Found Deceased Australia - Russell Hill, 74, & Carol Clay, 72, Wonnangatta Valley, 20 Mar 2020 #6 *charges*

[pebige]

I found this interesting as his wife didn't know he was camping with another woman.
Wife of missing camper had no idea he had gone on a trip with another woman | Daily Mail Online

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[Sillybilly]

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[Sillybilly]

ADMIN NOTE:

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[Tiff23fr]

Mod Reminder:

Please use links to support information stated as facts. We do have two verified insiders in this case that are not required to provide links for known information:

MotoMike - Long term acquaintance of Russel’s
Alicia_Eizabeth - acquaintance of the accused

Thanks,
Tiff

 

[TootsieFootsie]

No Cookies | The Mercury

Behind a paywall, but it says the remains discovered were bone fragments.

There's a photo described as the exact location.

 

[SouthAussie]

No Cookies | The Mercury

Behind a paywall, but it says the remains discovered were bone fragments.

There's a photo described as the exact location.

Do you notice how there are a few good size logs over that hole (said to be the exact location) that are quite burned?

Noticeable in the first and third photo in your link.

 

[Arboreal]

Brumby Jack made a post @940 in which he said: "And just to add to my last post, for @Arboreal - we know he didn’t take Zeka, and he’d be a complete numpty to try and take Herne Spur out, especially alone and with a trailer on in the middle of the night (I dunno that he’d have made it out), so he must’ve taken Wombat Range, which is easier going anyway. I think I probably said that way back somewhere?"
I made a post @#970 and the moderator removed some of saying it was not from an approved source. I can't recall exactly what I wrote or what was removed, but I think it likely referred to searching the police undertook in April, 2021.
The gist of that was that On April 26, 2021, The Age reported that detectives returned to search remote tracks, rivers and cliffs in the area the couple were camping as a result of information obtained from previous searches. They are focusing their efforts on the Dargo High Plains Road, Cynthia Range Track, Herne Spur Track and the Wonnangatta Track. This was taken from my friend's timeline that she is composing as part of a project for her criminology major and was reported in #370. The ultimate source of this information is an article in The Age, (for non-Australians, a major daily newspaper which is generally considered fairly reliable). The article is entitled, "Specialist police resume search for missing campers Russell Hill and Carol Clay" and can be read at this link: Search for Russell Hill and Carol Clay: Specialist police resume search for missing campers in Victoria’s high country.
This is important because police were clearly working with a theory that the remains of Mr Hill and Ms Clay had been removed from the valley and the police had theories - based on information they considered reliable - about the route taken out of the valley. The person transporting the remains seems to have had some familiarity with the area, because they not only attempted one relatively easy way out, only to be thwarted, and then took the next easiest way out, in the dark.
I should also have added that the place where human remains were found, believed to be those of Mr Hill and Ms Clay, is about 15km - 20km by track from Cynthia Range track - and parts of the track have mobile coverage with vodafone. See images below.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

I did wonder if they were burned or charred.

I didn't expect to see so many logs there if that was the spot.

Do you notice how there are a few good size logs over that hole (said to be the exact location) that are quite burned?

Noticeable in the first and third photo in your link.

 

[Arboreal]

Another interesting factoid is that where the human remains were recovered is, as the crow flies, about 700m from the Grant Area camp ground with admittedly, dense bush in between.

 

[RickshawFan]

No Cookies | The Mercury

Behind a paywall, but it says the remains discovered were bone fragments.

There's a photo described as the exact location.

Great. That article's actually not behind a paywall.

That hole is much deeper than I anticipated from a root ball (although the angle is weird, so I'm not 100% certain). I'm thinking there was a depression corresponding to those roots, and a hole was dug much deeper. Perhaps the goal was to fill it in until it looked like a depression corresponding to the root ball: no one would notice if it was irregular looking. IME at crime scene burials, very often the ground sinks or the vegetation pattern is off. But in a root ball depression you'd expect odd flora and uneven ground. You might even expect an animal to dig a lair in that spot.
I can't imagine how LE found this spot. I can't think of a better way to disguise a burial place in the woods.
So the remains were placed in the bottom of that hole. Then logs to burn the remains? Maybe there were smaller pieces of wood under those logs, and they mostly burned?

