RedHanded - Episode 289 - David vs Robin: The Bain Family Killings - Part 2

Episode Date: March 16, 2023

Last week we left off with the absolutely batshit-craziness of Margaret’s “Bel”-filled diaries and the rumoured accusations of incest made by Laniet Bain against her father Robin. And we’ll come back to all of that later in this episode, part 2 of our series on the Bain family murders, but not before we re-join David, as he’s being interviewed for the first time by the police, just hours after the killings… See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. So, get this. The Ontario Liberals elected Bonnie Crombie as their new leader. Bonnie who? I just sent you her profile. Her first act as leader, asking donors for a million bucks for her salary. That's excessive. She's a big carbon tax supporter. Oh yeah. Check out her record as mayor. Oh, get out of here. She even increased taxes carbon tax supporter. Oh, yeah. Check out her record as mayor. Oh, get out of here.

She even increased taxes in this economy. Yeah, higher taxes, carbon taxes. She sounds expensive. Bonnie Crombie and the Ontario Liberals. They just don't get it. That'll cost you. A message from the Ontario PC Party. Get ready for Las Vegas-style action at BetMGM,

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BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact ConnexOntario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor, free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. I'm Saruti I'm Hannah and welcome to Red Handed which is being recorded in a studio but currently Hannah and I are probably somewhere in the US yeah driving driving down the Pacific Highway

but we're southern well that's the only one i can do i do really want to when we're out there i really do want to do a tiktok series of ordering at drive-thrus an american accent because you kind of have to because if you sound like us they don't understand what you're saying that is the problem like if you ask for ketchup they're like what i think the accent throws some people because they're not expecting it and i also think the other thing i've noticed when i've been in the US is that we use too many words for Americans so for example like I went into a place and I was like oh hi um excuse me could I please order and they're just like they've already lost interest in what I'm saying they're like I am not bitch like I'm not

even listening to what you are saying now and they just look at you blankly and then when you stop they say sorry what and then I watched the man next to me order and he went black coffee and then the guy was like yeah and then brought him a black coffee yes we definitely do use too many words because we're so desperately worried about insulting someone and I know I've said this before but I will say it again because it really pisses me off because I can't stand it when Americans when you say oh thank you and they go oh yeah I can't stand that it's so rude in my old job I used to basically like call switchboards constantly try or like receptionists to try and get through to the person I was speaking to because it would always be like senior level people and I'd always they'd be like oh I'll just put you through and

I'd be like oh thank you they'd be like you put me right off this call now just put you through and I'll be like oh thank you and they'll be like mmhmm I'll be like oh you've put me right off this call now just say you're welcome it's not hard exactly it's the same amount of effort anyway we love you America we do love you

can't wait we do love you a double double and a nice and froward animal style please animal style I can't wait can't wait

so all of that to look forward to. Follow us on TikTok. Sure. Sure. Follow us on social media for all the adventures and jeeps that Hannah and I will get up to while we are travelling across the US of A. For now, we're going back to New Zealand. Okay.

Because last week... If you insist. I do insist. Because last week we left off with the absolutely batshit craziness of Margaret's bell-filled diaries and the rumoured accusations of incest made by Laniate Bain against her father, Robin. Now, do not worry, we will come back to all of this later in the episode. Which is, of course, part two of our series on the Bain family murders. If you haven't listened to part one, go do that first. But for now, before we get to all of that, we're going to rejoin David as he's being interviewed for the first time by the police just hours after

the killings. According to David, he had gone out to do his paper round a little earlier than usual that day and returned home at around 6 45 a.m. When he got in he said that he loaded the washing machine and then turned it on. He had then gone into his mum's room and found Margaret dead. David said he then ran from her bedroom straight into the living room calling for his dad Robin only to find that he was also dead. And so David called 111. Straight away, there were some issues here for police. If David called 111 after only finding his parents dead, why did he tell the operator they're all dead? And we listened to that call at the start of last week's episode. He says it repeatedly. He says, they're all dead. My family's all dead. They're all dead. But he's only seen Margaret and Robin, according to what he's telling the police now.

And crucially, in police interviews, David specifically stated that he didn't go into any of the other rooms. Also, if he'd found Margaret dead within a few minutes of getting home and loading the washing machine, and then immediately found Robin, why was there a 20 to 25 minute gap between him coming home at 6.45am and calling emergency services at 7.09am? How long does it take to put on a wash? The stuff's already in the laundry basket, he says that. And then he says that he goes into his mum's room and then there's a 20 minute gap at least that is not accounted for and David pretty much never gives an explanation for what happened during that time. When confronted with questions about that 20 to 25 minute gap David just says he doesn't remember what he did that he'd been blacking out a lot and losing time recently

so he couldn't really be sure about anything. The police were suspicious, but they needed a hell of a lot more if they were going to start pointing fingers at David Bain. So they let him go, and David went to stay with his mum's sister, Jan. Jan and the rest of the extended family were obviously completely distraught. But David was calm. In fact, the very next morning after the murders, David began to list off how each of the family's funerals would go. He knew everything, including

exactly where they were to take place, who was to be there, and what clothes each of his deceased family members were to be wearing. And he even said that he wanted his parents cremated, but his siblings were to be buried. It's an enormous amount of detail, isn't it? David had even apparently chosen a song for each of his family. And this is the kicker. Whenever anyone in the family disagreed or maybe tried to say,

hey, David, we don't need to worry about this now. We'll handle it. You don't need to put yourself through this. He would become silent and uncommunicative if anybody suggested anything that he didn't want at the funerals. Also, fear to kid that he is, David wanted to sing at the funeral service and he insisted that it was a celebration of their lives. It wasn't supposed to be a sad occasion. That is something that people say about funerals. Of course. When loved ones die, they don't want funerals to be sad.

They should be happy. I don't get it. Like, it is going to be sad. Like, stop trying to make it what it isn't. You know, I find it odd. Anyway, to say something like that the very next day, after your entire family have been murdered by your own dad. This is the thing.

Rings a bit off, doesn't it? A celebration of life is, yes, I understand. But for him to say that when no one can even have processed what's fucking happened is pretty weird. And it struck the rest of the family as weird. They were still very much in the shocked beyond belief stage of grief but David just continued to be bafflingly odd. So they just tried to carry on, the family that is, telling themselves that David had been through a lot

and that he was just trying to find a way to cope with the unimaginable and perhaps that's why he was being so controlling about the funerals. But Margaret's sisters also wanted to try and understand more about Robin. What had been going on with him? Why had he done this? To which David told them that he hated his dad, that Robin hadn't been wanted at the house and he even called him sneaky, saying that Robin liked to lurk around and listen to conversations that had nothing to do with him. Now to be fair, these comments that David made were connected to conversations that had nothing to do with him. Now, to be fair, these comments that David made were connected to conversations he had with his aunts

about Robin having killed the entire family. So you are probably going to say the worst things about that parent at that point. But the aunts were taken aback because all of this, all of this sort of hatred that David was pointing out towards Robin was all news to them. It was also during this time that David went into one of his supposed spaced-out trances.

