Bain Family Murders | Was David Bain Innocent?

hello this is dr grande today's question is can i analyze the bane family murders just a reminder i'm not diagnosed anybody in this video only speculating about what could be happening in a situation like this if you enjoy this video please like it subscribe to my channel consider supporting me on patreon and check out my podcast on youtube bellagrande media i will put the relevant links for those items in the description for this video so first i'll look at the background this case i'll move to the timeline of the crime and offer my analysis starting with the background in 1969 a man named robin bain a woman named margaret cohen would marry in new zealand they would go on to have four children between 1972 and 1980. in 1974 robin took a job as a missionary teacher in new guinea therefore the family moved there they returned to new zealand in 1988 in 1991 robin started working as the principal of school by june of 1994 the family situation had taken a turn for the worse they lived in an old semi-derelict house located in anderson's bay dunedin and the relationship between robin and margaret was distant robin actually lived in two different campers referred to as caravans in new zealand at this time robin was 58 margaret was 50. their oldest child david was 22 their daughter arrowa was 19 their daughter laniette was 18 and their youngest child stephen was 14. on june 19 1994 laniette would normally have been away from home but she returned to the family house ostensibly to reveal to the family that she and her father were involved in a sexual relationship but this was never proven a lot of people don't believe this was the case but either way she was there at the family house at 709 a.m the next morning june 20 1994 the couple's oldest son david called the police and told the dispatcher they're dead they're all dead the police drove to the bain family house and discovered that david was correct his parents and his three siblings had all died of gunshot wounds all the victims were in separate rooms and they had all been shot in the head steven's body showed signs that he may have been strangled in addition to being shot next to robin's body was a caliber rifle it was the murder weapon the police would find a message typed on a computer that read sorry you are the only one who deserved to stay which seemingly indicated that robin had killed everybody and this message was for david saying that he was spared the same fate the initial theory of the crime that robin was the killer would eventually be replaced by another theory the idea that david bain was the killer on june 24 david was arrested and charged with five counts of murder his first trial would take place in may of 1995. david said on the morning of the murders he went to deliver newspapers which was his part-time job he returned at 6 40 am he entered the house without turning on the lights he walked downstairs to the bathroom and washed his hands because they had newspaper print on them from delivering the newspapers after this he put some clothes in the washing machine when he was done he discovered that his family had been murdered this was 10 minutes later at 6 50 a.m due to an episode of missing time during which david said he spaced out he waited 19 more minutes to call emergency services the prosecution in new zealand which is referred to as the crown argued that david killed his family to get his inheritance here was the crown's theory of the crime david woke up at about 5 am he got dressed and retrieved his 22 caliber rifle using a key to unlock the trigger lock he fits a silencer to the weapon puts on a pair of white opera gloves and wears a pair of his mother's glasses because his glasses were being repaired he walks into lanietz room where she is sleeping and shoots her in the head he then walks into margaret's room and shoots her in the head he makes his way to steven's room stephen wakes up just as david places the rifle to his head stephen fights for his life he grabs the silencer leaving his fingerprints on it david is able to get the upper hand he strangles stephen before shooting him and the head during the fight the glasses david was wearing fell off he picks them up but leaves one of the lenses behind in steven's room david walks downstairs and shoots arrowa missing her initially because he cannot see well without the glasses he then goes back upstairs he can hear laniet gurgling so he shoots her again in the head to make sure that she's dead as all this was happening robin was in the camper sleeping david washes his clothes changes in the fresh clothes and goes to deliver newspapers he returns home and puts a message on the computer to make it seem like his father is the perpetrator and to explain why he was spared then he waits for his father to come into the house to pray which is something he did every day at around 7 am david hides behind the curtains his father enters david shoots him in the head and places the rifle next to his body moving to the theory of the crime from the defense the defense said that robin was the killer laniette was getting ready to expose their sexual relationship this would get robin in a lot of trouble robin's marriage was essentially over already and he used david's rifle before david would be found guilty of all five murders he was sentenced to life in prison eligible for parole in 16 years a rugby player named joe karim took up david's cause believing that something was wrong with his conviction he wrote four books about the case and visited david over 200 times with karem's help david's attorney successfully argued to get his conviction overturned in may of 2007 david was granted bail after having served 13 years in prison in march of 2009 david's new trial began the theory of the crime from the defense was that david's father robin had committed the murders before ending his life so nothing changed there david was found not guilty on all five charges apparently the jury was really impressed with david two of them congratulated david after the verdict one of them hugged david about a year later david applied for compensation due to wrongful imprisonment david was paid 925 thousand dollars under the condition that the matter was settled no further legal action is permitted david bain had some trouble adjusting to life after prison he couldn't find a job mostly because of the murder part and he ran out of money he married a school teacher in january of 2014 and they had a son in december of that year in 2017 he changed his name to william davies there are rumors that he moved to australia these trials were very expensive for new zealand costing about 7 million dollars in total now moving to my analysis was david bain guilty let's look at the evidence both for and against the idea that he was guilty i'll start with the inculpatory evidence david was the owner of the murder weapon it was a 22 caliber semi-automatic