Hello all I am back with a huge note. Thanks in advance for allowing me to be part of the blog. Like I said before I have been obsessed with the case and have no one else to talk to it about.
Reading the Heads of Arguments and revisiting the ear witness testimony was very eye opening for me. Mr Roux's time line made me look at the entire case in totality rather than countless separate pieces. Once I did the pieces stated falling into place. It is the State's contention that the shots were the second set of bangs that extinguished Reeeva's screams. Mr Nel made no effort to suggest what the first set of bangs might have been. Forensics proved that the toilet door was damaged by the cricket bat. Forensics also confirmed that the toilet door was in tact when the shots were fired into it. However, it has been implied by the State that the door may have been damaged to some extent prior to the shots. It was also the State's belief that Oscar was on his stumps when beating the door with the cricket bat.
t is an undisputed fact that one set of bangs were gunshots as Reeva was shot. Mr Nel had two State Witnesses testifying that they heard two sets of bangs that sounded like gunshots. Dr Stipp testified that he had gun experience from his time in the Army and admitted that both sets of bangs sounded like gunshots to him.The second set of bangs sounded enough like the first shots for Dr. Stipp to tell Mrs Stipp to get away from the window. Mrs Stipp testified in cross examination with Mr Oldwage in reference to the first set of bangs “her husband said gunshots, no reason to doubt gunshots”. Because of the similarity in sound he was forced to deal with the additional set of bangs and since there was no indication of any other damage in the house to account for the sound it left the cricket bat hitting the door as the most likely source.
This leads me to understand why Mr Nel didn't want to provide an explanation for the source of the first bangs. The problem Mr. Nel has with putting the bat to the door as the first bangs is that it puts Reeva in the toilet sooner than he wants to.. It has been suggested that Oscar was arguing with Reeva that night and banging on the toilet door with the cricket bat in an attempt to scare Reeva. If he was beating on the door to scare Reeva it would suggest that Reeva was in the toilet with the door at least shut.. If Reeva was in any other room in the house besides the toilet there would be no reason for Oscar to be hitting the toilet door with the cricket bat let alone hard enough to nearly break a panel out to scare her. Per the State's theory Oscar was on his stumps at this time. If Reeva was not in the toilet but rather another part of the house and Oscar was on his stumps and distracted with beating on the toilet door there would be no explanation as to why Reeva did not flee the house. Or at best why she would flee to the toilet. In addition, by placing Reeva in the toilet at the time of the first bangs in addition to being in the toilet when shot would make it extremely difficult for the witnesses to hear all the things they heard from such distances and clarity with Reeva in a closed toilet cubicle. It also makes it very difficult to explain why Reeva would be standing in front of the door facing it if Oscar was on the other side of it hitting it with the cricket bat. It also makes it difficult to explain why Reeva did not make any kind of emergency call for help on her phone since she would have had time.
This brings Mrs. Stipps testimony regarding the voice getting closer and sounding like it was coming down the street into light. She testified that this happened after the first shot but before the second shot. Since there was no other explanation given by Mr Nel for the first bangs it must be the cricket bat hitting the door which put Reeva in the toilet at the time of the first bangs.. We know she was in the toilet when shot. Therefore there would be no explanation for Reeva to be moving or her voice to sound as if it was getting closer. These facts lead to Oscar moving from the passage into the bathroom after shooting through the door as the source of the voice Mrs Stipp was hearing.
Mr Roux's time line made me sit down and compare what all the different ear witnesses testified to hearing. It seems the testimony from the immediate neighbors of Oscar Pistorius was given very little credence. Mr Nel didn't call them as State Witnesses so they didn't help his case. It seemed odd that the people living on either side of the accused would do nothing to help his case. So I laid all the witness testimony side by side and discovered they were the very people that filled in the missing pieces.