And his aunt would later say, in words that would go down in podcast history, he started to speak in a really slow, deliberate way. His words were almost as though they were being dragged out of him. He started saying, black hands, and that they were taking him away. Black hands. And just repeated this over and over. Black hands dying. Black hands taking them away. It's just like Schindler's List. Black hands taking them away. Dying, dying. Everyone dying. What's Schindler's List, black hands taking them away, dying, dying, everyone dying. What's Schindler's List got to do with anything? I don't know. I don't know. I mean, the only thing that's like colour-based in Schindler's List is that little girl in the red coat.

Yeah. There's no black hands in Schindler's List. What? I have no idea. If someone can explain that to me, please get in touch because that's going to irritate me for the rest of my life. Anyway, David's aunt, this point asked him, did you see them dying, David? At which he seemed to snap out of his trance and replied in his normal voice. No, I only saw mum and dad and they were already dead, which is the same thing that he said to police. But this claim that David hadn't seen anything else apart from Margaret and Robin was again called into question.

Because remember, we talked about why would he say they're all dead when he called 111. But here's where it became even more bizarre. Because against the police's request to keep all newspapers away from David, his girlfriend had come to visit him. And she actually gave him a copy of the local paper and after reading it David suddenly became incredibly upset, sobbing and crying saying quote the police lied to me they weren't all asleep when dad killed them. He had had to look them in the eye as he shot them. Arower and Stephen were out of bed and Stephen had had to fight and he apparently at this point carried on to say, and this is all according to his girlfriend who was there, if it was my dad, I'll never forgive

him. And if it was me, and apparently at this point, his girlfriend stopped him telling David, you could never do that. So we don't know what David was getting at here when he said, and if it was me. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness. And inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more.

Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mom's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now, exclusively on Wondery Plus. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met.

But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me. And it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding.

And this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. When he was asked how he'd known

that Stephen and Arowa hadn't been asleep and that there had been a fight, David said that he'd learned all of that information from the paper. Because remember, if he hasn't gone into Arowa's room, if he hasn't gone into Stephen's room, how does he know that they weren't in bed? And how does he know that Stephen had to put up a fight? It wasn't in the paper. Nope. The paper

that he read did not say any of that information. The article in the paper actually only made one reference to the bodies. And all it said was that some of the victims were found in their beds and some were found beside their beds. There was no specifics on who was found where or if they'd had to put up a fight or not. And the police made a number of other discoveries which left them questioning if this really had been a murder-suicide.

And the Thursday after the killings, to everyone's shock and dismay, they arrested David Bain. Yeah, because that entire week, everybody just spends thinking that it's been a murder-suicide. The papers, that's what they're saying, the family, that's what they believe, but the police in that week make so many discoveries that they actually arrest David and no one can believe it.

But when he's arrested again, David was incredibly calm. He even said that he wanted all of this sorted out so he could live his life, which again is a remarkable level of like acceptance to have a week after your entire family is murdered by your dad. But okay. When he's confronted with the evidence that the police found at the house, all of which we will get into very soon, David had no answers. And my god, this is the repeating theme throughout the rest of this fucking episode, is David just saying, I don't know. I don't know. I don't remember. I don't know. He just kept saying that he must have blacked out, and that's why he didn't remember anything. And then he lawyered up. And after this, things moved pretty quickly, and David Bain's trial started at Dunedin High Court just a year later, on the 9th of May 1995.

The prosecution's case was that David had knowingly killed his entire family in a cold, calculated and planned attack, and then framed his father Robin to make it look like a family annihilation that had ended in suicide. The defence claimed that David was just an ordinary 22-year-old, with the world at his feet and his whole life ahead of him. The killer was obviously Robin, the depressed father who was being rejected by his own family, and the one whose filthy secret of incestuous rape was about to be revealed to the world.

So let's, at long last, get into the evidence. Starting with Robin and Stephen's post-mortems. 14-year-old Stephen was in a bad way. Like we told you last week, he had fought back hard. He was covered in blood and also had bruises on his neck, like someone had tried to choke him with the t-shirt that he was wearing. His fingers had stiffened in a claw-like gesture, like he'd died grabbing at something. And under his fingernails, investigators also found green wool fibres. These fibres were matched to a green jumper found in the washing machine at the Bain house, the 20-minute washing load.

So it looked as if that jumper was what the killer had been wearing during the massacre. And given that there was blood brushed everywhere around the house, left behind as the killer had walked through the property, whatever the killer had worn should have been covered in blood and evidence. But, very conveniently for the killer, the green jumper had been washed already.

And technology at the time, because remember this is in like 1994, 1995, they just couldn't get anything of forensic value from it. And all it had been through was a fucking wash cycle. But there was more in the laundry area. Because the police found a partial bloody handprint confirmed as belonging to David Bain on top of the washing machine. They also found more blood splashed like on the side of the washer and they found blood on a washing powder container next to the washing machine.

Now David had already admitted that he had done the laundry when he got home from his paper route, claiming that he had even taken the time to separate the colours in the washing basket and put on a load. So really, the question here is, how on earth did he therefore not notice that that green jumper would have been soaked in blood? And that he obviously had it all over his hands because he got blood on the washing powder container and also on top of the washing machine. And that handprint is proven to be David Bain's. How did he not notice that there was blood everywhere? And if Robin, the dad, was the killer,

how had the green jumper got into the laundry basket? And also, why? Why would a man who's just killed his entire family and who was about to shoot himself, why would he take the time to change his clothes and put them in the laundry? The defence said that Robin had worn the green jumper while committing the murders,

but then got changed in order to meet his maker in clean clothes. Oh, give it a rest. Yeah. This is a very, very crucial part of the defence's argument. And this might make some sense this might make a tiny inkling of sense and maybe you take off your bloody green jumper that you've just murdered your entire family and put it in the laundry basket out of habit and maybe i could buy

the whole him getting changed to meet god in a decent manner after you know you've just murdered your family and committed suicide all of which i'm pretty sure jesus christ superstar doesn't like if he had put on something like a suit and tie or something yes yes but robin bain is found dead in a scruffy tracksuit and sweatshirt with a woolly hat on the clothes that he wore every day so why would you get changed for that and the changing clothes story also doesn't explain how Robin had basically no blood on him at all. He had a speck of blood on one hand. Actually, it was such a small amount that it couldn't even be tested. So we don't know whose blood it was.

But given that he'd been shot in the head, it could well have just been his own. And they didn't save the sample, so it's not been tested since. But it was like a tiny little speckle of blood on one hand. Maybe he washed his hands, you might be saying. Well, the prosecution made the point that Robin's hands were found to have dirt around the fingernails and within the creases of his hands. They really did not look like the hands of someone who just washed them. Yeah, this is the thing. Robin, every weekend he was home from tyree beach

basically spent all of his time trying to fix up the house like that is pretty much his singular pursuit is trying to make it less shit so he has like some grazes on his hands he's got dirt under his fingernails but that's because he spent all of his time trying to do handiwork how are you gonna say that he was covered in blood, but he washed his hands, but then what, he went and did some more DIY and that's why his hands were dirty again? They did not look like hands that had had blood washed off them. So his hands don't look like they've been washed. That's one thing.

