These were the nicknames for Greg Lynn – pilot, bushman, gun lover, deer hunter and now, convicted murderer.
To some, Lynn bore a slight physical resemblance to Mick Taylor, the psychopathic character played by John Jarratt in the 2005 horror film, hence the nickname.
Lookalike or not, what became clear to the cops eavesdropping on Lynn was that he was a “strange unit”.
One detective, who listened to 3150 individual recordings of the goings on in Lynn’s house and car via listening devices, came to the view Lynn was “homophobic, narcissistic, a chauvinist, misogynist, (and) prejudiced”.
By late 2021, Victoria Police investigators from the Missing Persons Squad had heard enough.
Lynn had begun ranting about missing Victorian campers Russell Hill, 74, and Carol Clay, 73, who had not been heard from since going on a camping trip in Victoria’s Wonnangatta Valley 18 months earlier.
But the evidence was thin.
To catch a killer, 60 Minutes landed an important blow.
On November 7, reporter Sarah Abo delved into Victoria Police’s investigation, revealing a grainy photograph and sketch of a blue Nissan Patrol and trailer investigators were desperate to know more about.
As usual, Lynn and his wife Melanie were watching.
The images caused Melanie to turn to her husband and exclaim in a high-pitched voice, “It looks like your car … it really does.”
“It’s not funny, sweet pea,” Lynn retorted.
Lynn, by then, had painted his Nissan Patrol a new colour – “sandbank” beige.
Sensing he was on the police’s radar, he also removed a distinctive awning from his car.
The truth was that the Jetstar pilot had been trying to erase his tracks since the day Hill and Clay had met with violent deaths.
The investigation team, led by Detective Inspector Andrew Stamper and Detective Sergeant Brett Florence, knew Lynn was their man.
However, finding their suspect was one thing.
Proving he was a killer was another.
The crime scene had left few clues as to what had happened to Hill and Clay, and, presuming they were dead, the Alpine region was too vast and dense to search for their bodies.
It was Lynn, following his dramatic arrest a fortnight after the 60 Minutes program aired, who would give them a self-serving account and point them to the remains.
On Tuesday, after a painstaking four-year probe, Lynn, 57, went from suspect to convicted killer.
The jury, after a six-week trial, found Lynn not guilty of murdering Hill before, moments later, declaring him guilty of Clay’s murder.
Lynn remained in control as the split verdict sunk in, only raising his eyebrows as he stared forward.
Being in control has been central to his career, relationships, their breakdowns, and his “despicable” actions to avoid detection as a cold-blooded killer.
And it almost saved him.
What the jury was not told was that when police arrested Lynn in November 2021, he had already given them a story.
In a statement he made earlier in the year, he denied ever crossing paths with Hill or Clay, claiming he had left the Wonnangatta Valley before they arrived at Bucks Camp.
Lynn stuck with this narrative after his arrest, at least for a while.
It was only when confronted with evidence of Hill’s mobile phone pinging towers near the Great Alpine Road as he drove out of the High Country that he coolly changed his tune.
In his new version, Lynn carefully constructed a narrative where he was the victim.
He admitted meeting the septuagenarians at Bucks Camp in the Wonnangatta Valley where, according to Lynn, tensions flared over a drone.
Lynn claimed Hill had taken drone vision of him hunting in an area he shouldn’t have been and had threatened to go to the police.
Lynn, a loner, took it badly.
That night, he blared music from his four-wheel-drive as he sat by his campfire, in a “childish” act of defiance aimed at infuriating his new neighbours.
Then Lynn claimed Hill took matters into his own hands.
Despite the loud music, Lynn claimed he heard Hill rifling through his Nissan Patrol.
The next thing he saw was Hill’s figure walking away with his Turkish-built shotgun as he loaded it with his ammunition.
Instead of retreating into the remote bushland, Lynn stated he approached Hill telling him to “give it back” and asking, “What are you doing?”
In the violent scenes that followed, Lynn alleged Clay had been shot in the head after the gun discharged during a struggle between him and Hill.
Lynn claimed Hill’s finger was on the trigger.
Overcome by shock, Lynn said Hill dropped the firearm and went to Clay, whom he had shared a long-term secretive affair with.
Lynn then explained Hill’s death.
The retiree, he alleged, left Clay to attack him with a knife, but as Lynn defended himself, they fell and the knife struck Hill near his heart.
Incredibly, Lynn had cast Hill as the aggressor whose actions had led to the accidental death of his mistress and then his own.
The jury saw through Lynn’s lies and was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt Clay had been deliberately murdered.