What was established by phone logs and the information the police provided of phone calls is that the calls to security occurred at approximately the same time. Dr. Stipp called security at 3:15:51am He reported hearing gunshots. Call lasted 16 seconds. Mr Johnson made a call to the Strubenskop Security at 3:16 call lasted 58 seconds. The Johnson's phoned the security for the place they previously lived by accident. Mr. Nhlengethwa callled security at 3:16:16am with no answer. His second call went through at 3:16:36am lasted 44 seconds. He reported shots heard.
Mrs Stipp, Dr. Stipp, Mrs. van de Merwe, Mr van de Merwe (per Mrs van de Merwe testimony that husband claimed the first shots to be gunshots) and Mrs Nhlegenthwa all testified to hearing the first set of bangs. It seems the first sound may have been louder than the second set of sounds. Which would more likely be the gunshots than the cricket bat hitting the door.
The Stipp's and Burger/Johnson's heard the second sets as well. The Johnson's were both asleep and missed the first shots so had no basis of comparison between the two sets of bangs like the Stipp's did.
Since they were all farther away than the immediate neighbors they felt safe going out on balconies to ascertain what was going on.
Mrs Stipp testified she was awake and heard shots, short time later hearing woman screaming.
Dr. Stipp testified to waking up to shots, short time later hearing womans scream.
Mrs van der Merwe testified that she and her husband heard shots pause then loud crying that she thought was a woman but was determined to be Oscar by Mr Van de Merwe.
Mrs. Nhlegenthwa heard bang, pause and a man's voice.
Mr. Nhlegenthwa testified to hearing the man's voice after returning to the bedroom from checking the house after wife hearing bangs.
Rica Motshuane woke to the sounds of a man's voice. She testified he husband also heard it but initially thought he was dreaming. She indicated the crying was continuous. They did not hear the bangs but the crying was continuous indicating it was after the first set of bangs.
The Burger/Johnson woke to a woman screams then woman scream help and a man scream help, help,help, continuous screams and bangs.
Mrs Nhlegenthwa, Carice Stander, Dr Stipp, Carl Johnson and`Michelle Burger, all heard help, help, help in a man's voice. It seems unlikely and hard to explain how the people living the farthest away were the only ones to hear a woman scream help one time. It seems very unlikely Oscar Pistorius would cry for help before shooting Reeva. It would be unlikely he would want to draw extra attention to the situation if he planned on shooting Reeva.
In comparing all of this it seems they were all hearing the same thing at the same time. The immediate neighbors heard a man's voice and the neighbors farther away hear a woman's voice. Mrs.van de Merwe thought she heard a woman's voice but husband knew it was Oscar's voice. With these facts in addition to no one testifying to ever hearing the voices muffled like they were coming from an enclosed space due to Reeva being in the toilet with the door closed can only lead to the conclusion that the voice was coming from Oscar Pistorius.
Mrs van de Merwe's testimony regarding the argument leaves room for doubt. She could not tell where the voice was coming from, which language it was or what was being spoken but the voice sounded angry. She testified to hearing one voice only. And it was far off. If she was able to hear the man's voice after the bangs then the woman's voice she was hearing earlier had to be loud too. If it was loud enough for her to hear from the distance of her house it would seem likely the immediate neighbors would have heard it as well. It is hard to explain that she was the only one to hear this. It is also hard to understand how she could have only heard one persons voice for an entire hour of on and off talking/arguing between two people. It sounds more like she was lhearing one side of a phone conversation. It is also hard to explain how the security guard did not see any lights on or hear any arguing coming from Oscar Pistorius's house at 2:20am when the guard track was activated. On a normal night sounds of an argument may not be reported or recorded by security guards but if there had been some sign of trouble that night it would have been very important and mentioned to police.
The different emotions ear witnesses testified to hearing such as terrified, petrified, fearful, severe emotion, anguish, out of mind, distress, panicking These are all reasonable emotions for Oscar Pistorius to have been expressing in response to the events of that night as he described them. The absence of any mention of anger is very telling.
