Australia - Russell Hill & Carol Clay Murdered While Camping - Wonnangatta Valley, 2020 #8

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SouthAussie said:
Geez, it sounds as if the jury was not going to be allowed to make a decision based on what happened. If the Crown hadn't taken Croucher's pre-trial decisions to appeal. (No wonder Croucher seemed so grumpy.)
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Looks like Croucher was more interested in the application of law while the prosecution just wanted convictions for the mob baying for blood.

Not surprised there was a Not Guilty considering the prosecutions case.
 
JudgeJudi said:
“Look, the assumption is that I’m the villain. In fact, ah, I think I’m the victim of all of this,” he said. He claimed at the time not to have met RH and CC during the trip, but this was cut from the record that was played to the jury. IMO the jury were entitled to know this. It goes to whether or not he's truthful and is to be believed or that he's a habitual liar who will say and do whatever he thinks will save him. Not happy Jan.

Link
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“Look, the assumption is that I’m the villain. In fact, ah, I think I’m the victim of all of this,” he said.

Seriously? This despicable man is definitely bat s**t crazy.
 
Hi folks, I've been quietly following along on this forum fairly from the outset, but only posted a couple of times.

Took a bit of trawling to find it but this post has been stuck on my mind ever since. Even reading it now I can't decide if it was just trolling or something more going on. There wouldn't have been many people in a position to say this at the time and it kind of rings true... It was the only post from that username (not that I'm much better ). It's also entirely possible that I took what was a fairly broad statement and adapted it to what we've learnt since then!

Post #128 - link below

www.websleuths.com

Found Deceased - Australia - Russell Hill, 74, & Carol Clay, 72, Wonnangatta Valley, 20 March 2020 #3

i know murder suicide has been ruled out, but it would be a much simpler scenario, what if they had argued, it became violent and accidentally fatal, blood in the tent so it was burnt down to destroy evidence, sparing the precious truck and the body dragged into denser bush where the other...
www.websleuths.com www.websleuths.com
 
AussieIan said:
Looks like Croucher was more interested in the application of law while the prosecution just wanted convictions for the mob baying for blood.

Not surprised there was a Not Guilty considering the prosecutions case.
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So I can "infer" you were surprised by the guilty verdict considering the prosecution's case, from your point of view. ;)

Judge Croucher earned his money on this trial, that's for sure.
I was surprised it was a split verdict but there you go. Justice is served.
 
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I’m so relieved the discussion about the former poster is coming up. It’s been eating away at me!! Someone sent those posts to Crimestoppers, right?! And they checked it out?! I assumed so and it was just a troll or something being deliberately mysterious. And yet…

Do you know, this wasn’t the only forum dedicated to this topic where a poster using that name somewhat obsessively posted about this case. You might find some others still out there but some (non-WS) posts have definitely gone MIA.
 
Cliff Hardy said:
The detectives mislead Lynn into believing he was simply assisting them rather than already a suspect and didn't read him his rights early enough. There were also issues with the line of questioning the detectives employed. Including making him promises they couldn't actually keep.

The result of all that was the judge allowed the defence to cherry pick whatever they wanted from that the police interview while the prosecution were unable to use any of it. This allowed the defence to, in effect, mislead the jury about how cooperative Lynn had been and also mislead the jury that Lynn had been completely truthful, when the reality is he also told lies, including that he claimed he had never met Hill or Clay.
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Yeah it was two separate interviews that were an issue.

One was his initial discussion with police at his home, the occasion where the cop subsequently took a photo of his repainted vehicle. During this encounter, the cops claimed to have classed GL as a “person of interest” not a suspect, and thus they didn’t have to read him his rights. One cop also recorded him illegally. THIS was the interview where GL said he had never met the victims.

The other was the one after he was arrested and going through stuff with his family
 
I haven't posted much in the last few months, busy with study etc. I wonder what else is going to come about with GL.
As I mentioned in PP my "blood ran cold," when I heard about the death of his wife.
I really hope that VicPol profile the crap out of this man. I still can't believe they were able to find him.
I've lived between Victoria and NSW, the areas in between on the GDR are extremely remote. I'm in an area where the next town is 65km - 100km away on top of the GDR. So, kudos to the investigators.
 
AussieIan said:
Looks like Croucher was more interested in the application of law while the prosecution just wanted convictions for the mob baying for blood.

Not surprised there was a Not Guilty considering the prosecutions case.
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Well, Croucher was evidently wrong in his application of the law, in this instance. As he was overruled and the jury was allowed to decide on said evidence for themselves.
Looks like the prosecution was right about those matters. And I am guessing that it will negate any attempt to appeal on those particular items because they have already been ruled on in the appeal.

