Oscar Pistorius Trial Part 8

[Roussette]

here is Number 7.

Good points Looking. I guess I just have not been able to convince myself that he intentionally murdered Reeva. The case being based on circumstantial evidence is the kicker for me. I am a very suspicious person and am leery of several key pieces of evidence presented which makes it really difficult for me to buy into the State's case.

Yes because essentially there is not much that's an absolute. Aside from Reeva being killed by OP.
It's not definite they were awake all evening, it's not definite when they ate, what they did, if she went to bed, if he shouted at her, etx etc.

Nerf

No.

Her phone, with the cover dislodged was found under the bath mat next to the gun (gun on top of bath mat).

One of his was later found under a bath towel next to the bath.

The one he used to call everyone was found downstairs on charge in the kitchen.

(Pffff....I know too damn much about this case )

Apparently, the chances of dying in a domestic violence incident are 700% greater if there's a gun in the house.

I've seen theories all over the place that he wanted her dead because of XYZ, but I don't buy that for a moment. Why would he?

I think (just my opinion) it was an argument that went on and on and on....calming and flaring over the course of the night.....and it all just got too much for both of them at 3am and ended in a "red mist" moment. He was genuinely horrified and devastated once he'd seen what he'd done....but a fair amount of that was terror at the trouble he knew he'd be in.

But, as you all say, it's circumstantial and impossible to really know.

Except the screams. That's solid evidence for me, and I cannot, cannot, cannot believe those terrified, "out of her mind" screams were Pistorius scared of an intruder. Nope. No way.

Wait, so the phone where we're all 'he must have seen the light from the phone!' and 'why did she take a phone to the toilet?' and 'why didn't she call for help?' might not have been in the toilet cubicle at all?

Now you've said it, it's glaringly obvious.

I thought he said he'd fished it from the loo bowl and tried to use it, but like anything there's no other evidence apart from ops story.
You start to wonder - was the gun out for some reason, was the phone never there (but why say she had it with her) etx etc

HelenaQC, Her phone, with the cover dislodged was found under the bath mat next to the gun (gun on top of bath mat).

Excuse my ignorance but what does the cover dislodge mean?

No...he said, "I got it out of the toilet" and lots of people took that to mean fished it out of the toilet bowl. But he later clarified that it was on the floor, not actually in the toilet itself.

upnorth I don't really know, just that it was probably dropped rather than placed on the floor. But that would fit him dropping it in panic after the shooting just as well as her dropping it while fleeing from him.

But it wasn't found in the toilet, and we really do only have his word that it was ever in there with her.

Also....iPhones have an emergency button that you can use without knowing the code. It's right there on the screen. If he wanted to use her phone to make an emergency call as he said, why not just press the emergency button? He can't have missed that.

Nerf I've always wondered if the gun was out for some reason because it does seem so deliberate to go to get it, load it, etc.

I guess we'll never know because OP would never admit to being so irresponsible with a firearm that he left it out or had it lying about loaded.

I think the truth is close to Ops version but not close enough.
I suspect that he panicked after killing her and didn't do all that searching, I wonder if he shot her by accident and then created a story?

He shot her by accident and then concocted a story that he'd shot her by accident?

I know what you mean though....it's possible that he's lying but not about what we think he's lying about. If that makes any sense.

Although I remain completely convinced he's guilty.

I am close to believing the same thing Nerf. I know I am being a pain with all my questions but I have turned this thing inside and out, upside down, forwards and backwards and there are so many things that don't make sense to me I just can't stop thinking about them all. I don't have anyone to discuss it with other than you all. So please forgive me. I want to make sure I explain I am not trying to be argumentative or Pro Oscar Pistorius just trying to figure this quagmire out.

Estelle Van der Merwe indicated she awoke to loud voice sounded like a woman's voice in a fight. I hate to admit it but I took notes and as far as I can tell she never said she heard a man's voice during what she thought was an argument. Why would she not hear a second voice if it was an argument? Eventually after going back to bed, getting back up, hearing bangs and calls to security and what not she and her husband both heard someone crying loudly. Wife thought it was lady crying and husband said no it was Oscar. It seems she mistook OP for a woman.

