18:00

that's something really that has

18:02

stood out to a lot of people from

18:04

the sidelines, particularly me, is that it

18:06

seems, especially to the public, that these

18:08

two people had vanished off the face

18:10

of the earth. The police hadn't been

18:13

able to find them for 20 months.

18:15

And ultimately, if it wasn't for Gregory

18:17

Lynn, eventually in that interview, saying where

18:19

their remains were, which was more than

18:21

2000 pieces of fragmented bone that had

18:23

to be sieved out of the ground,

18:25

many of it which couldn't be identified,

18:27

there was going to be no answers

18:29

for these families at all. So as

18:31

you touched on there, there were elements

18:33

of this police interview and other parts

18:35

of the investigation that the judge and

18:37

certainly the defence had criticised and it

18:39

led to certain things being left in

18:41

and out. But ultimately, it

18:43

was that admission from Gregory Lynn, that

18:45

was the only way that they could

18:48

find some sort of answer to what

18:50

had been more than 20 months of

18:52

just people missing with no

18:54

answer as to where they could possibly

18:56

be. And if it wasn't for him

18:58

saying that, they never would have been

19:00

able to recover those remains and ultimately

19:02

bring this to trial in the first

19:04

place. Yeah, and putting listeners in the

19:06

hot seat, painting a bit of a

19:08

picture of Sale police station. Gregory Lynn

19:10

was there in an interview room over

19:12

three days, moved between a holding Sale

19:14

and back into the interview room.

19:16

He was in the room with two police

19:19

officers from the missing person squad, Brett Florence,

19:21

who ultimately became the police informant

19:23

and Daniel Passingham. And those two officers were

19:25

the ones that were asking lots of questions.

19:27

But behind the scenes was a huge team.

19:31

Many, many, many investigators doing

19:33

various different roles. I

19:35

think that's something the public often don't see. Sometimes you

19:38

see a police informant as the face of the case.

19:40

But there was a real team effort behind this, wasn't

19:42

there, Sloane? Yeah, absolutely. And

19:44

one of the interviews was selected because

19:46

he had an interest in camping and

19:48

so on. So he was able to

19:51

establish a rapport, which is what police always want

19:53

to do. You know,

19:56

the old sort of idea of

19:58

the third degree is nonsense. all

20:00

about empathy and bringing people along,

20:02

which they did really.

20:05

Well, as I said, without that phone, without

20:07

Hill's phone piggy, we'd have

20:09

a total different result because that whole interview would have

20:12

been thrown out. As you said earlier,

20:14

we're talking about a really clever man here. We're

20:16

talking about somebody who's an airline pilot. As

20:19

part of this case and part of the investigation

20:21

we also do in our role as journalists is

20:23

we speak to a lot of people, friends, family,

20:25

those that may have come across accused people along

20:28

the way. You've also spoken to

20:30

a few people who knew Lin during his time

20:32

as an airline pilot. Can you tell us a

20:34

little bit more about that slide? Very

20:39

risk averse, as all pilots are, very

20:41

much by the book. Wasn't

20:44

particularly liked by many of

20:46

his co-workers and

20:48

some of the junior pilots didn't like flying

20:50

with him because they thought it was pretty

20:53

autocratic. The coroner is

20:55

going to be asked to

20:57

reopen the inquest into Greg Lynn's

20:59

first wife, Lisa, who was found

21:02

dead in the front garden of her Mount

21:04

Macedon home in the fetal

21:06

position. She had a large

21:08

amount of pills

21:13

and alcohol in her system. The

21:16

coroner was not able to find. It

21:19

was an open finding. There was no

21:21

suicide note. Couldn't rule out suicide. Couldn't

21:24

rule out misadventure.

21:26

But you've got to ask yourself why a loving

21:30

mother is going to try

21:33

to go to sleep at Mount Macedon

21:35

in the garden when

21:38

it's four degrees. And young kids

21:40

inside. And but the

21:43

the material that goes

21:45

to the coroner will

21:48

not be alleging one way

21:50

or the other. Any particular suspect on this

21:52

matter. But yeah, we heard a lot of

21:54

this in the pre trial as well. And

21:56

it was one of the bombshell moments, I

21:59

think, for a lot of people. people and

22:01

a bombshell, my bet that the jury weren't

22:03

told about. One

22:05

might say rightfully so, not to prejudice

22:07

anything, but was the

22:09

fact that Gregory Lynn's first

22:11

wife, Lisa, passed away in 1999. She

22:15

was also in the airline industry. In

22:18

the pretrial, we heard some statements

22:20

from her mother and father who

22:22

spoke of their relationship and any

22:24

fears and concerns that they had.

