The Bain marks

David Fisher at NZ Herald reports:

Discovery that seems to have escaped detectives and forensic scientists during the 19 years since the Bain family were murdered in Dunedin indicates Robin Bain was the person who loaded the .22 rifle

David Giles peered closely at the photograph on the screen of his computer.

On the thumb of Robin Bain, dead 19 years, were parallel marks of a kind he recognised instantly.

As a boy in the Waikato he would shoot rabbits and possums with a .22 rifle, the same calibre of rifle used to murder the Bain family.

After firing a magazine full of bullets, he would disengage the clip which fed more rounds into the rifle. Taking a bullet, he would push it into the top of the magazine using his thumb and then use the digit to fix the bullet in place. Doing so dragged the thumb across the top of the magazine – parallel metal sides which carried a light coating of burned gunpowder residue from the back-blast of the shots just fired. As the thumb came away, it carried twin lines from the gunpowder and grime on the top of the magazine.

Mr Giles told TV3’s 3rdDegree show he knew instantly what he was seeing on his computer. Robin Bain carried the same marks on his thumb any shooter would have after reloading the magazine on a recently fired rifle.

3rd degree ran this story last night, and there is a link to Kiwiblog. It seems it was comments in a couple of the threads we have had on the David Bain case, that led to this evidence being seen by the person involved. I’m pleased that some people actually have waded through the thousands of comments on the Bain threads. I normally give up after the first hundred.

It appears to be significant evidence in David’s favour. I presume it will be considered by whomever is appointed to review Bain’s likely guilt or innocence for his compensation claim, once the judicial review proceedings are done with.