Eighteen years after he was charged with murdering girlfriend Elizabeth
Bain, Robert Baltovich found himself a free man Tuesday morning as a Crown
prosecutor shocked a Toronto courtroom by conceding the case against him.

With a jury of six men and six women waiting to hear his opening remarks at
Mr. Baltovich's long-awaited retrial, prosecutor Philip Kotanen instead
regretfully told them that the Crown's case had run aground on a series of
evidentiary problems.

In offering no evidence against Mr. Baltovich, the Crown in effect asked the
jury to acquit Mr. Baltovich of killing Ms. Bain – a 22-year-old University
of Toronto student – on June 19, 1990.

After hearing Mr. Kotanen offer no evidence against Mr. Baltovich, the jury
heard a heartfelt plea from defence counsel James Lockyer for them to find
his client not guilty both for his sake and that of Ms. Bain.
Elizabeth Marie (Lisa) Bain was Robert Baltovich's girlfriend when she
disappeared.

"Today," he said, "you can provide some justice to her – but only some.
However, her memory cannot be fully served until the real murderer is
found."

"You have the power – and only you have the power – to acquit the man who
loved her of her murder."

Mr. Justice David McCombs told the jury that while it had no real choice but
to acquit, he would give them a few minutes in private to reach their
decision before formally registering an acquittal for Mr. Baltovich.

Minutes after the stunning end to his 18-year ordeal Mr. Baltovich told a
crowd of reporters that he hopes to one day repair the chilled relationship
with Ms. Bain's parents and siblings.

"It was an 18-year nightmare for me, but it's an never-ending nightmare for
the Bains," he said. "I just hope that one day they can come to accept the
fact that I didn't kill their daughter. I loved her. I miss her. I know they
do. Maybe one of these days we can get together and grieve together.

Mr. Baltovich said that he has no firm opinion on whether serial killer Paul
Bernardo – increasingly a suspect in the Bain murder – was the person who
really killed his girlfriend.

"It's not something I really want to think about," he said. "It's just
terrifying to think that he could be the guy."

However, Mr. Lockyer, told reporters that he strongly believes Mr. Bernardo
killed Ms. Bain during a four-year spree of sexual violence perpetrated in
precisely the area of Scarborough where she lived and went to school.

"My view is that Bernardo probably committed this crime," he said. "Can I
say that it could be proved beyond a reasonable doubt? No I couldn't. But I
think he probably did it."

The courtroom packed with about 80 spectators, and members of the Bain and
Baltovich families, watched in quiet amazement as the dramatic turnaround
played out.

Mr. Kotanen implied that the Baltovich case – one of the most highly
publicized murder cases in recent Canadian history – had been slowly
imploding in recent months, as a series of court rulings and changes in
testimony stripped the Crown of the substance of its case.

Indeed, rumour and skepticism had surrounded the Baltovich prosecution case
for many years. Before Mr. Kotanen – a tough, but fair prosecutor – was
assigned to the case, gossip abounded in legal circles that many other
prosecutors had shunned it as a losing proposition.

Defence counsel James Lockyer, Joanne McLean and Heather McArthur – who
evidently had advance notice that the prosecution would fold its tent –
looked pleased and relieved after devoting years to systematically
undermining the Crown's case.

A 42-year-old librarian, Mr. Baltovich spent nine years in prison after
originally being convicted of the murder. He had been free on bail since the
Ontario Court of Appeal ordered a new trial on Dec. 2, 2004. During that
time, he worked in several different libraries, and had again made mental
preparations to spend the rest of his life in prison if things were to go
wrong for him.

Undemonstrative by nature, Mr. Baltovich greeted his freedom Tuesday morning
without any overt show of emotion.

Ontario Attorney General Chris Bentley, meanwhile, said Tuesday that Crown
prosecutors made a very quick determination that the case against Mr.
Baltovich should not proceed.

"It was appropriate for the Crown to take the action that it did," he told
reporters.

He also stressed that the case is about a young woman who was murdered.
"It's a tragedy for the Bain family. My sympathy goes to the family and to
Mr. Baltovich. Hopefully, he will be able to get on with his life," he said.

However, he would not comment on whether Mr. Baltovich should be entitled to
receive compensation.

It was almost 18 years ago that University of Toronto student Elizabeth Bain
left home to attend a class and never returned. Her abandoned car was found
three days later with blood stains in the back.

On Nov. 19, 1990, Mr. Baltovich was arrested based on a police theory that
he was a disaffected lover.

From the beginning, it was a troubled case – built on circumstantial
evidence, speculation and questionable memories. Numerous witnesses who had
allegedly seen Ms. Bain and Mr. Baltovich at various locations in the hours
and days preceding her disappearance supplied bits of evidence that were, in
turn, contradicted by other witnesses.