Another thing is that Robin had a completely full bladder, which makes it very unlikely that he had showered prior to his death. Who's showering and not pissing? This is the thing. There are two types of people in this world. People who pee in the shower and liars. Yes. That's it. You don't get up in the morning, murder your entire family,

and then have a shower and get changed without having a piss. No, you don't. You don't. But the defence suggested that that might be a reality. I doubt it. Now, yeah, no. Let's stick with the full bladder for a second. Robin's bladder was full of dark, concentrated urine,

like the kind of urine you pass when you first wake up. It smells like Cheerios. We've all been there. It just seems highly odd that a man in his late 50s would wake up, shoot his entire family, put a wash on, get changed with a full bladder. I can't even have a lie in. Oh, I can. I just lie there in pain. I am in my early 30s and I cannot be in bed longer than 8.30 because I have to get up and take a piss. Like you're telling me the 58-year-old Robin shot everyone

and then showered just full of piss. It's ridiculous. They basically bring in an expert who says that some people, you know, if you've got something wrong, like, you might end up with that amount of urine still left in your bladder after you've weed because, you know, you're not emptying your bladder well enough. But I don't believe it. No way man. So another interesting point about the green jumper is that David told the police on the morning of the

killings and in his initial interviews that that green jumper was his sister Arawa's. He said this repeatedly but at his trial he now said that it was robin's how are you gonna not know if that jumper is your sister's or your dad's yeah is it your father's or is it your 17 year old sister's like that's a big difference difference so why do this why change the story well either he simply forgot whose jumper it was or by the time of his trial, David is all too aware that the green jumper could be linked forensically to the killer because he doesn't know that Stephen's got green fibers under his fingernails. So it doesn't matter at that point when they say, whose jumper is this in the laundry? He just says it's our words. So he says it's Robin's.

Even saying for the first time that his father had actually been wearing the jumper all weekend leading up to the massacre. Even more of a, well, why didn't you remember then? But David could give no explanation for the change of story, just saying that he forgot. Now, there were also questions about when the washing machine was actually turned on, because the spin cycle had already finished when the police arrived at the house that morning at 7.28am. But if David had loaded the machine at 6.45 when he said he got home, there wouldn't have been enough time for the one-hour wash to have ended by the time the police got there.

So it could be that David had actually loaded the washing machine earlier than he claimed. But we also do know that he was spotted at the bottom of his road by a neighbour at around 6.40am. So a theory is that David actually shot and killed everyone before he went out to do his paper round and loaded the machine with the bloody jumper in it before he left. Then he went out to do his paper round and made sure that he was seen to give himself an alibi. Yeah, so basically to tighten that window of when he says he came home and these things happened. Disturbingly, this story came to light

a bit later on. A former friend of David's testified that once David confided in him a bizarre rape plot years previously. Apparently there was a girl who lived across the road from David and he was obsessed with her. And allegedly David told his friend who testified, if I really wanted to, I could rape her and get away with it. And here's where it gets interesting. David said that he would use his paper round as a cover. He would deliver some of his papers to people earlier than usual, then deliver the rest at normal times and make sure that he was seen. And doing the rape in between, so everybody thinks that he's on his paper round the entire time.

And supposedly, David even showed this friend a book with times noted down about when he'd see people on his paper round. And on the day of the murders, David did seem to be making an effort to be seen. For example, an old lady, who David delivered to, had told him long ago not to come to her deck because it always got her dog barking.

David always left her paper at the end of her path for that exact reason. But that morning, the morning his entire family was shot to death, he broke that tradition. He delivered the paper to her door, setting the dog off. But let's get back to Robin's body. Like we said, he didn't have any blood on him really. And he also didn't have any significant injuries. Like I said, there were some sort of grazes on his hands, on his knuckles, things like that. But really, that could be put down to, like, him doing the guttering that weekend, which many people in the neighbourhood witnessed him doing.

No injuries on Robin's body made it look like he'd just been in a fight to the death with his 14-year-old son. And Stephen's like, 14-year he's not tiny he's like a big enough guy that can fight back against somebody who's got a gun to him absolutely yeah and Robin was also not a man in great health he was 58 but he was very thin even described by some people who knew him as being frail and if you look at pictures of Robin towards the end of his life, I would have to agree. So how could he get out of that struggle with Stephen so unscathed, gun or no gun? Because Stephen's got injuries on him. But guess who did have injuries? David. He was examined by a doctor at 11.20am on the day of the murders. And at that point, he had three bruises to his head and a red graze on his knee.

And this mark matched an injury that Stephen had in the exact same place on his body. Rough paper round, was it? Mm-hmm. Pictures of David's hands also showed a redness to his knuckles. But like most things relating to the murders, David didn't have any explanation for any of these injuries, simply saying that he didn't have any of them when he was on his knuckles. But like most things relating to the murders, David didn't have any explanation for any of these injuries, simply saying that he didn't have any of them

when he was on his paper round. And that maybe he had sustained the injuries when he had fell from the fit that he had and from being placed in the recovery position by the police officer. Hmm. Hmm. But a friend of David's, in the week after the murders,

had also noticed that he had scratches and bruises to his chest and left shoulder. David actually showed this friend these injuries and told her that he couldn't remember how he got them. He's not very bright, is he? This is the thing. David does things where I'm like, why does he do that? The only thing I can think with this is, does he see her looking at them? And then he's like, you know, he thinks he's so much smarter than everybody,

is he just like, oh yeah, I don't know how I got these. I don't know, I don't know. The injuries were also noticed by a guard when David was taken to jail after he was charged. He was strip searched and the marks were made note of. So how were all of these missed by the doctor who examined David on the day of the killings? Well, on the day, the doctor didn't actually ask David to take his clothes off because they were treating him as a victim.

They were just making sure he was okay after the seizure he just had. Now let's talk about that seizure itself. The one that David had on the morning of the murders. If you remember, when Stephen's body was found, David fell to the floor and began to have a fit. The officer watching David put him in the recovery position and called the ambulance. When paramedics arrived though, David was still shaking and shivering. But when they checked him over, the paramedics couldn't tell what was actually wrong. All his vital signs were normal david's

baseline was that of a normal resting person and when they brushed his eyelids his lashes fluttered apparently that's a good test for consciousness right if somebody is unconscious and you brush your finger across their lashes their lashes won't flutter david's did. So basically, in the opinion of these medics attending to David, he was conscious and therefore unlikely to actually be having a seizure. Especially as they noted, since his arms and legs appear to be moving in unison, they said when people have seizures, their limbs tend to move independently of each other in a sporadic manner. Yeah.

And that's not what David was doing. Like a seizure is a brain overload. It's a complete shutdown. You're not fluttering your eyelashes when you're in one of them. And he's an actor. You're an actor. He's a best darling. Classically trained.

