Trial Discussion Thread #14 - 14.03.28, Day 16

[nastasya]

Just wondering, how long did your blindness last?

OP claims after coming in with two fans which he apparently was able to place without incident, close the sliding doors, blinds and curtains, then was able to make his way to the other side of the bed to get his gun from under the bed that RS was supposedly sleeping in though he later says he'd just spoken to her moments before(apparently all done as quietly and invisibly as a ninja as it didn't even make RS question what he was doing which should have made him question why she didn't), then proceeded down the passageway to the bathroom when he saw the window was indeed open and somehow equated that to mean he had someone hellbent on killing him and RS hidden in the toilet room ... and then decided that he would loudly warn this someone to get out of his house and for RS to call the police ... seconds before he opened fire on the closed door until he could no longer hear anything but still felt the need to yell once more at RS to call the police before he went to check on her....

I'd laugh if it hadn't killed someone.

My blindness lasted about 10 seconds until I gradually was able to see that my spouse was in bed. But even then it was weird. There was little depth perception. I.e., I couldn't tell there was a body under the covers. I could only see my spouse's head.

I was very surprised by this experience. It made me realize more than anything how OP's entire defense is one of abject stupidity. He can't have it both ways. It's not that he just didn't notice Reeva in the bed. He couldn't notice her because of the pitch blackness.

In other words, he would know that he couldn't know if she was in bed or not. If you take him at his word, OP must get a gold medal for stupidity. Shooting a person in his toilet stall four times before it "dawned" on him that person could be the woman who was in his bed is not reasonable.

If it were reasonable we'd hear about husbands shooting their wives every night.

 

[minor4th]

No its's not "sleazy", "trashy" a site, just because they published a writer who wishes to put on the record that Oscar Pistorius, or his representatives, actively tried to suppress a more critical science perspective.

It's highly likely that most stories for the many years of Pistorius less attractive actions have been been self-censored or opportunistically ignored by publishers because of backlash from Pistorius legal or press team.

I think it's going to be interesting what comes out now.

The opportunistic way they went about publishing a three year old comment from Oscar is totally sleazy and trashy IMO

 

[minor4th]

I really do get we're you're coming from. It's a good point about reasonable doubt.

Can only speak for my own thoughts, but I'm not necessarily looking for a smoking gun. I'm just looking for their summation. I think what is throwing me off a bit here is that there were no opening statements... at least not in the sense that we are used to in the US. So right there, we don't have a basis for what each side is trying to build. We just have to figure it out as we go along.

Read those documents I posted upthread ^ They lay out clearly what the state's case and what their theory is and why. We do know exactly what the state's theory is and what they're trying to build.

 

[nastasya]

Maybe she was actually on the right side of the bed.

She placed her overnight bag on the little sofa thing and her sandals next to it - that seems totally logical irrespective of which side of the bed she slept on.

It's not going to make a lot of sense if you start with the belief that everything in OPs statement is a lie and then try to figure out the exact purpose of the lie. To consider all of the evidence together, you can't exclude the possibility that Oscar's statements are true.

It's not a matter of starting with the belief that everything the killer said is a lie.

It's that so many things the killer claims make zero sense.

Imagine Reeva didn't sleep over, or that the killer was sleeping in a single bed.

What difference would it make whether or not his shoulder was injured in terms of where he slept? How he slept, yes. He might sleep on the shoulder that wasn't injured.

But where he slept? That makes no logical sense whatsoever.

Except.... rather than claim he was spooning with Reeva, at which point it would be obvious she left the bed, he claims he moved sides of the bed so he would NOT be facing her while he slept. I.e., the shoulder injury would cause him to sleep on his right shoulder. If he was on the right side of the bed he'd be facing Reeva. If he slept on his right shoulder on the left side of the bed, he'd be facing away from Reeva in bed.

The fact that he's even bringing this up seems to show how desperate the killer is to make some sort of case that it was reasonable to grab a gun and shoot his bed mate four times after she got up to go pee.

 

[minor4th]

Hmm...re-reading the Stipps' evidence again and it's very damaging to the defense. The screams they heard lasted for nearly 20 minutes, almost without interruption. I find it hard to believe Pistorius would've been making such a racket for such a long period of time if he'd just discovered the body of Steenkamp in the toilet.

To the contrary, the Stipps' evidence is very beneficial to the defense because both Stipps heard the gunshots at 3:00 -3:10 ish and they also heard the cricket bat hitting the door at 3:17 like all the other witnesses.

 

[Val1]

I can't quote your red comments, but to address a couple - yes, we can say for sure that Oscar did call security and an ambulance almost immediately after he got the door open.

It's really not possible that the messages are going to show that Reeva was distressed that night or that they were having a big fight. We have indeed seen all of the data for when Reeva's and Oscar's phones were used that night - when messages were sent, when voice calls were made and received and when internet was accessed. There was no activity from the phones during the time period of the shooting.

We're left with whether or not a woman was screaming before 3:17, which presupposes that it was the gunshots heard at 3:17 with no explanation for the earlier gunshots heard by Dr and Mrs Stipp. In my mind, it has been well enough shown that the gunshots happened at 3-3:10, then the neighbors heard Oscar screaming, yelling, crying, and at 3:17 the sounds heard was the cricket bat breaking the door.

I know everyone keeps coming up with speculative ideas about how the earlier sounds were not the gunshots - but that's completely ignoring the evidence that the Stipps heard the gunshots before the screaming. I do not think it is reasonable to believe that the gunshots heard at 3:10 were anything other than gunshots.

I'm still holding out hope that that 11 hrs that her phone was connected was to some kind of recording device.

 

[minor4th]

Well, now that I seemed to have monopolized the forum and cleared the room ....

