Oscar Pistorius - Discussion Thread #68 *Appeal Verdict*

[Deleted member 102539]

Ahhh yes...I too would loved to have been a fly on the wall!....One of my guesses is that the phone was removed right under the eyes of one of the officers (or maybe even w/permission from officer)!!!....Imho one of the worse things happening with the officers first on the scene is that they believed they had a "cut & dried" case as they immediately had the "who, what, when, and where" and they had a confession from the shooter....Because of this, imo, they got sloppy w/the chain of evidence and preserving the crime scene....To make matters worse, some of the officers may have even been slightly "starstruck" to boot....MOO

... and in addition the persons at the crime scene with their status and rang .....

 

[Paul Connelly]

This is how bad it is ... there is the medical side of this as to what the adrenal glands do and how the blood is diverted to muscle etc. and yet as seen in the link below when we see it in action it is still classified as a theory.

And, there is the research done on police shootings telling us that officers get tunnel vision, go on auto-pilot and empty their guns without realizing it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hysterical_strength

My best friend when we were younger was sleeping on his dad's boat one winter night back in the 70's. He thought he heard someone yelling for help and eventually got up to see what was going on. He discovered his dad had fallen in the icy water around a piling and was in distress just hanging on to the dock.

My friend ran down and simply lifted his dad out of the water and placed him on the dock. There was little effort in doing so. His dad weighed 200 lbs. plus ...


When I was a young man, after being on the receiving end of 3 armed robberies and one military coup, I developed an anxiety disorder. I had a resting heart rate of 120 when I was diagnosed and was in full blown fight/flight except there was no present threat so there was no threat to flee from and there was no one to fight. When they found me, I had lost about 40 lbs from my normal weight and was sitting on the edge of a bed rocking back and forth with a silly grin on my face trying not to fall asleep. I was fully adrenalized. So you could say that for what most people have for just a short while to get them out of a situation, I had live in 24/7 for about 3 months. Little or no food, and was afraid to go to sleep. Heart rate a steady 120.

Because of the late diagnosis I was on meds and fought this for many years finally returning to normal and being medication free. 25 years of my life however was mainly dedicated to making it through the day without lapsing into full blown anxiety attacks.

So, I have a little experience at least in understanding how adrenaline effects you and how young Oscar felt that night when he heard an intruder in his house at 3 in the morning. A young Oscar who scored 70 and needed one more point only to be classified as having a general anxiety disorder.


This needs to be studied. There is more to this than Oscar Pistorius. In America there are a number of police officers waiting trial for killing unlawfully because their body or dash cams have recorded the incidents. One officer gunned down a gentleman while the gentleman was running away. He emptied his gun into the man and it is all caught on his dash cam. Speaking to attending officers right after the incident he was chuckling to himself saying what an adrenalin rush it was to shoot the man.

We train police to respond to a threat by giving them a gun and demanding that they choose as quickly as possible whether to fire. They must determine whether there is a lethal threat or not and then either fire to neutralize the threat or if it is not a lethal threat choose another option. Well, I see many choosing option A when maybe they should be choosing option B and I ask myself if we are expecting someone who is adrenalized to make a decision that they in some cases are not able to make correctly.

I see this way more than I want to. Maybe it's time to change to a more de-escalating system if one can be found or in my opinion we will be seeing a greater number of good officers being charged with murder. We can deal with this now or wait until we have more officers waiting trial.

I totally get the neurological motor response adrenaline causes. However, the law applies a reasonable man test. What Oscar and many of the police officers you cite did was unreasonable and in some cases out and out murder. Police officers train for those situations. They eventually become desensitised to the adrenaline rush and training takes over. The reason we have a reasonable man test is so no individual can murder with impunity.

Oscar was an adrenaline junkie, he loved it, sought it, saw it as a sport and wanted to master it. To turn around and suggest the noise of a window opening ( conveniently left out of his initial bail affidavit) is just you looking for any excuse to justify it.

<modsnip>

 

[Marfa Lights]

Thank you for the link Interested Bystander.

