Stephen Bain's room 'key' to killer's identity, jury told

Crown prosecutor Kieran Raftery says Stephen Bain's bedroom provides the key to the Dunedin murders. Photo / Pool

The bedroom of 14-year-old Stephen Bain provides the key to the Bain family murders, the crown says.

"Who killed Stephen? This will tell you the answer to who killed everyone else that day," said crown prosecutor Keiran Raftery in his closing address in the trial of David Bain, charged with the murder of five members of his family at their Dunedin home in June 1994.

"Whoever killed Stephen killed everyone else," Mr Raftery told the jury in the High Court at Christchurch.

There was not the slightest shred of forensic evidence linking Bain's father Robin with any of the murder scenes, he said.

But there was a volume of evidence that connected David Bain to Stephen's room, he said.

The evidence was on the garments Bain was wearing at the time of his arrest. The shirt he was wearing had Stephen's blood in different places on it and the shorts he was wearing had Stephen's blood on them.

"Those garments connect him intimately with Stephen's murder just as much as his fingerprints on the rifle do."

He asked why would David Bain be the only one who deserved to stay, as a message on the computer in the house said. Why was David singled out, he asked.

Mr Raftery said David Bain thought he was the only one who deserved to stay. The message on the computer was a get out of jail free card for him, not an explanation.

The odd feature about the message was that it did not quite gel as a suicide note, he said.

While the defence said Robin Bain's motive for killing the family members was his incestuous relationship with his daughter Laniet, that suggestion only ever came from Laniet, Mr Raftery said.

According to Laniet's stories, by age 12-and-a-half she had three children to three different men and had had an abortion.

The crown wouldn't get past first base if they were to try to prosecute Robin Bain for incest, Mr Raftery said.

"No one else said she was pregnant to anyone, and even David said it was nonsense. Laniet was not the most reliable source."

The luminol footprints found in the hall and at the end of Margaret's bed did not prove that Robin Bain was the killer, he said.

The murderer was not trying to make the largest footprint he could. He was creeping stealthily around the house killing members of his family.

David Bain explained he walked those places in socks, and the socks he was wearing were bloodstained.

When he did the footprint tests for the defence experts, he knew why he was doing them and knew not to make a footprint smaller than the size of his foot, he said.

The white gloves found in Stephen's room were kept in a drawer in David's bedroom. It was not left open, there were no signs that everything had been turned over to find them.

"Why use the gloves? What on earth are the gloves for" Mr Raftery said.

"You wear them if you don't want to leave fingerprints. That is why someone who wants to kill and get away with it wears them".

Mr Raftery said other factors also pointed to David being the killer. It was his rifle that was used, and his ammunition, which had been stored in his wardrobe. The key to the rifle's trigger lock had been in a jar on his desk.

The jar had not been disturbed by someone desperate to find the key. A hacky sack had even been replaced on top of the jar.

He also spoke of the disappearance of a folded cloth that had apparently been held against David's sister Laniet's head when she was shot. The cloth had never been found at the scene.

He asked who had the opportunity to get rid of the cloth. Robin Bain had no chance, but David had been out of the house for 45min or more doing his paper round.

He also referred to David hearing his sister Laniet gurgling, and yet doing nothing to help until he called emergency services 15 to 20 minutes later.

Mr Raftery raised David Bain's comment of 'I always seem to end up hurting those I love' and said: "That is exactly what he has done in this case."

The defence closing address will be given tomorrow and Justice Graham Panckhurst is expected to sum up for the jury on Thursday.

- NZPA