Oscar Pistorius trial part 4

[Pennies]

Here you go.

I really hope he goes down for murder but I suspect the prosecution will go for the lesser charge of culpable homicide as that way they can still get a conviction. My personal feeling is that he's as guilty as sin & a very good actor!!

My theory is that he was annoyed about the fans. They appear to be a sticking point for him, the manner in which he pointed out that he had asked Reeva to do it. He became increasingly frustrated as he was bringing them in, because it was awkward for him.

A suggestion:

He did shoot in self defence m'lady, he was defending himself from the threat of an intrusion; the very imminent intrusion of the police/media, if Reeva carried out her threat and made a public disclosure of his violent character. The threat was to his career, his sponsorship, his life.

I dont think we should read too much into the way Nel finished cross examining, hes a professional who knows what hes doing. Also, we are focusing on here as to whether he deliberately shot Reeva, in the court he needs to prove that he did not shoot deliberately whoever was behind that door, I understand that legally hes not being consistent with the legitimate reasons that he could be found not guilty.

Hopefully someone with more understanding can help here, but hes not saying mentally/confused, accident, deliberately and one other... From what I understand hes made too many mistakes during the cross examination to prove any of them.

Apologies if I have got this wrong, we need a legal beagle with understanding of SA law to come on!

RE this whole covering the LED business:

The LED light will be there EVERY night. So does OP cover the LED every night?

If he was that sensitive to the LED light so it would disturb him with his eyes clothes then surely he wouldn't have anything with such a light in his bedroom, OR if he did he would have it positioned so the light shone in a direction that didn't disturb him OR he would have something to put in front of it nightly.

Or it's only a problem this night because he NEEDS the room to be pitch dark to support his story?

Wow after hearing that card
My feeling is a beautiful women had so much to live for, I do think she loved him but did he love her? No matter what happened, he's taken away her life, it's so so sad.

with his eyes CLOSED
my typing sucks

Has no one asked/check about any ambient light in the room? street lights/moon or is it all based on after OP drew the curtains?

OneStep I've been asking this too. As his argument relies so strongly on "I didn't see her as it was pitch black" I would think a visit to the scene would be needed to establish this.

It was a roughly half moon (I checked at the time).

LookingThroughTheFog thanks for explaining the jeans and duvet. And Juliacharles I'm with you, think he is guilty as sin. Think he will walk away. Get the feeling the judge is very sympathetic toward him

even if you draw the curtains light can come in. My DC's room has a black out blind and black out curtains and light can still get in.

That's what bothers me about it, BeCool.

For his scenario to work, he needed to have his back to Reeva the whole time she was getting out of bed. He had to walk around the bed to get to the fans - so she didn't start to move from where she was under the duvet until after he got to the balcony.

He would then have needed to keep her back to her while she slid across the bed and got out his side, or got to the bottom of the bed to get out there. She cannot have got out her side (not unreasonable when you consider he was pulling large fans into a fairly small area), but he must have had his back to her that whole time.

The bedroom must have then been so completely pitch black that he couldn't see anything in the bed at all.

If she was using her phone to light the way to the bathroom, she must have rounded the corner before he turned back to the room.

He then turned around into a pitch room, and said to Reeva; 'I heard something - get down and call the police.

He must then have been perfectly satisfied that she was unlikely to move or answer at this point - her silence must have been ordinary for him.

He went around the bed to get his gun, not talking to Reeva, and must have felt his way up it because the room is so dark - still not whispering to Reeva or expecting a response.

He then went down the corridor, whispering/talking in a low voice/calling to Reeva quietly.

He then started shouting to get out the house, and it must still have been perfectly normal for her not to shout from the toilet; 'what are you talking about? I'm in the toilet!' or even 'who are you talking to?'

The only thing I can think about that last part is that she may have assumed that someone had got into the bathroom after she went to the toilet, so was not speaking in case she gave her position away.

But that is quite a convoluted chain of events, particularly as one of the early witnesses is convinced he saw the bathroom light (not the toilet light) and the bedroom light on before the shooting.

I'm interested to see what the defence team bring forward now.

I missed this morning's TV coverage. OP's time on the stand seems to have come to an abrupt end.

Another question begging to be answered - OP was up bringing fans in, yet we are told Reeva went to loo either in the pitch dark or using her phone as a light. Why?

