Further Reading for Richard Ramirez & The Bain Family Murders
The Night Stalker: The Life and Crimes of Richard Ramirez
Episiode: 20
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Ricardo Leyva Muñoz Ramírez, known as Richard Ramirez (February 29, 1960 – June 7, 2013), was an American serial killer, rapist, and burglar. His highly publicized home invasion crime spree terrorized the residents of the greater Los Angeles area, and later the residents of the San Francisco area, from June 1984 until August 1985. Prior to his capture, Ramirez was dubbed the “Night Stalker” by the news media. He used a wide variety of weapons, including handguns, knives, a machete, a tire iron, and a hammer. Ramirez, who was an avowed Satanist, never expressed any remorse for his crimes. The judge who upheld his thirteen death sentences remarked that Ramirez’s deeds exhibited “cruelty, callousness, and viciousness beyond any human understanding”. Ramirez died of complications from B-cell lymphoma while awaiting execution on California’s death row.
On September 20, 1989, Ramirez was convicted of all charges: 13 counts of murder, 5 attempted murders, 11 sexual assaults, and 14 burglaries. During the penalty phase of the trial, on November 7, 1989, he was sentenced to die in California’s gas chamber. He stated to reporters after the death sentences, “Big deal. Death always went with the territory. See you in Disneyland.”
The Bain family murders were the deaths by gunshot of Robin and Margaret Bain and three of their four children – Arawa, Laniet and Stephen – in Dunedin, New Zealand, on 20 June 1994. The only suspects were David Cullen Bain, the oldest son and only survivor, and Robin Bain, the father. David Bain, aged 22, was charged with five counts of murder. In May 1995, he was convicted on each of the five counts and sentenced to mandatory life in prison with a minimum non-parole period of sixteen years.
Bain’s case was taken up by businessman and former rugby player Joe Karam. In 2007, Bain’s legal team, guided by Karam, successfully appealed to the Privy Council, which declared there had been a ‘substantial miscarriage of justice’. Bain was released on bail in May 2007. The retrial in June 2009 ended with his acquittal on all charges.
Speculation about the case continued long after Bain was acquitted, including whether or not he should receive compensation for the years he spent in prison. Canadian jurist Ian Binnie was appointed in November 2011 to review the circumstances and advise the government on whether compensation should be paid. Binnie concluded that the Dunedin police made ‘egregious errors’ and that the ‘extraordinary circumstances’ in the case justified the payment of compensation. This report was rejected by the Minister of Justice, on advice from High Court Judge Robert Fisher.[5]
In March 2015, the government appointed Ian Callinan, a retired justice of the High Court of Australia, to conduct a second review of Bain’s compensation claim. Callinan’s report, in which he concluded that Bain was not innocent on the balance of probabilities, was delivered to the Minister of Justice on 26 January 2016. The Minister announced that no compensation would be paid, but that Bain would be given an ex gratia payment of $925,000 if he agreed to stop all further legal action.