I ended my 7th May article on BizNews (Oscar Pistorius: killer lies. Will this little detail nail him for murder?) with a cliff hanger. Pistorius testified that he shot Reeva Steenkamp, mistaking her for an intruder, and that she was alive when he eventually knocked down the door with a cricket bat and retrieved her. But that could not be true; she could not have been alive on HIS version. It is inconsistent with a scientific fact which the defence accepts.
Can there be an innocent explanation for his inconsistency? For example, can he now say that he was mistaken? He believed that she was alive because he so wanted it to be true. It would involve changing his story again, which is embarrassing, but better than being proved a liar.
But this altered version would not help him either. The more Pistorius changes his version, ‘tailors his evidence’ as Gerrie Nel put it, the more he digs himself into a hole.
This is because there is one part of his testimony which he must hang onto, if it is even remotely believable: that he mistook Reeva for an intruder and shot her in a terrible mistake.
On his version, it is absolutely critical that Judge Masipa accepts that he fired the shots first, and THEN knocked the door down with the cricket bat.
Cricket bat, gun shots: Why order of actions is important
The State’s forensic witness, Lt Colonel Vermeulen provided some support for this version. Defence counsel Barry Roux asks him: “when was the door hit with the cricket bat, before or after the gunshots?” The answer that Roux wants to hear is “after”, and he gets it; sort of. The state seems a little shaky on this point, but hasn’t made it critical.
As long as the sequence “shots then cricket bat” is generally accepted in the trial, the Defence can have some hope that the intruder version is plausible.
SAPS photograph.
SAPS photograph from the scene of the killing (see cricket bat, right).
On first thought, this does not help Pistorius. It confirms the apartheid stereotype that South Africa is desperate to put behind it, namely that it’s not so bad if you shoot a (presumably black) intruder in this violent society. But he shot and killed through a locked door, no warning, no reasonable steps, even without knowing the intruder’s intentions – it could have been a child intent only on petty theft. It makes little difference if Pistorius knew it was Reeva or not.
But for him there was a vital difference. The court might understand if he ‘made a mistake’ in a blind panic.
And then an expert witness supported this very point. On Tuesday 13th May, the defence called forensic psychiatrist Dr Meryll Vorster.
Dr Vorster testified that Pistorius suffers from generalised anxiety disorder, or GAD, which surely must have leapt to the “top 10 acronyms” on the Google search engine.
His extreme anxiety, coupled with his vulnerability as a double amputee, meant that not only was he hyper-vigilant, but also it triggered a “fight” reaction when he thought he heard an intruder in the toilet. He fired shots through the locked door in blind terror, and the unfortunate consequence was the death of Reeva Steenkamp.
Gerrie Nel’s ears pricked up. Dr Vorster had testified that Pistorius had a mental condition which might be a relevant factor in the Court’s sentencing. Nel argued that the Court had no choice under Section 78 of the Mental Health Act but to refer him immediately for independent psychiatric assessment.
The dark room, the intruder and the high-pitched screams
Was Dr Vorster in effect a “Witness for the Prosecution”? Did Roux fail to appreciate the consequence of putting this witness on the stand?
Or was it a clever tactic by Roux? This was his client’s best chance.
If the psychiatric assessment agreed with Dr Vorster’s diagnosis of GAD, and Pistorius felt a direct and terrifying threat from an intruder, Roux could later argue for a reduced sentence. Meanwhile he created, he hoped, sympathy for his client.
If Roux risked waiting until sentencing, it could be too late. Judge Masipa might agree with the State’s summing up, that the accused knew that Reeva was behind the door. Then the diagnosis of GAD was irrelevant, and the sympathy card could not be played.
And if, by any chance, the psychiatric evaluation could find that Pistorius was temporarily insane on the night of the murder, then, as I understand it, the trial would stop there and then, he would be acquitted by reason of insanity, and committed to a mental institution. The world would never get to hear Gerrie Nel’s final summing up. And Barry Roux, we presume, would be relieved to avoid summing up himself.
To persuade the Court that he was at the time in mortal fear of an intruder, Pistorius had to get a core narrative right. It had to be pitch black, so he could not see that Reeva was not in bed. He had to describe the type of noise which made him think it was an intruder.
And most vitally, he had to testify that the shots preceded the bangs of the cricket bat, with an adequate interval between.
It made no sense if the cricket bat bangs came first. If he thought that a dangerous intruder locked himself behind the door, why on earth would he put his gun down to smash down the door with a cricket bat?
But if the shots came first, it left him with no end of other problems.
For one thing, credible ear witnesses heard two sets of “bangs”, and they could estimate the time quite accurately. The bedside clock was checked twice. The first set of bangs would have been just after 3 a.m. On Pistorius’s sequence that must have been the shots. The second set was at about 3:14 – 3:15. That must have been the bangs.
Reeva Steenkamp: died after being shot in a locked toilet cubicle at the home of athlete Oscar Pistorius.
Reeva Steenkamp: died after being shot in a locked toilet cubicle. Were Reeva and Oscar arguing, or was her killing a terrible mistake?
But the ear witness heard a woman screaming after the first set of bangs, after Reeva was shot on his version. Pistorius could retort, though not demonstrate, that he screams like a woman. But then another problem emerges. The witness also heard a man.
And worse still, a different witness also heard the “bangs” or shots at approximately 3:14 – 3:15. This witness, Ms Burger, is a talented musician, a point that was only made en passant in her husband’s testimony. She would have a much more accurate ear for tempo than an average witness, so her ear evidence is very persuasive. She recalled four shots: bang, pause, then in quick succession, bang bang bang. And she too heard a female screaming before and during the bangs. And the quick succession did not fit smashing a door down with a cricket bat. There would have been longer pauses between the bangs.
Reeva Steenkamp’s time of death: Why Oscar must be wrong
These issues damaged Pistorius’s credibility in Court. But an issue that did not feature was the IMPOSSIBILITY on this timeline that Reeva was alive when he found her if, as Pistorius claims, the first set of bangs was the gunshots.
There was a 12 to 14 minute interval between the sets of “shots”. But according to the state pathologist, Reeva died very quickly after the shot to the head. She only breathed a few times, and the defence agreed.
If Pistorius shot her just after 3:00, she COULD NOT have been alive when he pulled her out of the toilet at about 3:15, let alone a bit later when she was struggling to breathe and he put her head down softly on the carpet.
When Roux examined his client on the witness stand, he may have had an inkling of this problem; Pistorius stated that the interval between the two sets of bangs was about five minutes.
But this doesn’t help. Reeva could not have been alive even on this timeline. And it creates another anomaly: Four witnesses heard the second noises, argued to be the cricket bat, but NO ONE heard gunshots 5 minutes before the cricket bat bangs. And Mrs Stipp must have been psychic: she imagined the first set of bangs which then occurred (unheard) about 8 minutes later.
In their defence, Roux argued that Reeva was in the toilet because she had gone to pee, not because she was frightened. As evidence, her bladder was nearly empty. But there could be another (and distressing) explanation: she could have “peed her pants” in terror. Her pants were so bloody that I wonder whether they were checked for urine. Ironically, “fight or flight” was raised by Dr Vorster in evidence for Pistorius. But peeing in your pants is also a “fight or flight” response controlled by the limbic system. It was not Pistorius’s “fight” that was evidence; it may have been Reeva’s “flight”.
According to Pistorius’ timeline, Reeva MUST have been dead when he found her.
But he insisted that she was alive, struggled to breathe, and died in his arms. Could this be true in an alternative version?
Yes, but only if the door was banged with the cricket bat BEFORE shots were fired through it. And only if Pistorius could access Reeva immediately after he shot her.
This account is devastating for Pistorius’s version, but this must be what happened. Suddenly it all fits together. And the forensic evidence ties in with the State’s ear witnesses.
