They're all dead, Bain told officer

Huddled in a fetal position at the end of a bed, David Bain was crying hysterically and told the first policeman to reach him that his family were all dead, a jury has heard.

Sergeant Murray Stapp told the High Court at Christchurch he had to use a piece of wood to smash a glass pane near the front door to get into the Dunedin house, where Bain is accused of shooting dead his parents and three siblings on the morning of June 20, 1994.

The house was dark, but a light was on in the room near the front door where he found Bain.

"I ran up to him with my revolver in the extended position. He was crying, addressed me that they were all dead, they were all dead, or words to that effect," Mr Stapp said.

He told a fellow policeman to watch over Bain as he checked the house and found the bodies of the family.

"My senses were heightened. I had absolutely no idea what I was dealing with. I had no idea if there was anyone that was a threat to me, or a threat to [David Bain]."

When he returned to David Bain, he appeared to have "some sort of fit, like a seizure".

"His body was jerking. But he wasn't all over the place like we see on television. A little bit of arm movement and a little bit of head movement, and after several seconds he appeared to faint."

Ambulance staff attended to him.

The house was quiet, but Mr Stapp said it was cluttered and had a "dirty, unkept smell to it" and a "stale cooking smell in the kitchen".

On day four of the retrial, the Bain family's next-door neighbours told of unusual behaviour before the killings.

A rift had developed in the Bain family over whether their house should be demolished and a new one built, and Robin Bain, David's father, was no longer sleeping in the house because of an estrangement, the court heard.

Neighbour Billee Marsh said she found David pleasant and polite, but his behaviour was different the last time she saw him before the deaths.

"I was gardening at my back fence and David went by pushing his wheelbarrow and I called out, 'Hi David' - something like that - and he ignored me, he didn't look at me."

Mrs Marsh said she found Robin Bain to be a "lovely man, gentle, polite, calm man, very reasonable".

But she found David's mother, Margaret, "flaky".

On one occasion, Margaret told her "she just decided to go to bed for six weeks and the family just had to make do around her", Mrs Marsh said.

David's sister, Arawa, who babysat for the Marshes, had spoken excitedly about getting a new house.

"She had planned her room, the colour, everything. She would see a colour in our house and she would say, 'I would like that for my room'."

The trial may last up to four months.