Police told a High Court jury in Christchurch today of arriving at the messy, unkempt Bain house and finding David Bain lying on the floor in a foetal position, crying, "They are all dead."
The dramatic description of the discovery of the Bain family bodies spread through the house in Every Street, Dunedin, has been given on the fourth day of the retrial of David Cullen Bain on five charges of murder.
The defence contends Bain's father Robin carried out the murders, then shot himself.
Sergeant Murray Stapp said he found Bain huddled against the wall in a foetal position, distressed and crying hysterically.
Armed police then began moving through the house, about 7.30am on June 20, 1994, finding the bodies of five family members.
Mr Stapp went from room to room. He was accompanied by another officer and they were covering each other with revolvers as they moved.
He went into one room and saw a body of a woman on a bed, with a dog at the side of it. The light was on and the dog barked at him.
After he had found five bodies, he went into Bain's room.
Bain was there and appeared to have a seizure. His body was jerking in what looked like an epileptic fit.
Then he appeared to faint. The officer then got ambulance officers to come inside and attend to him.
He then let in another ambulance officer to check the bodies to see if they were dead.
A Bain family neighbour, Billee Marsh, said Bain's sister Arawa had babysat for them. When she was not available, Bain's mother Margaret had told her that another sister, Laniet, "was not suitable" as a babysitter.
Arawa was excited about getting a new house and was planning her room, and looking at colours.
Mrs Marsh told of having a few conversations with Robin, Bain's father, and described him as "an easy, lovely man, gentle, polite and calm".
She had a few phone conversations with Margaret, who she described as highly opinionated and "flakey".
"She talked and you listened," said Mrs Marsh. Margaret Bain had once gone to bed for six weeks and the family had to make do around her.
She also had brief conversations with David and said he was always pleasant and polite.
The last time she called "hello" to him, he had ignored her. She told her husband that they must have offended the Bains.
Evidence was read from a child witness, aged 10 at the time, who said she had awoken to the sound of the Bains' dog barking continuously at 7am on the morning of the killings. The dog had never done that before.
The court was told members of the Bain family were seen doing repairs on their house on the weekend of the shooting.
A neighbour told of seeing three of them working on the house on the Saturday, two days before the bodies were discovered.
Neighbour Wayne Marsh said the run-down house was an issue because Robin Bain did not want to spend any money on it, while his wife Margaret wanted it demolished and a new house built.
He referred to a rift in the family because there was no money to build a new house.