The Stipp's testified to hearing intermingled voices of a man and a woman. There was no mention of hearing different emotions in the voices. Oscar and Reeva would certainly be feeling different things at the time if they were arguing and Reeva was frightened. They would have heard Anger in Oscar's voice and fear in Reeva's voice. There is no possible way to explain the voices being intermingled without hearing the different emotions under the circumstances.
Something I found very telling in the Defense Heads of Arguments is (page 46 line 136) where Mr. Roux pointed out that Dr. Saayman testified that due to inter alia enzymes and hydrochloric acid in the stomach, the physical process of digestion did not stop at the time of death. The body of the deceased was only refrigerated at approximately 11:45 which was about 10 hours after the last food intake estimated by Professor Saayman. Notwithstanding, there was still recognisable food content in the stomach, an occurrence which in applying Professor Saayman's theory regarding gastric emptying could not be possible. My thought is why would there have been any recognisable food in her stomach at all even if she had eaten at say 1:00am? After 10 hours if digestion continued there should not have been any recognisable food in her stomach period if she had eaten at 7pm or 1am. Finding recognizable food should have been unexpected and seems it should have raised a red flag for the Professor and made it necessary for him to conduct further examinations such as the opening of the duodenum which he did not do to help explain the unusual occurrence. Since he did not do this it seems very difficult to understand how he could conclude Reeva had taken in her last meal 2 hours give or take prior to death. It seems very convenient that the recognizable food content happened to be what Oscar Pistorius testified to having for dinner and happens to coincide with the alleged argument occurring at 2am. It also raises questions as to why pathologist Reggie Perumal did not testify.
Aside from Dr Saayman's suggestion that Reeva ate 2 hours more or less prior to death there is nothing else to indicate that actually happened. There was no indication of dirty dishes in the bedroom or kitchen aside from two mugs on the bedside tables. It seems unlikely they would have a warm drink in the bedroom during the evening yet not eat dinner but wait instead until 1am to eat. It seems very unlikely an athlete and model that did swim suit modeling would eat dinner at 1am. If they were arguing it seems unlikely they would stop to fix a meal, eat the meal and clean up the dishes during or after the argument. If they did eat dinner at 7pm and Reeva went downstairs to have a snack it seems it would have been something light and easy to fix rather than dragging the leftovers from dinner out and heating them up and cleaning up afterwards. There just seems to be nothing to back up Dr Saayman's findings.
The missing electrical cord is very troubling. Aside from the door it was one of the pieces of evidence to show to the court to prove Oscar Pistorius was lying about the fans. The cord was a vital part of Mr Nel's case and seems like a very important piece of evidence. It seems odd Mr. Nel was not more upset about its disappearance.
It seems Mr. Nel was a bit threatened by Mr Wolmarans testimony as he felt the need to discredit him in his Heads of Argument Mr Wolmarans is a man with a great number years of experience. It would be hard to argue he didn't have great knowledge in his field.Mr Wolmarans pointed out that it was unlikely Reeva would have been in a defensive position after the hip wound Wollie says that if the hand was on the head then he would have expected the exit wound to cause secondary injuries to the inside of her hand since there were fragments of bullet exiting from that wound. Furthermore, if the hand was covering part of the head then he would not have expected the brain tissue to have traveled as far as it did against the toilet lid. The hand would have blocked it and the matter would be on the inside of the hand which it was not. This would discredit Captain Mangena's theory that with the head wound, her hands were very likely held up across her head in a defensive position, as there was a bullet wound in between her pointer and middle finger on her left hand. Mr.Wolmarans had a lot of other real good points but I am running our of time to get this posted before the verdict.
I hope I haven't bored you all stiff. I have tried to stick with pure evidence presented and hope that I have not led anyone astray with my thoughts. With all of this said it is very clear to me that Oscar Pistorius did not intentionally kill Reeva.