But let's leave musical theatre where it belongs in the past. We're going to get back to the blood evidence that was presented at trial. No blood, except that speck was found on Robin. But quite a lot of Stephen's blood was found on the clothes that David was wearing. It was on the lower front, back and upper back of his T-shirt and on his shorts, specifically around his crotch area, interestingly. And Stephen's blood was also on the soles of David's socks. The defence claimed that that blood must have come from David

brushing against the blood left all over the house by Robin. And of course, there would have been blood transfer onto David when he discovered his little brother dead and tried to help him. But, you will all remember because you're very smart, David initially told police that he hadn't gone into Stephen's room at all that morning. As you'll see, David later changes this story and starts to recover memories of finding each one of his family members dead. But why wasn't there anyone else's blood on him then? Why had he only touched Stephen, the only person who put up a physical fight

that would have definitely caused blood transfer? It's a bit convenient. Yeah. Can you tell where we're going with this, guys? I know. I tried my best to not give it away. I think you did a good job. So also when the police found David at the house that morning,

his hands were very clean. There was no blood on David's hands whatsoever when they found him. So how did David manage to get blood all over his clothes from helping Stephen, but not get any on his hands? Because there was also no blood on the telephone in the house that had been used to call 111. So when had David washed his hands? After he had found everybody, but before he called for help? And also remember there's like blood on the washing machine.

There's a bloody handprint on the washing machine. So he does the laundry, sees that his hands are covered in blood, presumably, doesn't think anything of it, washes his hands, then finds Stephen must get more blood on his hands what is he just rubbing his body against his brother to get blood on his top and then he must have washed his hands again before he called the police because there's no blood on the telephone it doesn't make any sense and then there was also what the police found in David's room when they realized that the rifle used in the murders was actually David's and that the key

needed for the trigger lock on the gun was kept in a ceramic was actually David's and that the key needed for the trigger lock on the gun was kept in a ceramic pot in David's room, they obviously checked it out. Of course, the key to the trigger lock was gone, but the lid of this little ceramic pot had been placed carefully back in place and a ball had even been put on top of the lid. The desk also didn't look like someone who had frantically looked for the key. David's room was much cleaner than the rest of the house, so if someone had scrambled around searching for this trigger lock,

because basically without that key, you can't use the gun. It's David's gun, and he also admits to police that he was the only one who knew where the key to the trigger lock was. But it doesn't look like somebody searched for it. It's just, it's just all of this stuff adds up. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant.

When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder.

Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle

Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery+. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today. If Robin totally lost it and shot up his wife and three of his kids in a deranged state, why would he have been so careful? Why would he put the lid back on the pot and put a little ball back on the pot? Oh, and on top of that, that very morning, Robin had brought the newspaper in

from the mailbox. Why would he do that if he was planning on going on a murderous rampage? Just catching up with the headlines before I end it all. In David's room, the police also found live bullets on the floor, a thousand rounds of ammunition and a pair of glasses. These glasses were missing the left-hand lens and appeared to be a bit twisted and bent. Then, three days later, detectives found the missing lens from the very same glasses in Stephen's room. The lens hadn't been found immediately because it was under some clothes on the floor. David said that those glasses weren't his, they were his mum's, and he offered absolutely no explanation as to why those bent frames were in his room.

But there was more to find in Stephen's room. Because under Stephen's bed, the police found a right-hand white glove. It was inside out, and it was covered in blood. It was David's. It was a formal glove that he'd bought just three weeks before the murders to attend a ball. The killer had worn these gloves during the murder. The other one is, like like found in the laundry area. So if it was Robin who did this,

why would a man who is going to kill himself after he kills his family and he leaves a suicide note admitting that he did it, why would he wear gloves? It makes no sense. Now, perhaps Robin only decided to take his own life after he'd finished killing everybody else but if so why did he wear david's gloves he had a pair of his own and david's gloves were in a drawer in david's room it really looks like if it was robin

for some reason he leaves a suicide note that indicates that he spared his son david because he's the only one that deserved to stay. But it really looks like everything else he did looked like he was trying to stitch his son up for it, like using his gloves, using his gun. Like, why? And speaking of pears, let's talk about some socks. There were five right footprints made by a bloody sock

coming from Margaret's room, leading out into the hallway, and into Laniat's room next door and then out again. These prints were not visible to the naked eye and were only discovered through use of luminol. I know naked eye just means, like, without a microscope, but it always makes me think of eyeballs wearing jumpers, like Mike Wazowski. And then I think about wool being in my eyes. Green wool. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, moving on. These footprints, revealed by Luminol, were measured to be 280mm in length.

The defence said that this 280mm was the foot's measurement from heel to toe, so the size of the complete foot. But actually, the fact is that the 280mm was the measurement between the areas of the strongest luminescence from the print. So it didn't measure the whole foot. It just measured where and how far apart the blood had been on the sock of the person who left the prints.

Yeah, it's like putting blood in the middle of your palm and then at the heel of your palm and then putting it down and saying, that's the size of my entire palm. So these prints that were found could have been left by David, even if he was innocent. The footprints don't necessarily prove David's guilt. After all, the police had found him in the house that day and he had blood on his socks and there was blood all over the house. He could have easily stepped in some and moved it around. But the defence needed to show that the prints were Robin's because it was something that would place Robin in the rooms of the victims while he was still alive and walking

around, indicating guilt. And so the defence did a little experiment. They got a person to walk around in a sock soaked in blood. And this showed that a person typically left a bloody sock print behind that was larger than the size of their own foot. Interesting. So when you press down, the print is larger than the size of your foot. So David would have left a print that was larger than 300 millimetres, which is the size of his foot, whereas Robin would have left one print that was larger than 300 millimetres, which is the size of his foot, whereas Robin would have left one around 280 millimetres because his size was 270 millimetres.

Bingo. They're like, it's Robin's. That proves that Robin was alive and walking around when the others were already dead. He's your killer. But the defence had absolutely no way of showing that their methodology was accurate. They soaked their test subject's sock in blood. But that's just not what David's socks looked like. And Robin, who was wearing shoes and socks when he was found dead, his socks were totally clean. If he changed his socks as well, like the defence claimed,

where were the bloody socks? Exactly. Unless you have the bloody bloody socks you can't just soak your test subjects feet in blood and then get them to walk around and say look that proves it we also don't know the way in which the killer walked or how much pressure they applied whether they were over or under pronating we don't know any of those things but they would all skew the size of the print that someone left behind. So yeah, I think the sock thing is pretty much like a non-starter for me. But it becomes important later because it really convinces somebody. Important for some reason. And then there was the position of Robin's body and the way that he'd been shot. When the police examined the living room, they found blood and brain matter from Robin's head on the green curtains that you heard about last week that

were used to separate off the computer alcove from the rest of the family room. But Robin's body was a good two to three metres away from this curtain. So how did that brain and blood spray travel quite so far? And there's no more between that gap between the curtains and where Robin's body is found. How is your spray travelling three metres without getting anywhere else? Also, the spent shell casing from the shot was found on the other side of the alcove behind the curtains. The casing could have rolled away and got to where it was discovered, but the position of the casing together with the spray really makes it seem like Robin had been shot closer to the curtains and then his body was moved. So the prosecution made the case that David shot everyone else in the family

and then lay in wait in the living room behind the green alcove curtains waiting for his father Robin. But the defence claimed that this was crazy. Why would David kill everyone and then sit around waiting, risking that his dad might come in from the caravan and find the others dead and raise the alarm? But Robin had a very regular morning routine and David would have known exactly what time his dad would wake up and come into the house. So let's say Robin comes in from his caravan. David is already in the alcove with the gun, having shot everybody else.

