David Bain
|
Crime & Punishment
|
Murder in the family
At 6:45 am on the morning of June 20 1994, twenty-two-year-old David Bain returned from his Dunedin paper round to find his whole family had been shot dead.[1] He did not discover this immediately: it was midwinter dark at that hour, in the deep south of New Zealand. Without switching on a light, David first went downstairs to put on a load of laundry. He later told police it was so dark he did not notice his father’s bloodstained clothes on the machine and inadvertently washed them with his own, obliterating key evidence that might have exonerated him.
Returning upstairs, David discovered his father Robin lying in the living room beside a .22 rifle with a bullet in his head. He then found his mother, two sisters and younger brother Stephen all dead in their bedrooms. Stephen appeared to have put up a fight.
There was a note typed on the family computer. It said, “You were the only one who deserved to live.”
David placed an agitated call to emergency services. It was recorded and remains a part of the public record.[2]
David told police his father, motivated by a troubled relationship with the family, must have murdered the family before typing the note on the computer to the absent David and turning the gun on himself.
Notwithstanding David’s account, based on circumstantial evidence including bloodstains on his clothing and spectacles, his fingerprints on the rifle, abrasions on his body consistent with a struggle with Stephen, and the dearth of physical evidence pointing to his father, David was convicted of all five murders.
David maintained his innocence. Joe Karam, a former New Zealand rugby international, led a campaign to challenge David’s conviction. It uncovered procedural shortcomings, inconsistencies and oversights in the police investigation and handling of evidence.
Twenty years after the original trial, the Privy Council quashed Bain’s convictions and ordered a retrial. After the second trial, David Bain was acquitted of all charges. He remains a free man.