Video footage of the Bain family home in Dunedin on June 20, 1994, brought a hush to the High Court at Christchurch yesterday as jurors saw the stark reality of the scene confronting police that morning.
The officers who responded to a 111 emergency shortly after 7am found five bodies with fatal gunshot wounds inside the house and, cowering in his bedroom, David Bain, the surviving family member later charged with murdering his parents and three siblings.
As the graphic footage was screened, the only sound in the courtroom was the voice of Milton Weir, the officer in charge of the scene, with some questions from Crown counsel Kieran Raftery.
Bain was visibly upset when the video was shown to the jury.
Mr Weir, a detective sergeant at the time of the shootings, explained to Justice Graham Panckhurst and the jury what they were seeing as the camera moved through the house.
After some film of the outside of the dilapidated, two-storey wooden house, the camera tracked past the various rooms where the bodies of the five Bain family members could be seen.
The body of Robin Bain was lying on the floor of the front lounge, his back against a bean bag, a rifle lying nearby.
Also visible in that room was a curtained-off alcove containing a computer with the words "Sorry, you are the only one who deserved to stay" on the screen.
The film also showed the bodies of Margaret and Laniet Bain as they lay in their beds with obvious bullet wounds to the head.
The bodies of Arawa and Stephen Bain were not in their beds but on the floor in their respective bedrooms.
Arawa was on her back, her legs bent under her, and she had a single wound to her head.
Stephen Bain's body could be seen lying among piles of clothing and other items on the floor of his room.
Much of the bed clothing was heavily bloodstained and there were obvious signs of a struggle.
The edited video footage was shown on the eighth day of David Bain's retrial for the murders of his parents and three siblings.
