Perhaps those who believe the second set of shots killed Reeva (as I do) would like to venture an opinion on what were the first shots? We know, the Defence and Prosecution disagree over the order but whilst the Defence has explained their position, the Prosecution has not.
Those of us who agree the second shots killed Reeva have furnished some opinions but there is no satisfactory answer so far. My opinion is that the four shots have to be correct. Witnesses heard the gap between the first and following three and we know Reeva was hit by three and one entered the toilet cubicle, grazing her back during the ricochet and that her injuries indicate a gap between the first and following shots, giving her time to fall to the ground, yet Masipa seems to throw out all witness statements. We know, on OP's estate, that animals could be heard calling from the Farm Inn enclosure, which is further away from OP's house than the Burger's home. We also know that there were no 2 storey houses between the Burgers and OP at the time of the murder. We therefore know that it was possible that sound could travel that far. There seem to have been no audiometric tests to confirm the range of hearing of any of the witnesses. The tests undertaken a year later were valueless as the plots between the Burgers and Stipps now had 2 storey buildings on them which would had buffered the sounds, though the Stipps did hear something. However, Van der Merwe did hear arguing and there had been no changes to the area between her home and OP's which has to support her argument that she did hear arguing on the night of the murder.
The trouble with this business which I wasted too many of my hours on, is that you inevitably come up against the need to see the phone record exhibits.
We have insight into the security call logs - which we can assume are internally consistent - because they were so heavily discussed. (Exhibit Q?)
The bone of contention is Charl Johnson.
However - as I think Mr Fossil has also noted - Johnson's call times are not based on the same clock. Indeed the implication of the evidence was that Johnson's call time is based only off his own notes - presumably from his iPhone. Nowhere in the evidence does anyone reference any exhibit to support this call time (sloppy IMO) - I would have expected Roux to cross-examine Johnson against the cell phone company records given how crucial this point was to the defence. So I presume no such exhibit exists.
My belief has always been that Pistorius' neighbour's (Nhlegenthwa) were awoken by the only shots sometime before their security call 3:16:36 - and they explicitly did not hear any further shots. IMO this is overwhelming proof that no shots were fired after 3:16:36 and this is explicitly corroborated by Stipp.
When you think about it, in order for Johnson to hear shots after 3.17 - somehow both Nhlegenthwas have to not hear them despite being right next door AND Masipa had to completely invent an explanation for Stipp's evidence.
So the obvious answer is that Johnson timings - based on a different clock - differ somehow - but I cannot resolve this without the info.
But in any event - based on the evidence at the trial which we know about - there is no reason to think the Nhlegenthwas missed any gunshots after 3:16:36 - an illogic that Masipa completely glosses over in her poor "analysis"
What I would have expected Masipa to address is that Stipp, Nhlegenthwas and Johnson cannot all be correct, no matter which version you prefer.
Masipa's idea that everything is fine "because call records" actually begs the question.
She then resorts to altering Stipp's evidence to fit in Johnson while ignoring the fundamental problems this causes with Nhlegenthwas who I 100% believe in.
The much more obvious answer is that Stipp's are the only witness to the whole sequence of events (and with direct line of sight!!). Nhlegenthwas were subsequently awoke by the gunshots (of course they were as they were right next door!) That when awake - Nhlegenthwas did not miss any gunshots (how could they).
Therefore Johnson (further away - and no security call log) is the one we need to be careful of. Especially I don't see how you can use him for timing.