22:26

That's something that the coroner's report

22:28

also detailed, fears

22:31

that were there. There's certainly no suggestion

22:33

a certain person is responsible for anything, but

22:35

it's one of those things that you start

22:37

to hear and we can now start to

22:39

publish post trial that the jury

22:42

didn't hear about. Quite rightly

22:44

the jury didn't hear about it because it didn't

22:46

relate to this particular case. There

22:50

was a fair bit of rejoicing amongst Lisa's friends

22:54

on the verdict. He was not

22:56

liked. There

23:01

are more than one witness who says that Lisa said

23:05

that Greg could kill

23:07

her. That doesn't mean it happened, but she did

23:10

have those fears. Penny, you were in

23:12

court for that pretrial when those statements were

23:14

read out. They were quite

23:16

confronting. They

23:19

were, Erin. We both listened

23:21

to that as part of these months

23:23

of this case being set up by

23:25

both sides. It

23:27

was really confronting to hear two

23:30

people who have lost their daughter in

23:32

the circumstances that they did that had

23:34

to be investigated by a coroner that

23:36

they haven't had her around for many,

23:39

many years. They had spoken

23:41

in these statements of their concerns for

23:43

her, their concerns about the relationship when

23:45

they had been together and then after

23:48

she became estranged from Gregory Lynn. Now,

23:51

those were things that were mentioned in the pretrial

23:53

as something that could be brought in as what's

23:55

known as character evidence to go to who

23:58

the person who's being accused And

24:01

I think that's something that people might even know

24:03

sort of from crime scene sort of shows your

24:05

sort of CSI Drama

24:07

type things that trying to prove what a person's

24:09

like and can prove a case But as we

24:11

know there's a lot of rules around what evidence

24:13

can go in and what evidence can go out

24:15

and as Slice said This was you know Very

24:17

unlikely to ever be part of a case because

24:19

it could be very prejudicial Putting

24:22

something like this before the jury didn't have

24:24

anything to do directly with this Particular case

24:26

and what the jury was being asked to

24:28

decide on at all And as you said,

24:30

there's no suggestion at this stage

24:32

that this was a suspicious death, but we

24:34

may see the coroner Look

24:37

into that again and make different findings after

24:39

those original findings that came around 20 years

24:41

ago So I think what

24:43

it is Interesting for

24:45

people to note is personalities Of course

24:47

do come into things and sly although

24:49

there wasn't this character evidence allowed in

24:51

and we didn't hear huge amounts other

24:54

than his sort of Work-life what Gregory

24:56

Lynn was like. He did take the

24:58

stand himself as well as being Shown

25:01

in his own words to the jury in

25:03

the hours of police interview. They did see

25:05

from the eventual end of that police interview

25:08

what sort of Characteristic

25:11

sort of demeanor. Did

25:13

you get through some of these elements that

25:16

he's shown in this trial? And and how

25:18

do you think that sort of came across

25:20

to the jury? Well, as

25:22

you both know it can be interpreted one

25:25

of two ways. Yeah, he was calm So

25:28

if you if you think he's a murderer

25:30

going here, well This

25:32

is inconsistent with the manner with which he

25:34

claimed the crime scene Yeah, or he's calm

25:36

because he's telling the truth so he doesn't

25:38

have to remember his lies He

25:41

just sits there and tells the truth, but

25:43

you know again. He found it difficult Answer

25:47

questions of why he was so reckless

25:49

with his firearm on this particular occasion

25:51

when it's a pilot he would

25:53

have Done every

25:56

safety check by the book

26:00

hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times. We'll be

26:02

back after this. Penny,

26:04

you mentioned characters and personalities.

26:07

There was another character or

26:09

personality that Sly, you wrote

26:12

very interesting pieces about during the

26:14

investigation, a man that was dubbed

26:16

the Button Man. I

26:19

think that got a lot of media attention during

26:21

the trial and it painted a real picture of

26:23

the valley. Tell us a little

26:25

bit more about the Button Man and what

26:28

it was like writing that story. Well,

26:30

the Button Man is a recluse who

26:32

lives in the northern suburbs and he

26:34

goes up into the highlands

26:36

and can stay up there for up to three months.

26:39

He has spears, he tracks

26:41

animals and he's called the Button Man because he

26:44

gets deer antlers and turns

26:46

them into buttons. In

26:48

fact, he's got two studs

26:50

in his ears which are from deer and

26:53

there's a number of stories

26:55

of how this person would just

26:57

turn up and he was such an expert,

26:59

he's such an expert bushy that

27:01

he would just be standing next to you all of

27:03

a sudden. People

27:06

have a healthy respect

27:09

for him. With the number of people going

27:11

missing up there, they always try and nail it on

27:13

the Button Man and there was one who went

27:16

missing who the Button Man said, yeah, I spoke to

27:18

him because he went past

27:20

my camp but he's not been linked

27:22

to any of these. When it

27:24

was a mystery, of course, the Button Man's name is

27:27

always up

27:29

front. I think as

27:32

part of this and part of

27:34

bringing the Button Man into our discussions, it

27:36

just shows how much public

27:38

interest there was in this case. People

27:42

really started to learn that these two elderly

27:45

people were missing in the high country. Police

27:48

said during pretrial that they

27:50

had hundreds, thousands of tip-offs

27:52

from the members of the

27:54

public as media started to

27:56

print missing camper articles. numbers

28:00

of calls and tips to police and crime

28:02

stoppers that they'd really never seen before, almost

28:04

added an entire new element to the investigation.