It was also one of a small number of cases in which the victim's remains
have never been found – a reality that can work against both the Crown and
the defence at a murder trial. The absence of a body deprives the jury of
potentially critical clues pertaining to its location, as well as physical
evidence such as DNA or clothing fibres.

After his first trial, in 1992, Mr. Baltovich was convicted of second-degree
murder. A groundswell of sympathy soon began to grow that was enhanced when
a book on his case – written by journalist Derek Finkle – argued strongly in
favour of his innocence.

Perhaps the most sensational evidence that would have come before the
Baltovich jury involved defence allegations that serial killer Paul Bernardo
was the real killer of Ms. Bain.

On the surface, there was a compelling circumstantial case to be made that
Mr. Bernardo – who was convicted in 1995 of murdering Ontario schoolgirls
Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy – was the perpetrator.

(Mr. Bernardo has always claimed that his wife, Karla Homolka, was the one
who murdered Ms. French and Ms. Mahaffy. Ms. Homolka pleaded guilty to
manslaughter in the killings, testified against Mr. Bernardo and has since
been released on parole.) At the time of Ms. Bain's disappearance, Mr.
Bernardo – later identified as the Scarborough Rapist – was in the midst of
a sexual assault rampage in precisely the area of the city where Ms. Bain
lived and attended university.

In addition, a restaurant owner told police at the time that he saw Ms. Bain
with a blond man at a restaurant Mr. Bernardo was known to frequent. Another
witness said that she saw Ms. Bain arguing with a blond man in a red jeep at
a bar where Mr. Bernardo sometimes went to socialize.

One of Mr. Bernardo's former girlfriends told police that he had been
introduced to Ms. Bain at a campus cafeteria before her disappearance – and
that Mr. Bernardo had a long-standing hatred of women with her appearance
because of a girlfriend who had once jilted him.

In a pre-trial motion argued earlier this year, the defence won a partial
victory in its effort to admit the evidence potentially linking Mr. Bernardo
to Ms. Bain.

Mr. Baltovich's trial judge – Mr. Justice David McCombs of Ontario Superior
Court – ruled that the defence could make use of the evidence involving Mr.
Bernardo's convictions and the geographical location of the sexual assaults
he committed in the area.

He said that the evidence could potentially give rise to a reasonable doubt
about Mr. Baltovich's guilt.

While the evidence could "inflame" the jury and distract it, he said, it
would be possible for him to caution the jury in such a way as to extract
the maximum value from the evidence.

"The evidence against Mr. Baltovich is virtually all circumstantial," he
said. "It will be the task of the jury to determine what inferences are
reasonable in the light of all the circumstances. In my view, in the
circumstances of this case, the defence has established a sufficient nexus
to the murder of Elizabeth Bain to meet the test for admissibility of the
evidence.

"In evaluating the evidence against Mr. Baltovich, the jury should not – in
my opinion – be deprived of the proven or undisputed evidence relating to
Bernardo."

Judge McCombs noted that one of the most violent rapes committed by Mr.
Bernardo took place on May 26, 1990 – only three weeks before Ms. Bain
disappeared.

"All of the Scarborough assaults were within a geographic area between one
kilometre and roughly 20 kilometres from Bernardo's resident, or a few
minutes to up to 15-to-20 minutes away from his home," Judge McCombs said in
his ruling. "Both the Scarborough campus and Ms. Bain's residence were well
within this area."

He also ruled, however, that the defence could not use evidence relating to
the sightings of Ms. Bain with a blond man.

"In my opinion, if this unproven evidence were admitted, it manifestly would
lead to protracted, tangential inquiries – or worse, separate trials within
this trial," he said. "It would distract the jurors and lead to confusion,
delay and serious prejudice to the trial process."

As part of the pre-trial motion, Judge McCombs watched a videotape of Mr.
Bernardo being questioned about the Bain murder by two Toronto Police
Service investigators last year at Kingston Penitentiary – where he has been
incarcerated since his murder convictions.

A ban on publication of the interview lapsed today, with the end of the
trial.

Asked directly during the interview about whether he murdered Ms. Bain, Mr.
Bernardo initially hesitated, and said: "That's a loaded question." He said
that responding to it would necessitate talking about "time sequences" and
whether Ms. Homolka had played a role.

Pressed by the officers for a direct answer to their question, Mr. Bernardo
said: "The answer to that is no. But the 800-pound gorilla in the room is –
that's a life-25 sentence. It all comes down to credibility – not only
credibility but the time line, and my role and Karla's role. But my answer
is no."

"Did you have anything to do with her disappearance?" one of the officers
asked.

