Clay’s loved ones – the top priority for suspicious missing persons investigators.

The interview was taped. Lynn was not bashed or deceived. He was given legal advice. This qualified pilot, elite decision maker and tertiary qualified man chose not to take the advice.

However, in pre-trial argument, Justice Michael Croucher and Lynn’s defence team felt the interview trampled over the accused’s rights to the point it was inadmissible and could not be heard by the jury.

The question for Croucher at that stage was not if it was true, but if it was fair. He decided it wasn’t.

In the US, they have a blanket rule known as the fruit from the poisoned tree. Anything gathered by police that comes from a breach of the suspect’s rights cannot be used.

In Australia, there is more wriggle room, considering if the interview fundamentally damaged the accused’s rights.

Croucher believed it did and turfed out large parts.

Now Lynn was back in the pilot’s seat. He could remain silent and force the prosecution to prove a case without using his own admissions.

But there was a niggling problem for his defence if he stayed silent – Hill’s phone ping and Lynn’s car photographed leaving the area around the same time.

This led to some of the police interview being reintroduced at his defence barrister’s conditional behest.

In preparation for the trial, the prosecution also floated the idea of bringing in a Chinook helicopter to take the jury to the remote crime scenes for a viewing.

Lynn’s son, Geordie Lynn, and second wife Melanie Lynn outside court during the trial. Geordie is the son of Lisa Lynn.Credit: Wayne Taylor

Lynn’s defence barrister and the judge laughed about this and asked whether Lynn could fly the thing himself.

The idea was shelved when it was discovered it would cost the Crown a pretty penny, reportedly upwards of $700,000, which the Director of Public Prosecutions refused to pay.

On all but one day of the five-week trial, Lynn’s current wife, Melanie, an air hostess, sat in court, standing in the overhead public gallery to blow kisses down to her husband as he was led into the dock.

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On other days, two of his adult sons also attended, and the eldest, Geordie, waved to his dad and occasionally made heart shapes with his hands.

Lynn took the witness box, the defence’s only witness. He was calm, composed and impressive, but did not give the impression he was a person easily panicked.

His team went with the self-defence argument that not one, but two elderly campers were killed instantly – one by a single shot to the head and one by a single knife wound through the heart in a million-to-one chance accident.

Clearly, the jury didn’t like those odds.

John Silvester lifts the lid on Australia’s criminal underworld. Subscribers can sign up to receive his Naked City newsletter every Thursday.