1994 BAIN FAMILY MURDERS DUNEDIN NEW ZEALAND
An astrological review
After David Bain aged 22 at the time notified emergency services at 7.09 am on 20 June 1994 that “they’re all dead” the New Zealand justice system wrangled with a classic whodunnit.
Eldest child David aged 22 at the time was charged with 5 counts of murder 4 days later.
A lounge room scene suggested father Robin Bain [58] had killed his family while David was out on his regular early morning newspaper delivery - and then committed suicide - having left a message on the computer screen reading “Sorry, you were the only one who deserved to stay”
Possibly the first family member to encounter the killer while alive and awake was yougest child Stephen aged 14. Injuries to his body helped form a scenario that he had to fight for his life in an extended violent struggle. It is likely he was shot through the hand first in a protective pose . Perhaps he woke and rose to face the approaching killer. The bullet then gouged the right side of his head and likely stunned but in fight mode the struggle commenced. Described as tall and strong he gave his best but the t-shirt he was wearing was used to strangle him. A second bullet met no resistance and passed through the top of his head.
The killer used a .22 rifle with a silencer in order to go room to room undetected. A struggle was not in the plan.
Father Robin - approaching age 59 - was seen as frail gaunt and sickly around this time and increasingly depressed in a loveless marriage that saw him almost entirely alienated or at war with family members. He had been excluded to sleep in an outside caravan or offsite near his employment at a school. On the surface he would seem to qualify as someone with enough resentments to suddenly descend into mass carnage.
The relationship between father and eldest son had become increasingly tense. David had positioned himself in loco parentis as the alpha male and began acting as the authority figure over his younger siblings’ choices and behaviours.
This aspect reads like a classic transfer of power from the aging lion to the ambitious offspring. Robin had a lot to lose. David had a lot to gain.
The capacity for both to have a motive becomes clearer when the astrological clues are examined
DAVID BAIN
Without a birth time for David Bain this is a birthdate chart for 27 March 1972 so the Moon position being non-personalised is discounted .
The solar chart presented has the June 20 1994 transits around the outer edge in green at the noon point on the day of the murders - so rather than being interested in the positioning we are looking at the connections between energies on the day and those in effect on the day of David Bain’s birth - excluding the Moon on June 20 at noon other than noting its relevance being in Scorpio and much earlier that day having been in conjunction with Jupiter - a signature potential for a large number of family deaths—and that by noon it is clear that Chiron in transit was conjunct David’s birth Moon - signifying an experience in the context of home and or family - of wounding/being wounded or conversely healed.
David fashioned himself as mother Margaret’s best ally - but was it love or something else?
The answer arises when considering what David had to gain in eliminating all competition. But what was he competing for?
The clearest answer is: Money.
The family situation was reasonably asset-rich but cash poor and frugal.
The appeal to an Aries with David’s larger template [Sun Chiron Mercury in synergy] and with Venus and Mars in Taurus would be very strong. [including that Venus-Mars conjunction connecting with Pluto Saturn and Neptune bring a variety of resentments dreams and revenge motives surrounding the alluring power of money.
A Chiron-afflicted Aries is a wounded beast. A damaged sense of self - bearing anger and a competitive drive. The typical Aries playthings - the gun and themotorbike were used to shore up his frail sense of self-worth.
Saturn so close to Mars delivers a cold cruel - and in Gemini - an unvoiced anger.
Mars-Saturn opposing Neptune allows for secret plans fantasies and actions. This is someone documented as creating strategies in fine detail for covering up behaviour: he is said to have previously disclosed an intention to use his paper run as an alibi to shield a planned sex attack on a young woman: Taurus - like any sign can radiate into any of its family of signs -the fixed group gave him potential to use those traits in acts with a Scorpio Leo or Aquarian context - so - sex death performance and group activities. Prior to the murders David was regularly involved as a singer in local stage productions of musicals - singing being throat involves Venus in Taurus. The Venus and Mars would enjoy the attention received through performance. Group involvement was part of that context.
We can see a second significant control factor -Saturn already noted is known both for self control/repression - then Pluto in Libra when he was born has signatures of controlling relationships, relationships annihilated, relationships transformed.
