Ex-Jetstar pilot to fight murder conviction on appeal
Tara Cosoleto |
Airline pilot Greg Lynn has formally lodged appeals against his conviction and 32-year jail term for the murder of missing camper Carol Clay.
Lynn’s lawyers filed the appeals and an extension of time application late on Monday, the Victorian Supreme Court confirmed.
The paperwork was lodged 31 days after Lynn was jailed for murdering Mrs Clay, 73, at a Victorian high country campsite in March 2020.
A jury found he shot her in the head and then placed her body – and the body of her lover Russell Hill, 74 – into a trailer before driving them to a remote bush track.
Lynn returned seven months later after the COVID-19 lockdown lifted to burn their remains into more than 2000 bone fragments.
He admitted burning the bodies but denied the two charges of murder, claiming the two deaths were accidental.
Lynn told the jury he was struggling over his shotgun with Mr Hill when it accidentally discharged, striking Mrs Clay in the head.
He then claimed Mr Hill came at him with a knife and in the process of Lynn defending himself, the knife went into Mr Hill’s chest.
After a month-long trial, the jury returned split verdicts on June 25, finding Lynn killed Mrs Clay but not Mr Hill.
Lynn’s barrister Dermot Dann KC soon after flagged his client would appeal the conviction, claiming the prosecution had conducted the trial unfairly and there was inconsistency in the jury’s two verdicts.
“We submit that the long-term future of the guilty verdict must be seen as being in grave doubt,” Mr Dann told the court in July.
The barrister maintained that position after Justice Michael Croucher sentenced Lynn on October 18.
Lynn was jailed for 32 years with a non-parole period of 24 years, with Justice Croucher describing the murder as a “violent, brutal and horrific” killing of a vulnerable woman.
Lynn’s decision to hide and then burn the bodies “into almost nothingness” was a significant aggravating feature, the judge said.
But Justice Croucher could not make findings in relation to Lynn’s motive to kill, nor the order in which Mr Hill and Mrs Clay died because of the jury’s split verdicts.
The appeal against Lynn’s conviction and sentence will be heard in the Victorian Court of Appeal at a later date.
AAP