Sometimes a case doesn't go how a person expects it to go. Doesn't mean the police and prosecution were wrong. Just means that we were not aware of all of the evidence they had.

They didn't painstakingly investigate because they were baying for blood. They did it because they were trying to catch a killer. Sorry if you don't like others supporting our police officers.

imo
 
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Cliff Hardy said:
The detectives mislead Lynn into believing he was simply assisting them rather than already a suspect and didn't read him his rights early enough.
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But if that is true, why did Lynn reply with a No Comment for the first 3 days?

It is not making a lot of sense to me. If it is implied that you are simply assisting, surely you would say "I dunno, mate. Wasn't there at the time". Not "No Comment".

Don't all officers say that a person is "assisting with their investigations"?
 
SouthAussie said:
But if that is true, why did Lynn reply with a No Comment for the first 3 days?

It is not making a lot of sense to me. If it is implied that you are simply assisting, surely you would say "I dunno, mate. Wasn't there at the time". Not "No Comment".
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It was the second interview, the one after he was arrested, where he said no comment for 2 days. Then he spilled all but only after police used unethical tactics for those 2 days to wear him down.

It was the first interview (which wasn’t really an interview just a ‘chat’ At his house a few months prior) where he claimed not to have met them.
Link
 
JMO, but I think the jury decided they couldn't determine beyond a reasonable doubt what happened to Russell (because there wasn't enough hard evidence), but felt confident Lynn killed Carol, because Russell wouldn't have done that.

I think prosecutors knew this all along, that's why they instructed police to avoid arresting him...hoping for a confession. Just because they presented a confident prosecution doesn't mean they had the hard evidence. How could they? He'd destroyed it all!

The good thing is, whether or not he'll serve time for Russel's murder, he will serve time, everyone - especially family - knows he did it, and his flying, camping, hunting, shooting, club-belonging days are over.

JMO
 
KathPlumber said:
It was the second interview, the one after he was arrested, where he said no comment for 2 days. Then he spilled all but only after police used unethical tactics for those 2 days to wear him down.

It was the first interview (which wasn’t really an interview just a ‘chat’ At his house a few months prior) where he claimed not to have met them.
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I think we are speaking at cross purposes. If you read the court document that Bats put up, it is an appeal to allow evidence from the 2nd interview, at Sale police station. In which the judges overrode Croucher's decision and allowed portions of it ... as there was precedent.

I am not speaking of the first interview.
 
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SouthAussie said:
Geez, it sounds as if the jury was not going to be allowed to make a decision based on what happened. If the Crown hadn't taken Croucher's pre-trial decisions to appeal. (No wonder Croucher seemed so grumpy.)
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Yeah it seems like there's nothing to appeal. The obvious arguments already happened pre-trial and the interrogation issue was already addressed. He will probably get around 25 and die in prison.
 
SouthAussie said:
I think we are speaking at cross purposes. If you read the court document that Bats put up, it is an appeal to allow evidence from the 2nd interview, as Sale police station. Which the judges overrode Crouchers decision and allowed portions of it ... as there was precedence.

I am not speaking of the first interview.
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They didn’t mislead him into believing he wasn’t a suspect after they’d arrested him. He was told his rights then and his legal aid lawyer advised him not to comment. At that time the police presented it as an opportunity to tell his side of the story because they knew he was involved, rather than as someone just assisting the investigation (which is how it was presented at their initial visit to his home in 2020).

Hopefully that makes sense :)
 
discostu said:
They didn’t mislead him into believing he wasn’t a suspect after they’d arrested him. He was told his rights then and his legal aid lawyer advised him not to comment. At that time the police presented it as an opportunity to tell his side of the story because they knew he was involved, rather than as someone just assisting the investigation (which is how it was presented at their initial visit to his home in 2020).

Hopefully that makes sense :)
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I totally agree with you, from what I know. Which is why I don't understand why some portions of that (2nd) interview were disallowed by Croucher.

The appeal judges actually cited precedent for overriding Croucher where they overrode him. They said that (named) precedent still applied.

Anyway, I will drop it now. I feel that I am going in circles. :)
And the accused has been convicted.
 
Porceddu made his mistakes along the way and was ticked off for them by Dann and Croucher but credit where it is due, he won a guilty verdict against a defendant who destroyed all the evidence and in the absence of the victims, spun a yarn designed to make him look more like the victim than the perpetrator.
 
Cliff Hardy said:
Porceddu made his mistakes along the way and was ticked off for them by Dann and Croucher but credit where it is due, he won a guilty verdict against a defendant who destroyed all the evidence and in the absence of the victims, spun a yarn designed to make him look more like the victim than the perpetrator.
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Thank goodness this one wasn't a judge-alone trial.
 
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