Carol Clay’s loved ones were filled with immense anxiety for almost two years as they tried to search for the missing 73-year-old.
She had vanished while camping in the remote Victorian wilderness and her daughter, Emma Davies, tried to search for her in the days after her March 2020 disappearance but couldn’t because of Covid-19 restrictions.
“I was unable to go to the location where my mother was last seen alive,” Ms Davies told the Supreme Court in Melbourne on Thursday, 12 September.
“I wanted to put my hands in the dirt, my feet in river, where my mum was lost, to get answers.”
But one man knew where Mrs Clay was.
Greg Lynn, who was found guilty of her murder in June, faced the pre-sentence hearing on his 58th birthday.
After shooting her in the head, he put the bodies of Mrs Clay and her lover Russell Hill into a trailer and drove them to a bush track.
He returned seven months later to burn their remains into more than 2000 bone fragments.
Lynn did not reveal where they were buried for 20 months.
“What did happen I can only describe as a horror movie, gross and incomprehensible is an understatement,” Ms Davies said.
Mrs Clay’s sister said hearing about how Lynn destroyed her remains was worse than learning of the 73-year-old’s death.
“This was my sister, my dear sister, who was shot, transported in a trailer like a lump of meat, buried for seven months, and burnt,” Jillian Walker told the court on Thursday, 12 September.
“This was all done with absolute intention.
“It was not just a bad decision, it was evil, wicked and unconscionable.”
She said hearing Lynn’s story during his murder trial – that Mrs Clay’s death happened after an angry exchange over Mr Hill using a drone – was “horrific” and “incomprehensible”.
“There was no substantial reason for her being dead, it was senseless and pointless, she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Ms Davies refused to say her mother’s killer’s name in court – only referring to Lynn as “he” or “him”.
“He stole my mother from me. He took her life, he took her dignity and he took her privacy,” she said.
Lynn, who continues to deny he murdered Mrs Clay, stared at each of his victim’s family and friends as they cried in court while detailing the impact of his crime.
A jury found him guilty of Mrs Clay’s murder, but he was acquitted of killing Russell Hill, 74.
The 58-year-old did, however, admit destroying the couple’s remains and much of the campsite’s evidence.
He is appealing against the jury’s guilty verdict and his lawyers had flagged they would try to delay his sentence, but on Thursday 12 September informed the court this was no longer being pursued.
Prosecutor Daniel Porceddu called for Lynn to be jailed for life for the “cold-blooded and callous” murder of a vulnerable elderly woman.
He said Lynn showed no remorse, as he continued to deny the murder, and claimed he was motivated to kill Mrs Clay as she was the only witness to Mr Hill’s death.
Lynn deserved the maximum prison term because of his attempts to obliterate all evidence, including the bodies, which exacerbated the anguish of Mrs Clay’s loved ones, he said.
But Lynn’s lawyer Dermot Dann KC argued the jury went down a “forbidden pathway” in delivering split verdicts.
He said there was no clear motive for the killings, as the jury found Lynn did not murder Mr Hill so she was not a witness to anything.
Lynn admitted his treatment of their bodies was “selfish and callous in the extreme”, Mr Dann said.
He asked Justice Michael Croucher to take into account the pilot’s previous good work history, charitable background, that he had been assaulted in jail and lengthy delays to the case.
Lynn will be sentenced on 18 October.
