General Discussion Thread #1 -Bail Hearing

[cityslick]

cityslick you are making assumption that he waited?

Her action are indicative to where women go during an argument or fight. They go the the bathroom for isolation from the aggressor. They feel threaten enough to see protection but not to the level where they need to make a 911 call. They know that that 911 call is the Highest level with the highest level of repercussions to the aggressor.

No one knows her actions. The only thing known is she was in the toilet room. The bullets went through the door and into her Head, elbow and hip and through her hand.

Her mobility is 4 to 6 times faster than his (without his legs). She could be in the toilet room with the door lock before he can make it around the corner.

The ballistic angles through the door prove that the gun was at an elevated
level. The information could refute the events in the affidavit. They should be able to reconstruct the body position in the toilet room based on the trajectory of the bullets.

OP moved the body to inhibit the investigation.

Inobu

So in other words she takes her phone to the bathroom but doesn't take it with her to the toilet. Why? If the argument started before the bathroom and she didn't feel the need to dial 911 why is her phone in the bathroom to begin with? If she did feel threatened enough to get away from him, why not just run out the front door if she supposedly faster than him? As for the ballistic angles, how reliable is that information. It came from a cop who is no longer on the case, not a ballistics expert. Plus the state did not bring that up today when discussing reasons for premeditation. Their reasons was the phones in the bathroom.

Lets make something clear, I don't dismiss the idea there was an argument. I don't dismiss anything and simply because we don't know everything. All we know is the here and now and the here and now says that there is no evidence that refutes his version of events.

 

[cityslick]

Yeah your right, 911 does not exist in the Congo jungle but I should have been more precise.

South Africa is 10177 10111 10111 emergency numbers.

cityslick there is an existing case where the assailant is fighting extradition in the UK. He committed a crime in SA and they cant get him back.

You can try to over look the truth but he called his friend to call the ambulance wasting valuable time don't you think? Why?

Inobu

Flight risk is based on integrity

What exactly does that have to do with 911? My point stands, you have another poster in this thread who actually lives in SA and is telling you that 911 is not very reliable.

 

[Carol70]

::

Ah, thank you for clearing that up!

However, to move from the balcony to the bathroom, he must go past the bed, I think? I still don't understand shouting at Reeva - nor, for that matter, at the intruder. Given that at this point he presumably has no idea whether the intruder is armed, or alone, and also that since the bedroom door is locked and he was on the balcony, so the intruder must have just arrived through the bathroom window, would it not make more sense to arm yourself, wake Reeva, stay quiet and phone police?

I also still personally find it impossible to believe that he didn't know she wasn't in the bed. Either prior to hearing the noise, or upon hearing the noise, and having to walk past the bed to go check it out, he didn't check whether his girlfriend was there? Or incidentally notice she wasn't? Also, if she WAS in there merely using the toilet, then as I said, there are only a few noises he could've heard - a flush, or a door closing. Given that late night trips to the bathroom are fairly common, I honestly feel like if he was someone who upon hearing this sort of noise at night, was so terrified by it so as to not realise it was his girlfriend, and this is the result, then I'm surprised this didn't happen in one of his prior relationships, kwim?

This is all just completely IMO and I'm happy to be proved wrong.

I know, it's very confusing....and I am being prone to being defensive...I so want to believe that it really was a horrible accident.

Anyhow, IMO..I think the noise he heard was either Reeva locking the door or maybe pulling her pants up...she could have been just about to flush when she heard him screaming at intruders to get out the house...and obviously she says and does nothing thinking there really are intruders in the house. He shoots.

 

[weeeva]

Just found this info elsewhere for anyone interested
Taken from our constitution:

The principle is simple: the life of the attacker can only be taken in order to protect your or someone else’s life or to prevent serious bodily harm. It is unlawful to use lethal force in any other circumstances. In other words, your property is not worth the life of the person that is stealing it from you!

The very long legal version
http://www.iss.org.za/pubs/CrimeQ/No.8/duPlessis.htm

I wonder how this will go then. I mean if a person truly believes an intruder is hiding behind a door and MAY be armed, would this be taken into consideration?

 

[gxm]

Actually, he is on the balcony...hears a noise in the bathroom, it's dark, grabs his gun and moves quickly towards the bathroom ( 7m)..screaming at the intruder to get out of his house and at Reeva to call the police, hears movement in the loo and starts to shoot...his legs are off and he only puts them on when it dawns on him that Reeva is not in the bed and may have been in the loo..."shortened version of his statement". Your version of events is wrong so it does sound suspicious.

That still doesn't make sense. When one is sharing a bed with a person, wouldn't the first reaction to the "noise" in the bathroom be to check to see if the person one is sharing a bed with is still in the bed? After all, that would be the most reasonable source for the "noise." I hear my husband rattling around in the bathroom on a regular basis. And I've never jumped to the conclusion that there's an intruder in our room.

Now if OP said that he heard a noise in the bathroom, looked to the bed and saw RS still sleeping, then that would make a more believable intruder story and provide a credible reason to shoot up the toilet. But the notion that one is unaware that the person they are sharing a bed with is not in the bed is rather far-fetched, IMO.

 

[cityslick]

lease:
I know, it's very confusing....and I am being prone to being defensive...I so want to believe that it really was a horrible accident.

Anyhow, IMO..I think the noise he heard was either Reeva locking the door or maybe pulling her pants up...she could have been just about to flush when she heard him screaming at intruders to get out the house...and obviously she says and does nothing thinking there really are intruders in the house. He shoots.

There is nothing so far that makes me not believe this is how it went down. The only part that is questioning to me is him never seeing and acknowledging that she wasn't in the bed. Was she a type of sleeper that slept most under the covers and in the dark of the room combined with the frantic nature of situation he mistook her actually being in the bed?

The thing about this case is it only takes one little piece of evidence to destroy his story.

If she has additional wounds other than bullet wounds - kills his story
If a reliable witness comes forward testifying to hearing an argument - kills his story
If ballistics truly show the bullets entered at a high angle (he needed his legs) - kills his story.

 

[gxm]

::
I know, it's very confusing....and I am being prone to being defensive...I so want to believe that it really was a horrible accident.

Anyhow, IMO..I think the noise he heard was either Reeva locking the door or maybe pulling her pants up...she could have been just about to flush when she heard him screaming at intruders to get out the house...and obviously she says and does nothing thinking there really are intruders in the house. He shoots.

I wanted to believe it was an accident too and I tried to believe his version of events, but they just don't add up.

 

[Carol70]

What exactly does that have to do with 911? My point stands, you have another poster in this thread who actually lives in SA and is telling you that 911 is not very reliable.

Thank you...the point I was trying to make thou is that the state is bringing the 911 calls into reasons for denying bail...the defence will immediately ask who the hell calls 911 anyway...

 

[21merc7]

I'm still very focused on the prosecution's assertion that Reeva was "dressed" when shot in the bathroom. I was hoping for clarification of the type of clothing she was wearing (whether they could be considered sleep clothes) and I didn't hear that exactly, but I thought the rebuttal from the lawyer on this topic was pretty telling. According to live tweets from reporters in the courtroom, it appears Oscar's lawyer said something like "the fact that Reeva had clothes on does not mean she didn't get dressed to go to the toilet to empty her bladder." So the argument was not that she could have been sleeping in these clothes but that she could have put on the clothes at 3:00am to go to the bathroom. Makes me wonder if additional (worn) sleep clothes were found at the scene or whether the shorts are clearly street clothes that one would not sleep in. Hopefully more will be revealed.

Also very interested to hear Reeva's phone records haven't been checked yet. So they don't know if she attempted to place any calls prior to being shot.

Finally, I'm curious to know more about Reeva cancelling whatever plans she had that evening. Oscar's affidavit stated she was to go out with friends but asked him to stay home with her instead. Curious to know what she said to her friends in cancelling their plans.

Add the iPad along with all of the phones. If it really was there and that wasn't another false report. When logged in and out, what was searched, read, or sent.

 

[weeeva]

Just trying to catch up, but these are my first thoughts:

Why did she lock the door to the bathroom? Who does that in a home they are living in?

Why would he shoot through a door without knowing who or what was behind it? Seems very reckless if you are simply afraid of an "intruder."

He believed his girlfriend was in bed asleep, so any noise coming from the bathroom would have to be from someone who shouldn't be there. OP would not know whether the person in the small toilet was armed or not. So it could be a case of kill or be killed. SA is in the top 5 dangerous places to live on earth, so it would be likely that an intruder would be armed.

 

[otyikondo]

If he's been out to the balcony first, as suggested, done the bit with the fan and the sliding doors and so on, and is - we must assume - pretty wide-awake and not "in half-asleep paranoid fear" mode, is there no point at which it might kick in that his bloody dogs haven't made a single peep and so it's kind of unlikely there is an "intruder" who has just climbed in the upstairs window that the dogs were allegedly parked under?

It all works a whole lot better in a state of darkness, interrupted sleep, and blind panic than it does when someone is wide awake and doing some chores on the balcony...

Also the fact that his affadavit makes no mention of his guard dogs made my eyebrows curl a bit...

 

[Inobu]

So in other words she takes her phone to the bathroom but doesn't take it with her to the toilet. Why? If the argument started before the bathroom and she didn't feel the need to dial 911 why is her phone in the bathroom to begin with? If she did feel threatened enough to get away from him, why not just run out the front door if she supposedly faster than him? As for the ballistic angles, how reliable is that information. It came from a cop who is no longer on the case, not a ballistics expert. Plus the state did not bring that up today when discussing reasons for premeditation. Their reasons was the phones in the bathroom.

Lets make something clear, I don't dismiss the idea there was an argument. I don't dismiss anything and simply because we don't know everything. All we know is the here and now and the here and now says that there is no evidence that refutes his version of events.

cityslick you are making partial assumptions without reasoning the information.

There were 2 phone found in the bathroom on the mat in front of the shower.

1 iphone and 1 iphone 4. It is stated that only one had blood splatter on it. It does not state who was the owner of the phone with the blood splatter.

You are assuming that she left the phone in the bathroom. The evidence is indicating that the phone with the splatter was either near or close to her during the impact of the bullet. It stated splatter not smudges on the phone.
If the door was closed and the phone has splatter on it then on can assume that the phone was with her in the toilet room during the shooting.

If fact of the blood splatter and phone helps to identify the phones location at one point. Near the victim during the shooting. It does not state that the shower mat had blood on it so it may be a secondary location as the toilet room is the first.

If the shooting occurred in the toiled room and the phone had blood splatter on it then the phone was with Reeva. The phone had to be placed on the mat by someone.

I don't think you are reading my points thoroughly and will point to a possible reason she did not run for the door.

Her action are indicative to where women go during an argument or fight. They go the the bathroom for isolation from the aggressor. They feel threaten enough to see protection but not to the level where they need to make a 911 call. They know that that 911 call is the Highest level with the highest level of repercussions to the aggressor.

Taking OP affidavit as being the truth has most people thinking in one perspective.

She could have been in the toilet thinking that it was a typical argument not knowing that he was going to get the gun. Sitting there sobbing with phone in hand and then shots fired through the door. The evidence shows she was shot on the right side which matches the direction of the toilet and seat direction.

it is about deception and I think the affidavit is full of it. If you don't dismiss the notion of an argument then why is it not mentioned in the affidavit? Simple answer is it would indicate probable cause.

This hearing is for bail not the actual trial. I think the state may be holding back information which is a good idea. I think they are trying to keep him from fleeing maintaining their ability to prosecute the case.

Inobu

 

[weeeva]

And snuck past him and his sleeping girlfriend to… hide in the toilet? Doubtful, at best.

I don't think an intruder would have had to sneak past the bed with OP and Reeva in it. An intruder could have come in the bathroom window. The small toilet was just a cubicle in the larger bathroom. OP would not rationalise at that time that an intruder would not put the light on. If Reeva was trying to escape from OP it would not matter whether or not the light was on, as he would know where she was anyway.
If the small toilet did have the light on, it would only be visible through the bottom and top of door. The rest of the bathroom and bedroom were pitch dark according to OP. That is if he is telling the truth of course.

 

[Carol70]

Inobu, I actually get what you are saying...I think the states whole case rests on what they find on those phones...if anything..and the iPad. Also, yes, blood splatter on only one phone is very suspicious.

Lol, damn you..I'm on the defence but have no come back or possible explanation for the blood on the phone.

It did occur to me that both phones were possibly in the bathroom because he tried to call with them but maybe realised they were off and just tossed them down. The IO said they hadn't been used that night that's why I suspected they were off..

 

[onthecounter]

Inobu- If she was indeed still breathing when he carried her out of the toilet then these breaths could have created the blood spatter on the phone, although your theory is also possible.

 

[weeeva]

I'd like to know more about Reeva's clothing, as follows:

- What was Reeva wearing when she arrived on 2/13?
- What was Reeva wearing when she practiced yoga?
- Regarding the white shorts and black vest she was reportedly wearing when police arrived, were these street clothes? Could they be considered sleeping clothes?
- Were more traditional sleep clothes found at the residence? If so, had they been worn?
- Aside from the outfit worn on 2/13 and the white shorts and black vest, was an additional unworn outfit for 2/14 found at the residence?

When I first read the affidavit, I was perplexed by the inclusion of the yoga comment, and I'm now wondering if this could be some sort of explanation about the clothing she was wearing when police arrived. Just thinking out loud here. Purely speculating. If she was wearing street clothes when police arrived, that seems significant to me.

All of the above is just my opinion and speculation.

Yes I was wondering about Reeva's clothes. Initial reports said she was in her nightdress. Now it seems she was wearing shorts and vest. Was it outdoor shorts and vest. Why would she be wearing outdoor clothes at 3 in the morning?
Or was it a pyjamas set?

 

[Carol70]

If he's been out to the balcony first, as suggested, done the bit with the fan and the sliding doors and so on, and is - we must assume - pretty wide-awake and not "in half-asleep paranoid fear" mode, is there no point at which it might kick in that his bloody dogs haven't made a single peep and so it's kind of unlikely there is an "intruder" who has just climbed in the upstairs window that the dogs were allegedly parked under?

It all works a whole lot better in a state of darkness, interrupted sleep, and blind panic than it does when someone is wide awake and doing some chores on the balcony...

Also the fact that his affadavit makes no mention of his guard dogs made my eyebrows curl a bit...

Lol, I did post my dog theory last night but its too many pages to go back and look for it.

 

[weeeva]

The problem is that people are trying to see this within the confines of either his story or what they want to believe.

The fact that her bladder was empty means nothing except that she didn't need to pee when she was killed.

The fact that the bathroom door was locked doesn't mean anything except that it was locked.

The fact is, he knew she was there, there was enough ambient light in the room to see if she was in bed before he got up to close the door and the blinds and the curtains and bring the fan in (otherwise what's the point of closing the blinds and curtains if it's not dark enough already?), and yet he still shot through a door four times without getting ANY confirmation that she was in bed or in the bathroom.

The fact is that the best he can hope for is culpable homicide, which is the unlawful negligent killing of another human being, at which rate he'll hopefully be sent to jail for several years if not longer.

The fact is that I personally hope he's convicted of everything he's being charged with and receives the harshest sentence possible, as I personally believe he killed her, and not by accident.

The fact that Reeva's bladder was empty at time of death is relevant as it could mean that Reeva was simply in the toilet to use it for its purpose when she was attacked.
It is possible that OP knew that Reeva was in bed when he got up to go to balcony. Him getting up could have wakened Reeva and she could have easily slipped into toilet without him knowing. I think this is more plausible than the whole rigmarole of him chasing her with a gun and battering down the toilet door with a bat. I admit I want him to be innocent, not because I am a fan of his (I had never heard of him before all this) but I just feel it would be easier for both families if this was the case.

 

[Inobu]

Lol, I did post my dog theory last night but its too many pages to go back and look for it.

There is merit in bringing up the dog which substantiates the tone of the environment.

Dogs are like children and will react like them. If the parents are arguing then some dog will slowly crawl some where out of the way.

If the dog is protective the it will enter the fight.

In either case the dog would be removed either on its own accord or by the owners. direction.

Inobu

 

[Zinn]

I agree that we can't know whether Reeva was in possession of her phone in the bathroom. At least three people (Oscar, brother, lawyer) were reportedly at the scene for some time before the investigator arrived. Additionally, Reeva's phone records have not yet been obtained.

However, if Reeva's phone records show an attempt to call police, I believe the defense can claim she did this as a response to Oscar allegedly shouting at her to call police. In fact, I have wondered if that's why that particular claim was included in the affidavit. Similarly, I have wondered if Oscar's claim of shouting at the supposed intruder to get out of the bathroom could be given as an explanation for potential witness accounts of Oscar yelling at someone to come out of the bathroom (whether he thought it was an intruder or knew it was Reeva). This is all speculation on my part, but it seems it was public knowledge very early on that there were witnesses of some type and Oscar could not have known how close they were and what exactly they heard, so I wonder if that may have played a role in what was included in the affidavit.

On another topic, I recall the affidavit stated part of his panic result from the realization that the bathroom window was open. Looking at the floor plan, it appears you would have to be in the bathroom to see the window was open. So I assume he's claiming he remembered having left it open and therefore brought his gun, rather than going to the bathroom, seeing the open window, doubling back to the bedroom for his gun, then going back to the bathroom, but I'm not sure.

All of the above is just my opinion.