David Bain

Once upon a time, a man I had never met showed up, asked if he could talk with me confidentially, and proceeded to confess to a murder. I did everything I could to get him to take his confession to the police. There was no way he would do that. So he was left with whatever solace comes from confession to a minister who could by no means offer absolution -- and I was left with knowledge of the identity of a murderer. The police never did resolve the matter.

It impresses me that only David Bain knows who murdered his mother Margaret, father Robin, sisters Laniet and Arawa, and brother Stephen -- five people. If Robin did it, that's four murders and one suicide. If David did it, it's five murders. Forensic evidence shoots either way, and could be argued ad infinitum. That has been abundantly shown in two major trials and an appeal hearing to the Privy Council. David himself presents as gentle and gentlemanly, open to hurt, braving the media, saying only positive things, entirely likeable. It is extremely difficult to see him in the role the prosecution wanted. He has said repeatedly he is innocent. Logic would believe him.

But of course just about everyone in NZ has an opinion.

I don't care. The Bain family was spectacularly dysfunctional, including psychopathological religion, and had become precisely the kind of environment in which something utterly dreadful could happen. And so it did. David survived from all that psychopathology, and he actually seems, even after some 13 years in prison, and much sustained harassment from the legal scene, to be reasonably intact. That's what matters.