The bigger picture is Pluto and Uranus both in Libra [2 extremely potent change-makers affecting relationships] are aimed at the Sun-Chiron pairing making for a closely entangled mix of psychological content that has a lot of capacity to erupt in a primal fashion. And if that mix weren’t already enough - the planet that enlarges or exaggerates - Jupiter - sits close enough to the midpoints of the two sets to create sustained tension - Jupiter is Saturn-controlled being in Capricorn so the pendulum continually swings between wanting to release the pressure - and act out - versus holding back, waiting for the right time, constructing the right plan. This combination of energies deeply desires to upset the equilibrium but knows a significant amount of caution is needed to get it done successfully.
It is highly likely the scenario of killing the family was aslow burner - on the agenda for a long time, kept in check, revised, updated.
Then Pluto in transit accompanied by the Nodes in Scorpio-Taurus delivered the killer drive [being Nodes 23- Pluto 26 Scorpio they activated David’s 22-30 degree Venus-Mars in Taurus] under a Scorpio Moon with Jupiter in Scorpio. - these latter 2 being conjunct in the early hours of 20 June:
At 2.36 am on 20 June 1994 the Moon reached the exact conjunction degree of 5 Scorpio with Jupiter. Mass killing is a keynote of Scorpio intensified by connection to Jupiter. The transient and rapid moving nature of the Moon often serves as the timing mechanism.
In the psyche and mood of the killer the time had come. Murder was written. Today was the long awaited day.
Eleven months later in May 1995 David was convicted of 5 counts of murder.
Multiple legal challenges followed leading to a retrial in 2009 leading to a full acquittal.
Multiple legal wranglings over compensation ensued leading to the government calling time on the processes - opting to stem the expenditure spent on litigation in preference for a one-off payment announced in 2016 towards the applicants’ costs
David was released from prison in May 2007, subsequently married the daughter of a supporter, became a father and changed his name.
The murder weapon was returned to him in 2017.
ROBIN BAIN
No birth time for Robin. This birthdate chart is compared with planets in transit at noon on 20 June 1994 shown in green around outer edge - The Moon on the birthdate cannot be referenced due to being so fast moving.
Family patriarch Robin Bain - seen as frail gaunt sickly had experienced his second Saturn return on 1st March 1994 -months before the murders.
This Saturnian influence didn’t help his natal Sun-Jupiter conjunction in Sagittarius - he could be viewed as both jovial and serious/depressed as natal Saturn also squared both Sun and Jupiter.
A Plutonic Mercury - from Mercury in Scorpio being trined by Pluto in Cancer brings the potential for both sexual and murderous thoughts to emerge. He was a reader of Agatha Christie crime fiction and actions such as reading or viewing murderous content can by proxy can siphon off such urges or give free rein to them.
Robin seems to have the genetic code passed to David regarding Mars linked to Neptune but they are both in practical work-related signs and seem to have caused the chaotic disregard negligence and poor performance noted in his role as a country school teacher.
His Chiron in Gemini wounds are triggered by words - especially in family relationship contexts due to Venus and the nodes linking to Chiron. Career environments too activated pain. Saturn also drained his Uranian energy - though newly emerging personal computers were a natural fit for him at work.
Any close observer of Robin who wanted to position him as the killer could easily leave a suggestive murder story laying open in his caravan and use a computer instead of paper as a suicide note [ as both were discovered and considered] as well as contributing psychologically to his deterioration by usurping his role as head of family. The potential here for staging evidence is replicated in the death scene being considered by some as suggestive of suicide.
Pluto and the north node both transited close to Robin’s planets as well as David’s on 20 June.
The Scorpio Node was exact conjunct his Mercury 23 Scorpio
Pluto was exact on his Mercury-Sun midpoint 27 Scorpio.
Was it notions of his mortality that coincided with death’s arrival by an external force?
He may well have been very focussed on death in his known depleted physical state and depression. There does not seem any evidence raised that Robin was having medical or pharmaceutical support related to his state of mind.
Overall in comparison to David, Robin’s birthday chart inherently lacks the potency of energy to carry out acts on the scale required to fit the events in the family home in the early pre-dawn hours on 20 June.
Arguably he does carry hints of the astrological [and therefore biological] DNA capable of heading down some dark paths given the right contexts and pressures but his jovial Sagittarian energy was likely some form of protection against giving into the options of Plutonic rage and Saturnian negativity.