 

[minor4th]

I'm still holding out hope that that 11 hrs that her phone was connected was to some kind of recording device.

And if it's not?

 

[foxbluff]

My comment had nothing to do with the content of the article, and I actually believe that Oscar should probably not be allowed to compete on blades with able-bodied athletes.

My comment was about the sleazy publication that just takes this opportunity, three years later, to publish a comment from Oscar because they think it makes him look bad.

bbm - as do I.

 

[nastasya]

There was no activity from the phones during the time period of the shooting.

You are wrong.

The evidence presented shows that Reeva's phone access the internet continuously all night long, probably due to WhatsApp being connected.

The evidence also was presented that the killer's phone accessed the internet between 1:48 AM and 1:53 AM. Coincidentally, Van der Merwe, who lives across the street from the killer's home, testified to hearing an argument between a man and a woman starting at 1:56 AM.

So not only is it false that either Reeva's or the killer's phone did not access the internet, it was presented into evidence that both of their phones accessed the internet during the course of the night.

 

[Viper]

To the contrary, the Stipps' evidence is very beneficial to the defense because both Stipps heard the gunshots at 3:00 -3:10 ish and they also heard the cricket bat hitting the door at 3:17 like all the other witnesses.

My comment said nothing about bat or gun sounds, quote: "The screams they heard lasted for nearly 20 minutes, almost without interruption..."

So it is funny that you would reply to that by adding your opinion that there were definitely gunshots at 3:00 and definitely bat strikes at 3:17.

The screaming did not stop until 3:17. The screaming stopped when Reeva died. The gunshots were at 3:17. Unless of course one believes that Oscar had a good long almost 20 minute screaming session with himself before he finally stopped to call anyone on the phone. :facepalm:

 

[Really?]

so...........

 

[Gavel Rash]

Dark my arse Oscar! February 14th was a full moon! Bright as! Liar liar pants on fire......

 

[Really?]

so...........easy mackeezees

illowfight2:

:chillout:

 

[MeeBee]

My comment said nothing about bat or gun sounds, quote: "The screams they heard lasted for nearly 20 minutes, almost without interruption..."

So it is funny that you would reply to that by adding your opinion that there were definitely gunshots at 3:00 and definitely bat strikes at 3:17.

The screaming did not stop until 3:17. The screaming stopped when Reeva died. The gunshots were at 3:17. Unless of course one believes that Oscar had a good long almost 20 minute screaming session with himself before he finally stopped to call anyone on the phone. :facepalm:

That's a bit of an embellishment. How do you figure the screams continued without interruption for 20 minutes?

 

[kittychi]

Hmm...re-reading the Stipps' evidence again and it's very damaging to the defense. The screams they heard lasted for nearly 20 minutes, almost without interruption. I find it hard to believe Pistorius would've been making such a racket for such a long period of time if he'd just discovered the body of Steenkamp in the toilet.

Right. In his affidavit, Oscar "screamed" two times...once to Reeva to call police and once outside on the balcony. That hardly sounds like 20 minutes of blood-curdling, terrified screaming. Seems he would have mentioned the screaming more prominently in the affi if that were the case.

In a different thread Estelle had mentioned the use of the word "screamed" in the affi. OP & Co. knew neighbors heard screams because OP's lawyer called them. So he and his lawyers carefully crafted and tailored the affi by incorporating the word "screamed" within the affi

IMO, Estelle nailed it.

 

[Gavel Rash]

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=269&month=2&year=2014&obj=moon&afl=-11&day=1

So my new theory is Oscar thought a werewolf had invaded his house and was about to chew his way through the door of the toilet, hence his need to first,y terrorise the demon with his handy cricket bat, then unload a volley of black talons at the threat about to turn him and his precious girl into werewolves forever more. :floorlaugh:

 

[Val1]

If I am imagine someone sobbing there heart out, I can see how someone could find it hard to identify the sex of the person if they cant see them.
Screaming however is a different matter, a mans scream has a roar to it, a female scream is an piercing high sound that a man just cat make.

Add to that that women tend to hear higher frequency sounds better than men. ie. a woman's scream compared to a man's scream.

http://www.mcrcad.org/2010-Sax-hearing.pdf

Corso (1959) was among the first to report that females have superior auditory acuity (i.e. lower thresholds) compared with same age males, particularly for test frequencies above 2 kHz. The same general finding - adult females having more sensitive hearing at high frequencies, compared with same-age males - has been replicated in other studies of adults(e.g. Chung, Mason, Gannon, and Willson, 1983; Royster, Royster, and Thomas, 1980), including studies with Caucasian, African American, and Asian adults (Dreisbach and colleagues, 2007; Shahnaz, 2008).

 

[nastasya]

All of these doubts that people are experiencing, wondering where is the smoking gun we're waiting for - that doubt exists because the state's evidence is not compelling enough and you want more. That, my friends, is reasonable doubt.

Interesting choice of words to support a nonsensical legal theory and your presumption that people have doubts. Few have doubts about the relevant testimony.

• The smoking gun was fired by the admitted killer four times, with three shots hitting the victim.
  
• Five witnesses testified to hearing a woman screaming and/or arguing immediately before hearing gunshots, then silence.
  
• The killer claims he couldn't have known it was the victim he was trying to kill. The testimony of five witnesses says the opposite.
  
• Baba testified that he called the killer because gunshots were reported to him, and the killer told him everything was fine, while Reeva was bleeding out in the bathroom.

Dead body. Admitted killer. 5 witnesses who testified affirming case for premeditation. 1 witness testified affirming killer's attempt to make sure security did not show up.

This case is not complicated. Parroting unsubstantiated defense claims as if they're facts does not make them true.

 

[Really?]

Good night all......what the heck will we talk about tomorrow.....?