I did have a chance to read it and there are a couple of points worth making but I will stick to one main one.

Nel is never going to give Oscar a break, that is obvious and this is important - The article says "A second source close to the National Prosecuting Authority said that because it wasn&#8217;t clear what had been deleted from Oscar&#8217;s cellphone, it would have been difficult to charge Carl Pistorius." So there is no proof that any incriminating evidence was deleted which goes back to my original comment that it is just speculation that Carl deleted something incriminating.

Which is why tampering with evidence to defeat the ends of justice is a crime. Of course no one can know what incriminating evidence Carl deleted-- not an excuse IMO for not charging him with evidence tampering. Most likely, as was reported, a deal was made and Carl got away with a crime because of the family's highly paid lawyers.

 

[Val1]

Which is why tampering with evidence to defeat the ends of justice is a crime. Of course no one can know what incriminating evidence Carl deleted-- not an excuse IMO for not charging him with evidence tampering. Most likely, as was reported, a deal was made and Carl got away with a crime because of the family's highly paid lawyers.

It wasn't just CP that tampered with the evidence... there was also AP and CS, re RS's purse, that was testified to in court, plus whatever was removed from the two safes(that imo likely had info about offshore assets/connections). That one of the lawyers was there for the opening of them just makes it worse, then you add in that OP allegedly got permission to wash evidence off(where did he do this, upstairs??) and AP was allowed to traipse upstairs to collect items(I'm still suspicious that she collected that second watch that was blamed on the police, it was probably "dropped" in RS's purse before being removed from the residence) from the crime scene and you're left with a real mess for the PT to work with.

 

[mrjitty]

SA doesn't have an obstruction of justice or accomplice type of offense that CP could have been charged with?

Of course.

But in the end none of this helps in the prosecution of the murder of Reeva

 

[mrjitty]

It is far from speculation that CP deleted incriminating evidence.

We know from the work of Mr Fossil that OP accessed the cell tower several times whilst "asleep".

The content accessed or messages sent at that time were deleted.

This content would have been immensely problematic for the defence

 

[CriLondon]

BBM - One particular point that I don't see mentioned often , is that Nel under re-examination asked Berger to confirm that shots 2-3-4 were too rapid to have been cricket bat strikes, hence she could have only heard the gunshots. This is crucial because , although a subjective interpretation by a witness , it went unchallenged by the defence IIRC.
Why Nel didn't home in on this point (which he brilliantly made in re-exam) in his closing , i don't quite understand.

Sorry to quote myself , just to extend on this post (and I realize it's rehashing but it's been a massive hurdle since early days for me) : If Berger heard the gunshots , we have OP screaming for help (and for a second let's leave aside man/woman screams as it's irrelevant) BEFORE he fired the gun. That was never his version. If Berger heard shots that were so close to each other, that made it not reasonably possibly true for them to have been a human striking a door with a cricket bat then Op's version as to when he shouted for help , at the very least , is incorrect. A point should have been made about this in closing , as it's nothing to do with decibel levels or man/woman screams.
Again, sorry to rehash things , it's personally one of the hurdles I have trouble getting past in this case.

 

[mrjitty]

It wasn't just CP that tampered with the evidence... there was also AP and CS, re RS's purse, that was testified to in court, plus whatever was removed from the two safes(that imo likely had info about offshore assets/connections). That one of the lawyers was there for the opening of them just makes it worse, then you add in that OP allegedly got permission to wash evidence off(where did he do this, upstairs??) and AP was allowed to traipse upstairs to collect items(I'm still suspicious that she collected that second watch that was blamed on the police, it was probably "dropped" in RS's purse before being removed from the residence) from the crime scene and you're left with a real mess for the PT to work with.

All of which brings us back to Botha who seemed to run a crime scene where anyone could wander around and carry off some evidence.

IMO the "missing watch" went the same way - perhaps used as a bribe?

 

[Interested Bystander]

Thank you for the link Interested Bystander.

I did have a chance to read it and there are a couple of points worth making but I will stick to one main one.

