Oscar Pistorius - Discussion Thread #68 *Appeal Verdict*

[Deleted member 102539]

I don't believe there is any emotion that Oscar could have shown in court that would appease everyone.

In court, he has cried and many have said he's put on the waterworks for the judge. Yes, he did so and he was successful re. JM and assessors.
In court, he's looked down at the book he was reading and some have said he's disinterested. Partly he was and played with his phone, did doodling and so on.
In court, he's looked at the witness and some have said he is staring down the witness. Yes, he starred at witnesses when they didn't testify tings he wanted to hear (namely lies).

There is really nothing he could do that would be right according to some. Too late! He turned out to be a nasty and dishonest person, concerned only about his benefits.

My answers in red.

 

[Colin de France]

That's the big problem!! OP tells someone to do so - and they do, no matter who, no matter why, no matter if criminal. WTH??

Stander (friend and confidant) had no ambitions to take the dead Reeva in his car to the hospital - an exception and only in this case, I assume. All the other persons did, what OP remanded. Some even confirmed his "despair and brokenness" which he cleverly showed downstairs. Poor people skills or anything for HIS (hero-nice-guy) sake?

.....isn't just possible that it was someone else in control and that they told Pistorius how to react and what to say, someone who had a clear mind......it was this person who ordered the phone be removed....

 

[Tortoise]

.....isn't just possible that it was someone else in control and that they told Pistorius how to react and what to say, someone who had a clear mind......it was this person who ordered the phone be removed....

Surely everyone believed it was an innocent accident...no? Who would have thought there would be incriminating evidence to hide?

 

[Cherwell]

Surely everyone believed it was an innocent accident...no? Who would have thought there would be incriminating evidence to hide?

I don't think the Pistorius family would give the proverbial. Protect themselves at all costs, that's their priority, regardless of the circumstances and regardless of anyone else's interests.

 

[Colin de France]

Surely everyone believed it was an innocent accident...no? Who would have thought there would be incriminating evidence to hide?

......i don't see it like that..... the police already doubted the intruder version .........i think he told someone the real truth before the police arrived, that way Frank was dealt with and the telephone removed....... a sort of cleansing operation......

 

[Deleted member 102539]

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.

bbm

All his expensive watches had blood on them, as I remember. But why and why blood above the bedside table and onto many other odd things ...?

 

[Deleted member 102539]

.....isn't just possible that it was someone else in control and that they told Pistorius how to react and what to say, someone who had a clear mind......it was this person who ordered the phone be removed....

The lawyers may have asked him, but I think the content of the phone would have been OP's greatest concern and he alone knew how dangerous and contradictory to his intruder-story the data would be. CM was the first choice as a person skilled in Comp. Technology to do the thorough and well thought of deleting. I could imagine: not the first time, CM had to delete some data for his criminal rowdy brother.

 

[CriLondon]

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.

BBM - Key = The last shot sounds . According to Berger the shots she heard , or rather the time in between shots 2-3-4 , wouldn't have been enough for a man to strike a bat in a swinging motion.
The exchange is here https://youtu.be/uadnpxsXaKY and begins at approx. 43:00

 

[cottonweaver]

The missing watch-

As Val1 said earlier (IIRC) it's standard Defence tactic to raise doubts about chain of evidence protocols in general. In South Africa it's commonplace to accuse the police of corruption too, of which there is obviously some truth. However this is another diversion tactic as an argument around this case. Even if it were theft by SAPS, it was immaterial to the case outcome (it's not evidence tampering) other than highlighting police scene of crime deficiencies.

FWIW (very little ), I'd speculate, it went the same way as the extension cord. The cord that the Defence claimed the police had lost could just as easily have ended up back with Oscar's personal belongings but as the police had no record of it Roux would try to make mileage out of that.
Equally Aimee possibly took a couple of watches and clothing items for him to choose from and so in the end one watch then became unaccounted for and the rest is history, or rather, another tale to spin. (That's a generous interpretation - Oldwadge was there, at same time as Carl, for hours advising his client before he had been arrested. Oldwadge had also already represented OP in the Cassidy-Memmory case where no charges were pressed despite an overnight arrest and also saved him from prosecution in the Vaal drunken boat crash.)

Anyway some well-worn narratives, exploited by the defence, "swart gevaar ," - racial fears, police corruption.... and by now on WS I think these stolen- watches -as- a -point-scoring for OP are pretty worn out.

principle objectives by the DT-
muddy the waters
create doubt
soften up the judge using Oscar's broken man routine and stumps reveal
re-present a faulty data timeline.....what else?

