I don't have any experience of DV but I do have plenty of experience of the stresses that can build up in a relationship!
But I don't understand what could have driven OP to such extreme lengths with such a new relationship. In your example with co-habiting and child involved the opportunity for stress building up is much greater. OP could have walked away at any time. Further OP had no record of violence against persons. Of course it could have just been a personality clash, Reeva being more assertive than his other girlfriends. But the evidence for a prelude to murder is very weak. Of course it could fit into your pattern and OP started off on the record with a murder. I think it more likely that there would be some other rough stuff before that. What fits better is that out of nowhere he just completely lost it on the night. But as has been pointed out before this is unusual where alcohol or drugs are not involved. Not impossible, just unusual.
OP has given the impression that the relationship was very serious and that he was thinking about marriage etc. Again it is difficult to think of a way in which this situation could have caused him to feel that murder was the only way out.
We will never know what was going on in his head and can only speculate on the inconclusive evidence. Taking the holistic/mosaic approach and considering only evidence which has passed the test I cannot allow the relationship/DV evidence to feature in my deliberations.
Hello everyone, I have not posted in ages but glad to see the renewed discussion and hope you don't mind me jumping in here.
Trotterly, although I am not sure what meets your test as evidence, we do know from Reeva's text messages that Oscar had received some devastatingly bad news that day for which she was trying to console him-- even suggesting that he might need to spend the evening in the company of Carl and Amy to help him sort it out (or maybe she just dreaded dealing with him in person.) Reeva indicated it was something very unfair to have happened to such a nice person as Oscar and she further tried to assuage his feelings with the notion that he had plenty of time and potential to recover from this setback.
For the life of me, I do not know why we have not learned the nature of this bad news he received that day, but to my knowledge no one has brought it to light. But it was obviously some kind of serious setback for Oscar-- some have speculated it was related to the personal injury/assault lawsuit the young woman filed for slamming her leg in the door at a party at his house. Or a sponsor dropping him.
We also now know that he was on the phone with his ex-girlfriend, Jenna Edkins (aka "Babyshoes") for some 9 minutes (considered an exceptionally long phone call for Oscar) when he arrived home the evening he killed Reeva.
We are also told that while Reeva was downstairs preparing supper for the two of them, he went upstairs to shower (or was it bathe?) during which time he viewed some
on one of the iPads.
And yes, they spent the evening before Valentine's Day doing yoga and looking at cars online, happily in love, but not having any sex that night. Go figure.
You may consider it speculation, but I think you (and others) have too easily dismissed any clues to the underlying tension that Oscar arrived home with that evening and which easily could have escalated into a situation where Oscar snapped. It is not hard to imagine that Reeva might have discovered the 9 minute call to Jenna and asked Oscar about it, triggering hostilities between them.
I also realize this call to Jenna Edkins was not made public until after the verdict, but I don't see how anyone can continue to say that the conditions did not exist for domestic violence that night. Oscar had been to an office party earlier that afternoon, where presumably alcohol was served (although we do not know if he drank at this party and we will also never know if he consumed alcohol later that evening as the samples and/or results of his toxicology report were "lost.") With or without being under the influence of alcohol, however, Oscar always had a hair trigger temper and was capable of unleashing violent and uncontrollable rages when things did not go his way (thinking of several reported mega-tantrums behind the scenes at sporting events.) If Reeva pushed even one of his buttons that evening while he was trying to control any internal rage over this "bad news" then it is easy to imagine the situation escalating to DV.