Nel is never going to give Oscar a break, that is obvious and this is important - The article says "A second source close to the National Prosecuting Authority said that because it wasn&#8217;t clear what had been deleted from Oscar&#8217;s cellphone, it would have been difficult to charge Carl Pistorius." So there is no proof that any incriminating evidence was deleted which goes back to my original comment that it is just speculation that Carl deleted something incriminating.

I do appreciate that but my real point is that to remove anything from a crime scene is an offence and yet two members of the family did so and possibly the family lawyer who was at the opening of the safe from which a memory stick was taken. I do not believe that any one of them was naive enough not to know that to do so was an offence, especially the family lawyer. Have you never wondered why it was necessary to bring in a locksmith to open the safe in the early hours of 14th Feb? Nothing should have been touched!

Regardless of what was or was not on the phone it had been wiped and this is tampering with evidence which in itself is a crime. I find it impossible to accept that it was wiped for absolutely no reason at all.

IMO the second source from the NPA may have been excusing the fact that they had decided not to charge CP and to ameliorate the embarrassment which would likely arise, and did. By taking this route, it was imperative that nothing would break the agreement between Roux and Nel which would have caused Botha to give evidence.

Did you notice that the day Carice gave evidence, OP's sister was not in court; the only day she did not attend? One cannot help but think the embarrassment factor was too great to sit and listen to Carice saying that AP took RS's bag.

I really cannot believe that you are unaware it is a crime to remove objects from the scene of a crime but maybe you are able to explain to yourself that these happenings were innocent; something I cannot do. Three items disappeared. There is still the possibility that the watch too may have disappeared at the family's hands to throw suspicion on the police and cause a distraction. Everyone except the family was searched for the missing watch and nothing was found. A little odd methinks.

Apologies for taking so long to respond. Websleuths has been offline for me today until 13.00'ish.

 

[soozieqtips]

I do appreciate that but my real point is that to remove anything from a crime scene is an offence and yet two members of the family did so and possibly the family lawyer who was at the opening of the safe from which a memory stick was taken. I do not believe that any one of them was naive enough not to know that to do so was an offence, especially the family lawyer. Have you never wondered why it was necessary to bring in a locksmith to open the safe in the early hours of 14th Feb? Nothing should have been touched!

Regardless of what was or was not on the phone it had been wiped and this is tampering with evidence which in itself is a crime. I find it impossible to accept that it was wiped for absolutely no reason at all.

IMO the second source from the NPA may have been excusing the fact that they had decided not to charge CP and to ameliorate the embarrassment which would likely arise, and did. By taking this route, it was imperative that nothing would break the agreement between Roux and Nel which would have caused Botha to give evidence.

Did you notice that the day Carice gave evidence, OP's sister was not in court. The only day she did not attend? One cannot help but think the embarrassment factor was too great to sit and listen to Carice saying that AP took RS's bag.

I really cannot believe that you are unaware it is a crime to remove objects from the scene of a crime but maybe you are able to explain to yourself that these happenings were innocent; something I cannot do. Three items disappeared. There is still the possibility that the watch too may have disappeared at the family's hands to throw suspicion on the police and cause a distraction. Everyone except the family was searched for the missing watch and nothing was found. A little odd methinks.

Apologies for taking so long to respond. Websleuths has been offline for me today until 13.00'ish.

BIB - and wasn't this done before Reeva's family were even informed of her murder?

 

[Interested Bystander]

BIB - and wasn't this done before Reeva's family were even informed of her murder?

Sadly yes. Is it any wonder that the Pistorius family have developed a reputation for self interest.

 

[Marfa Lights]

It wasn't just CP that tampered with the evidence... there was also AP and CS, re RS's purse, that was testified to in court, plus whatever was removed from the two safes(that imo likely had info about offshore assets/connections). That one of the lawyers was there for the opening of them just makes it worse, then you add in that OP allegedly got permission to wash evidence off(where did he do this, upstairs??) and AP was allowed to traipse upstairs to collect items(I'm still suspicious that she collected that second watch that was blamed on the police, it was probably "dropped" in RS's purse before being removed from the residence) from the crime scene and you're left with a real mess for the PT to work with.

i don't care what the stupid watch cost, I can't believe Pistorius or his family were crass enough to voice concern about a watch when Reeva's blood was still smeared all over his house.