 

[Trotterly]

BBM - Key = The last shot sounds . According to Berger the shots she heard , or rather the time in between shots 2-3-4 , wouldn't have been enough for a man to strike a bat in a swinging motion.
The exchange is here https://youtu.be/uadnpxsXaKY and begins at approx. 43:00

Listening to the gap which is supposed to be too fast to wield the bat - I think that an athlete such as OP with immense upper body strength would have had no problem hitting the door that fast.

 

[Colin de France]

The missing watch-

As Val1 said earlier (IIRC) it's standard Defence tactic to raise doubts about chain of evidence protocols in general. In South Africa it's commonplace to accuse the police of corruption too, of which there is obviously some truth. However this is another diversion tactic as an argument around this case. Even if it were theft by SAPS, it was immaterial to the case outcome (it's not evidence tampering) other than highlighting police scene of crime deficiencies.

FWIW (very little ), I'd speculate, it went the same way as the extension cord. The cord that the Defence claimed the police had lost could just as easily have ended up back with Oscar's personal belongings but as the police had no record of it Roux would try to make mileage out of that.
Equally Aimee possibly took a couple of watches and clothing items for him to choose from and so in the end one watch then became unaccounted for and the rest is history, or rather, another tale to spin. (That's a generous interpretation - Oldwadge was there, at same time as Carl, for hours advising his client before he had been arrested. Oldwadge had also already represented OP in the Cassidy-Memmory case where no charges were pressed despite an overnight arrest and also saved him from prosecution in the Vaal drunken boat crash.)

Anyway some well-worn narratives, exploited by the defence, "swart gevaar ," - racial fears, police corruption.... and by now on WS I think these are pretty worn out.

principle objectives by the DT-
muddy the waters
create doubt
soften up the judge using Oscar's broken man routine and stumps reveal
re-present a faulty data timeline.....what else?

......a bit of a cul de sac the watch going missing......i think it's fairly safe to say the family know the truth about the shooting....

 

[Tortoise]

......i don't see it like that..... the police already doubted the intruder version .........i think he told someone the real truth before the police arrived, that way Frank was dealt with and the telephone removed....... a sort of cleansing operation......

Truth and Pistorius don't belong in the same sentence. I think it more likely he said something like there's stuff on my phone that's going to make it LOOK LIKE there was trouble between us...it needs to go.

 

[Tortoise]

Listening to the gap which is supposed to be too fast to wield the bat - I think that an athlete such as OP with immense upper body strength would have had no problem hitting the door that fast.

Don't be forgetting his shoulder injury which was so bad he couldn't rest on it.

But no, it sounds good on paper but there wouldn't be time for the swing. It's not strength we're talking about but defying science.

 

[LemonMousse]

Listening to the gap which is supposed to be too fast to wield the bat - I think that an athlete such as OP with immense upper body strength would have had no problem hitting the door that fast.

No.

Some science.

To hit a door with the kind of ferocity needed so that it could be heard by fairly distant neighbours needs a lot of energy.

He would need to swing the bat quite far back and then build energy on the way towards the door. Think baseball players & cricketers.

Tap-tap-tap like Woody Woodpecker would not give him the time to build the energy in order to smack the door so hard it sounded like gunshots.

Again...no cigar.

 

[CriLondon]

Listening to the gap which is supposed to be too fast to wield the bat - I think that an athlete such as OP with immense upper body strength would have had no problem hitting the door that fast.

I think that's open to interpretation. Personally I think it's not probable , or that at least it is too quick , especially in light of wanting to cause damage/break the door.
Also , I think strength and speed of movement ought not to be mixed up.

 

[Tortoise]

Trotterly keeping us on our toes I see :giggle:

 

[LemonMousse]

The most important thing about the bangs...especially the second set...is how loud they were.

Rapid taps from a cricket bat would have no momentum, little transfer of energy and a relatively muted bang.

Gunshots, on the other hand, explode with enormous force and would be heard at much greater distances.

Physics proves that Pistorius is a lying murderer...along with biology and common sense, of course.

(The biology referring to arterial sprays and a non-breathing Reeva)

 

[Tortoise]

The most important thing about the bangs...especially the second set...is how loud they were.

Rapid taps from a cricket bat would have no momentum, little transfer of energy and a relatively muted bang.

Gunshots, on the other hand, explode with enormous force and would be heard at much greater distances.

Physics proves that Pistorius is a lying murderer...along with biology and common sense, of course.

Rapid taps would tend to be in one place too.

 

[LemonMousse]

Rapid taps would tend to be in one place too.

Yes...that's true.

 

[Trotterly]

I think that's open to interpretation. Personally I think it's not probable , or that at least it is too quick , especially in light of wanting to cause damage/break the door.
Also , I think strength and speed of movement ought not to be mixed up.

You don't think wielding a bat quickly requires strength?