rifle specifically a winchester model 490. david's bloody fingerprints were found on the firearm his bloody palm print was on the side of the washing machine david had admitted that he heard his 18 year old sister laniet gurgle why did he not render aid david had fresh injuries to his hands and face on the day of the murders stephen's blood was found on david's clothes david could not adequately explain what he was doing for the 19 minutes between the time that he discovered the bodies and when he called emergency services again he said that he spaced out but one would think this would be an unusual occurrence most people would just immediately call the police prior to the murders david had discussed how he could use his newspaper delivery route as an alibi for another crime robin's fingerprints were not on the rifle based on the location and angle of the bullet entry into robin's head it was not likely his gunshot wound was self-inflicted it would be very difficult for him to maneuver into a position to do that if robin was the killer why would he wait a half hour between committing the murders and ending his own life why would robin wear white opera gloves was he trying to frame david then why would he write that note that essentially exonerated david maybe robin was unsure about the next step in his plan like maybe he intended to stay alive and the idea to bring an end to his life only came later i guess that's possible but it doesn't really make a lot of sense that he would be making effort to get away with the crime why did robin get the newspaper before entering the house did he want to catch up on the news before committing multiple homicides this also seems kind of strange david admitted that he was the only one who knew the location for the key to the trigger lock on the rifle the computer that contained the written message was turned on at 6 44 am four minutes after david returned to the house also the characteristics of the message were convenient it was in a form where there was no way to prove who wrote it why didn't robin simply write the message by hand and it explained why the one person who was still alive was the one person who was not murdered by robin now moving to the exculpatory evidence the evidence that makes it appear as though david was innocent david really didn't have any motive to kill his family robin however had a few potential motives robin had six abrasions on his hands but it could have been from work that he was doing around the house robin may have felt rejected by his family he was under quite a bit of stress his relationship with his wife was not good there were rumors that laniat was planning on confronting the family when the murders occurred robin had fired david's rifle in the past 20 empty shell casings were found in his camper some people said robin was not depressed he could never commit such a crime however others said that he was haggard unkempt frustrated and a walking cadaver i bet forensic pathologists hate walking cadavers it's a lot of work chasing them around although i imagine running cadavers would be even worse robin appeared to be in a bad place in his life on the weekends he was living in a camper in the backyard during the week he was living in a camper near the school where he worked it could have been that robin just really liked campers however most people wouldn't consider living in two campers a vision of an ideal life in his role as a principal robin had struck a student and he had published disturbing stories in the school newsletter one involved someone killing their family margaret was convinced that robin was possessed by a demon in addition to the evidence pointing toward robin as the killer there was additional exculpatory evidence the lens that was found in steven's room was found under a jacket and had dust on it this makes it seem as though it might have been there for a while although the house was reportedly very dirty david's bloody fingerprints were on the rifle but the blood did not test positive for human dna something could have been off with the test it may have been human but it is possible that it may have belonged to a rabbit or possum there was other blood on the weapon that was definitely human it just wasn't there in the form of fingerprints so going back to the question was david bain actually guilty so when considering all the inculpatory and exculpatory evidence i think in reality he was i think he actually did it but what about the legal standard i think that david bain was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt which is the legal standard in new zealand i don't actually know what the jury was thinking like the second jury that found him not guilty this case seems pretty clear in my opinion it has been suggested that not all the jurors were paying attention to the evidence during the trial for example one may have been sleeping the main reasons i believe that david was guilty was the blood on the washing machine the injuries to his face and hands the fact that only he knew where the key to the trigger lock was and the unexplained gap and the timeline that was 19 minutes after he discovered the bodies david has made some unusual statements regarding this case one of the more well-known statements has to do with some type of dissociative experience that david may have had which included him talking about how black hands were taking them away them referring to his family members some people interpret the term black hands as referring to david's hands and others believe the term refers to robin's hands it seems odd that if david were innocent he would be talking about this dissociative experience this way doesn't help him at all it's not really clear why he would bring this up how did a case like this result in an acquittal i think this was a situation where a celebrity athlete became invested in a case that he did not understand he used his financial resources and fame to advocate for david bain and the strategy was successful what lessons can we learn in this case some of the hardest cases involve a situation where there are two good suspects in some ways robin seem like someone who is living on the edge a person who may snap and commit a terrible crime if david was in fact guilty maybe he realized that his father was providing an alternate theory of the crime if david wanted to take out his entire family maybe he wanted to address the apparent family dysfunction not by eliminating the dysfunction rather by eliminating the family those are my thoughts on the bain family murders please put any opinions and thoughts in the comment section they always generate an interesting dialogue as always i hope you found my analysis of this topic to be informative thanks for watching

Channel: Dr. Todd Grande

Views: 82,763

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Id: LDa0E5Dcm5A

Length: 15min 10sec (910 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 02 2021