Mrs. Stipp testified the screaming sounded like it was getting closer maybe coming down the street. Only conclusion I can come to is she was hearing OP's voice as he was moving down the passage into the bathroom near the open window. Was she possibly hearing OP the entire time as well?

You're not a pain in the slightest, up. I am quite embarrassed about how much info I've picked up, but I am happy to share :)

Mrs Van der Merwe did only hear a female, it sounded like one side of an argument.

It's impossible to know why this should be, but speculatively....maybe he was talking soft and she getting upset, maybe she had locked him out of the bedroom and they were arguing through the door (remember the bedroom door was damaged), maybe it wasn't Reeva at all

Mrs Van der Merwe managed to doze off and then was woken by bangs sometime after 3am (although she couldn't be specific about the time). She heard loud crying (not screaming) and she thought it was female. Her husband said it was Oscar, so he obviously didn't think it sounded female. And all of the the other ear witnesses at this time who heard the crying also said it sounded male.

Worth noting that after the 3.15 bangs, everyone bar Mrs VdM who heard the crying said it was unmistakably male, whereas everyone who heard voices before those bangs said it was a male and a female screaming at the same time.

Mrs Stipp testified to hearing a woman screaming and yes, she said it seemed like it was getting closer. That could have been Reeva (or Oscar) running from the bedroom to the bathroom.

What is much harder to explain is how it is that all four of the ear witnesses before the final bangs distinctly heard a male and a female. The Stipp's thought it was a family murder and the Burger/Johnson's thought a couple were being robbed.

Seems like an extraordinary mistake for both couples to independently make at the same time.

After the shots, by the way, no one heard any more screaming from anyone. It was loud crying and most identified it as male.

On a different forum someone speculated that the screaming sounded like it was coming closer because either OP or Reeva did open the window at one point.

It seems an odd thing to do but it does tie in with OP mentioning the window opening in his evidence.

I think a lot of OP's testimony is grounded in fact (although I do think there was an argument and he knew he was shooting at Reeva). However I think the parts of his testimony that mentioned specific objects are based in truth eg the fans, moving Reeva's jeans, the bathroom window, the toilet door being locked, using the cricket bat on the door, banging into the bedroom door and damaging it. OP's testimony touched on everything that could possibly have been independently verified either by ear witnesses or forensics.

Dang HelenaQC you are good. Did you take notes too or do you know this all from sheer memory?

I'm still going with my utterly ridiculous variant of:
That evening was a mass of on and off massive arguments resulting in with Ms Steenkamp locking him out of the bedroom and then locking herself in the toilet
Between bedroom and toilet I believe there was some grappling/violence on or around the bed
This was when her jeans were pulled off ending up inside out

I think OP lost control of his temper and in a rage got his gun and fired at the door to break the lock to get Ms Steenkamp out of his house
He instead killed her
Or
He lost his temper, completely saw red and got his gun and shot to kill her

Everything else has been a lie to cover up this action

IME for information guards patrolling an estate might often hear arguments of a domestc nature. It certainly isn't something they record.

Ooooh, Sue The window thing makes loads of sense. Never thought of that.

No notes, Up .... Just a sad addiction to Gerrie Nel and talking with lots of others about this.

That's pretty much what I think happened too, Ronald.

Just to complicate things, I also reckon the toilet door was never locked. She was standing in front of it, angled towards the handle trying to hold it closed. And I think he had his legs on the whole time, in spite of what drop dead gorgeous Capt. Mangena says.

Up don't apologise, please do keep asking these questions as it opens my minds to possibilities.

I am wondering if yes, was OP trying to shoot the lock off the door when Reeva locked herself in there? Even if he knew one bullet had hit her, perhaps he didn't realise the extent of her injuries and just kept on shooting.

With you asking Up about only hearing the female voice in an argument, I don't find that strange... some people are shouters/screamers in a row and some are quiet hushed angry voices.

I've always wondered if the gun was out for some reason because it does seem so deliberate to go to get it, load it

I don't recall OP ever mentioning that he had to load the gun. I know that it shouldn't happen this way, but I honestly think that he kept it loaded. The fact that he kept it loaded with 'his father's' black talon bullets to me shows intent to use those bullets.

there are so many things that don't make sense to me I just can't stop thinking about them all.

