General Discussion Thread #2

[Mrs G Norris]

I think he will get out of this via corrupt system and high powered defense lawyers. Still think it was a heat of passion crime, but his status will save him.

 

[otyikondo]

It's already been mentioned how it seems odd that, according to OP's account, he goes from being incredibly fearful and on high alert to just dropping his gun and stumbling back to the bedroom.

According to his statement it only occurs to him that it might have been Reeva in the bathroom when he reaches the bed.

So before this point and after the shooting I would have expected him to still be on high alert, closing the bathroom window, holding his gun and not letting go of it until he gets to the bedroom.

But according to his statement he drops his gun, leaves the bathroom window open and goes back to the bedroom, with his back to this entry point (open window), with the light off.

Yes, this point has been intelligently addressed in the earlier incarnation of the thread by emmavoberry here:

http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8907897&postcount=1344


I'd also add that contrary to some recent claims - for instance by Chewy - to the effect that this was all happening very abruptly and half-asleep...

The other detail that people seem to be completely dismissing is that this happened when he had woken up from sleep. Some people wake up bright eyed and bushy tailed, others are groggy and not clear in their mind so I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

...it appears that OP was in fact pretty wide awake, as he had just been outside, and had lifted the fan from the balcony inside and closed the sliding doors (not something he could do on autopilot, I imagine, legs or no legs), and so it is not logical to attribute his precipitate actions to "being dazed and confused".

 

[whiterum]

Going with OP's story, the noises that he heard that might have startled him could only have been a few things: Toilet door closing, key turning in the lock, flipping down toilet seat, usage, flush.

But seeing as she would have closed the door quietly, and only turned the key in the lock after she heard him shout, we can assume that the accidental slamming of toilet seat, usage and flush are the only sounds.

Like the prosecution argued, what burglar comes to use your toilet?

Exactly, also he has had long term girlfriends before, whom I'm sure have used the bathroom through the night, especially if they have been drinking. Why would a noise from the bathroom be so startling in this instance. All he had to do was check the bed, as anyone would, before taking such drastic measures. I don't believe a word of it.

 

[cityslick]

I just thought of something else...

He says 'get out of the bathroom', he thinks someone is in the bathroom but he doesn't know where, all he states is the general bathroom.

This is the point at which the defence will say Reeva becomes silent out of fear.

So then OP goes in to the bathroom, but what makes him believe that there is anyone in the toilet at all? He doesn't try the door, because according to him he doesn't know it's locked until after the fact.

The reason he is sure there is someone in the toilet is because it was a distinct toilet noise such as aforementioned flush, etc. that he heard, the defence might have to say.

However if it was identifiably a distinct noise of toilet usage then OP will now have to argue how he still thought it was a burglar when he was sure the noise he heard was someone using the toilet.

Wasn't the window in the bathroom? He goes into the bathroom (following the location of the noise), sees the window open, sees the toilet door shut and concludes the intruder must be behind the toilet (probably because he doesn't usually close that door). Instead of opening the door to find out if the intruder had a weapon, he shoots the door instead.

 

[onthecounter]

City Slick - the point I was trying to make was that, when he sees the window open and no-one in the bathroom I would have expected his response would have been 'just a noise out of the window from outside' rather than, 'there must be a burglar hiding in the toilet'

UNLESS the noise he heard earlier was someone using the toilet, in which case he must have surely known it was Reeva because why would a burglar go to the loo and not his own gf?!

Do you sort of follow?

 

[Zinn]

Regarding the reports of arguing, that is not rumor, though the credibility of the witnesses was questioned by the defense. Prosecution stated they have two statements from witnesses/neighbors. One such witness stated they heard non-stop loud talking/arguing for one hour followed by gunshots. Defense diminished this witness' statement because he/she was to distant to positively identify the arguing voices as those of OP and Reeva. Second witness stated they heard shots, then screams, then more shots. Defense questioned credibility because witness reported inaccurate number of shots fired.

 

[Woe.be.gone]

(Just two comments on the alcohol thing...

1. I have tons of good, high quality alcohol in my house; I have a glass of wine about 1x weekly, and hard liquor about maybe 1x per month. Just because it's here, doesn't mean it's heavily consumed.

2. Abstention from alcohol is VERY common here in the US for bond/bail. I think it's probably part of the standard conditions in SA, but don't know. But it's not something to think is exceptional).

Best-
Herding Cats

and now I'll go peacefully away...)

Congratulations, you're not an alcoholic! Count your lucky stars! Really though, I'm not insulting you and know there are a lot of people like you but people who are prone to drink heavily, usually go through a lot of liquor but still maintain a bar. Heaven forbid it they should run out! LE may have found several bottles either laying around or in the garbage or kitchen. Plus it was Valentine's day so it wouldn't be unusual for the couple to both have had a few drinks or glasses of wine. But, it's also possible that OP was ripped off his rocker. I don't know. People get that way all the time - he could be a binge drinker. He's young so sometimes it takes many years to sense the destruction heavy or chronic drinking can cause, that is, unless something terrible like this happens early on (or take a fatal dui for instance).

It's not been detailed if he was impaired or not but it won't be a surprise if he was and that led to his life altering behavior.

 

[onthecounter]

Regarding the reports of arguing, that is not rumor, though the credibility of the witnesses was questioned by the defense. Prosecution stated they have two statements from witnesses/neighbors. One such witness stated they heard non-stop loud talking/arguing for one hour followed by gunshots. Defense diminished this witness' statement because he/she was to distant to positively identify the arguing voices as those of OP and Reeva. Second witness stated they heard shots, then screams, then more shots. Defense questioned credibility because witness reported inaccurate number of shots fired.

What the second witness might actually have heard was shots, screams and then the cricket bat bashing the door in.

 

[jjenny]

Wasn't the window in the bathroom? He goes into the bathroom (following the location of the noise), sees the window open, sees the toilet door shut and concludes the intruder must be behind the toilet (probably because he doesn't usually close that door). Instead of opening the door to find out if the intruder had a weapon, he shoots the door instead.

He knows his g/f is in the apartment with him. So when he hears noise from the bathroom, why doesn't he think his g/f could be in the bathroom? And he had to get his gun from under the bed, he doesn't even check if g/f is in the bed?

 

[seguek9]

BBM

2 cellphones were found in the bathroom, that we know of so far. Don't know if they were hers and his, or what. No time for phone records to come back yet either.

TWO cells? That speaks volumes to me....moo...

Thank you all for the info and personal insights so far!

 

[Woe.be.gone]

**RUMOR, NOT FACT** (just want to be clear I'm referencing an unverified report)

I recall reading about a nightie early on, but it was one of those "unnamed sources close to the investigation say..." things. IIRC, the rumor was that they surmised Reeva had slept there because the bed was wrinkled on both sides and a wrinkled nightie was there. So maybe you read the nightie thing in that context? This was back when people assumed OP's defense would be that Reeva surprised him in the middle of the night and he mistook her for an intruder.

I have no idea if there's any truth to the rumor mentioned above, but I AM curious to know if worn sleep clothes were found in the bedroom or bathroom, in addition to the clothes she was found wearing.

All of the above is just speculation and JMO.

I'm curious as to why Reeva would be creeping around the house before alerting OP considering the high chance that a home invasion could occur. As a SA women and a close friend of his, she would know of his concerns, no?

The only thing that would make sense to me is if she was actually trying to sneak out and be gone when he woke up. But then it's being reported she was gunned down in the bathroom. Why did/would he move her to the bottom of the stairs? If truly an accident, wouldn't he leave her where the accident happened - why move her? :waitasec: Did he think it would look better if she was found at the bottom of the stairs (even though the evidence would reveal she had been shot elsewhere?).

 

[seguek9]

:floorlaugh:

Congratulations, you're not an alcoholic! Count your lucky stars! Really though, I'm not insulting you and know there are a lot of people like you but people who are prone to drink heavily, usually go through a lot of liquor but still maintain a bar. Heaven forbid it they should run out! LE may have found several bottles either laying around or in the garbage or kitchen. Plus it was Valentine's day so it wouldn't be unusual for the couple to both have had a few drinks or glasses of wine. But, it's also possible that OP was ripped off his rocker. I don't know. People get that way all the time - he could be a binge drinker. He's young so sometimes it takes many years to sense the destruction heavy or chronic drinking can cause, that is, unless something terrible like this happens early on (or take a fatal dui for instance).

It's not been detailed if he was impaired or not but it won't be a surprise if he was and that led to his life altering behavior.

Forgive me...I am new....but what about steroids? Or painkillers? It would not be unheard of for an amputee to be taking narcotics due to chronic pain...and then if mixed with alcohol can be a recipe for rage (even if he had done it a thousand times before....it can cause a sudden reaction in even the most seasoned of users...). MOO.
Plus steroids can just cause all sorts of havoc...
I REALLY HOPE that this will be investigated and tried fairly!! Thank you all for the information!

 

[danzn16]

Haven't been able to keep up today. Was anything else new learned today from the case?

 

[Chewy]

Yes, this point has been intelligently addressed in the earlier incarnation of the thread by emmavoberry here:

http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8907897&postcount=1344


I'd also add that contrary to some recent claims - for instance by Chewy - to the effect that this was all happening very abruptly and half-asleep...

The other detail that people seem to be completely dismissing is that this happened when he had woken up from sleep. Some people wake up bright eyed and bushy tailed, others are groggy and not clear in their mind so I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

...it appears that OP was in fact pretty wide awake, as he had just been outside, and had lifted the fan from the balcony inside and closed the sliding doors (not something he could do on autopilot, I imagine, legs or no legs), and so it is not logical to attribute his precipitate actions to "being dazed and confused".

What are you talking about? Of course it could be done on autopilot, closing a door? Moving a fan? I don't get what you all think this fan is, it's a portable fan, not some monster wind generator. Half the portable fans I've seen have handles on the back to move.

The point is that he wasn't doing this while wide awake, he'd awoken out of a sleep to do this.

Some of the comments here are mind boggling. Like the only sound that would indicate to him that someone is in the bathroom is the toilet flushing. Not moving around that could be heard in an echoing space.

Some of the sleuthing here seems like people want him to be guilty so they interpret that data the way it makes him look guilty.

Ex. She had two phones in the bathroom and didn't use them.

Why?

Why didn't she call out to him if she WAS in the bathroom? According to his own testimony this would sink him. It doesn't make sense does it?

Except it does, as pointed out above and what I've thought myself. If he's screaming into the bathroom that someone is in the bathroom and Reeva is in the toilet stall, she may have frozen out of fear of being discovered by the burglar.

In essence, her smart thinking doomed her.


I don't necessarily think he's innocent, I just agree with others that I haven't heard or seen anything that contradicts his version of events.

 

[Woe.be.gone]

She had her shorts pulled up when she was shot in the toilet cubicle. This is interesting because she wasn't in the process of urinating, pulling them on, or pulling them up at the time she was shot. But there is no sink in there, so if she was going to the toilet, only a fraction of the time she was in that room her shorts would have been pulled up.

It is therefore improbable that she was in the toilet to use it to relieve herself at during the time frame of shooting.

Defence will concede that she wasn't in there at that time going to the toilet but that she was hiding from perceived threat of burglar when she heard Oscar shout out.

This, along with the two cell phones found in the bathroom (if true), reminds me of when Rihanna grabbed Chris B's phone in order to look at a text and he retaliated by beating her face in.

It's possible that while OP was sleeping, RS took his phone to the bathroom with her and was sitting there looking through it when he woke up and realized she had his phone.

 

[Inobu]

Our problem is we cannot see or know what the prosecution does and can only listen to what they say.

Remember the police forced everyone out after Reeva was pronounced dead.
Here is the EMT account

“He looked rattled,” said the medic, adding that Steenkamp had been wearing a black sweat top and long pants, but no shoes.

“She was lying on her back at the bottom of the stairs and we were told that she had been shot upstairs, and that Oscar had carried her down to the bottom. She had sustained a gunshot wound to her head and her right arm.............“As soon as we had done the declaration of the death, the police ushered us outside,” he said.

Botha said there were wounds in Steenkamp's head, elbow, and hip.

There was also a bullet hole through her shorts.



Here is the question that can really turn the case.

Does the black sweat top and pants have bullet holes in them. There is an eye witness to the scene that states that she had on black sweats. The state keeps referring to the shorts. This contradiction has only one answer.

If the sweats do not have bullet holes in them then the sweats were placed on the body after the shooting. If he is clothing her after the shooting and it was not stated in the affidavit the credibility drops to zero.

This is where the statement of

"I battled to get her out of the toilet and pulled her into the bathroom.
Was the battle getting the clothes on her?

Either the EMT is not telling the truth or the police cant tell the difference between sweats and shorts. Or the removal of the sweats revealed the shorts and the contridiction of events.

Does the sweat have bullet holes. That is the question

Inobu

 

[Woe.be.gone]

:floorlaugh:

Forgive me...I am new....but what about steroids? Or painkillers? It would not be unheard of for an amputee to be taking narcotics due to chronic pain...and then if mixed with alcohol can be a recipe for rage (even if he had done it a thousand times before....it can cause a sudden reaction in even the most seasoned of users...). MOO.
Plus steroids can just cause all sorts of havoc...
I REALLY HOPE that this will be investigated and tried fairly!! Thank you all for the information!

Hi and welcome to Websleuths. Oh, you mean to this thread.
When I heard about this tragedy on the news, the second thought I had was 'I bet he's a steroid user'. Later it came out that they found some in his house.

When I saw his picture, he looked very developed in his upper body. Sometimes a physique gives off the impression that it's had help beyond mere body building. I hope they tested him for narcotics and alcohol level, etc.

 

[Estelle]

The only account of the events is from OP. His account must stand an onslaught of scrutiny. The truth will always withstand it where as a fabricated story will crumble to pieces.

Because Reeva is not here to provide some accountancy to the events the investigation must rely on the evidence to match with that written in the account (affidavit).

OP has done a good job of addressing a lot of situations but I don't think he remember to do one thing. Clear the ipads browsers. If he did it still creates an issue, why clear the browser that time of the morning?

See the web browser always documents the page and time you hit enter in its history file. If that browser has a time point anywhere between 3:00 am and 3:19 then there was ambient light in the room. Also the location of Reeva found and would refute the blacked out room scenario.

The just "waking up in the early morning to move the fan" account would just crumble. The screen saver timer would establish a potential blackout time from the last key entry to black out que.

A stated before everything placed in the affidavit has some relevance although it may the inverted. His establishing 22:00 as a time point has significance. He actually started the clock. The question is how long did Reeva take for her Yoga session. 1/2 hour or 1 hour.

22:00 to 23:00

The ipad could establish time points. If interaction with the ipad starts another event sequence that data could eventually lead into the shouting that started at 2:00 till 3:00.

Remember a basic action time line could be the foundation to his affidavit. Meaning every thing that occurred in real life is replaced with a fabricated event. The only difference is the fabricated event leaves no trail.

Let take his account and invert it in a manner that incriminates him and see if the evidence can align itself. If something does not fit one way flip it over and see if it fits the other way.

For example. 10:00 they prepare for bed. He watches TV. She does her Yoga he fall asleep. She jumps on line. He wakes up. See's her on line and an argument ensues. He grabs the ipad, see something and becomes infuriated. She see that it is going out of control and heads to bathroom. He grabs the gun, shoots 4 times. Comes to his senses and realizes what he has done.

This covers every element in his affidavit without the added rhetoric. Every element in his affidavit is inverted the other way and it too is plausible.

The ipad could be the conduit that triggered the events leading to her death.

Inobu

Take solace in that he may be free on bail but he is not free from his conscience.

My prediction is that many empty bottles of alcohol could have been found at his home implying he got drunk. They would have had wine with dinner. Maybe he kept drinking and got so drunk, he went to bed at 10pm. Reeva was not impressed nor tired so she got on to her iPad as she felt lonely. Did she tell anyone about this?

2am? He wakes up and finds her on iPad. She goes to the toilet not closing the iPad so he took the opportunity to see what messages she had received or made. There are several from male friends so he gets angry and jealous and is still hungover. They argue and she threatens to leave him. It escalates and he threatens her with his gun if she leaves him and locks the bedroom door so she cannot escape. So she runs into the bathroom then the toilet locking the door. He goes after her and shoots her.

 

[Chewy]

Evidence of it escalating? I just don't see how that works out. You get in a fight and you don't go all the way over to your bed and get a gun and shoot her four times.

Why would it matter so much to him if she was going to leave that night? They weren't married, a drunken fight can be excused the next day, she's been through a lot of stress with him.

I just don't get the leap to "I'm going to go get my gun and shoot her four times through the door and then try to pass it off as an accident."

She died three minutes before the paramedics arrived. So this means he'd have to concoct the whole story in a few minutes after killing her.

I don't see a clear motive here.

 

[Inobu]

My prediction is that many empty bottles of alcohol could have been found at his home implying he got drunk. They would have had wine with dinner. Maybe he kept drinking and got so drunk, he went to bed at 10pm. Reeva was not impressed nor tired so she got on to her iPad as she felt lonely. Did she tell anyone about this?

2am? He wakes up and finds her on iPad. She goes to the toilet not closing the iPad so he took the opportunity to see what messages she had received or made. There are several from male friends so he gets angry and jealous and is still hungover. They argue and she threatens to leave him. It escalates and he threatens her with his gun if she leaves him and locks the bedroom door so she cannot escape. So she runs into the bathroom then the toilet locking the door. He goes after her and shoots her.

This too is a viable scenario as the pieces make sense.

I will even post a scenario that would fall into his favor.

Had he said

I we went down stair for water and came back up stairs heard a noise in the toilet room looked over at the bed and saw Reeva sleeping. Ran for my gun and fired 4 rounds into the door. I ran back to grab Reeva, I pulled back the covers to find pillows stacked in the shape of a body. I ran back to the toilet room busted the door down to find Reeva. I lost it.

That is more realistic to a mistake/joke gone bad. Mind you without the argument before that.

When I first heard the story I thought she had sneaked in to surprise him and was killed. When I read his rubbish. I was insulted by it.

Inobu

The truth is the truth.