I'm not familiar with Australia. I do know there are fire issues. Wouldn't a fire like that attract attention? It would have smoked like crazy. Perhaps there was even drone or helicopter footage while those forests were being scanned from above. Or..... satellite footage. In the Vallow case in Idaho (still in process), the fire used to burn a body was visible from satellite, and that one was no great conflagration (it didn't incinerate the body, either, evidently).

******
What would be the motive for this crime? I can't even begin to guess.

 

[crhedBngr]

Great. That article's actually not behind a paywall.

That hole is much deeper than I anticipated from a root ball. I'm thinking the hole was dug deeper. Then the remains were placed in the bottom. Then logs to burn the remains? Maybe there were smaller pieces of wood under those logs, and they mostly burned?

I'm not familiar with Australia. I do know there are fire issues. Wouldn't a smoldering fire like that one must have been attract attention?

******
What would be the motive for this crime? I can't even begin to guess.

RBBM

This is the $64,000 question . . .

JMVHO.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

I wonder if they found anything else that they aren't revealing yet.

 

[BrumbyJack]

Nah those logs weren’t burned there, if that’s what you mean. To me they look like they’ve been picked up either nearby or along the way, to use to throw over the burial site. I’m thinking he’s grabbed the logs to deter anything digging the bodies up while they were still fresh. Just doesn’t looks right coz nothing underneath is charred, you should have some sort of fire residue underneath. Something deliberate like that would stick out like dogs balls to a lot of people.

I did wonder if they were burned or charred.

I didn't expect to see so many logs there if that was the spot.

 

[RickshawFan]

Do you notice how there are a few good size logs over that hole (said to be the exact location) that are quite burned?

Noticeable in the first and third photo in your link.

The fire didn't consume the logs, either. I think that's interesting. Did it rain and put the fire out? Was the fire-building botched (maybe it wasn't built skillfully, e.g. by cramming logs too tightly together?)? Was it deliberately put out, e.g. with dirt? Did someone come along, notice the fire and put it out (they would have reported it to LE, though, since it's obviously deliberate)?
Is that burial site right next to the road, or is this off the road? I can't tell if that track is supposed to be a dirt road.

 

[RickshawFan]

Nah those logs weren’t burned there, if that’s what you mean. To me they look like they’ve been picked up either nearby or along the way, to use to throw over the burial site. I’m thinking he’s grabbed the logs to deter anything digging the bodies up while they were still fresh. Just doesn’t looks right coz nothing underneath is charred, you should have some sort of fire residue underneath. Something deliberate like that would stick out like dogs balls to a lot of people.

View attachment 325063

Gotcha. Yes, you might be right that there's no burnt debris underneath, but perhaps LE removed it? Maybe some of that big hole was dug out by LE? That would make us clueless as far as reconstructing the burial method.

 

[BrumbyJack]

Actually I reckon he scouted around at the site for those charred logs, you can see in the background in those pics that there’s quite a few blackened trees around, so he wouldn’t have had to look too far to find them.

 

[BrumbyJack]

Oh fair point, these may be ‘after’ pics after the coppers were done with the site? I thought they might’ve been ‘before’ photo’s that had been released now that the remains have been recovered. If it’s after, I wonder why the logs were even put back there?

Gotcha. Yes, you might be right that there's no burnt debris underneath, but perhaps LE removed it? Maybe some of that big hole was dug out by LE? That would make us clueless as far as reconstructing the burial method.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

Brumby Jack, everytime I see your name a song gets into my head

I wonder if they now have any witnesses who saw him in the Dargo area.

 

[Bats]

Given it seems that LE had been "following" the accused for some time (so it seems from the sleuthing here), and also given the amount and type of "dirt" that has surfaced (from the sleuthing here) about the accused i'll be really interested to see how this develops.

Its so puzzling that really all we know so far is that they (LE) have enough to charge a man with murder...obviously the human remains being found is telling ... but still, we know so little...

 

[5W's]

No Cookies | The Mercury

Behind a paywall, but it says the remains discovered were bone fragments.

There's a photo described as the exact location.

I have to look at current news about RH and CC's case as I haven't recently, but "bone fragments" suggests in my mind animals may have moved the rest of the remains. It just makes this tragedy more challenging for LE and the rest of us who want answers.