Trial Discussion Thread #16

[MeeBee]

Shooting four black talons into a small toilet stall was just to scare somebody?

Seriously?

Unfortunately (?) Reeva collapsed?

Do you really believe this or were you being sarcastic? It's hard to tell the intent sometimes on a forum.

You're not understanding what I'm saying.

 

[G.bng]

With regard to OP telling Baba "everything is fine"......
IMO this was likely said to stop any calls to the Media until he had sought help from his advisers of how to handle what had happened. I think this was hinted at with what Stander had said.
I do think whether guilty or not OP has shown several times his first thoughts are usually of himself.
Having said all that, Baba has already made the error with regard to calls on the stand so maybe the Judge won't give this as much credence as she would had that not happened.

With regards to the arterial spurts, it shows that despite the evidence from Saayman, Van Der Nest and Magana and Stipp there is uncertainty around exact time of death and the arterial spurts. Yet all are State witnesses and experts.

I don't think Baba's error of whether he made the first call or OP is not comparable to what he heard OP say. I have even thought that as has happened to me many a time, i.e. he did call OP but OP called him at the same time and OP's connected making him think his had connected.

 

[steveml]

I was just trying to understand the point you were trying to make.

Yes, it's a difficult shot.

But hitting target three times in the dark, with no visual target, and no sound to track, makes it an event more difficult.

Seeing Reeva through a broken panel, and hearing the sound of her voice, makes it a much less difficult target.

Don't you agree?

I'd like to. :smile: but...

Being able to see through the panel would make it more difficult. I know you're going to think it strange but it's not. I'll explain...

To see Reeva you've got to be quite close to the panel. As soon as you get close to the panel you cannot hold the gun in front of you, there's no room. You can't be right up to the door as the gun wasn't fired from against the door. This means that your eyes are looking through the panel, and your arm cannot naturally follow your line of sight. You literally have to shoot one-handed with your arm bent more or less from your hip, and pulled backwards (your arm needs to be as far back from the door as the minimum distance specified by the expert witness).

The easiest example I can give you is shooting pool. To get the ball in the pocket you look down the cue and line everything up (even then you may still miss). Now, try to pot that same ball with the pool cue stuck out at the side of you rather than directly in front of you. Your eyes can look straight at the pocket (OP looking at Reeva's head), the cue is out to the side (OP's gun) and your hoping to hit the ball in the pocket (bullet to target). The shot becomes much more difficult. Remember, this is a bullet, not a pool ball.

The far more accurate way to fire a gun is to stand further back from the door, put both hands in front of you, look along the sight at where you want to fire, and shoot. This is exactly how you learn to shoot on a shooting range. You hardly ever see anyone shoot one-handed, and certainly nobody does it for accuracy.

This is why I'm convinced that OP was a few feet back from the door when he fired. He put his arms out front and fired four quick shots through the door. No specific target, just at the most likely area someone would be.

 

[MeeBee]

You don't shoot four Black Talon 9 mm bullets at someone to scare them IMO. These bullets are designed to inflict maximum tissue damage. The ME Saayman said the wounds to RS's hip and arm each, alone, might have killed her because of the massive bleeding.

How about this instead: If you want to scare someone in the toilet, you fire once at the ceiling, and then yell at them to stay inside the toilet until the police arrive or you'll shoot to kill.

Ok, scare, maim, injure, warning shot to legs, etc etc. the point I was making was that if he was shooting to kill, the person, the most logical thing to do would be to to aim higher where the head would be. I don't see the reason to aim low if you're trying to kill.

 

[nastasya]

I'm sure he will get a long sentence.

That aside, there is such a huge difference between killing your girlfriend without realizing she was there, and stalking and terrorizing your girlfriend before killing her.

Not to the girlfriend and her family.

 

[jay-jay]

When do you think the toilet was flushed, and who do you think flushed it?

Thanks for asking this question .. this is something I am interested to know, too.

 

[Carol70]

I do not believe the state will try to argue that at all. They have not made a mistake. It is the defence who is trying to suggest that Reeva was shot earlier than 3.17 despite the witness testimony and the blood spatters suggesting that there was still blood spurting when she was carried downstairs.

I was making the point that the defence will need to explain how Reeva could have been shot at just after 3am in the devastating fashion she was shot and still manage to produce aortic spurts of blood when she was being carried downstairs nearly 20 minutes later when Baba arrived at the house.

Well, it certainly helps the defenses case when the states witnesses were ADAMENT they heard 4 gunshots,and the Burgers testified they know what gunshots sound like, at just past 3am(as did most other witnesses).

 

[nastasya]

I'm sure he will get a long sentence.

