Published by David Ling. $24.95, and reviewed by Trevor Reeves.

Surely in the annals of crime in this country, the events of June 22 1994 at 65 Every Street, Dunedin, must be regarded as the strangest. A classic whodunnit. A crime of passion, with all the forces imaginable tearing at this seemingly - on the surface that is, respectable and sane family. Incest, the occult, extreme religious fervour, rivalries, jealousies and as James McNeish points out throughout his meticulously researched book, entrapment.


The Bains, Robin, and Margaret and their children, all born in Port Moresby except David, - at the settlement of Waigani, returned to Dunedin in the late 1980's to resume a 'normal' life in their old house in Every Street. The house had been rented out for 16 years. The change was not easy for any of them. Robin, the father, could not find work. Margaret, the mother, no longer with a wrapt audience amongst the native people there for her brand of Shirley Maclaine occultism, preying more and more on her immediate family and the children. The children missed out on vital schooling and had to catch up in order to merge into a society that must have seemed pretty alien to them. They coped well. In fact the whole family coped well for a time.


Robin secured a primary teaching job at the Taieri Beach school. After failing at university in 1992, then missing a year, David finally settled at University in 1994. He did well in music and classics. He was learning other things as well. In an atmosphere where sceptics abound - the university environment, he was at last coming to terms with his mother's strange occult ways and obsessions. So were the others, though they were more dependent, emotionally, on their mother than David. Margaret tried to make up for that by being more emotionally demanding on David. It was that which James McNeish points out, which led to David feeling more and more trapped. There were allegiances and cross allegiances all round. Robin trying to stay with the family. Margaret pushing him away unless he fully embraced her occult ways and rejected the simple Christian faith in which they had been brought up. In her diary Margaret described Robin as S.O.B., or son of "Belial" which in the New Testament, is Satan. In the end David would not have a bar of either Christianity or his mother's occult beliefs - it was a matter of a plague on both of their houses. David shot his father through the head while he was in prayer. He shot his mother, the first to go, shot once in the head. He wanted both their bodies cremated, not buried with the others.


The children had been kept at Margaret's breast for years whilst in PNG. All except David that is, who was born before the death of Margaret's father in 1976, in Alexandra. The reason for this over-suckling is hard to understand. It is certainly not covered in McNeish's book. But it is critical to what eventually happened at Every Street that fateful morning. Laniet, Arawa and Stephen graduated from suckling at the breast ( to age eleven, if those who witnessed it are to be believed) to "cuddles" back home in Dunedin, in their mother's bedroom. David was not part of this. It is hard to know whether or not he was envious of the others. Anyway he had evidently experienced a deep feeling of deprivation of some sort. Friends in PNG described his parents' extravagant lovemaking and often David was a witness to this. The relationship he had with his girlfriend just prior to the shootings revealed him as unsure, reticent about sex - unwilling to try it. He was uncuddleable, and he knew it.


James McNeish, in his compelling book, describes in detail the factors that led to what was surely the most intricately planned multiple murder that you could imagine - or that had ever occurred in New Zealand, anyway. He postulates the idea that David is a psychopath. What is a psychopath? It is someone who is very nice on the surface. A perfect gentleman, kind, considerate, polite, but who has an iron regime of purpose running underneath and a complete lack of regard for the way others felt. Two-layered and deceitful. Always believing that all the things he does to achieve his plans are secret. Nobody knows what he is up to, and he believes he will never be found out.


That's why David went into trances. At his Aunt's house after the killings while discussing the funeral arrangements; when friends visited him in prison as asked awkward questions; during police interviews too, presumably. Particularly, at the scene of his handiwork, on the morning of the murders. When it to him looked as if somebody was 'on' to what he was up to, he'd "switch off". He would chant, almost, to try to override the obstacle. Like an insurance salesman interrupted mid-spiel. The murders were well planned. McNeish says - a first act, then intermission, then the second act. A full scale play. But this was not play-acting. This was the real thing.