UpNorth, this is my feeling too, but to my mind the so many things that don't make sense are all a part of OP's story.

My main thing remains 'why on earth did he think she was in the bedroom when he neither saw nor heard her there?'

'She was there just minutes before!' doesn't work in a scenario when a person can walk. It's not like he put down his hat and it mysteriously moved to another room.

He spoke to her and apparently it was completely normal, while he was walking around the bed to get his gun, for her to not respond to him. Even though he told her to call the police, she didn't start to do this. There was no response. None.

At that point, wouldn't any person just say 'Reeva?' to get that confirmation?

Is it feasible that an adult who knew that the other adult was awake and up, would move to another room so very quietly AND THEN, COINCIDENTALLY, the initial room is suddenly so dark that the other adult wouldn't be able to see them? Those two things had to have happened to make OP's story work. If there was enough light in the room to see - for example if there had been a light on an amp, he would have seen she wasn't there. If Reeva made even a tiny bit of sound when she was leaving, then OP would have known where she was. If OP had said 'Reeva, did you hear that?' rather than 'Get down and call the police', then he'd have known she wasn't there. If he'd have used his brain for a tiny amount of time to get the confirmation the way he knew he had to do, then she wouldn't have died.

I personally find it too much of a stretch. OP's hearing was good enough to hear the bathroom door opening, but not to hear footsteps on tiles, or the toilet flushing (or it was normal for Reeva not to flush - some people don't for a wee or at night). The level of silence was apparently normal - Reeva must have been in the habit of being totally silent and still, even when instructed to call the police. It must have been totally normal to wake in the middle of the night and use his girlfriend's jeans to black out the room entirely. If any one of these thing is not normal, then this 'terrible accident' might not have happened.

And then there's the gun. He said that he hadn't really intended to shoot, but before he knew it, the gun had gone off four times. One startle pull, fair enough, one and then three more? No. Also, bit of a coincidence that he's recently handled two guns with that much of a hair trigger. So this gun that shoots with little more than a thought was then carried through the passage, across the bed, out to the balcony, back to the bedroom where he must have put it down to put on his legs, then pick it up again, then back to the bathroom - all without it accidentally going off again.

That's easily explained - he absolutely and fully intended to shoot that gun and he did it totally deliberately. That part of his story simply 'could not be'. So why did he suggest anything otherwise? That, to me, is where OP showed himself to be an unreliable witness.

As to the screaming getting louder, if they were screaming in the bedroom, and then ran screaming into the bathroom, it may have sounded louder.

At the start of the trial I thought OP had been trying to shoot the lock but I believe the evidence that he changed aim after Reeva fell against the magazine rack. To me, that means he was trying to hurt her.

Something that's been niggling me is the broken toilet light. Why is it significant? Is it because if the light was on then it was more likely to be Reeva in the toilet than an intruder? Mrs Still thought the light was on.

Mrs Stipp - sorry! Auto-correct gone mad!

I think the light is significant because you can only see a light in the toilet when the bathroom door is open (and the bathroom light is on). Anyone who saw the light on in the toilet saw it when the door was open, or when the toilet door had been knocked through.

I can't be sure when Mrs Stipp saw the light on.

Well I am back with more questions.

Mrs Stipp indicated it was definitely a woman screaming after first shots. She indicated it was after the first shots that the voice sounded like it was getting closer. At this time Reeva would have already been in the toilet cubicle. I go back to my thought that it was OP moving from the passage into the bathroom.

If Reeva was locked or unlocked in the toilet cubicle and OP was standing outside of the bathroom arguing with her which so happens to be right in front of the open bathroom window why did no one hear his voice arguing but hear Reeva scream inside the toilet cubicle?

If OP was arguing with RS outside the bathroom cubicle why would he leave the window open for everyone to hear?

After the first shots Mrs stipp testified under cross examination that the female screaming was loud and clear not muffled sound. Did not sound like it was coming from an enclosed space. She did not see any other window open but the one on the left in the set of 3 windows in the main bathroom. How could it not be muffled?

I thought the light in the toilet cubicle was not working?