On the Thursday, within four days of the murders, David expressed to a friend that he planned to sell the house and buy elsewhere. This is before the funeral and during a period in which, if he was an innocent bystander, he should be still in grief and such plans unthinkable. From the 2009 retrial:
David Bain related to a female friend in trial testimony that he was not ready to move out of the family home. He wanted to but was not ready yet. This was spoken in relation to an argument that he had with both parents.
David went to print in Karam’s booklet Innocent saying “being constantly crushed by shattered dreams, destroyed plans, broken promises and betrayals, by all I once held dear”.
This could describe David's increasing sense that his other siblings were receiving more positive attention from his parents than he was. His parents doted on Arawa and Stephen because of all achievements, while David, at 22 had little to his credit, and was working part time on a paper run.
On the morning of the murders, Kaycee woke the neighbours daughter with prolonged barking around 7am, which was most unusual behaviour as she was not known to do this. Robin didn’t have to leave for work as early that morning as normal, since he had a meeting with the SES in the city. This could explain the delay between David's arrival at home and discovery of the bodies and the time when he rang 111: Robin arose later than his normal time and Kaycee's barking could indicate the time at which this occurred, a full 20 minutes after David's return.
The ambulance staff had a finger monitor on David at the time of his “convulsion” but readings did not alter, nor did his eyes roll back. This caused them to believe they were witnessing a “Hollywood”. These were extremely experienced officers and said they did not need to give him any medical assistance and he did not require further assessment for trauma or shock at the hospital.
David says he turned on the washing machine after his paper run, and says he sorted the clothes, whites from colours, but he didn’t leave out the hand-knitted jerseys. The family practice was for those to be hand-washed. Margaret was very particular about the care of these, as was David who, while on remand, had all his jerseys hand-washed, because he didn’t want them to be spoilt by the prison laundry. There would have to have been a very unusual occurrence for him to machine wash the green jersey on the morning of the murders.
Blood stains on the door jambs and walls were at a height consistent with David’s elbow/arm brushing against them (which is the part of the body most likely to bump into things).
David wanted to have a birthday party for Arawa on Sunday 26th June, a week after the murders, and ask Arawa’s friends over. When it was suggested this was not such a good idea, he became very angry, paled, clenched his fists and growled “well if you won’t I’m sure one of her friends will!”. One of his suggestions for the celebration was to take the cassette player and go out to the grave, play some music and dance there. However, by Sunday David was in prison so there was no party.
David had left The Royal Male Voice Choir in 1993, yet much was made of his wonderful relationship with his Father and the things they did together, including singing in the choir. Les Bonar the Choir leader stated that where Robin was completely reliable and always well prepared, David was the complete opposite and often let them down.
Stephen told a school friend’s older brother (Nick Greet) that he had woken and found David standing at the end of his bed (with his gun) and he had said "Bang!". Stephen was so unnerved by this he challenged David about this later in the presence of other family members but was told he must have been dreaming.
Margaret and Robin were totally opposed to any kind of physical reprimand. They would quietly and calmly talk things through. Explain patiently why certain behaviour was unacceptable and discuss endlessly ways to manage or resolve problems. They used “time out” when disciplining.
Margaret and Robin were pacifists; they found all forms of violence abhorrent.
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”.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
David failed every exam at university on his first attempt. His parents refused to support him into a second year.
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.
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.
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.
Sacha, David’s dog, had to be put down following complaints due to aggressive behaviour.
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.
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.
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.
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 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!"
David Bain had a tattoo done a week prior to the family deaths. 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.