Robert Baltovich leans back and considers the 18 years he lost as a convicted killer housed in a small jail cell. He thinks about the constant denials of his guilt and he contemplates what might have been had his life not changed so dramatically in 1990, the year his girlfriend Elizabeth Bain vanished.

Two years later, he had been convicted of killing her, even though her body was never found. After eight long years of protesting his innocence, he was finally released on appeal but still had the sword of Damocles hanging over his head until he was finally pronounced not guilty earlier this month.

But that moment police came to his home to arrest him is something that will never fade from his memory. "He said 'Robert Baltovich?' I said 'yes.' He said 'you're under arrest for the first-degree murder of Elizabeth Bain,' and I just looked at him and I said 'Why?' And he said 'because you did it.' And I said 'but I didn't.'"

Now, one week into the first real freedom he's known in almost two decades, Baltovich is aware some cops think he beat a rap they're sure he earned. "It doesn't surprise me," he muses. "I think that maybe they have a personal interest in the case, and I think it's just human nature. We don't want to have to admit that we've made a mistake."

Cops painted Bain's boyfriend as a jealous lover, upset that she was apparently planning to leave him. But Baltovich insists that wasn't the case. "You know, we had some problems, but nothing really major, and even at the time she went missing, everyone who knew Liz and everyone who knew me knew that things were good.

"What they felt is that I was responsible and that they didn't know why or where or how, and because of that, they felt they had to create a theory that didn't really exist. But jealousy and possessiveness are a common motive. I think that that's something they kind of latched onto in terms of how they were going to present the case the way they did."

And who does he think killed Elizabeth Bain? He points to only one suspect - the notorious Paul Bernardo, who was stalking the neighbourhood as the Scarborough Rapist when his girl disappeared.

"At this point, Paul Bernardo has to be a suspect, but we don't know he killed her. We don't have any irrefutable proof he killed her. But knowing that he's out there and knowing that he was active in the area at the time she went missing, I mean I think it would be kind of crazy not to look at him. But it's certainly something that I want to get to the bottom of."

Bernardo has refused to give a definitive answer about his involvement. He remains in jail, likely for life.

It was a future Baltovich almost shared with him, until fate - and some good defence lawyers - intervened. Now the cleared boyfriend with the Master's Degree is trying to pick up his tattered life, hoping to get a job if he can find someone who will hire him.

And as for his romantic future? "I've actually been able to have relationships and I've had some good ones. I mean at the moment I'm not in a relationship, but I think I'm in a good position to maybe pursue that a little bit more seriously now."

But Baltovich has so far refused to consider applying for compensation for his years behind bars. Instead, he wants something money can't buy.

"Right now what I want are answers," he reveals. "I mean answers are what's important, because the thing for me is that my freedom and learning what happened to Liz have always been something that, you know, have gone together."

He's hoping the Ontario Attorney General's apparent willingness to call an inquiry into his case will help provide some healing. "It's something that I want," he affirms. "I think it's something that would really serve the public in terms of, you know, providing some answers to questions that they may have, that they may feel that need to be answered.

"The real anger for me, and I think that will continue and it will probably get worse, is if the reasons why this actually happened are never known and the people who brought it about are never really held up to the light of day."

Baltovich hopes that in the next five years, he'll be married with children, a goal that as recently as 10 years ago seemed an impossible dream that started with a nightmare.

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