"No," Mr. Bernardo said.

In his Bernardo ruling, Judge McCombs noted that: "Because Ms. Bain's
remains have not been found, there is no forensic evidence one way or the
other on the issue of whether she was the victim of a sexual assault. We
simply do not know."

The prosecution received another pre-trial blow when the Supreme Court of
Canada issued a ruling last year in the case of R v Trochym that effectively
knocked out a dimension of the Crown's case. In the ruling, the Supreme
Court expressed skepticism about witness memories enhanced by the use of
hypnotism.

Since several key witnesses in the Baltovich case had sharpened their
recollections under hypnosis, the ruling had a direct bearing on the
admissibility of their evidence.

During a pre-trial motion last fall, the Crown admitted that the Trochym
decision precluded it putting them in the witness box to testify. As a
fallback position, it sought to enter their evidence by way of written
statements they made to police early in the investigation, before they were
hypnotized.

One of the Crown witnesses affected by the Trochym ruling – Suzanne Nadon –
had never met Ms. Bain. She had contacted police shortly after the murder to
say that she noticed an argument between a man and a woman at U of T's
Scarborough campus the day before Ms. Bain disappeared.

Two weeks later, Ms. Nadon added more detail to her initial report – which
had been noted in a routine fashion by investigators.

It was not Judge McCombs, but Ontario Superior Court Judge David Watt, who
made a decision not to admit Ms. Nadon's evidence. (Shortly after making the
decision, Judge Watt was elevated to the Ontario Court of Appeal. At that
point, Judge McCombs was assigned to the case.) "Suzanne Nadon was not shown
– hence, did not verify the accuracy of – its content," Judge Watt said in
his ruling on the admissibility of the report. "We are left at sea about the
nature of the exchange between the declarant and the recipient that is
reflected in the report."

A month after the disappearance, Judge Watt noted, Ms. Nadon gave a further
statement that went even further than her initial statements.

"The statement is in writing," he remarked drily. "No audiotape. No
videotape. During the interview, she was shown single photographs of
Elizabeth Bain, whom she could not identify 'for sure' as the woman she had
seen on the street early on June 18, 1990, and of a car that she had
asserted was 'definitely the car' in which she had seen the male protagonist
in the argument drive away."

Similarly, another witness – a tennis instructor at the campus, Marianne
Perz – was not interviewed at length until well after Ms. Bain had
disappeared.

Ms. Perz, who had known Ms. Bain for several years, initially told police
that she had seen Ms. Bain with several other people at a picnic table about
6 p.m. on the night she disappeared. She said that a male at the table
"could have been the man."

Judge Watt said in his ruling that the evidence of Ms. Perz was as frail as
that of Ms. Nadon.

"To admit the hearsay declaration of Marianne Perz and Suzanne Nadon,
unqualified by cross-examination, would permit jurors to hear and consider
evidence of probative value that was more illusory than real," he said.

"These declarations – unqualified – are apt to mislead. No exploration of
the influence of external factors – suggestive questioning, photographs,
media accounts and incomplete records."

Mr. Baltovich's 1992 murder conviction was one of a relatively small number
in Canadian legal history in which there was neither an eyewitness nor a
body.

With no body or even any direct evidence linking the University of Toronto
psychology graduate with Ms. Bain's bloodstained car, the Crown's case
against Mr. Baltovich was entirely circumstantial, consisting primarily of
assertions of motive, opportunity and behaviour that betrayed a
consciousness of guilt.

The focus of the Crown case shifted noticeably during the six-week trial,
concentrating less on motive than on attempting to show that the Baltovich
family tried to concoct an alibi by concealing Mr. Baltovich's "window of
opportunity."

Crown counsel John McMahon – now a judge – reasoned that Ms. Bain must have
been killed by someone she knew, and he suggested she had been attacked in a
wooded valley area near the University of Toronto's Scarborough campus. He
also suggested that the assailant had put her body in her car and hidden it
somewhere.

As for motive and opportunity, evidence concerning the relationship between
the accused and his girlfriend showed it was rocky at times, yet short of
demonstrating a permanent breakup.

Mr. Baltovich's window of opportunity was narrow enough to require a
daylight killing, some time between 5:45 and 7 p.m. on one of the year's
longest days.

In the end, the jurors were offered often-confusing glimpses of both Mr.
Baltovich and Ms. Bain, through witnesses who knew one or both, and through
the pages of Ms. Bain's loose-leaf diary.

In his defence, Mr. Baltovich was described by friends as good-natured,
intelligent and someone who had strong views against smoking and holistic
medicine; at no point in the trial was it suggested that he had ever been
inclined to violence.

