A pathologist told the retrial of David Bain today that he could not rule out that David's sister Laniet was still making gurgling noises 15 minutes after she would have been expected to have died from gunshot wounds.
Dr Alexander Dempster told the court he had attended a serious car accident where he heard that a man whose injuries transected his lower brain - a brain stem injury like Laniet's - was still making gasping respirations after 15 minutes.
He said that he could not say, now, that David Bain would not have heard gurgling noises from Laniet. Her possible period of survival was very variable.
A statement from David Bain that he had heard Laniet gurgling had been raised as an issue at the trial.
The Crown has argued that David Bain murdered his parents and three siblings in the family's Dunedin home in 1994.
The defence has argued that Robin Bain shot dead his wife and the three children before turning the gun on himself.
The defence told the court it will call a ballistics expert who will say Laniet Bain could have been shot the first time, on the top of the head, as she was getting out of bed.
Laniet was shot twice more in the side of her head.
Defence counsel Michael Reed QC said the fragments of bullets found in her skull, underneath her, and on a chair, had white fibres on them indicating that she had been shot through something.
Dr Dempster had said he believed the wound was unusual for a .22 rifle because the silencer would have been pressed against the head when it was fired.
But Mr Reed said defence evidence would show it was actually because the rifle had been fired through something.
In the Crown case so far, no item that Laniet could have been shot through has been described to the court.
Dr Dempster was shown a photograph of the back of Robin Bain's right hand and told that another expert witness was going to say that the pattern of marks and abrasion bruises on the hand was consistent with a blow that contacted teeth. He thought the hand might have been covered by material.
A wound with a bruise surrounding it was on the same hand but Dr Dempster said there was no way to tell whether it would have got there in the hour before the shooting or in the previous 24 hours. He said there were no reliable ways to date bruises.
Earlier the defence told the court that Robin Bain could have shot himself in the head with a rifle.
Photographs showing the possible suicide scenarios produced by the defence team's ex-Scotland Yard ballistics expert were shown to the jury today and Dr Dempster.
In the witness box yesterday Dr Dempster demonstrated how difficult it was to hold the rifle at the proper angle for the shot to the temple and still reach the trigger.
Mr Reed today produced seven photographs showing how Robin Bain could have shot himself with the rifle.
They showed how the rifle could be used by someone kneeling with one leg on a chair with the rifle on the floor, or the rifle on the floor with the head angled to it, or standing with the gun on a chair, and one with a foot on the chair and rifle on the floor.
Dr Dempster agreed during cross-examination by Mr Reed that it was "perfectly feasible to shoot yourself in those positions if you wish".
The trial before Justice Graham Panckhurst resumes at 9.30am tomorrow and will finish about lunch time. It will not sit on the Tuesday after Easter.