28:08

There was one particular officer at one point

28:10

that was purely tasked with just going through

28:12

all of those tip-offs. In those

28:14

tip-offs, a number of people had called up and

28:17

mentioned the button man and said that they had

28:19

interactions with this gentleman, a man that they'd seen

28:21

selling these deer antler buttons on the side of

28:23

the road, this man that would put the wind

28:25

up, and a grown man at a campsite who

28:28

had guns in his car, they

28:30

were left feared and never wanted to go back to

28:33

the valley. So, we're talking

28:35

about a really remote, unique part of

28:37

the state, another entirely new and difficult

28:39

element to a missing person case. You

28:41

mentioned before a needle in a thousand

28:45

haystacks, but you go

28:47

to the Wanangatta Valley and you see what it's

28:49

really like and you get this whole new perspective

28:51

of just how difficult this police investigation may have

28:53

been. There was a lot

28:55

of criticism along the way of, as you said, of

28:57

how police handled the investigation. There always is going to

29:00

be. But when you

29:02

look just how remote this is, so remote

29:04

they couldn't even take the

29:06

jury for a viewing, though

29:08

they discussed bringing in a chopper, it

29:11

just added this entire new element to

29:13

investigation. It's not something we really see

29:15

that often, but there was a

29:18

lot of other people that had gone missing in

29:20

the valley over the years, bushwalkers, people whose car

29:22

was found parked on the side of the road.

29:24

And I think that all just added to an

29:26

element of mystery in this case and had people

29:29

wanting to know more. Well,

29:31

you were up there for the

29:33

search once they found the remains.

29:35

I was. So, you know exactly

29:37

how remote it was and you would

29:39

see that there was no way those

29:42

remains were going to be found unless the

29:45

offender, in this case, Lynne, told

29:48

the police where it was. In fact, I think

29:50

they missed it the first time. Yeah, there was

29:52

a little bit of confusion. We heard that in

29:54

the trial of exactly what happened at Union Spur

29:56

Track, which is that second site that's just north

29:58

of Dargo. And during the police

30:01

interview, Lin admitted to burning the remains. He

30:03

said he spent the night next to them

30:05

stoking the fire to ensure that

30:07

there was barely anything left. But

30:10

then he moved what was left,

30:12

the ash and the fragments of bone, I think

30:14

it was about 16 metres

30:16

away into a fallen root ball of

30:18

a tree. But yeah, I

30:20

think it took a little bit of time from memory penny

30:23

during the trial. We heard a

30:25

little bit from one particular investigator

30:27

who said he was using a

30:29

metal detector when he came across

30:32

Hills Burnt watch that was within that

30:35

root ball area because perhaps maybe they would

30:37

never have found it otherwise. Even though Lin

30:40

took them to Union Spur Track, we're

30:42

talking about a really remote part of

30:45

the country. Like there's no sealed

30:47

roads, there's no phone reception. It really

30:49

is the middle of nowhere. So

30:52

there are so many little elements along the

30:54

way of what could have or should have

30:56

happened. Penny, I think

30:58

that was something that we're all still trying to

31:01

grapple with. Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's with

31:03

both of these particular scenes, both

31:05

Union Spur Track where the remains

31:08

were burnt and eventually found. And

31:10

also Bucks Camp itself, the murder

31:13

scene after the jury found that

31:15

Carol Clay was indeed murdered there

31:17

by Greg Lin. These

31:19

were places that were searched multiple times

31:21

by police. So it did take

31:23

a number of sweeps of some of these places

31:26

for some of the evidence to come to light.

31:28

And we know that that was sort of touched

31:30

on quite a bit in the trial, particularly the

31:32

skull fragment and the piece of fired projectile

31:34

that were found back at Bucks Camp after

31:37

Gregory Lin had been arrested and charged sort

31:39

of in the months after as police continued

31:41

more of these searches to try and bring

31:43

all this evidence together. And

31:46

I think that again goes to show, as

31:48

we've been saying, that police

31:50

really wouldn't have found the remains without

31:52

Lin admitting to where they were and

31:55

leading them ultimately to it. And

31:57

again, with going back and then once he's

31:59

given