He went to prison for life. But U of T student Elizabeth Bain’s murder hadn’t been solved

Robert Baltovich isn't rattled by the thought that some people still think he murdered his former girlfriend Elizabeth Bain and hid her body back in the summer of 1990.

I'm not the type of person that really dwells on what other people think of me," he said during a recent, lengthy telephone interview.

He's totally believable when he says this.

I know the truth. My family knows the truth. My friends know the truth."

It has been more than 13 years since prosecutor Philip Kotanen said the Crown believes there is no longer any reasonable prospect" of convicting Baltovich and feels duty-bound" to end his prosecution.

That came after Baltovich spent eight years in custody and another eight on bail, and after the case against him was methodically shredded by James Lockyer and Joanne McLean, his lawyers from the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted (now Innocence Canada).

The Crown's original case was entirely circumstantial and the Court of Appeal ruled that his initial trial was unfair, with the judge's charge to the jury containing significant legal errors and favouring the Crown case.

Testimony of key witnesses in the original trial had come after an attempt to sharpen their memories with hypnosis - a practice that was later attacked by the Supreme Court as dangerously unreliable. The trial judge also hadn't given the jury adequate instructions with respect to the eyewitness identification evidence," the Court of Appeal found.

Baltovich was 24 when Bain was murdered.

He turns 56 next week.

The body of Bain, a 22-year-old University of Toronto student, has never been found, despite an exhaustive search.

She disappeared from U of T's Scarborough campus on June 19, 1990, and her Toyota was discovered three days later not far from her Scarborough home. There was a large bloodstain in the back seat, convincing police she was slain.

In the interview, Baltovich sounds like a confident and articulate professional, not someone who spent almost a decade in jail and prison.

When he finally walked free, he wondered if people still thought he was the killer.

The internet was becoming more ubiquitous. Suddenly everybody knows who you are before they met you."

And even if they didn't know about him, he wondered if they'd soon learn.

It just seemed like wherever I went my case was just a click away."

That hurt his chance of jobs. One of his jobs after getting out on bail was to work in the library of the Toronto Star as a summer intern. He recently worked teaching English as a second language.

He had studied history and then library science at the University of Toronto.

A lot of people saw me as too hot to touch."

It didn't seem real when he was charged or even after he was convicted.

His situation finally hit home when he was transported from the Metro East Detention Centre to Millhaven penitentiary outside Kingston on a bus with other inmates, all of whom wore handcuffs and leg shackles.

It was like, I can't say a dream, but a nightmare. I was in a daze."

At Millhaven, he was led into a metal pen in the classification centre, before moving on to nearby Warkworth Penitentiary. The pen was almost like something you'd expect cattle to be put in."

That was really when it hit me."

Once in Warkworth, he read a lot. One book that made a particular impact was The Trial" by Franz Kafka, in which an ambitious man is arrested, despite doing nothing wrong.

Another is Man's Search for Meaning," in which Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist, tells of his experience in Nazi death camps.

Baltovich is about five-foot-nine and 165 lbs. While in prison, he tried to look bigger, as if that might protect him.

I just had to survive. I think you just go into survival mode. Walking bigger and taller than you really are. That you're not to be messed with."

He was facing a life sentence but said he knew he could win parole if he gave a false confession - although he would then be asked where the body was hidden.

He was in a no-win situation.

That also meant he might never get out.

Prisoners have a saying that goes: You know, it's just time."

Baltovich said that made sense to him as time wore on.

He worked at controlling his feelings so that he didn't get too high or too low.

There's no manual for how to deal with prison. Most of all for someone who's wrongly convicted."

There are certain points we have to accept: I'm not in control of my life anymore."

That doesn't mean you can't have a meaningful life but you have to reframe what your hopes and expectations are."

Every morning you found a reason to last another day, without becoming consumed by despair."

Behind bars, he learned French, studied science and tried to keep up with changes in technology. He worked out. He tutored inmates. He worked in the prison library.

He kept a schedule.

I almost tried to pretend I wasn't in prison."

He also came to grips with how intensely private matters in his life had become public fodder.

Some of the evidence in his trial came from Meg" - Bain's nickname for her highly personal diary.

Meg heard how Bain thanked God for Baltovich being part of her life and also how she thought at least once that it might be nice to shoot him dead.

Why do I keep thinking about breaking up with this guy?" Bain wrote in her diary on Jan. 9, 1990. I don't want to be with him for the rest of my life. Or do I? My senses tell me I'm very confused."

In one entry, Bain called Baltovich truly a wolf in sheep's clothing."

In fact, such men feel comfortable only when they are in this position of the rescuing knight. The dark side of this is petty tyranny. Beware. He is likely to sabotage ... thwart any attempt on a woman's part to become more independent."

Other times, Bain told Meg that she was purely, madly in love with him.

In an April 1990 entry, Bain writes: I want to marry Rob and have two children. This is the feeling I have waited for all my life. To be able to love someone unconditionally. I want to be the happiest me. Experiencing this with Rob is the reason for life itself. I was born to love this guy."

Other times, she called him smothering, emotionally draining, jealous and possessive.

He's such a pansy, sometimes I can't believe it," she wrote. God. I need some animal, some tough guy, some masculinity. I'm fed up with being brushed aside as an airhead, sweet, innocent, little, kind, gentle. I need to be strong. I need to learn leadership."

A month before she disappeared, Bain wrote: I could never stop loving Rob. I don't know why sometimes I think I should leave Rob but I really, truly love him."

Things had swerved dramatically by her last entry on June 16, 1990, three days before she vanished. It read: Every morning I rise I try to find a reason not to put a bullet in my head. My temper is swarming, I'm going to murder somebody.

I have to break free and be alone. I want death to come and end this ... pathetic life that is getting worse by the day ... Last night I wanted to put a bullet in Rob's head, he's such a pest."

That final entry included, in large block letters: I WANT DEATH TO COME."

Baltovich said the diary came as a revelation to him.

It was quite shocking. I didn't realize

I felt at times I didn't even know the person that I was dating."

It was certainly not easy for me to listen to."

At the time she went missing it was clear to me that there was something that was troubling her and I didn't know what it was."

When he finally was released on bail, there were trips to see the Raptors, Leafs and Blue Jays with friends.

It was the little things that impacted him most, however.

Seeing people smile. That was a shock to me because nobody smiles in prison."

There was also an odd feeling sometimes, when people looked at him.

Do these people know who I am? Are they looking at me different?"

There had been talk - much of it pushed by his own legal team - that Bain's real killer was serial killer and serial rapist Paul Bernardo of Scarborough, who's now serving a life prison term.

Baltovich now discounts that idea.

He says he has reinvestigated the case with a private investigator and believes he knows the identity of Bain's real killer.

He declined to give the name of the person he believes to be the real killer on the record.

I do not believe that Paul Bernardo was the killer ... I believe the killer was someone who was quite close to Liz."

We actually believe it could be solved."

Peter Edwards is a Toronto-based reporter primarily covering crime for the Star. Reach him via email: pedwards@thestar.ca