He then immediately calls his dad into the living room, and Robin comes. David then shoots him from behind the curtains, when Robin's close enough, and then David moves his father's body into the middle of the room to get him away from the curtains. And the body also did show other signs of looking staged. For example, you can look at this. The crime scene photo of this particular scene is out there on the internet. Where Robin is on the floor, where his right hand is on the floor, there was a rifle magazine standing up on its thinnest edge right next to his hand.

Like standing up like that. Not in a natural position. It looks like someone's placed it there. I cannot imagine that a rifle magazine would fall like that, not in a natural position. It looks like someone's placed it there. I cannot imagine that a rifle magazine would fall like that. And I also can't imagine that your hand would fall close enough to it and just miss it. It looks like someone's put it next to his hand. I just think, yeah, what are the chances that it felt like that? I don't know. Also, and this one is very important, there are no fingerprints whatsoever from Robin on the gun or on the silencer. How could he have shot four people and then himself and left no prints?

Especially the himself part. His body wasn't found with gloves on. One of the gloves is in Stephen's room where the fight had taken place. And the other glove is in the fucking laundry area. Presumably he didn't just shoot himself and then wake up and wipe the gun down. Honestly, how? How is this even divisive? I don't know. I don't know because guess whose fingerprints were on the gun? David's? Yeah.

There were four of David's fingerprints on the front part of the rifle stock. According to the prosecution, they were prints made with bloody hands. And it looked like there was no blood between his fingerprints and the gun. So his fingers created a void, like the negative space, and protected the gun from more blood. Like some sort of macabre stencil. But David said repeatedly in police interviews that he did not touch the gun at all. However, at trial faced with the prince, the defence now said that David had picked it up and just forgotten about this very minor detail in

a murder investigation. I also think bloody fingerprints are so much better. Obviously, his DNA is going to be everywhere. It's his house. Like that doesn't help you at all. Yeah. But the sort of negative space blood fingerprint is pretty damning stuff. Yeah. So next up, Laniat. Now, we're not quite ready to dive into the incest claims just yet, but don't worry, we will get there. What we need to talk about here was a big, big, big point of contention at David's trial. Laniat's gurgling. Like we said earlier in this episode,

by the time of his trial, David had recovered a series of random memories from the day of the killings. Thanks to a psychologist. Oh, for God's sake. Yeah. David, like, look, I think it's very obvious by his point i think david fucking did it i think he remembers exactly what he did the entire time and then he

realizes i think he thinks at the start it's best to just say i don't know anything best to keep you know faking these seizures saying that i've been blacking out and say that i know nothing plausible deniability etc etc and then he realizes they've got quite a lot of little bits of evidence. Let me now say that I've recovered random bits of memory and that I did actually go into people's rooms and I did actually find them, etc, etc, etc. So you'll see a lot of that from now on. David went from saying that he hadn't seen any of his siblings' bodies

to then saying that he'd found each one of his family members dead. And what he said about Laniat's body rang some alarm bells. This is what he said, quote, I heard groaning-type sounds, muffled by what sounded like water. There was nothing I could do. I didn't touch her. Hearing gurgling, blood everywhere. I went right up to her, and then I must have left. I can't touch her. Hearing gurgling, blood everywhere. I went right up to her. And then I must have left.

I can't remember. Sounds like you do remember, David. But what's important is, did this gurgling that David described mean that Laniat was still alive when David found her? So let's talk about it. Laniat had been shot three times. First, through the cheek, and this shot did not kill her. It would have just, like, knocked her out and filled her air passages with blood. And that is what, like, creates that gurgling sound. The next two shots that Laniat got hit with

were kill shots. They were straight to the head. But it doesn't seem that these three shots came in quick succession. And that's because Laniat didn't die immediately. She had blood, her own blood, on her hands. So it seems that she shot once and she's alive long enough to touch her cheek, to touch her wounds and get her own blood on her hands. Because the blood on her hands isn't like spray. It's contact blood. So since the first shot wouldn't have killed Laniere,

if David had heard her gurgling, and this gurgling that David describes, a pathologist witness for the prosecution said that it was a very, very accurate description of how it would sound if someone had suffered such a gunshot, then it stands to reason that he must have been there when the final shots were delivered. And therefore he must have been there when the final shots were delivered and therefore he must have killed her. Robin didn't shoot Laniere, leave, David come in and

discover her, leave and then Robin came back in and gave her the kill shots so he must have done it and this is an unforced error. He brings up the gurgling. So the defence had an expert who said however that dead bodies can make these gurgling sounds too. It's gases escaping from the body. So it doesn't prove at all that Laniat was still alive when David had been in the room with her or that she had been making these gurgling noises because she was breathing. He doesn't know that. He doesn't fucking know. They're just like classic expert testimony.

Here is another possibility for what could explain the gurgling. You'd be fucking annoyed if you were his lawyer. You're like, why did you? Now we have to go find some expert to say all of this shit. But his lawyers have got bigger fish to fry. Mate, honestly. But even if you accept, even if you accept this other witness saying that Laniat was still dead and that, you know, her dead body was making these noises.

It still begs the question of why didn't David call 111 then or go and get help for Laniat? Because this expert might know that dead bodies make sounds like that, but sure as fuck, if I found a body making sounds like that, I'd assume that the person was still alive and needed help. And David didn't do that. He didn't tell the 111 operator that Laniat was still alive he said they're all dead why did he think that if she was making that noise and also none of

Laniat's blood was on David so we can't have checked her pulse or her breathing to know for sure if she was dead so there you have it that's all the evidence now we've got it out of the way I mean I know I know anybody who knows this case very very like intimately you will be saying there's more evidence you didn't talk about this or this. Guys we would have to become a fucking 10 part Bane series if we were going to do that. I can't go through everything. I picked the bits that were the biggest pieces that came out at trial. So let's talk motive. Let's kick off with Robin and what his behaviour was like in the months leading up to the murders.