If the court gets it wrong then he has a triple punishment. Serving many years in prison, having to live with the the fact that he killed his girlfriend, and being labelled as a man who terrorized his girlfriend.

Having to live with knowing he killed his girlfriend isn't a punishment. Neither is being labeled by others a douche bag.

Those are consequences of his own actions.

 

[james83]

IMO, that the trajectory was low down shows me, just MO, that OP was trying to shoot to scare rather than kill. If he were you'd more expect the aim to be higher, to have a better chance of hitting something useful as opposed to the legs. Unfortunately, Reeva collapsed.

So he fired 4 times expecting the person in the toilet to stay on there feet and take all 4 bullets to scare them?.

 

[jay-jay]

Tell me I'm behind ! I just can't keep up. Maybe I should just desist and just follow the trial or I'll keep having to say sorry all the time. Sorry.

I'm doing the same thing, LOL! :scared::takeoff:

 

[Viper]

Not if a piece of the upper panel was broken out before the fatal shots.

The claim that it was a difficult target, and yet OP had a 75% hit rate therefore means it was random, un-targeted shooting makes no sense.

Hi Natasya! I just wanted to point out that each shot is an attempt to hit his target, so yes he had a 75% success rate with his shots at Reeva IF he was firing wildly at any random point on the door; but IF you believe he was targeting Reeva by her voice, and I do, then he had three (3) 100% accurate shots and one miss.

 

[steveml]

Not to the girlfriend and her family.

You're seriously not suggesting that it won't make a huge difference for Reeva's family to know that Reeva died without being stalked and terrorized?

It's not often I'm lost for words.

 

[nastasya]

This was one of the things that I could never understand about Oscars story.
If he was as terrified and in fear of his life when he fired the first shot why didn't he empty the gun into the door?

The screaming stopped?

 

[Cherwell]

Ok, scare, maim, injure, warning shot to legs, etc etc. the point I was making was that if he was shooting to kill, the person, the most logical thing to do would be to to aim higher where the head would be. I don't see the reason to aim low if you're trying to kill.

What if he thought the person was seated?

 

[G.bng]

Have the defence actually said Reeva was shot at 3am?

Yes, except iirc they dispute Mrs Stipp's timing and say it was more like 3:08 or so.

 

[steveml]

Hi Natasya! I just wanted to point out that each shot is an attempt to hit his target, so yes he had a 75% success rate with his shots at Reeva IF he was firing wildly at any random point on the door; but IF you believe he was targeting Reeva by her voice, and I do, then he had three (3) 100% accurate shots and one miss.

When has anybody targeted by voice? Show me incidents where killers hit parts of the body by targeting voice. Or is this something new that's never before happened?

This is real life not The Matrix.

 

[Trotterly]

The screaming stopped?

Hmmmm.

 

[Val1]

Those arterial spurts where over by the couch downstairs. At first it was thought that he may have injured here downstairs (i.e. fight happening in other areas of the house) but that was ruled out because the blood by the couch was an arterial spurt pattern.

The heart can beat after breathing stops or a head wound.

People can be resuscitated through CPR, but not after they bleed to death.

I don't think walking down the stairs can mimic the beating of someone's heart.

I also think it is hard to believe that her heart was still beating downstairs and would love to ask the pathologist or blood spatter experts these questions.

Imagine for a minute, OP carrying a bloody, dripping RS(how close in weight and size were they?) down tiled steps without being able to feel where you're touching the ground(prosthetics on) and iirc the testimony was that her mangled arm was swinging loose and you have adrenaline pumping through your body as you round the corner halfway down the steps(hurrying to get her in a car)... even with the blood just draining out of her, down her arm, off her hair, her leg and probably her blood soaked toes bouncing with the movement, sure you can see how splatter could end up in the lounge seeing as it's an open staircase overlooking it?

 

[steveml]

One of the experts had said, I think it was Mangena, that the space was so small that it would be very difficult to avoid being shot in there if you were being fired at. He made it sound like it'd have been futile. I don't think it would have taken a great deal of skill or required the ability to see the person with such a small space. It would not have been difficult for OP to hit his target, even firing blindly.

That's my point MeeBee. There's a good likelihood of someone being hit, but being selective about the parts where they're hit is almost non-existent.

...on planet earth.

 

[DebinGA]

Ok, scare, maim, injure, warning shot to legs, etc etc. the point I was making was that if he was shooting to kill, the person, the most logical thing to do would be to to aim higher where the head would be. I don't see the reason to aim low if you're trying to kill.

FWIW, OP is only 5'2" on his stumps. He was already low.