 

[Colin de France]

...well is he going to appeal or not ...time is moving on ....

 

[Hatfield]

Sorry to quote myself , just to extend on this post (and I realize it's rehashing but it's been a massive hurdle since early days for me) : If Berger heard the gunshots , we have OP screaming for help (and for a second let's leave aside man/woman screams as it's irrelevant) BEFORE he fired the gun. That was never his version. If Berger heard shots that were so close to each other, that made it not reasonably possibly true for them to have been a human striking a door with a cricket bat then Op's version as to when he shouted for help , at the very least , is incorrect. A point should have been made about this in closing , as it's nothing to do with decibel levels or man/woman screams.
Again, sorry to rehash things , it's personally one of the hurdles I have trouble getting past in this case.

This is a great point about the timing of the noises being so close together that a person should be able to distinguish if it was the bat strikes or the gunshots. Because it takes time to re-wind a bat strike (think baseball when a hitter stands in the batter box and takes practice swings how they have to rewind the bat backwards). The succession of gunshots would be much quicker and easily distinguishable.

I agree the prosecution could have used this on the witnesses to show one way or the other.

 

[Tortoise]

Sorry to quote myself , just to extend on this post (and I realize it's rehashing but it's been a massive hurdle since early days for me) : If Berger heard the gunshots , we have OP screaming for help (and for a second let's leave aside man/woman screams as it's irrelevant) BEFORE he fired the gun. That was never his version. If Berger heard shots that were so close to each other, that made it not reasonably possibly true for them to have been a human striking a door with a cricket bat then Op's version as to when he shouted for help , at the very least , is incorrect. A point should have been made about this in closing , as it's nothing to do with decibel levels or man/woman screams.
Again, sorry to rehash things , it's personally one of the hurdles I have trouble getting past in this case.

Is it possible you've confused the timing of OP's shout for help on his version? I say that because he said he called help before the last shot sounds.

In any case, I've always thought he called for help at the same time Reeva did. When he decided he was going to kill her he knew he would say he thought she was an intruder. It was calculated. It makes me livid that the DT said he wouldn't have had time to think up an excuse to tell people on the phone that soon after killing her, and to see Masipa agree with that in her judgement. You are right, if Nel had reiterated that point, and had reinforced the inescapable conclusion that the earlier noises were bat strikes, instead of leaving it to her imagination, Judge would have had to think twice about this nasty piece of work.

 

[Tortoise]

This is a great point about the timing of the noises being so close together that a person should be able to distinguish if it was the bat strikes or the gunshots. Because it takes time to re-wind a bat strike (think baseball when a hitter stands in the batter box and takes practice swings how they have to rewind the bat backwards). The succession of gunshots would be much quicker and easily distinguishable.

I agree the prosecution could have used this on the witnesses to show one way or the other.

It would have been interesting to see how he wielded the bat in court, if it was overarm swings, or jabbing motions like a hammer. I think with the hits not all being in the same place it must have been swings.

 

[Hatfield]

I do appreciate that but my real point is that to remove anything from a crime scene is an offence and yet two members of the family did so and possibly the family lawyer who was at the opening of the safe from which a memory stick was taken. I do not believe that any one of them was naive enough not to know that to do so was an offence, especially the family lawyer. Have you never wondered why it was necessary to bring in a locksmith to open the safe in the early hours of 14th Feb? Nothing should have been touched!

Regardless of what was or was not on the phone it had been wiped and this is tampering with evidence which in itself is a crime. I find it impossible to accept that it was wiped for absolutely no reason at all.

IMO the second source from the NPA may have been excusing the fact that they had decided not to charge CP and to ameliorate the embarrassment which would likely arise, and did. By taking this route, it was imperative that nothing would break the agreement between Roux and Nel which would have caused Botha to give evidence.