It doesn't seem like he was suicidal. Every weekend, he was at every street, fixing up the run-down house, and that was regularly witnessed by his neighbours. Yeah, it doesn't really seem like a man who's thinking about chucking it all in, when he's desperately trying to fix this house that his family have to live in because his wife won't help him or allow him to spend any money

doing it and he's not even allowed to sleep in there he has to sleep in the caravan and he has two days there before he has to drive back and sleep in a camper van on the grounds of his school robin was also in the choir that david was in and he'd even asked a fellow choir member if he and his son wanted to start a quartet with him and James. Doesn't really sound like a man who's about to end it all. He does seem to be considering his future, trying to make a connection with his son, who's growing ever more alienated from him thanks to his mother, Margaret, being totally cocoa bananas. And while, yes, Robin was disheartened

because of the lack of work that he was getting and the fact that his and Margaret's marriage was in tatters, it's not even on the rocks, it's at the bottom of the sea, he would have been feeling a lot of pressure. But there's just nothing that points to him thinking about violence. And if he did do it, why? Why would Robin spare David of all people? David was the family member alongside his wife Margaret, who was the most adversarial towards him. So why would Robin say that he was the only one who deserved to stay in this bizarre suicide note?

Why would Robin think that David was the only one to stay in comparison to everybody else? Aroah was intelligent and following in her father's footsteps to become a teacher, something that Robin was incredibly proud of. And actually, the only tension I can find between Aroah and Robin is the fact that she was annoyed that he wasn't around more. It wasn't like she hated him.

She was annoyed that he wasn't at the house more. Then there's Stephen. Stephen was just 14 years old. What could 14-year-old Stephen have done that made his father Robin think that he deserved to die? And finally, Laniere. Laniere, as we will go on to find out, was incredibly troubled. But Robin was trying his best to help her. He paid for her rent and then he even moved her to Tyree Beach to get her away from her destructive lifestyle of sex work in the city. And Laniat was Robin's most vocal supporter in the family. And I hear you scream, what about the incest claims? Surely these accusations and the fact that Laniat was going to tell the whole family about them that weekend is what pushed

Robin to murder them all. Well, let's take a look. Firstly, Laniat told a few people about this alleged abuse, but none of these people were her friends or family. They were like neighbours who lived on the street that she was in, or like kind of random acquaintances. She never told anyone close to her. No one close to her had ever heard anything about it. Now, of course, maybe it's easier to tell strangers about such things. Maybe it's easy to make disclosures to them. But still, it is worth mentioning that, like, no one close to her could corroborate this. Then there's also the fact that if she was being abused by her dad, why did she move in with him at Tyree Beach? And why did she defend him so persistently to the rest of the family?

Again, you could say that maybe she's under his control and maybe that's true. But those who knew Laniat said that the reason she wanted to leave Every Street was because of Margaret and her crazy religious madness. And we know that Margaret was nuts, so this does make sense. And these people were the people that actually knew her saying this. They didn't know anything about the Robin abuse. Then the question is, why would Laniere lie about such an awful thing to people? Well, it looks quite a lot like she had a pretty big problem with lying.

Laniere had told her PE teacher that she was self-harming by cutting her wrists and that once she almost killed herself by cutting too deep But during lessons the teacher noticed that Laniat had no cuts or scars on her arms or her legs Laniat also told this teacher and a few other people different versions of a traumatic experience

that happened to her in Papua New Guinea She told them that she'd been raped by a man and had either had a baby or had an abortion or both because her story changes quite a lot. If you add up the stories, Laniat, by the age of 12 and a half, would have had three children to three different men and had an abortion. I will say if the only thing that happens to you is a compulsive lying problem coming out of that fucking house, it's not that like terrible. But it does appear that she, which a lot of traumatized children do that. Oh, absolutely. I think she also does it to people in authority, like her teachers and stuff like that, because I think it's like a desperate way to get some sort of attention or some sort of something. The PE teacher even says that she once saw him looking at her wrists and then she pulled her sleeve down and then never brought it

up ever again. Like she knows, she's not delusional in her lying. She knows she's lying. But interestingly, throughout the trial and all of David's police interviews, David never, ever, ever mentions Laniat's stories of rape. He was the eldest. He surely would have known if any of this had actually happened to Laniat when they were in PNG. Yeah. It seems that he didn't bring any of this up because it wasn't true. And I think the thinking here is if he had gone along with it,

if he had said, yes, my sister was raped when we were in PNG, she had a baby or she had an abortion or something, and it had come out that it wasn't true, it would have made Laniere look unreliable and made her accusations against her father look less credible. So when he's directly asked about them, because he also can't say she's just lying, because that would make her look not credible. Yeah. He just evades. He just evades. He just evades the question and he never clears it up one way or another. Why? The only reason is because this way serves him best. So the defense's story is this.

Basically, they say that Laniat was ready to spill the beans on Robin's abuse that weekend. That's why she was coming home. Like they had all called this family meeting. Actually, David called this family meeting. They were going to do it on Sunday night after they had dinner and then the murders happen in the early hours of Monday morning the defense say Laniat comes there and tells everybody about the abuse Robin loses it and shoots everybody the next day which again comes back to the question of like if Laniat had just revealed this massive fucking rape plot that's been going

on in their family for years robin that night took a hot water bottle to bed with him and even brought the paper in the next morning like you said is that the action of a man who's just been outed as a rapist to his family so it doesn't really seem like laniate said that her friends say she was going there that night to tell her family about the sex work. Right. And actually, according to her friends, she desperately did not want to go home that Sunday. It was David who insisted on her being there. Everybody else was already at the house.

Robin's coming home for the weekend. He insisted that Laniat was there, even telling her that he would come and pick her up from her flat in the car. Laniat and Arawa had both told their separate friendship groups that David was very controlling. And some people found his relationship with Laniat to be quite odd, describing them to be more like boyfriend and girlfriend than brother and sister. And Laniat would do this weird thing where she always referred to David as my David.

Uh-oh, I don't like that. Arawa even confided in her friends that David having a gun in the house made her feel unsafe. She said that he'd threatened them with it and he controlled the use of the family living room. So let's talk about David. It is very clear that for years David had been developing a strong and weird relationship with his mum. He was just as obsessed as she was with the building of this sanctuary. David was also constantly getting in fights with Robin and he challenged his father's authority all the time. He'd fight him on almost everything and especially what David described to some as Robin quote trying to rule the roost.

But something obviously happened in those final weeks for David to take the route of mass murder and it was possibly a change in Margaret herself because in the weeks leading up to the murders Margaret had told an educational psychologist that she had had to have a word with David telling him that it was inappropriate how he treated his brother and sisters, saying that they had a father and that it wasn't for him to tell them what they could and couldn't do. So presumably the kids are like to mum, he's fucking out of control. He's controlling who can even use the lounge, like this is mental, you need to say something to him. And this is the thing, because previously Margaret had been actively encouraging David

to take on the role of man of the house because she thought Robin was incapable and he's never around. So Margaret, in my opinion, developed this weird, emotionally incestuous relationship with David and then suddenly cuts him off by telling him, who do you think you are? You can't tell them what to do. That would have been a huge shock, I think, to David's system. And David also knew that his dad, Robin, didn't want to build the stupid sanctuary. And that's why he tried so hard to push his dad out. So maybe Margaret had changed her mind and decided to get back together with Robin and bin off Project