It seems that David carried the DNA in a more amplified configuration and for this primary reason is the more likely protagonist in this mass killing.Jupiter is mass or multiple. Killing is Pluto and/or Mars.
Both Robin and David in their astrological DNA have Pluto configured with Jupiter and Mars but it is David’s more intense conflicted and wounded psyche that shows these energies very capable of being pushed into manifestation as shown by the birthday profile of engagement of Mars-Pluto-Jupiter-Sun while Saturn adjoins Mars, Pluto merges with Uranus, Sun with Chiron - like a pinball machine where so many neurons light up in the brain once the right moving object moves through the system.
That’s the consequence of the vibrational engagement brought by a planet or sensitive axis [Nodes] of sufficient power - as the combination of Pluto and the Nodes in Scorpio undoubtedly is - providing the surge of energy to ping ping ping off a collection of targets.
Tragically they were human beings. Not rabbits or possums. And they were family. Though the same silent stalking even tip-toe stealth was likely to have been applied in both contexts [even to the point of walking on the balls of feet not the heel explaining the irregular and incomplete bloody sock prints at the murder scene ]
David obtained a gun licence in 1990. He purchased his own rifle in early 1993 for legal shooting of species designated as pests. He kept a large quantity of ammunition in his bedroom wardrobe.
SCENARIOS & ASSUMED SEQUENCE
Margaret Stephen Laniet Arawa Robin
Two possible scenarios were covered by investigators regarding who had the opportunity to kill undetected.
David knew his father Robin’s morning routine and Robin knew David’s. Both had a regular pattern of when to rise.
David’s paper delivery determined that he left the house at 5.45 am - taking 55-60mins to return home normally by 6.45am.
Robin would tend to be up since 6.30am - collecting the morning paper then having a prayer or meditation in the front lounge room. This is where he was found deceased by gunshot.
David at 7.09 am had called emergency services asking for an ambulance “they’re all dead”.
Robin’s body was felt as warmest by ambulance officer prior to 8am giving weight to him being the last to die.
Police attending at 7.35 am found mother Margaret and 3 children had all died in or near their beds - with only one - Stephen - able to struggle with the killer. All 5 had at least one shot to the head region.
Exit footprints made by bloody socks suggest Margaret was shot first [once below eybrow]. Through a curtain adjoining her room was Stephen who must have woken and resisted - in a violent struggle with a lot of blood loss as a result. [shot non-fatally, strangled and shot in the top of the head]
Bloody sock prints in Margaret’s room appear as a result of exiting from Stephen’s room - then heading to the opposite room where sister Laniet slept [shot 3 times in head area] before heading downstairs to sister Arawa slept [ shot once at distance from doorway to right side of head] Crime scene imagery suggests she may have woken risen - even seen David approach with his rifle - recoiled and collapsed on impact to the side on her bedroom floor.
David’s normal plan to leave by 5.45am was well before Robin’s normal entry into the living room around 6.30. The scenario of David as killer would avoid killing Robin before 5.45am as that would pinpoint David alone or require a more complicated suicide staging in Robin’s caravan. Along with more forensics on offer. Robin had to be left until the return from David’s paper delivery and staged as the suicide of a mass murderer.
The timeline of events has to make sense in terms of significant activations of energy that have relevant signatures of violence and death.
From an astrological perspective there are clear clues during the pre-dawn morning of 20 June 1994 as to when strong energy was very activated.
Assuming David is the killer and that he had constructed a detailed plan to achieve the killing of 5 people in a confined area being his own family home he would need to deflect attention away from himself and towards his father.
To achieve the best opportunity to act in stealth he would have to enact the plan almost entirely before leaving for his paper round. While the whole household still slept.
Someone practised in rifle use and fitted with a telescopic lens - taking 5 shots within a house should ideally not take more than 15-30 mins including any dealing with blood evidence on himself.
To be on the safe side an allowance of up to 45 mins would be feasible -5am to 5.45am
20 June 1994 TIMED ASTROLOGY CHARTS
Specifically-timed astrological charts for periods beginning 2.36am are very revealing regarding the energies prominent in the city of Dunedin on 20 June 1994 and how they especially impacted some of the Bain family
The Murder signature provided by Pluto Nodes and Mars sits poised across the AC-DC horizontal axis at 5am. Something volcanic was primed to erupt in that location. Jupiter and Moon are just past conjunction a few hours prior in Scorpio. Jupiter here with Moon the Mother and Family and Home signifier - all infused with Scorpio is a strong signal for multiple family deaths. The square from Venus to Jupiter brings in the intensely dramatic quality of such an event.