Saayman gave about 3:15- 3:20 as time of death; his reasons I do not know. His evidence was deemed too lurid to be broadcast. He also testified that she could only have taken a few breaths, she died almost immediately. His time of death coincides with the second set of shots heard by Dr and Mrs Stipp, and the shots heard by Ms Burger with great accuracy, and by her husband.
Col. Van der Nest testified that the victim was shot while in the toilet. There was also blood spatter in the bathroom and in the downstairs lounge caused by an arterial spurt.There was a pool of blood next to the shower.
Police photograph of Oscar Pistorius's home, after Reeva Steenkamp was shot dead.
Police photograph of Oscar Pistorius’s home, after Reeva Steenkamp was shot dead.
His evidence was very brief. I hoped to hear more and understand better. But we can conclude from it that Reeva was taken out of the toilet ALIVE, if just.
Cracks in the door; what the neighbours heard
But what about Lt Colonel Vermeuen’s evidence that the shots came first?
If you look at his testimony more carefully, what Vermeuen said was “at least some part of [the door] broke after the shots”. This is because one of the broken pieces of the door panel had a crack which ran straight through the bullet hole. Other damage to the toilet door and the bedroom door could have happened earlier.
If the gunshots are proved to have occurred at about 3:15, then the earlier bangs heard just after 3:00 must have been the cricket bat. Ironically, the defence’s tests to prove that the cricket bat bangs sounded like gunshot turned out to be helpful to the State.
Pistorius must have damaged the door, but not broken it down, at just after 3:00. And the shouting and screaming heard by ear witnesses would in fact have been he and Reeva arguing. Then he shot her through the locked or closed door. The door could have been so weakened that it would then be easy to access inside after he shot her.
Mysteries remain. If Reeva was in fact locked in the toilet with her phone, why didn’t she call the police? But who says she had her phone in the toilet at that time? Perhaps she didn’t. Or perhaps Pistorius persuaded her to come out of the toilet, but the arguing intensified and she ran back in.
If Pistorius pulled Reeva out from the toilet almost immediately after he shot her, she could have been alive, and he laid her down on the bathroom floor when she was alive. And could the spatter in the “downstairs lounge” be caused by an arterial spurt while he carried her from the upstairs bedroom?
All this evidence fits together to form a coherent timeline. The state may never be able to reconstruct it exactly.
After the killing: vital clues
If this analysis is anywhere near accurate, just seconds after he shot Reeva, Pistorius must have conceived and acted on an elaborate version to disguise what he had done. What he did to the crime scene we may never know.
He did not call 911 immediately, and when he did, they had a 66 second conversation. Whatever else may have been said, it did not include Pistorius’s instruction to send an ambulance immediately.
He had the presence of mind to implant his “intruder” version in Johan Standers mind, when he phoned him at 3:19, about 4 minutes after he shot Reeva, and later. On the witness stand, Stander did not confirm Pistorius’s testimony that he asked him to call an ambulance.
Nor did Stander call an ambulance as soon as he put down the phone. Rather he arrived at Pistorius’s house within minutes, and even then there was a delay before an ambulance was called.
Stander testified that he saw Pistorius’s genuine pain, he was “desperate to save Reeva’s life”, he prayed to God to let her live, he was a broken man.
Pistorius held a memorial service for Reeva. A family statement read: “Oscar has asked for a private service with people who share his loss, including his family members who knew and loved Reeva.”
He convinced forensic psychiatrist Dr Vorster that he wanted to shoot an intruder and felt guilty and remorseful that it was Reeva and not an intruder.
When cross examined by Nel, and asked to look at a picture of Reeva’s head, Pistorius howled, ’I will not look at a picture where I’m tormented by what I saw and felt that night. …. As I picked Reeva up my fingers touched her head. I remember, I don’t have to look at a picture. I was there.’
What sort of man can do that?
* Copyright Ros Godlovitch Chappell.
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und sachliche *PRUUUUUUUST* Diskussion einfordern will. Oder gibt es etwa einen Strafprozess, in dem festgestellt wird, dass eine ermordete (und sezierte) Frau gar nicht ermordet wurde und es deshalb überhaupt keinen Täter gibt? 
