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[This version of the report has been edited by Dr Robert N Moles

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On 14 April 2008 City News CA reported "Second Murder Trial For Robert Baltovich Set To Begin"

It's been 17 years since Robert Baltovich was first charged with the death of his girlfriend Elizabeth Bain and this week he prepares to stand trial in the case for the second time.

A jury was selected earlier this month, and now the second-degree murder trial is set to begin in a Toronto courtroom on Wednesday. A jury was to have been selected in the fall but the jury pool was dismissed after the presiding judge was promoted to a higher court.

Bain, a University of Toronto student, disappeared in 1990 on her way to school. A massive search failed to turn up her body. Baltovich was convicted of murder in 1992 and served nine years behind bars before winning an appeal. In 2004 an Appeal Court overturned the original court decision.

The trial is expected to take between six and eight weeks and the Crown has suggested it may call as many as 50 witnesses.

15 October 2007: Robert Baltovich And The Elizabeth Bain Murder Trial: The Timeline

The case of Robert Baltovich contains as many twists and turns as a mystery novel. But unlike one of those books, this story still doesn't have an ending. Here's a timeline of one of the longest running legal battles in recent Ontario history.

June 19-20, 1990
Twenty-two-year-old Elizabeth Bain leaves home to check a schedule at the U. of T.'s Scarborough campus. When she doesn't return, her worried mother calls police.

June 22-24, 1990
Fears grow after the missing woman's car is discovered at an auto body shop not far from her home. A large bloodstain is ominously found in the backseat, but there's no sign of Bain. Cops immediately turn to her boyfriend, 24-year-old Robert Baltovich. He's questioned by detectives for hours, but some of his responses arouse their suspicions. There are massive searches for the absent woman during most of that summer, but her body is never found. Police conclude she's been murdered.

July 11, 1990
A heartbreaking public appeal is issued by the Bain family, asking for any clues to Elizabeth's whereabouts. Included in the plaintive plea: a message to her suspected killer to at least let them know where her body can be found. The request goes unanswered.

July 25, 1990
Police zero in on Baltovich as the main suspect in the crime. They search his home and his car, and are seen leaving the area with numerous pieces of potential evidence.

November 19, 1990
Robert Baltovich is arrested and charged with first-degree murder in Bain's disappearance, despite the fact police don't have the body. It's been exactly five months since she walked out the door of her house, never to return.

February, 4, 1992
The accused boyfriend's first trial starts, with more than 100 witnesses taking the stand. The Crown drops the charge to second-degree murder, painting Baltovich as a spurned lover who became murderously angry when Bain tried to end their relationship. Baltovich continues to insist he's innocent, offering a not guilty plea. His lawyers claim there's significant evidence someone else may have committed the crime, introducing witness testimony about a blond man seen near her before she vanished. It comes at the same time the so-called "Scarborough Rapist" is on the prowl, and will later lead to speculation that Paul Bernardo could be a viable suspect.

March 31, 1992
Baltovich is found guilty of second-degree murder and receives a life sentence.

May 1992
Baltovich hires a new attorney and files an appeal. Legal documents cite a number of suspect issues with the trial, including the judge's address to the jury and the fact that some witnesses were hypnotized to aid their memory recall.

February 17, 1993
Paul Bernardo is arrested and accused of being the Scarborough Rapist, among other crimes. When Baltovich's lawyer hears about the arrest, he hires a private investigator to probe the suspect's background. The P.I. claims to have found evidence that may tie Bernardo to Bain.

May 16, 1996
Baltovich's appeal is filed with the Ontario Court of Appeal. Although it doesn't name Bernardo, it does contain references to the Scarborough Rapist as one of the main reasons the verdict may be in doubt. The court is supposed to hear the case in February of the following year, but it gets put off with no timetable for resumption. Baltovich remains in jail, still swearing his innocence.

March 2000
The Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted takes up the case, filing its own documents with the Court of Appeal. For the first time, Paul Bernardo is directly named in a legal brief as a possible main suspect. The group demands Baltovich be released while the appeal is considered. He's been behind bars for eight years.

March 31, 2000
The court agrees to review the case and frees Baltovich pending the appeal. A judge appears to agree with at least one major contention from the appeal - calling the conviction wholly 'circumstantial' and admitting it needs a second look.

September 20, 2004
After endless delays and more than a decade after his guilty verdict, The Ontario Court of Appeal finally reviews the Baltovich case.

December 2, 2004
The Ontario Court of Appeal sets aside the Baltovich conviction and orders a new trial. The court agrees there were significant errors made in the first case, but refuses to acquit the accused outright, opting to let another jury decide.

July 15, 2005
The Attorney General's office confirms it intends to retry Baltovich on the murder of Bain. Once again, they're pinning second-degree murder charges on him.

June 7, 2007
Toronto Police secretly travel to Kingston to interview Bernardo on the Bain murder. He denies any involvement.

October 15, 2007
In a case already fraught with so many delays came yet another one. On the day jury selection was set to start in a new trial, the judge who was going to hear it was appointed to a new court - and the proceedings have been stopped.

March 31, 2008
The long awaited resumption is set to begin with jury selection underway. The actual trial may not start until mid-April.

>Friday June 8, 2007: Elizabeth Bain's Mother Doubts Paul Bernardo Involved In Her Daughter's Death

He's Canada's most notorious criminal, both a rapist and a sadistic child killer. But is Paul Bernardo also guilty of slaying someone much older than the school girls he's already been convicted of murdering? That possibility sent Toronto Police all the way to Kingston on Thursday to talk to the dangerous offender, part of a new probe to see if the killer may be a suspect in the slaying of Elizabeth Bain.

She's connected to one of the city's most enduring mysteries. The pretty 22-year-old university student disappeared on June 19, 1990. Her car was later found covered with bloodstains, but despite endless searches, her body was never recovered. Police were still able to amass enough evidence to show she was dead, and arrested her boyfriend, Robert Baltovich. He was convicted of second-degree murder in 1992 and spent eight years in prison. But many believed in his innocence and the verdict was eventually overturned when a judge determined there were too many irregularities.

Baltovich has always maintained he had nothing to do with Bain's disappearance and pointed to Bernardo as a possible suspect, after it was revealed the killer was active around that time as the Scarborough Rapist. For Bain's long suffering mother Julita, it's a nightmare without end. She's convinced of Baltovich's guilt and thinks the Bernardo angle is just a red herring. "You know what kind of person he is. I know my daughter is dead, just to think that he was linked to her murder is an awful thought. It's just somebody to blame it on, you know. Looking for somebody to blame."

The pieces of evidence Baltovich's lawyers have cited are highly circumstantial but compelling. Among them: both Bernardo and Bain attended the U. of T. at the same campus, and all of Bernardo's early crimes came within the same area where the victim was last seen; a woman recalls seeing a man who resembled Bernardo at the college the day Bain went missing; her car was said to have been spotted after her disappearance at a restaurant Bernardo was known to go to frequently; when her car was found, it was tuned to a radio station Bernardo used to listen to; and the crime is known to correspond to the time period between the last known Scarborough rape and the first murder committed by the killer.

But Bain's mother discounts it all and is getting tired of the case that has now been running for 17 years - and counting. "It's like opening an old wound," she relates. "It is tough."

Bernardo's lawyer claims his client never met the woman and knows nothing about the incident. "He denied having any involvement in her disappearance and obviously no involvement in her homicide," relates Tony Bryant. Baltovich remains out on bail as his retrial nears. It will start in September.

Bernardo isn't expected to be called as a witness.

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