Trial Discussion Thread #12 - 14.03.24, Day 14

[Deleted member 102539]

That text is making me wonder about Darren - maybe he and Reeva were close? Two texts seem to refer to him.

As far as I know, Darren is the bf/fiance of Reeva's model-girlfriend SG. Reeva knew D longer than she knew OP.

 

[zwiebel]

I am totally right about men and curtains, by the way. At least, no-one has contradicted me yet.

 

[Gbtaketwo]

Kept reading and answered my own question, LOL:
8:57 am
Oldwadge (we've just been told this spelling is correct) now asking Ms Stipp about the sound test carried out on 21st Feb this year.
She said she couldn't distinguish between male and female voices then.
She also says though, the sounds were not as "clear" as the night of Reeva's shooting in 2013.

The discrepancies could be down to weather conditions on the night being different and that I think there has been 2 more houses built between their house and OP's

 

[G.bng]

I have read many cases in the UK where people have been killed by someone in a fit of rage and end up being convicted of manslaughter not murder .My own personal belief is that killing in anger should be still be murder .
We see miscarriage 's of justice everyday ,some people treated too harshly and some too leniently .i guess that will always be the case . No system can ever be perfect I suppose

Not exactly true. It depends on whether the accused has a valid mitigating plea of "provocation" (few things are allowed as "provocation") which if accepted will reduce a murder charge to "voluntary manslaughter", (more serious than "involuntary manslaughter"), as well as to whether it is proved that the accused had "intention" to kill, if not, killing just because of a rage is plain and simple murder in the UK.

In the US according to Wikipedia:

"the Model Penal Code substitutes the broader standard of extreme emotional or mental distress for the comparatively narrower standard of provocation." Criminal law in the United States, however, falls mostly within the jurisdiction of the individual states, and not all states have adopted the Model Penal Code.

so it would appear it's basically the same except that those states that haven't adopted the Model Penal Code have an even broader range to claim mitigation to reduce a murder charge to a lesser one than the narrower range under "provocation".

 

[Gbtaketwo]

We need OP threatening to kill someone. That might seal it.

Not sure that would be enough .
They need a motive or a threat to kill Reeva.

 

[kittychi]

Before people go off the deep claiming OP has abused and controlled Reeva, we have yet to see something substantial. From a guy's point of view I think some of the women on here would find it deeply offensive if a woman had sent a couple of text messages of a similar ilk, and I started labeling them before anything had been proven.

As I mentioned earlier, I've had more severe messages from my girlfriend on the occasion we've fell out - and she's certainly not controlling or abusive.

BBM: I submit it is not the messages per se, but that the messages were her expression of disappointment with his behavior toward her.

Does this sound like a loving relationship? I hope yours is not like this!

1. "You have picked on me incessantly," she wrote, calling Pistorius "nasty" after he apparently accused her of flirting with someone at a party. - Criticism, Control
2. "I'm scared of you sometimes, of how you snap at me" - Evoking fear
3. "You have picked on me incessantly" - Criticism, Control
4. "You do everything to throw tantrums" - Attention grabbing, Demanding
5. "I didn't think you would criticize me for doing that, especially so loudly that others could hear..I regard myself as a lady and I didn't feel like one after we left." - Humiliation

Those words in blue indicate abuse in a relationship.

.

 

[steveml]

Ask yourself why Reeva had to put her feelings in messages and not face to face?.


"I'm scared of you sometimes, of how you snap at me,"

Defense will simply explain that away. They were both celebrities. They didn't live together, and if you look at most celebrity couples they spend little time together. A message can also be more personal for busy people. Remember how people used to send letters to their loved ones to explain feelings. Some people prefer to put their feelings down in words.

...next...

 

[zwiebel]

OK, fair point. However, Reeva specifically mentioned he's had loads of girlfriends, surely he must have come across potential jealousy issues many many times before. Why Reeva? Why none of all his other girlfriends?

The reply can't just be 'she was the unlucky one'. What's the motive?

I think Sam showed us why. He fired a gun, almost deafened her in the car and sent her into shock. She said nothing. She was very young.

He drove at speed with the older Reeva, who straight away called mom. Made his misbehaviour known, and made him accountable.

Her texts also demonstrate her calling him to account for other behaviours. When police did that to him ( and remember they are armed themselves) he started shooting in response.

If Reeva called OP 'to account' that night in his house, there are previous indications firing off a weapon might be his first response.

 

[steveml]

BBM: I submit it is not the messages per se, but that the messages were her expression of disappointment with his behavior toward her.

Does this sound like a loving relationship? I hope yours is not like this!

1. "You have picked on me incessantly," she wrote, calling Pistorius "nasty" after he apparently accused her of flirting with someone at a party. - Criticism, Control
2. "I'm scared of you sometimes, of how you snap at me" - Evoking fear
3. "You have picked on me incessantly" - Criticism, Control
4. "You do everything to throw tantrums" - Attention grabbing, Demanding
5. "I didn't think you would criticize me for doing that, especially so loudly that others could hear.... I regard myself as a lady and I didn't feel like one after we left." - Humiliation

Similar messages. No problems. Please don't be personal.

 

[james83]

OK, fair point. However, Reeva specifically mentioned he's had loads of girlfriends, surely he must have come across potential jealousy issues many many times before. Why Reeva? Why none of all his other girlfriends?

The reply can't just be 'she was the unlucky one'. What's the motive?

What's to say he hasn't had jealousy issue's in the past?.
Maybe because his other girlfriends were very young and probably very inexperianced and were probably happy to abide to his every jealous wish.
Motive may become clear very soon, we shall see.

 

[Really?]

