Who killed Elizabeth Bain eighteen years ago?
Was it Elizabeth’s boyfriend, Robert Baltovich, whose friends describe as good-natured and intelligent, with no suggestion that he was ever inclined to violence?
Or was it the infamous Scarborough Rapist, the serial killer Paul Bernardo, who was stalking his victims in Elizabeth’s neighborhood at the same time she went missing?
Elizabeth, in her diary, complained that Baltovich “sucks up to me too much” and “I get away with murder from him.” She wrote that she needed, “some animal, some tough guy, some masculinity, some young traits.” Is it possible she found just what she was looking for with Bernardo?
Interviewed by police last year, Bernardo denied killing Elizabeth Bain, but his answers to questions suggest he was concerned that admitting to the killing would show he acted alone, without the aid of Karla Homolka, his wife who took part in the murders of Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy.
Baltovich was today declared not guilty when the prosecution finally dropped its weak and largely circumstantial case against him. But since there were no eyewitnesses, no DNA evidence, and since Elizabeth’s body was never found, the answer to the leading question remains elusive.