Oscar Pistorius Trial Part 6

[Roussette]

here is Part 5 but we are ready (nearly) for a new one.

I guess my point is that maybe none of what he has said on that evening is true except for that which can be genuinely verified

Ronald, this is so true. And I'd go slightly further with your verified list:

Shots fired - but we don't know precisely when - we know that the earwitneses heard different things at different times, and we don't know which heard the guns and which the bat. We can't even say with absolute certainty which of the four bullets missed.

Food eaten - again, we don't know when. Even the experts say this is notoriously hard to say for certain.

Ear witnesses

Phone records (well, we know what calls were placed, but not what was said.)

And then I find I get bounced back to the things we know for absolute certain:

Pistorius fired the gun.

He did not check thoroughly for Reeva before he did so.

He knew what damage those bullets would do.

He didn't give the person in the toilet any opportunity to escape at all.

Nerf

I was simply trying to clear up the areas that you had been contradicting in what I was saying earlier
I wanted to be sure that i was right

That's all

looking

that's exactly where i'm at
i've got nowt else except a hope that people are better than it sometimes looks

Somebody asked towards the end of the previous thread what we all think. At the moment (I am a notorious fence-sitter) I am erring towards thinking that he did know it was Reeva, simply because of the sheer improbability of his version.

However, if it that is/was the case, I also think he did a stellar job in the witness box. Because I think nothing is clear, as things stand. I think he will be found guilty of Dolus Eventualis because that is as far as any clarity on the situation can go. In light of the sentence given out to Max Clifford last week, I wonder whether if OP was therefore to be found guilty of the lesser charges, he might be ordered for the sentences to run consecutively rather than concurrently.

i'm also still confused why OP didn't hit the alarm on his keys to bring nearby armed guards to the house
why he didn't hit the panic button to bring armed guards to his house

why ask Ms Steenkamp to call the police?

we'd always hit the panic button or alarm to bring security before calling the police as the police take far longer to arrive

Voice apparently if you have constructed or exaggerated a tale then you can tell if forwards perfectly, but cannot tell it backwards and if someone starts the tale in the middle and jumps around to the end and the beginning you also struggle. I have no way of verifyng this though.

"Louise - well there you go re. the 911 call. How are we supposed to trust these links put forward when they open with paragraphs like these:

"To begin with, when he finally was convinced to do so, "

Voice I hadn't read it properly - apart from the fact that it is totally wrong anyway about the phone call , just who exactly was supposed to have "convinced" him? There is so much shit out there on the internet about this case (and indeed other high profile cases too)

There is so much shit out there on the internet about this case

Yes. And so much conjecture presented as fact. I don't mind testing out alternative theories, and being prepared for other people to find flaws or contradictions, but find it difficult when the theories are stated as certainties.

Ronald, I've just checked back - I think it was why he fired I was trying to clarify, and it seems you'd queried the door locking, and I confirmed it wasn't the sound of it locking that made him fire, but the sound is if unlocking (actually opening) which was an incorrect assumption on OPs part as obviously it never unlocked.

The Guardian has the phone timeline as follows (have copied directly from their coverage of march 25th testimony.

8.13am GMT
Moller has now moved to the period after the shooting: the first voice call from Pistorius' phone was to Johan Stander, estate manager, lasting 24 seconds. At 03.20am, Pistorius rang the ambulance service, in a call lasting 66 secs. He later made another call to the security office of the estate.

At 3.21am Pistorius rang his own voicemail.

At 3.22am there was an incoming voice call – estate security calling him back.

At 3.55am Pistorius called his friend Justin Divaris for 123 seconds. At 4.01am he called Heinrich Pistorius (his brother, usually known as Carl) and then his manager.

Moller: [Then] three more calls. There was then an incoming voice call from that number to the accused's number and lasted for 49 seconds.?

Nel: We then have GPRS connections.

Moller: Yes … The phone was in that area until about 8am that morning and there after it left.