In her diary, Ms. Bain even complained that her boyfriend "sucks up to me
too much" and that as a result "I get away with murder from him." The
complaint was followed by an entry suggesting she intended to look
elsewhere: "God, I need some animal, some tough guy, some masculinity, some
young traits."

The testimony of three witnesses suggested that on at least three occasions
before her disappearance Ms. Bain was indeed in the company of another young
man. If it was known, the identity of the male companion was never
disclosed, and a private investigator hired by the defence said there is no
evidence that police seriously followed up the tips.

Nor was the jury told anything of an "Andre" whom Ms. Bain had mentioned in
her diary. No one named Andre appeared as a witness at the first trial, and
no member of the Bain family who testified volunteered any knowledge of the
person.

The Crown's theory was that Ms. Bain met Mr. Baltovich near tennis courts in
Scarborough and went with him for a walk. Mr. McMahon theorized that Mr.
Baltovich attacked Ms. Bain in a secluded area and then went to a campus
recreation centre to develop an alibi; and that he later placed the body in
her car and drove northeast to the Lake Scugog area – which he had come to
know as a camp counsellor in his teens.

Two Crown witnesses told of seeing the car near Port Perry, which is on Lake
Scugog.

In his final address to the jury, Mr. McMahon maintained that he had built
an "overwhelming" case against Mr. Baltovich and that the defence had been
shadow-boxing when it tried to suggest that evidence could be seen as
pointing elsewhere.

One fact that emerged early in the trial was that Mr. Baltovich was the
prime – perhaps the only – suspect almost from the day of the disappearance.

The jury learned that the accused man was placed under surveillance on June
22, 1990, the same day the Metro Police homicide squad took over the
investigation from the missing persons bureau.

After Mr. Baltovich was convicted, Ms. Bain's mother, Julita, embraced Mr.
McMahon, whose powerful cross-examination of defence witnesses was believed
to have been a decisive factor in the decision of Mr. Baltovich's lawyers
not to have their client testify in his own defence.

Mr. Baltovich was told by Mr. Justice John O'Driscoll, of Ontario Superior
Court that he would spend at least 17 years in prison before being eligible
for parole on his life sentence. Asked if he had anything to say before
sentence was passed, Mr. Baltovich declared: "I would like to say I had
absolutely nothing to do with Elizabeth's disappearance, and I am totally
innocent of the crime for which I have been convicted; that is all."

Judge O'Driscoll went on to portray Mr. Baltovich as a cold, calculating
killer. He described Mr. Baltovich's characteristic calmness as "very cool,
very calculated," betraying "no emotion."

The judge also observed that, "you do it all as if you are moving figures
around on a chessboard," adding that in the circumstances "you are right to
expect justice but have no claim to mercy."

Judge O'Driscoll then said that, "phony schemes of lying to police and
schemes to get relatives to participate in an alibi didn't impress the jury.
Your acts from Day 1 are as reprehensible as one can imagine. ... You have
high intelligence, but are absolutely devoid of heart or conscience."

When it ordered a retrial nine years later, the Ontario Court of Appeal said
Judge O'Driscoll had unfairly undercut and ridiculed the defence. The appeal
judges made scathing references to his charge to the jury, saying that Judge
O'Driscoll's review of defence evidence was sketchy, "entirely one-sided" or
laden with contempt.

"Our system of justice is already overburdened," the appeal court added. "We
do not need to add to this problem with new trials that could have been
avoided."

With report from Karen Howlett

A chronology of Robert Baltovich's legal odyssey since his girlfriend
Elizabeth Bain went missing in 1990

June 19, 1990
Elizabeth Bain, 22, vanishes after telling parents she was headed to
University of Toronto's Scarborough campus.

June 20, 1990
Julita Bain reports her daughter missing to police.

June 22, 1990
Ms. Bain's car is found one kilometre from her home with a blood stain on
the floor of the back seat. She is never found.

Nov. 19, 1990
Mr. Baltovich is arrested and charged with first-degree murder.

March 31, 1992
A jury finds Mr. Baltovich guilty of second-degree murder. He is later
sentenced to life in prison.

May 1992
Mr. Baltovich's new lawyer files an appeal. Mr. Baltovich is denied bail
pending his appeal.

February 1997
Mr. Baltovich's appeal is scheduled to begin but is postponed indefinitely.

March 31, 2000
Mr. Baltovich is released on bail pending an appeal.

December 2, 2004
The Ontario Court of Appeal sets aside Mr .Baltovich's conviction and orders
a new trial.

July 15, 2005
Ontario's Ministry of the Attorney-General announces that Mr. Baltovich will
face a new trial on a charge of second-degree murder.

April 22, 2008
Jury finds Mr. Baltovich not guilty after the Crown in effect drops its case
against him.