Commune. Or maybe she and Robin had decided to split up and now half the sanctuary money was gone. There were suggestions that Margaret had wanted to give up on the new house altogether and just move into a flat in the city with Stephen. And it seems that she wasn't the only one. Laniere had already left. Aroua was asking friends to move out with her into a flat. And now Margaret too. If we believe that David was this incredibly controlling person and there are multiple people

to testify to his treatment of his family then maybe the idea that every single one of his family wanted out rather than to live on his weird dream hippie compound maybe that's what pushed him over the edge and he decided he had to kill them all. And I think that it makes more sense than what the prosecution say, because the prosecution's case at the first trial is that David murdered his family to get the inheritance. I don't think that's what it is. I think it's very overly simplistic. I think for David, he comes across as a very controlling person. And the idea that every one of his family wants to get the fuck out of that house leaves him without a group of people to control yes that makes sense and i think he's like well fuck you all you're all going out on my terms then and yeah i think it's more about him losing

control of them but there is another theory james mcneish author of the book the mask of sanity outlines a scenario which focuses on margaret around Belle, evil and black magic, and their impact on David and this case. Now, I don't necessarily agree with this theory, but I do think it's worth exploring. Because like we know, David was the one closest to his mother and all of her craziness. We also know from Margaret's diaries that she believed in possession by evil entities, like we discussed last week and like we discussed on this week's shorthand Sangama. So now please remember, pull from the mid part of your brain into the front part of your brain, all of the stuff we told you about possession. So could it be that David believed that his body committed the murders,

but that he, David, spiritually did not? Did he perhaps think that Belle had jumped from Robin into him and that he had become possessed by an evil agent and that he had to act before Robin did? Did David almost take the ideas around spiritual warfare that Margaret had shaped around Robin to the next and literal level of actual warfare. Also, David's fits do, in a way, look like cases of possession that you'll see if you go to exorcisms in other countries, like Papua New Guinea, like Haiti. It's a whole thing.

It's people writhing around speaking in tongues. We've all seen it. Is that what was happening to David? Sure, it's really interesting. I think I writhing around speaking in tongues we've all seen it is that what was happening to david she was really interesting i think i was listening to michaela coel on it might have been desert island x but something and she is like completely atheist now but she was like i was a really religious teenager and i spoke in tongues it happened to me like i had that religious experience but now I don't believe any of it but that felt so real absolutely and that's the thing with what McNish is saying from his book he's not saying that David was literally possessed what he's

saying I believe is that David has that kind of shared psychosis with Margaret and he has absorbed all of her crazy thinking about possession, about Belle possessing people. Like Sangama, when you're possessed, you become inhuman. And that possession can jump from people to people. And Robin was filled with Belle. Did Robin's spirit, or that evil entity in Robin, now jump into him? And he committed the murders, but he didn't want to. So therefore, he is not to blame for it and it kind

of explains why he knew things or why he admits to knowing things that only the killer would have known like he says only i knew where the key was for the gun and stuff like that and i don't know i don't know it's worth talking about i don't necessarily believe it though but people who do believe this point at corroborating evidence that they claim backs up this idea. For example, nine days before the murders, David went to a concert with his girlfriend and another couple. And at the end of the concert, when everyone else was stood up clapping, David just sat there in a trance.

Was it a genuine blackout? Which explains why he doesn't have reasonable answers to so many issues from the day of the murders. Was it a premeditated setup? And in another such example, a week before the shootings, David had had a long conversation with his girlfriend's friend, in which he told her that he'd had a premonition that, quote, something bad was going to happen. Again, is it a warning?

Is it some sort of, like, his psychosis taking over and he knows that something bad's going to happen? Or is it a warning? Is it some sort of like his psychosis taking over and he knows that something bad's going to happen? Or is it a setup? Maybe this possession, or should I say like this shared psychosis or folio due with Margaret about possession, explains why David did things like not cleaning up the blood on the washing machine and then admitting to using it. Because there is a lot of stuff that he says that makes him look really guilty.

Why does he do that? And like a lot of people point at this case and say well including the defense and including somebody else we'll go on to talk about who's very important say if david had done it he wouldn't have made so many mistakes please that is a ridiculous argument to say that somebody couldn't be the killer because there's too much evidence pointing at them being the killer people make mistakes yeah and the moment you've all been waiting for, what about those black hands? We tried looking this up, but we couldn't really find a clear cut link between the imagery of black hands and black magic in PNG or elsewhere. At first, David says that the hands were a hallucination. Then he says it was the ink on his hands from the newspapers that he'd been delivering.

Then he said it was tunnelling vision. Some people say that the black hands was the physical or visual manifestation of David's possession delusion. I just don't have the energy. No, I don't think that David Bain is psychotic. I don't think he's delusional. I think he was very much in control and not being in control anymore is what made him do it. And Saru's right because he was actually declared sane by a psychiatrist before his trial. And he just doesn't really show that many signs of a madman to me, to be honest.

He lies all the time as well. And I really think, you know, a psychiatrist may misdiagnose a personality disorder or, you know, you might get a false positive on something like that. But missing someone who was delusional to the point that they are hallucinating hands and shoots up their entire family, that seems bizarre to me. I mean, that's Andrea Yates' territory. Exactly. I really don't think that a psychiatrist would have missed somebody who was that unwell. And the jury agreed with us, because on the 29th of May 1995, David Cullen Bain was convicted on five counts of murder and sentenced on each charge to life imprisonment with a minimum period of 16 years. David appealed, but it was a no-go, and all of his requests over the next two years were rejected. Until in 1997, when former All Black star Joe Caram

published a book called David and Goliath, in which he strongly criticised the police investigation and the prosecution of David Bain. It's like when you find out that Brian May from Queen has a PhD in astronomy. Do you know what I mean? It's like, why do you have this very keen interest in this specific thing? Joe is so passionate about the New Zealand justice system,

justice systems in general, and particularly about David Bain, because this book that he published kickstarted Joe's personal 13-year journey to try and secure justice for a man that he believed had been wrongfully convicted. And in May 2007, after years, it was decided that a substantial miscarriage of justice had occurred in the case of David Bain. So his convictions were quashed and a retrial was ordered. This second trial can really be summed up by three key elements. A battle royale of experts, police fuck-ups and of course more lies and story changing from David Bain.

The prosecution and the defence both brought up conflicting and contradictory expert witnesses for everything from the gurgling of laniat, the fingerprints on the rifle, the time the family computer was turned on for the suicide note to be written, the gunshot evidence on Robin and so on and so on and so forth until we all die. And Martin van Beenen makes a very good point. Often at trials like this, the jury are beholden to listen to expert after expert saying completely opposing things.

We've said it before. We've said it again. You can find an expert to say anything. And the jury aren't experts. They're layman's. How can they decide between two experts who are saying absolutely the opposite of each other? How do they know who to believe? Who is more legitimate? Or even if one is reasonable or reliable, they don't know. We've talked about this extensively before. Jurors are not equipped to distinguish between contradictory expert testimony. It's a huge issue in the judicial system, like where you expect a juror to sit there and be like,

who the fuck am I meant to believe? And it was definitely a huge issue on David Bayne trial 2.0. So what about these fuck-ups by the police? Well, these were mainly around the lack of timely evidence gathering, such as gunshot residue testing or mishandling of evidence like the computer, which meant that a definitive time for when it was turned on couldn't be accounted for. And also things like the fact that no rectal body temperatures were taken at the scene of the crime, which then the defence say you don't even know for sure when they died.