By 5.05 the sequence of killings looks to have been underway.
The most violent period with Stephen after 5.05 and to around 5.30 due to Mars being so prominent - the escalation in violence with Stephen flowed into the 3 shots to Laniet
The energy intensifies in the time frame to 5.15 and 5.30 and complete by 5.40am.
The unplanned struggle with Stephen had used up time.
Stephen's birthdate energy [excepting the Moon] in comparison with transit poitions for noon 20 June in green around outer edge
The ASC-DC axis reached 24’49 Taurus-Scorpio at 5.40am but the midpoint energy of Pluto-Nodes in transit was in tight range through the selected time frame beginning 5am.
This struggle places David in the frame as his very damaged relating energy - the Venus-Mars synergy in Taurus [especially impacted by Chiron Saturn Pluto contacts] - have a midpoint of 26 Taurus.
Again though- energetically giving grounds for much weighing up to be done by juries - Robin has a Scorpio midpoint at 27.5 degrees involving Mercury and the Sun and his Uranus-Chiron midpoint is 23 Taurus.
And again though the DNA links astrologically seem primed for release through the son not the father - with David’s relating pattern carrying more emotional damage.
David and Stephen chart interactions
David Sun-Chiron square Stephen Capricorn Sun an inherent tension with likely David wanting to compete and compensate for angry feelings of inadequacy
David Venus-Mars midpoint 26 Taurus opposite Stephen Uranus 24 Scorpio -this is the standout sudden violence indicator. The combination of Mars-Uranus in a person’s own pattern is a red flag for sudden explosive violence.
When one person’s Mars is in contact with another’s Uranus the tension exists due to the potential for an impulsive acting out of the inner hostilities.
This interactive pattern alone is a key astrological piece of evidence indicating high potential for these two embodied forces to come into conflict.
It so happens that on 20 June 1994 the north node at 23 Scorpio conjoining with Pluto at 26 Scorpio = midpoint 24.5 Scorpio positioned Stephen in a fight for his life in the time frame running up to 5.30am.
The 3 charts with all factors including movements of the Moon timed exactly run from the time frame 5.15 am-5.40am and clearly show the clustering of dangerous oppositional or conflict energies in Taurus and Scorpio across the horizontal axis in Taurus and Scorpio at the designated time as well as the Jupiter Moon very close proximity in Scorpio.
At 5.30 am in Dunedin the combination of violent energies in transit was very focussed within the Bain household in Every Street due to the inherent energies of key players in this Shakepearean-style tragedy - Mars Pluto and the nodal axis points clustered around the powerful horizontal axis which was at 23 Taurus opposing 23 Scorpio.
This vicious struggle erupting as Stephen used all his might in his defence was not in the plan. Precious time was being used up. The struggle got increasingly desperate - Stephen silenced and strangled, was also shot likely as a final assurance.
This was the work of someone who had to keep to a timetable -an alibi - a normal pattern of being asleep before leaving the house at 5.45 am. Not someone who was confident that from 5.45 am there would be an unrushed hour in which to unleash family carnage while the only one who deserved to stay was conveniently out delivering newspapers
Relevant active Eclipses re Birthdate positions
Always an important marker of high profile energies in transit
May 10 1994 solar eclipse 19’48 Taurus
= activation of David’s Venus 21’46 Taurus
May 25 1994 lunar eclipse 3’43 SAG
=Robin’s Jupiter 3’31 SAG & Saturn 3’45 Pisces
=David Saturn 2’17 Gemini
=David Chiron 5 Virgo
[also his birth Chiron activated by Chiron in transit May-July 1994 = 3-5 Virgo]
Birthdate data for the key players David Robin and Stephen Bain - all 3 males - have been considered in examining the death scenarios. The 3 females were all killed in a manner that presents them as victims of the mass murderer.
Their birthdate positions are included also with no relevance for the Moon’s position due to no known birth time data .
Further detail is available in the charts of mother Margaret and daughters Arawa and Laniet -including that Saturn in transit or a transit to natal Saturn featured for all 3 on June 20