But the jury accepted that Hill’s death was an accident.
Hill’s daughter, Debbie Hill, told 60 Minutes this week the not guilty verdict on her father’s murder was difficult for her to grasp.
“My dad was not a violent person in any way,” she said.
“He wouldn’t have provoked anything. So, I’m not sure what happened exactly, but he was definitely murdered.”
What is not in dispute is how Lynn callously formulated a plan in his attempt to get away with Clay’s murder.
Lynn admitted to police how, faced with two dead bodies, he methodically destroyed all evidence of the carnage that had unfolded and with it, any trace of his involvement.
In the remote bushland, he knew he was the only witness.
And it almost worked.
Lynn described to homicide investigators how he donned rubber gloves to clean and remove evidence before setting fire to Hill and Clay’s tent.
He even stole $40 from a wallet so he could pay cash for fuel.
He then drove away with the bodies loaded onto his trailer.
“I just wanted it to go away,” Lynn told Florence in his police interview.
“Whatever happened, I was screwed.”
Then, as he fled, there was a snag.
A temporary track closure thwarted his getaway route, causing him to turn around and find a spot to dump the bodies as he drove out of the region.
His new escape route out of the valley led to his car being snapped by a number plate recognition camera.
Lynn would twice return to the bodies, firstly after the initial visit by the police and again after the 60 Minutes aired its program exposing his car on November 7, 2021.
He told Victoria’s Supreme Court he vomited as he burnt the bodies throughout the night, pulverising them before spreading their remains nearby.
Within days, on November 22, Lynn was arrested by SOG members who dropped from a pair of helicopters at Arbuckle – a remote location in the same general area as Wonnangatta.
Lynn was taken to the township of Sale, where he was questioned over a nine-hour period taking several days.
Although Lynn was read his rights and communicated with a lawyer, who told him to make “no comment”, police were ruled to have behaved in an “oppressive” manner.
All of Lynn’s record of interview was ruled inadmissible in pre-trial hearings before the Victorian Director of Public Prosecutions appealed, leading to the reinstatement of parts of the police interview.
So what was this so-called “oppressive” conduct?
Detectives had pushed for Lynn, an intelligent man, to tell them what had happened to Hill and Clay.
Without his version, they knew they would not find the bodies, nor have a case.
Lynn, facing life in jail, remains under scrutiny.
Police will now turn to the mysterious death of his first wife, Lisa Lynn, which it has been re-investigating.
On October 26, 1999, Lisa was found dead outside the Lynns’ sprawling Mt Macedon property while her two boys, aged one and three, slept inside.
At the time, the Lynns were going through a bitter divorce.
No suicide note was found and there was no warning to friends or family, who had become increasingly worried at her husband’s behaviour.
In 2000, Coroner Graeme Johnstone found her death to be the result of alcohol and sleeping tablets.
He also reported Lynn had been an “abusive” husband, but did not find he had anything to do with her death.
Lisa had told her former friend and neighbour, Bronwyn Will, of her husband’s cruel streak.
“She did describe a time where, I think Greg slammed a door on her, and it hit her in the head and it knocked her unconscious,” she told 60 Minutes.
“And then there was another time where, I think Lisa had too much to drink or something and Greg pushed her outside and you know, hosed her down and locked her outside overnight.”
Lynn, in his own words, described wanting to “teach her a lesson” for her drunkenness, describing walking into their bedroom and asking her if “she wanted to play a little game”.
“I bound her hands and feet with masking tape and carried her outside into the backyard,” he stated.
“I put her near the back steps and hosed her down with water from a garden hose and she got extremely cold.”
Lynn said he then untied her and took her inside.
“I agree this action was quite unusual but my intentions were for her to never drink to excess like that again.”
Bronwyn described the police investigation at the time as “slap-dash” and said more should have been done to protect her friend from Lynn.
Police were aware Lynn had issued threats to his wife after he left their Mount Macedon home to move in with another flight attendant.
“He’s a shit,” she said.
“I mean, who does that to their wife?”
“Who has multiple affairs unless they consider their wife to be unimportant, you know? Who makes their wife feel unsafe?
“No, he wasn’t a good husband.”
Victoria Police consider they have reason to look again at the circumstances of the death and say it is an ongoing investigation.
“Detectives from the Missing Persons Squad have conducted a review into the 1999 death of a 34-year-old woman in Mount Macedon,” a police statement read.
“This investigation remains ongoing and an application has not been made to the Coroner at this time.”
If this story has raised issues for you, help is available 24/7 – call 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).
If you are in immediate danger, call Triple Zero (000).