Did you notice that the day Carice gave evidence, OP's sister was not in court; the only day she did not attend? One cannot help but think the embarrassment factor was too great to sit and listen to Carice saying that AP took RS's bag.

I really cannot believe that you are unaware it is a crime to remove objects from the scene of a crime but maybe you are able to explain to yourself that these happenings were innocent; something I cannot do. Three items disappeared. There is still the possibility that the watch too may have disappeared at the family's hands to throw suspicion on the police and cause a distraction. Everyone except the family was searched for the missing watch and nothing was found. A little odd methinks.

Apologies for taking so long to respond. Websleuths has been offline for me today until 13.00'ish.

Just some guesses IMO.

I wonder if the missing watch thing was OP's early half baked attempt to show there was an intruder in the house that took things. After OP killed her in a fit of rage, I have always felt that OP started scrambling with plans to try to get away with it. I think his first immediate plan was to leave the house and make it look like an intruder had killed her. That plan quickly got ruined when people started to show up. I wonder if the taking of the watch was a "leftover" from the initial plans of trying to blame it on an intruder. OP may have still felt that if he could prove there had been an intruder inside the home taking things then he may have thought it would help people realize why he became so afraid for his life. He was scrambling around and not thinking things through and maybe just told her to take it from the house without thinking too much how stupid it was an idea.

If not that, then I wonder if the watch had blood on it and OP wanted it removed from the house since he didn't want to have blood evidence on the watch.

 

[sleuth-d-]

It would have been interesting to see how he wielded the bat in court, if it was overarm swings, or jabbing motions like a hammer. I think with the hits not all being in the same place it must have been swings.

it would also have been interesting to see how quickly he could have hit the door four times with the bat.

a stroke of luck for op, that use of the cricket bat. and that the cricket bat sounded like gun shots, to early morning listeners. it really helped roux with the 'muddy the waters' factor.

 

[Interested Bystander]

Just some guesses IMO.

I wonder if the missing watch thing was OP's early half baked attempt to show there was an intruder in the house that took things. After OP killed her in a fit of rage, I have always felt that OP started scrambling with plans to try to get away with it. I think his first immediate plan was to leave the house and make it look like an intruder had killed her. That plan quickly got ruined when people started to show up. I wonder if the taking of the watch was a "leftover" from the initial plans of trying to blame it on an intruder. OP may have still felt that if he could prove there had been an intruder inside the home taking things then he may have thought it would help people realize why he became so afraid for his life. He was scrambling around and not thinking things through and maybe just told her to take it from the house without thinking too much how stupid it was an idea.

If not that, then I wonder if the watch had blood on it and OP wanted it removed from the house since he didn't want to have blood evidence on the watch.

Just some more guesses.

 

[Belgarion]

It wasn't just CP that tampered with the evidence... there was also AP and CS, re RS's purse, that was testified to in court, plus whatever was removed from the two safes(that imo likely had info about offshore assets/connections). That one of the lawyers was there for the opening of them just makes it worse, then you add in that OP allegedly got permission to wash evidence off(where did he do this, upstairs??) and AP was allowed to traipse upstairs to collect items(I'm still suspicious that she collected that second watch that was blamed on the police, it was probably "dropped" in RS's purse before being removed from the residence) from the crime scene and you're left with a real mess for the PT to work with.

Taking a step back it is surely unrealistic to suppose that CP turns up at what must have been a very distressful crime scene and suddenly thinks ‘I really must remember to find Oscar’s phone to check what needs deleting’ just as unrealistic is it for AP to suddenly start thinking of Reeva’s mother and just how much she would like to have her recently deceased daughter’s handbag. The latter being a most bizarre notion to suddenly pop into someone’s head given she hardly knew Reeva and June even less. Quite illogical, unless of course someone found the time to tell them to remove those specific items. One could suppose it was someone who was having rational thoughts about what ‘incriminating’ items should be removed from the crime scene as quick as possible. Surely not OP as we are lead to believe he was too ‘distraught’ to be thinking clearly…..or was he?