Crown says forensics the key

BY MARTIN VAN BEYNEN

A strong forensic link between David Bain and the murder of his brother Stephen was the shortcut to the killer of the Bain family, a jury has been told.

In a four-hour closing address in the High Court in Christchurch yesterday, Crown prosecutor Kieran Raftery said Stephen Bain's room held the key to identifying the person who murdered the family on June 20, 1994, in Dunedin.

David Bain, 37, is charged with fatally shooting his parents, Robin and Margaret, and siblings Arawa, Laniet and Stephen with his .22 semi-automatic rifle.

Raftery said the rifle used in the murders spoke volumes about how Stephen was killed and was enough in itself to prove David Bain was the murderer.

"This rifle and the other evidence I will turn to tells you undoubtedly, beyond question that the killer of Stephen was David Bain," he said.

"Whoever killed Stephen killed everybody else in the house that day. So that is the only question you need to ask yourselves in this case who killed Stephen Bain?"

Although no forensic evidence linked Robin Bain to the killing of Stephen, a volume of evidence connected David Bain to the murder of the 14-year-old, Raftery said.

"You need to decide this case on who was Stephen's killer. Do that on the basis of the forensic evidence."

The jury could be satisfied David's fingerprints on the rifle were made with blood because at least three people had seen red-pigmented prints on the rifle in the days after the killings. If the fingerprints were in sweat, as the defence alleged, they would not have seen the red pigment.

The gloves David was wearing in the life-or-death struggle with Stephen had become soaked in blood, Raftery said.

His left hand would have been bloodied by the blood coming through the glove and it was that hand he put over the top of the rifle to deposit the bloodied fingerprints found after the killings.

Traces of Stephen's blood on David's shirt and shorts connected him to the killing of his brother just as much as the rifle.

"So the fingerprints in blood on that rifle and his brother's blood on his T-shirt and his brother's blood on his crotch of his shorts tell us yet again he is the killer of Stephen, not his father," Raftery said.

People might never know "the why" of the crimes.

"Neither Robin nor David are natural-born killers. No-one is suggesting that at all, but something went wrong in that house that morning to lead someone to kill," he said.

"We may never know what it was what the trigger was for that event but as long as you know what did happen and who did it you have answered the questions that you as a jury are asked."

The defence's case "at its highest" was that Robin was depressed and the prospect of his incestuous relationship with Laniet was about to be revealed, yet no forensic evidence connected Robin with the killings.

Even if he was depressed and wanted to commit suicide, it was a huge leap from being suicidal to being a homicidal killer, Raftery said.

Laniet, 18, was the only source of the incest allegations, but she was unreliable.

If Robin was the killer, Raftery said, why would he leave a note on the computer saying David was the only one who deserved to stay?

"It's not something addressed by a dying man to those who come after him about why he has done it," he said.

"The note reads more like David Bain talking about himself. It was a get-out-of-jail-free card for David, not the explanation of a man taking his own life."

Although the computer message was said to provide an alibi for David because he was allegedly still on his paper round when the message was written, only the estimated switch-on time of the computer was known.

Robin would have had to have waited 44 seconds for the document programme to load before he could have begun to write his message.

"Here is a man, having committed four murders, now hell-bent on suicide. He knows because of the regularity of that household that any moment now his son is going to walk in the front door and may stop him from committing suicide, yet he has to switch it on and wait silently and carefully for 44 seconds until he can actually start to type," Raftery said.

If Robin was the murderer, he had set his alarm clock for 6.32am and when he woke up he had listened to the radio. He then brought in the newspaper and put it in the hall.

In the fight with Stephen, he had got blood all over him, yet when he was found dead he had no-one else's blood on him but his own, Raftery said.

That suggested he went back to his caravan to change his clothes and to put on clean socks and shoes. He then put his bloody clothes in the laundry basket.

"Why on earth was it going to matter if he had a bloody jersey on?" Raftery said.

"What on earth would Robin wear gloves for if he was going to commit suicide and tell the world David deserves to stay. You wear gloves because you don't want to leave fingerprints."

At his first trial in 1995, Bain had said he heard Laniet gurgling.

"Does he behave like a brother? He does nothing to help his sister, who is giving signs of life," Raftery said.

"And if you're genuinely home from your paper run and you hear the sign of life, you would do what any human being would do. You'd strain heaven and earth. But no, he waits 15 or 20 minutes before he telephones."

Raftery said David Bain had changed his story between his police interviews and his first trial.

He told police he had seen only his mother and father dead, but by his trial he had seen the whole family dead.

- © Fairfax NZ News