Peter Hentschel said he spent four days carrying out tests at the Andersons Bay house where five members of the Bain family were shot on June 20, 1994. And he told the court yesterday the rifle he saw was "quite extensively smeared with blood".
He had seen the rifle where it lay near Robin Bain's body in the front lounge of the Every St house and also checked it at the Dunedin Police Station for the presence of blood.
Some time later, he had examined the weapon in his laboratory at the ESR in Christchurch and, with the help of fingerprint officer Kim Jones, was able to locate areas of blood, using a polylight.
Part of the purpose of his examination was to take samples from the rifle for later examination by another scientist who was going to group the blood samples, Mr Hentschel said. He took five samples "about the size of the old 5c piece" which was what was required in 1994, although with advances in DNA techniques much smaller samples could be tested.
He took the samples from the barrel, silencer, stock, scope and the forearm, as close as possible to where fingerprints were found, but not from the fingerprint area itself. He said he had examined a five-shot magazine and a 10-shot magazine which was lying on its edge near Robin Bain's body. There was blood on the 10-shot magazine.
Tests carried out on a spent cartridge from the floor of the curtained-off computer alcove in the room where Mr Bain's body was found and on the lead projectile taken from Mr Bain's head established both had been fired by the same rifle.
Mr Hentschel earlier described chemical testing he carried out to establish the presence of blood on various parts of the floor and other areas in the house. In the bedroom where Margaret Bain had been shot, he found two partial footprints made by a stockinged foot and, using the chemical luminol, was able to measure the length of one of the prints.
Both prints were from a right foot and were moving from the direction of Stephen Bain's bedroom towards the door to the hallway from Margaret Bain's bedroom. Luminol also showed another print just outside Mrs Bain's bedroom, but he did not think it was measured.
The next print he found was a complete one, measuring 280mm from toe to the heel area. It was close to Laniet's bedroom door and was going towards the bedroom. A second complete print was going back out towards the hall. A partial footprint was found in the hall by the stairs, pointing towards the stairs. It was also a right footprint.
When a luminol reaction to blood was obtained, there was no way to distinguish whether it was fresh or old, Mr Hentschel told Crown counsel Kieran Raftery. Although he tested part-way down the stairs and in the kitchen and in Arawa's bedroom, he found no other footprints.
He had examined the house for blood smears on the door architraves and on a post at the bottom of the stairs. Smearing he found on the door frame between Stephen's bedroom and his mother's was noted as being about shoulder height.
The marks had been made by loose weave fabric moving from Stephen's room to Mrs Bain's room. He had looked at a green jersey which appeared to be the one shown to him yesterday. It was pinned to a board in the courtroom.
That garment had the type of weave which could have made the markings on the door frame, Mr Hentschel said. He found similar smears on the door frame of Arawa's bedroom in the downstairs part of the house.
Mr Hentschel said he also found blood smears on a post at the foot of stairs. These had been applied from the stairs' end and moved round the corner towards the kitchen. There was also some blood smearing on a dresser in the narrow area leading to Arawa's bedroom.
"I couldn't tell whether or not a loose-weave garment made those smears," he said.
