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  • David's Tattoo

    David Bain had a tattoo done just three weeks before the family died. The tattoo symbolised love and death: red rose rising, black arm band, feathers descending.  He told the police he had no identifying tattoos.  He told the prison warden that he'd had it for two years.

  • David Bain fell out with his parents

    David Bain told Rebecca Hemming in the week prior to the family deaths of an argument he had with his Parents, not Father or Mother but both, a sign they were united and functioning as a couple. He spoke of Déjà vu experiences and that they had been becoming increasingly frequent and said he thought something dreadful was going to happen. After the walk on the beach on Wednesday evening, two days after the murders, and being asked by Rebecca if this was the “dreadful thing” he said "Yes!"

  • Motorbike Crash

    David Bain crashed a motorcycle belonging to a dealer during a demonstration run in the weeks preceeding the tragedy. He was being pursued for $2000.00 plus (the excess on insurance) by Jules Radich.  His parents did not pay this for him.  Jules never gave evidence in Court.

  • David's Dark Side

    Les Cleveland who was in Opera Company productions with David talked about David’s “black side” and said David really ‘got off” on the evilness of one of his (Les) characters and seemed unable to differentiate between someone acting the part and being the person. He also said David knew of Laniet’s activities because he had heard fellow performers mentioning their association with her and he became enraged by this.  Les spoke to a magazine sometime after David's arrest and mentioned that David “had quite a paddy”.  He never gave evidence in Court.

  • Margaret and Robin knew of Laniet's prostitution

    Margaret and Robin knew of Laniet’s activities in prostitution. A letter from Margaret to Laniet was found among her belongings at Taieri.  There is no basis for the scenario that Laniet was going to come home and "tell all" as proposed by the Bain defence.  They already knew.  Although this letter was given to Peter Robinson a couple of weeks after David’s arrest it was never used in evidence.

  • David's behaviour as a child was sometimes disturbing

    Disturbed by David’s behaviour as a child Margaret and Robin sought leave from the Church to take him to Darwin for psychiatric assessment and counselling. David denied under oath he had ever had psychiatric counselling. A police officer went to Papua New Guinea to try and find out anything that could help them in their enquiry. Any such information of this nature would fall under doctor/client confidentiality and so nothing more could be discovered of this.

  • Aggressive Pet

    Sacha, David’s dog, had to be put down following complaints due to aggressive behaviour.

  • Kaycee, Arawa's Dog

    In David’s 111 call he is heard calling out to someone/thing – it was Kaycee, Arawa’s dog.  After the murders Kaycee slunk behind other people when David Bain was present.  Neither made any move to go to each other. David showed no emotion at all towards the dog that was essentially the only other surviving member of the family.

  • David and his siblings

    Just days before their deaths Margaret had to talk to David about the way he was treating his Sisters and Brother – that it was inappropriate – he was not their Father, they have one, David was their brother and it was not his place to tell them what they could or could not do.

    More anecdotes of David's treatment of his siblings

  • Home Schooling

    David was home schooled for most of the time in Port Moresby because the system didn’t suit his needs. The rest of the children attended the international school.  David He had no friends and found great difficulty forming or sustaining relationships. Apparently no-one at the school he had attended were surprised when he was arrested.

  • University Dropout

    David failed every exam at university on his first attempt. His parents refused to support him into a second year.

  • David's Friends

    David left the Opera Alive group in 1993 because “they were not his kind of people – they made fun of him and cracked jokes at his expense” Only one member made contact with him after his families deaths – he received no cards, phonecalls etc from the rest. It wasn't until after his arrest that things changed.

  • Margaret and Robin were resolving their differences

    Margaret and Robin were about to embark on the building of their new home, the plans had been approved in principle the week previous to the murders, and Margaret only had to transfer them to proper drawing paper from the graph paper she had used.  Robin had been to the council also that previous week and had discussions regarding the building with Colin Grey.

    Arrangements had been made for materials for the house to be purchased in bulk/tandem with the Medders who were also extending their Commodore Motels.

  • Injuries on Robin's hand

    During the weekend immediately prior to their deaths the family had been thinning and felling trees in the vicinity of the house to enable the demolition of the back part of the house to progress. New spouting had also been put up on the front part of the house to tide them over until that part was demolished and Margaret was brassed off about the unnecessary expense in doing this for such a temporary measure. Both these activities could have caused the small nicks in Robin’s hands.

  • David's Harlequin Jersey

    This is the jersey often commented about.  Margaret knitted this for David following his design and using his choice of colours and wools.  According to Margaret it was the most challenging she had ever knitted because of the fact it was not based on an actual pattern, just his ideas.

  • David Bain makes the Funeral Arrangements

    In relation to the funeral arrangements for his family David Bain insisted that Robin and Margaret were to be cremated and the three children buried, with a fourth plot left empty for him to occupy later, as he wanted to be buried with his siblings. He even stipulated the positioning of each body within the grave, Arawa with Stephen, him with Laniet.

  • David wore his mother's glasses

    David told trial witness, Jan Clark that he had been wearing an old pair of his mother's glasses during the weekend of the murders while his own glasses were at the opticians. He also advised his own legal counsel, Michael Guest, that this was so, yet in the trial of 1995 he denied this and lied under oath.

  • David did not experience trauma following the murders

    Following the murders David did not experience a loss of appetite and was happy and contented.  He did not display any sign of sadness or loss.

  • Robin was wearing the same clothes he wore the previous night

    David said Robin was wearing the clothes (tracksuit) he had been wearing the previous night.

    Robin wore a little woollen beanie at night to keep his balding head warm. If you are to believe the Bain Defence scenario, he would have also had that on while fighting Stephen and yet somehow it remained on his head, blood-splatter free and wasn’t pulled off in the struggle or lost in the chaos.  It was still on him when he was found.

  • Can't wait until this is over

    Five days after the murders, while on his way to the police station David said: “I will be glad when all this is over and I can get on with my life”.