Little was made of the tattoo on David's arm, at the trial. There was an impression that Judge Williamson wanted to avoid most of the evidence on the conflicting faiths and beliefs, because it might confuse the facts in the case. The tattoo consisted of a band right across the muscle of the arm, with a red rose upside, and three feathers pointing downwards, downside and separated by the black band. Red roses are often linked to the occult. Feathers turned upward represent peace and conciliation in Maori terms. The feathers were turned downwards.


This tattoo appeared to show David's growing hatred of his mother's occult beliefs and the damage, in the light of his new sceptical views, those beliefs it had done to him and his father, sisters and brother. This was a declaration of war. This was a way to escape the 'trap' maintained by his mother, from which he could not escape. David lied about the tattoo to friends. A psychopath lies about the things he thinks matter to his plans. He is almost naive in telling the truth about the things that he thinks don't matter to the plans. That's why he told the jury that Laniet was 'gurgling' when he 'found' her. He didn't think saying that would matter. To the jury and others, he failed to indict his father in his stead, as the killer. The plan was already executed, so to speak and over with. There was no need to indict his father.


In another chilling piece of pre-planning, there was David's red board. It was about half the size of a door, with five circles drawn on it. They looked suspiciously like the tops of heads, and riddled with 29 bullet holes. The layout of rings on the board corresponded to the bedroom plan of the house - where everybody was sleeping. David's head was excluded.


For the reasons why David killed his family, you would have to read McNeish's book. It is all set out in precise and meticulous detail. A Greek Tragedy of awesome proportions. As was Oedipus Rex, the play which some say may have finally triggered David's plans, but is open to some doubt. McNeish's superb and careful research will leave you stunned and sickened at what really happened. You will have to buy this book. However, amongst unanswered questions is why did Margaret turned to the occult after such a careful Christian upbringing?


A clue lies in the death of her father. He died in 1976. On hearing the news that he was ill, Margaret got a flight and was on her way home. Then she learned that he had died. She cancelled her ongoing flight plans and returned quickly to Waigani. What strange behaviour that was! What about his funeral? Her widowed mother's, and sisters' grief ? The need for them to be comforted? Maybe she wanted to return home because she wanted to talk to her father; to confront him with something. But you cannot talk to the dead. Even as an experienced clairvoyant, well practised in self-deceit, she would know that. After her father died, she produced her remaining children. They were suckled at the breast for a lengthy periods. She was reported at one stage as telling a friend, when Stephen was at her breast, "Stephen is my father".


In PNG there is a custom where people used to sleep on their ancestor's skulls so that they wouldn't be haunted or harmed by them. The suckling of Stephen; the milk of human kindness here could indicate, in a bizarre way, that something was amiss in Margaret's upbringing. McNeish makes only the barest of hints - he goes no further, except to report that there had been a traumatic event in Margaret's childhood. Later on, he writes, "Incest and perversion are not new - especially to anyone who has grown up in the country".


If there was an incestuous relationship between Margaret and her father, what sort of incest was it? If it was consensual, there would be guilt on Margaret's part in later life. A guilt which would turn Margaret into a psychotic with dreams, depressions, diversions into the occult, emotional manipulation of her closest ones and absolute mayhem all round. She tried to keep up a 'brave face and some stability but like all psychotics, she overdid it. There were the hundreds of jars of rotten fruit in the house, the fruit bursting out of the bottles. Her manic drive to collect and preserve more and more over-ripe fruit that nobody would eat, nor did she want them to eat any of it. She had grown up on an orchard. The fruit was all laid out in the house as some sort of penance, or protection, maybe.


If any of this is true, then not only were David's victims doubly hard done by, but so was David himself. A victim, just as much as his victims at the point of his gun, were. McNeish's book raises more answers than questions. But there are some important questions arising from it. That shows just how good a piece of work McNeish's book is. Don't miss it. You will be enthralled.

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Bio:


Trevor Reeves is a publisher free-lance writer and writer of fiction, living in Dunedin. He is editor of Southern Ocean Review, www.book.co.nz. This review first apeared in "Dunedin Free Press" 1997.

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