Updated at 8.28am GMT
8.00am GMT
We've now moved on to analysis of Pistorius' two phones, between 17.30 and midnight on 13 February – no voice calls from first phone, only five GPRS (internet) connections.

Chart appears to show #OscarPistorius accessing the internet from his phone twice in hour before midnight.

— andrew harding (@BBCAndrewH) March 25, 2014
7.52am GMT
Pistorius phoned Steenkamp on 13 February (the day before her death) at 1.02pm. The call lasted for 241 seconds. The chart shows there were five phone calls between the pair that afternoon.

Moller: Steenkamp called #Pistorius at 5.44pm on 13 February. Lasted 144 seconds. For the rest of the day there were only GPRS connections.

— David Smith (@SmithInAfrica) March 25, 2014
Updated at 7.54am GMT
7.46am GMT
The witness is discussing an iPhone 5 registered to Pistorius. The prosecution is interested in "movement and communication" of phones belonging to Pistorius and Steenkamp.

If he did shoot her at three then that's a long time to wait before calling for help!

Quick question for anyone. It says in that transcript that thereafter there were only GPRS connections, and that there were two connections from OP's phone in the hour before midnight. I remember it was said at the time that these could have been automatic updates. Should we assume that the prosecution would have, for example, checked to see whether such updates happened during previous evening's logs on OP's phone? Surely this would have been easy to check, to see whether his log showed a phone that regularly updated whilst OP was asleep. Therefore do you think that the assumption will be that he genuinely wasn't using his phone at this time and that is what will be assumed in court?

Voice I don't know if they checked other nights but they did seem to think it was quite feasible. I know that my phone bleeps with automatic updates during the middle of the night because, for example, friends in the USA send me messages on Facebook.

I have also read (in the paper, so no real source, sorry) that Reeva's showed activity several hours after her death which again must have been automatic updates.

Voice they didn't seem to pursue the GPRS activity so I think it is accepted to be automatic updates.

Probably being a bit thick here but why did OP ring his own voicemail at 0321?

Hillwalker, that. Log you linked to (and someone else did too) with the spreadsheet of the inconsistencies ... Just wow! It really shows how often his story changes, and I didn't realise the door on the toilet opened out rather than in!

Emotions I think it was agreed that he dialled it in error/panic. I'm sure that why ever he shot her, he must have been shaking and panicky when he was making these calls.

There are timelines here but not sure how reliable
Le. I wasn't aware a call was made to a neighbour (stander's wife?) just after three am.

So that means he'd shot her by 3am?

So the later bangs heard by ear witnesses must have been a bat?
And he did wait 20 minutes before calling for actual professional medical help?!

Not wanting to get into speculation but, really?! He waited that long? Could it really be possible that he was hoping to covering all up?!

Thanks Louise

Stack I think the thing about OP calling anyone at 3.00am is - to put it politely - just speculation and wrong. the phone records have been gone through in court in detail and there was absolutely no mention of this.

It's taken from a tabloid article 3 days after the event

www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/i-saw-reeva-die-1.1471707#.U2bA-oFdUYN

This is obviously a muddled version of the Standers going to the house; also it says "after 3" not a specific time and that she got there at exactly 3.20 - well we know he made the calls around that time.

Ah right, ok. Wasn't aware of that.

In case I wasn't clear, I meant the timeline was taken from the tabloid article.

The trouble is there are so many of these things around on the internet and they just stay there forever. There were so many rumours and so much confusion in the days immediately after, that lots of muddled versions are still out there.

And now I must go to bed as I have to get up for a court case in the morning! See you all tomorrow

Louise & Stack I should imagine that is where all the wild speculation is coming from!

Night Louise, see you tomorrow.

Yes Louise red the voicemail! I remember the prosecution expert laughed a little under cross examination and said that he had friends with iPhones who said how it is was to press voicemail by mistake. I can't remember his name, sorry.