The hate-siters often fell about laughing, spitting out false teeth, laughing so hard that their wigs fell off, amused beyond reason of the explanation from the evidence that after killing his family Robin, washed and changed his clothes. Indeed they said he was praying in the lounge when he was shot.
Of course the finding of high-speed spatter going the wrong way on his right shoe put paid to that idea. The spatter was travelling left to right, and not the required right to left that it needed to have been from his own wound. There was another big problem because had been praying in the manner described as being his custom, the top of his feet and therefore tops of his shoes would have been tucked under him and blood travelling in any direction not able to spatter across his shoes.
Well, if he wasn't praying in the fashion described, apart from whispering a few words as he lent his left temple against the rifle, then he certainly wouldn't have washed in any fashion and changed his clothes. This despite trousers being found in his van with fresh blood on them. Nobody, if you listened to a hate-siter would clean up, change clothes after committing murder and before suiciding, the very idea would be preposterous. Yes, it would be if you didn't comprehend the evidence against Robin and his unsound mind. He had 2 daughters both of whom had spoken to others of their fathers 'prevailence' upon them for sex from a very young age. We know of the problems Stephen was having, the sexual overtones of those and the anecdotal links to a fractured child-hood that may have lent toward that. We know that Robin saw limited scope left in his career as a teacher, his behaviour deteriorating to the point he was seen as needing to have help. Things at home were no better, he was excluded, left out of plans to redevelop the family home, a sharp tightening in the attitude of his wife toward him. Public recognition that one daughter had taken to prostituting herself and the younger son in conflict with the law, himself forced to sleep in his caravan far from the marital bed and his daughters.
Today is reported that a nz man living in England, Mark Barrett 48, having killed his wife in a stabbing frenzy, washed himself and dressed, even cleaned the knife before suiciding, giving an example as documented in many cases worldwide of a ritual cleansing, following a 'phsyical' cleansing before suicide. The problems Mark Barrett's perceived himself to be having were daunting but limited in his mind to a single figure, his partner Rosie Mayer. Robin Bain, looking at the anecdotal evidence, had problems in every area of his life, work, with his wife, his two daughters (one reported as preparing to lay a complaint against him,) a son at odds with the law in a disturbing way. Looking at the attempt of 'cleansing' that besets some troubled souls, Robin's was advanced on all fronts.
Considering the likelihood that his daughters were not simply being mischievous for some odd reason in their claims against him, then he was facing prison, ostracisation in his own community. It is said that he was a 'devout' man and one can assume that he could easily have considered that there were things he needed to hide from his God, clean up or put right in some way. He may have considered that he had let 'God' down, and like many perpetrators seen his victims as the 'true' cause of that. Overwhelming his life was distorted and he needed to distance himself from a life gone wrong, perhaps turn back the clock to the time when things had been 'normal' before things and people had gone bad. Robin was in a bad place, somewhere that made him feel 'dirty.'
But what could he put right? Nothing if he had a rational mind, other than to seek help. Seeking help though would have not brought relief from that which he couldn't bear, wouldn't resolve the relentless turmoil his life had become. Young Stephen is thought to have fought for his life, the reality is that probably out of pure fear he did, however his first wound was determined as going to be fatal. But it was Laniet who the evidence suggests might have been deliberately wounded and later finished off who was apparently subjected to a less than 'clean or efficient' death. A pillow put over her head for the final shot, as her killer slowly found his anger and disgust sated. She whom there was evidence of being in a 'relationship' with her father that was going to be revealed to the police. Some of this is speculation of course, though based on compelling evidence in every aspect.
What Mark Barrett saw as needing to be put right was in context of a new relationship, what Robin saw as failed and stalled in his life was a complete marriage, place in the Community, and an aborted relationship with those his duty had been to protect. What both men shared was the need to wash and dress before arresting their own torment that had not been vanquished by the spilling of the blood of those they 'loved.'
Like so much else that was held up as being part of the much-touted 'mountain of evidence' against David, the argued 'improbability' of Robin washing and changing before killing himself was just ignorance on the prosecutors' part: ignorance of the shades of human behaviour. This other case shows that. At least, we hope it was ignorance and not something more nefarious.
ReplyDeleteThe whole case was one long example of primitive, superstitious thinking. And primitive, superstitious thinking has no place in Justice.