Is that how they do it? Apparently. Stick it up your bum? Oh, yeah, I think so. How undignified. I know. Also, the defence talked about how a lot of blood and DNA evidence had been destroyed by the police. So remember, this trial is about how a lot of blood and DNA evidence had been destroyed by the police.

So remember, this trial is taking place a lot later. It's taking place over a decade later after the first trial. Technology has come a long way. The defense are like, well, we can't test for any of that now because you destroyed it all. And yes, that is a bad move. But also, it wasn't totally unusual that people did that after a conviction like i'm not saying it's good practice but it did happen like the thing is joe caram and the defense team basically screamed cover up when things like blood samples were destroyed okay but i think

it was genuinely more mess ups i'm not excusing them, but that is what happened. My question is, to what extent, though, did these mistakes by the police negate David looking guilty as fuck? To me, not that much. Now, as for the lies, in classic David fashion, he changed his story again on so many things. The fingerprints on the gun, which at his first trial his defence said had been made by rabbit blood after David had used the rifle on a previous hunting trip he basically says it's really old rabbit blood how much blood do you get on your hands going rabbit hunting i mean there's not much to them exactly shot bang why are you skinning them getting blood all over yourself and then touching the gun again i don't know but now at the second, they found an expert to say it's not blood at all. It's something else.

Whatever. And David, at the second trial, now said that he had never worn Margaret's glasses. If you remember there, the ones with the missing lens was found in Stephen's room, but the glasses, bent and twisted like someone had been wearing them and been in a fight, were found in David's room. And this new twist, that David was saying he'd never worn those glasses, actually shocked his original trial lawyer, so his lawyer from the first trial, so much that he actually took his notes about David telling them that he had been wearing his mother's glasses that weekend because his own glasses were broken and he was so short-sighted that he had to wear glasses. This lawyer took them to the prosecution at the second trial because he was like, he is lying, he is lying, he told me.

Oh my God. I know, I know. None of it made much sense, but somehow, on the 5th of June 2009, after spending 13 years in prison, David Bain was acquitted on all five counts of murder. I don't really understand how. I also don't. The defence basically just say the police fucked up. There's so many things. They didn't preserve so many things. And look, we have experts who explain away all of the things

like the gurgling, like the gunshot. And again, the jury just have to go with the expert who is more charismatic or who sounds, you know, tells a better story on the stand. None of this was proven in my mind beyond a reasonable doubt, but he is acquitted. Some people, including Martin van Beenen, say, all right, fine, he definitely did it and he's out now, but he did serve some time. So let's just draw a line under it and move on. But that was quite shocking to us because 13 years for five cold and calculated murders of your own family, for which he won't even admit guilt for, let alone remorse. And the lack of remorse is very real.

It was made ever more clear when he applied for compensation for wrongful conviction instead of just disappearing and thanking his lucky stars that he was free. But people like him can't. No. And this is the thing. People then sort of rely on this story that maybe he did do it because so much evidence points to it. But maybe I buy into the James McNeish theory that he disassociated. He didn't know he was doing it. He thought he was possessed.

And I'm like, no no he's a psychopath that's why everything that is explained away by possession is explained away by him being a fucking psychopath in november 2011 mr ian binney qc a retired judge from the supreme court of canada was given the unenviable task of deciding whether David Bain was innocent or not on the balance of probabilities, i.e. is it more likely than not that David is guilty. And basically they had to do this report to decide whether he was able to be given compensation. I see. So this is a much lower standard than that of a criminal court. And the onus is on David to show his innocence. And honestly, the entire thing with Binnie was a gigantic shit show and unbelievably, a real actual factual judge concluded that David Bain was not guilty.

My mouth fell open when I read that because reading Binnie's report There are at least 10 occasions Where David changed his story again From what he had said at his trials To what he said to Binnie And Binnie seems to ignore the glaringly obvious fact That by this point By the time David Bain is talking to him David knew all of the evidence against him

Because he's been through two trials. And therefore, all he had to do was fill in the gaps and explain away things. He's had fucking 13 years to think about it. And Binny seems to fixate on the sock theory. So he's really sold on the sock theory, which we talked about this episode, last episode? I don't know. This episode. And also, Binny seems to oddly fixate on why david would have done it basically saying there is no evidence of mental instability because

david was found sane so it doesn't make sense that he would kill his own family what the fuck but we're not the only ones who what the fuck at this, because following Binnie's report coming out, he was heavily criticised. And in December 2012, the report was actually deemed unsafe due to the huge number of errors that Binnie had made. Binnie, who, let me remind you, was a former Supreme Court judge in Canada. But David was given a compensation payment of $925,000, but it seems that it was more like hush money from the government to just make all of this Bain drama go away. But yet, even to this day, despite everything, there are still people willing to look past

all of the evidence and support David Bain. Why? I think the likes of the all-black star Joe Caram getting involved definitely helped David. And the only other reason I can think of is that people really love it when the police screw up. Yeah, I think there is a big element to like Joe's campaign. And I like, I'm not here to shit on joe i think joe genuinely believes that david is innocent and he is genuinely passionate about like you know criminal justice reform he just pinned your fucking cart to the wrong horse here and yes like the police screw-ups for sure and there are a lot of mistakes in this case there There's a bunch. But the police mistakes, as glaring as they are, don't explain away all of the evidence that points at David

or to his own inability to explain absolutely any of it. And as Martin Van Beenen writes, this case absolutely did expose some aspects of the New Zealand justice system which sorely, sorely need attention. And this lack of trust in the system has probably led to a lot of people questioning the original conviction of David Bain. So that's it. Where are we now? Where is David Bain now? Like we said, I think David definitely killed his family. I'm absolutely sure

of it. And he spent just 13 years in prison. He now lives in Christchurch with his wife and their kid. And he gets to have a life, something that he stole from five members of his own family. The people that he told, Justice Binney, were a part of him, who meant everything to him. So that's that. That's that. That's Bain. That is Bain. I mean, honestly, I know there is so much more evidence we could have included. We can't. We would have been hit forever.

Please go listen to Black Hands. It will satiate all of your needs to know enormous amounts of detail about everything. And it's just a very good podcast. So yeah, we hope you guys enjoyed that. We hope you enjoyed the shorthand on Sangama. It's a really, really fascinating case. I personally don't understand why it's so divisive. I think it isn't really to do with the evidence. I think it's to do with people being angry at the

police for fucking it up. So yes, that's that. And we're on the road somewhere, probably very tired and doing many shows. So if we see you there, hello. And we'll be back next week with something else. Hooray! Bye! Bye! Bye! Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. Thank you. expose the DEI regime, and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On The Media. To listen, subscribe to On The Media wherever you get your podcasts. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk-A-Fay, Sean Diddy Combs. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so.

Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom. But I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry. Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real.

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