Can anyone remember the text where OP is asking her not to tell anyone because 'Darren has taken the blame', and Reeva texts back she doesn't 'know what you are talking about', and a smiley?

How did Reeva find out about that - she wasn't there in the restaurant that day of the shooting. Had OP told her earlier, and was regretting it? Or had he heard that someone else had told her about it? It's all a bit odd.

I'm pages back (again)......That was odd....He meant to send it to Sam I think.

moo

 

[kittychi]

Similar messages. No problems. Please don't be personal.

Sorry, I didn't intend to be personal.

I don't see his behavior with her as isolated. In context, it is who he is...didn't take responsibility for shooting the gun at the restaurant, wildly shooting a gun in a car and in a rage at police.

IMO In the end, he does not want to take responsibility for his rage at Reeva, for whatever reason.

 

[zwiebel]

BBM: I submit it is not the messages per se, but that the messages were her expression of disappointment with his behavior toward her.

Does this sound like a loving relationship? I hope yours is not like this!

1. "You have picked on me incessantly," she wrote, calling Pistorius "nasty" after he apparently accused her of flirting with someone at a party. - Criticism, Control
2. "I'm scared of you sometimes, of how you snap at me" - Evoking fear
3. "You have picked on me incessantly" - Criticism, Control
4. "You do everything to throw tantrums" - Attention grabbing, Demanding
5. "I didn't think you would criticize me for doing that, especially so loudly that others could hear..I regard myself as a lady and I didn't feel like one after we left." - Humiliation

Those words in blue indicate abuse in a relationship.

.

Don't forget he mentioned going to talk to her while she spoke to the photographer, then standing behind her, waiting and spying, seeing her 'touch his arm' and taking that as a direct rebuff of him, Oscar Pistorius......

This was a public event, where OP was supposed to be meeting the fans who 'hassled' him. Instead, he's standing there spying on his girlfriend talking to a photographer??

 

[Gbtaketwo]

I am uncomfortable hearing people's private message read out at all.

I see a grubby little man reading a (dead) woman's private "diary" and another grubby man egging him on and salivating over it.

I accept that phone calls and messages might contain items of specific evidence. There are time when the evidential value overrides privacy... maybe there will be some of that here. But reading out these private conversations just to make a general point about the relationship being not always loving is pushing it. Especially in the light of the Dude conceding that most ("90%") of messages ARE in fact loving and so the messages as a whole support OP's contention that it was a loving relationship. This feels nasty and grubby... intrusion. Unless there are specific details revealed I give it no weight as evidence.

I am mainly just waiting to hear whether any messages were deleted after Reeva's death
And of course any messages sent or received on the evening that she was shot .

 

[soozieqtips]

I am uncomfortable hearing people's private message read out at all.

I see a grubby little man reading a (dead) woman's private "diary" and another grubby man egging him on and salivating over it.

I accept that phone calls and messages might contain items of specific evidence. There are time when the evidential value overrides privacy... maybe there will be some of that here. But reading out these private conversations just to make a general point about the relationship being not always loving is pushing it. Especially in the light of the Dude conceding that most ("90%") of messages ARE in fact loving and so the messages as a whole support OP's contention that it was a loving relationship. This feels nasty and grubby... intrusion. Unless there are specific details revealed I give it no weight as evidence.

If he abused and chastised her for 10% of the relationship (based on his tone of his texts), then no, it wasn't a loving relationship, and no, it doesn't support his contention that it was a loving relationship. Pretty sure more damning stuff will emerge tomorrow. No wonder he 'forgot' his password. How convenient.

 

[james83]

interesting to look back at these comments from Maddie sims published 20th feb 2013

Now, Reeva’s friend, Maddie Sims, is opening up to People magazine, explaining that — while Oscar definitely loved Reeva — he was insanely jealous.

“A man was staring at her” one night when the couple was out with friends, Maddie said. “Oscar stared him down with a very angry look on his face.”

He also was “very focused, very intense,” and “very assertive,” according to Maddie. He would get angry with laid-back Reeva if she was late to meet him, if she asked a waiter at a restaurant too many questions or whenever she wore her hair in a ponytail or dressed too casually in his mind.

“Many things that made Oscar a great athlete made him difficult to live with,” Maddie told the mag.

http://hollywoodlife.com/2013/02/20/reeva-steenkamp-oscar-pistorius-relationship-abuse/

 

[lisasalinger]

At the end of the day, we can pick apart every single word or every possible intent of those text messages to come up with doubt, but we cannot dispute...

The totality of the evidence.

The fact remains, this woman is now dead. By the hands of her boyfriend. Who admits doing it.

The defense is going to need a h#ll of a lot more than nit-picking the witnesses to death over mundane details to convince me that the entire neighborhood is delusional and didn't hear or see what they testified.

 

[zwiebel]

I'm pages back (again)......That was odd....He meant to send it to Sam I think.

moo

Well, that would be very interesting! It makes sense too.

 

[soozieqtips]

Before people go off the deep claiming OP has abused and controlled Reeva, we have yet to see something substantial. From a guy's point of view I think some of the women on here would find it deeply offensive if a woman had sent a couple of text messages of a similar ilk, and I started labeling them before anything had been proven.

As I mentioned earlier, I've had more severe messages from my girlfriend on the occasion we've fell out - and she's certainly not controlling or abusive.

But as you pointed out, we shouldn't be trying to alter other people's opinions? Some of us believe that OP was an abusive control freak, and it's fine for us to believe that based on what we've heard so far - just as it's fine for others to believe the texts merely showed someone moody.

 

[Viper]

We need OP threatening to kill someone. That might seal it.

:goodpost: :floorlaugh: