X Slide

Feature We will never know by Rebecca Macfie During the Bain trial the defence exhorted the jury to accept that not only was there sufficient doubt to acquit David but the evidence pointed to his father being the killer If the jury did accept that the case against Robin is a strange one For 15 years the question remained the same was it David Bain or was it Robin Bain Now after more than 3700 pages of evidence from 184 witnesses the question has been answered A jury of seven women and five men has found David Bain not guilty of murdering his siblings and parents at their home at 65 Every St Dunedin on the morning of Jun

20 1994 And so it appears the jury must have accepted that 58 year old Robin was the killer of his wife Margaret murdered in her waterbed with a single bullet above the eye of his 18 year old daughter Laniet shot three times of 19 year old Arawa shot once in the head perhaps while she knelt pleading for mercy and of his 14 year old son Stephen shot twice Robin must then have gone to the living room and turned the gun on himself firing a single bullet into his left temple Apparently in Robin’s mind and without any explanation only David out on his early morning paper run through the dark cold streets of Andersons Bay while this slaughter occurred deserved to live “Robin did it ” David’s lawyer Michael Reed QC told the jury The Crown in seeking to prove it was David had to prove that Robin did not commit suicide Reed said “They can’t do that ” Robin was a gentle man but sad reclusive and eccentric said Reed His health was deteriorating he was wasted and dishevelled He was unkempt and had body odour His professional career as a teacher was at a dead end having unsuccessfully sought positions at schools bigger than the 33 pupil Taieri Beach School where he was principal At home he was cast out by Margaret and forced – when not living out at the school during the week – to sleep in a caravan in the backyard at Every St He was excluded from his wife’s grand plans for a palatial new home to replace the filthy and dilapidated family home And Laniet was going about town telling people he had been committing incest against her for years “He flipped ” Reed told the jury “Something happened The pressure became too much We will never know But on that dreadful night he did flip and he did kill his family ” We will never know So what is the scenario that the jury implicitly accepted in acquitting David and effectively convicting Robin How did Robin go about executing four members of his family and then killing himself and why would he have left so many signs that seemed to implicate David At some point he turned on the radio in his caravan – “a remarkably pedestrian thing to do for someone intent on four murders and suicide” said Crown prosecutor Kieran Raftery The police discovered it playing when they searched the property after receiving the 111 call from David at 7 10 that morning about 25 minutes after he had arrived home from his paper round Robin’s alarm was set for 6 32am although it’s not known whether it went off To have committed the murders and killed himself while David was on his paper run he would have needed to be up and about before then Perhaps he slept in his clothes said Reed During the murders he must have worn the killer’s green loose knit jersey – the garment that left vital clues and which hung limply alongside his trackpants shirt and items of David’s clothing on pin boards in the courtroom throughout the retrial Perhaps he paused to pee in the garden on his way to the house The autopsy showed he had 400 millilitres of urine in this bladder a detail put forward by the prosecution as evidence to exclude Robin as the killer how could a person murder four people and then commit suicide on a full bladder But defence witness Grant Russell a urologist said no significance could be ascribed to this detail For a man like Robin – ageing and with an enlarged prostate – 400 millilitres may not create any urgency to urinate Indeed it wasn’t unusual for older men to hold two or three litres in their bladders without discomfort It seems likely that Robin brought the Otago Daily Times delivered by another paperboy into the house and put it on the hall table Again there’s no certainty but David could not recall bringing it in when he returned from his paper round at 6 40am the time he told police in 1994 that he got back or 6 45am the time he was seen at his front gate by a woman on her way to work and which the defence lawyers in the retrial said he got home Reed said swabs taken from Robin’s hands showed no evidence of newspaper ink however He would have had to get the murder weapon David’s semi automatic 22 rifle and silencer from David’s bedroom along with the ammunition Printable version Page 1 2 3 4