Perhaps she was afraid of him kicking off again - he has woken , and is pissed off about open door and fans and she thought turning the lights on would antagonise him further?

Also as it would have been a little difficult for him to do fans etc on stumps, and she had said she would do it and she was awake, why when he woke and mentioned fans why did she not go "oh sorry babe I'll get them in now".

Reeve seemed to be quite an accommodating and agreeable person so it is odd to me that she remained so entirely passive and silent about everything.

Missed this morning so having quick thread catch up

Looking I agree with what you've written. Except that I think she would have believed that the intruders came from the balcony and that Oscar had positioned himself between them and her hence his voice being so much closer to her than she would have anticipated. She would have kept quiet as part of her own survival instinct.

I think the crux of this whole thing is the instinctive reactions of the two: fight or flight. She kept quiet thus adopting flight. He clearly adopted fight and in his panic he let his reason and logic be ruled by his instinct to fight. It is easy to say in the cold light of day what we would have done if we we either of them, but in those circumstances then we often behave totally illogically, although the logic seems to be there at the time.

I think that is he was lying he could easily have placed Reeva on the bathroom side of the bed. This would have suited his story much more.

He should still be punished for her death, but IMO he did not mean to murder her.

he could easily have placed Reeva on the bathroom side of the bed.

I would imagine, there would be clear evidence that she was not on that side of the bed. At a guess. Her bag and clothes being on the balcony for example.

Pennies so why wouldn't she/didn't she call the police?

I think she didn't call the police because events happened so fast. Consider that she's on the loo and she's got her phone with her do maybe she us looking at something what she's there. It suddenly becomes apparent there's an emergency so she stands up abruptly and pulls up her shorts, knocking the magazine rack as she goes so. She then listens to get as much info as she could before she did I.e. How many intruders are there, where are they, are they armed etc.

However because she knocked the magazine rack he shot her thinking she was the intruder.

Apologies for typos. On my phone.

I thought it might be useful to link to all the Sky transcripts I can find. They don't seem to have a uniform way of documenting these so it's been a bit of a slog and not all of them are there. when I can't find Sky I have found tweets or used another source.

Day one (I think!) Michelle Burger. Shouting, screaming, gunshots.

day two Michelle Burger; Estelle Van Der Merwe; Mr. Johnson. Screaming, shouting, gunshots.

Day Three Mr. Johnson; Kevin Anton Lerena; Jason Loupis; Maria Loupis. Restaurant incident.

day four Mr. Johnson; Johan Stander. Dr Stipp. Screaming, shouting, gunshots evidence.

day five Dr Stipp; Samantha Taylor; Pieter Baba.

Day Six march 10th Prof. Saayman; Mr. Ferreria; Oldwage. post-mortem.

Day seven tweets

Day 8 March 12th

Day nine Tweets

Day 10 Mr. Van Rensburg; Forensics, the door etc.

day 11 Sean Rens; Warrant Officer Van Staden;Guns, police photographs.

Day 12 Warrant Officer Van Staden; Capt. C. Mongena. Police photos

Day 13 Capt. C. Mongena; Lt. Col. Van Der Nest; Colonel Michael Sale. Police photos, cell phones/ipad evidence.

Day 14 24th March Anette Stipp; Capt. Francois Moller;

Guardian coverage, can't find Sky

day 15 tweets 25th march

Guardian Coverage 28 March

7th April Tweets

8th April

Guardian coverage 9th April

10th April Mr. Pistorius questioned by Nel.

11th April

14th April Oscar Pistorius describes shooting.

Bloody Sky have stopped the coverage. Where else can I watch it, it was getting really interest ing!

"stack would you have sympathy if it was later discovered that the intruder had a history of burglary/murder/rape (for example)? "

yes, I would. Purely because I think that shooting someone for a history you are not even aware exists is awful.

If that person was in the act of raping someone then it could be argued that it would be self defence or to save someone else. It's VERY clear in this case that Oscar was not in danger from someone who was trapped. His reaction was extreme and over the top and reckless.

I think it's odd that anyone would be attempting to defend his behaviour.

you can watch it here

Funkychicken, I'm getting it via the Guardian.

If you have sky you can watch it on channel 517 live.

They have done the test for the room darkness, there was no moon on the night of the 13th feb.