Trial Discussion Thread #1 - 14.03.03-06, Day 1-4

[kittychi]

Hi guys, so happy to see some familiar names here still and hope the past year has been kind to you all.

I just went through everything and didn't see if anyone has posted this yet, the small circle is OP house and the large red circle is the estate where the witness lives. It's quite some distance and just hope that she doesn't get side railed tomorrow because she took so long to give her statement and admits to gathering information from SKY/CNN before approaching the police. I'm still reserving judgement for now and will wait to see what the days ahead will bring however, I was pretty impressed with Burgers testimony today, she was a great witness.

Great to see you back, Carol70!

There was a poster on the previous thread, now locked, who is from SA and wanted to know if anyone else was. I don't remember her name, but I believe it was on one of the last 3 pages or so.

:welcomeback:

 

[kittychi]

<snipped>

I am struggling with the new 2 fans issue and the fact that he now says he spoke to her before he brought the fans in. Why did he say in his first affidavit that she was asleep in bed when he brought the fan in. All along I have thought there could be no way he could be sliding doors, pulling blinds and curtains without creating enough noise to wake Reeva. This guy is a compulsive liar. I am sure he will "hang" himself under cross examination.

If not before.

:jail: :sigh: :runaway:

 

[kittychi]

I'm not sure if anyone's brought it up but ..

is it possible that she was hearing him screaming ? .. she wasn't very close to begin with .. approximately 344 feet away with other houses in between ? .. it's not inconceivable that a guy could sound like a woman when screaming .. some definitely do

I have wondered if she started defending herself with the cricket bat before she ran into the bathroom and that's why he was screaming.

That is new information for me, though, that he was screaming during the gunshot event. He states he yelled off his balcony for help AFTER "it occurred to him" that he shot her.

 

[kittychi]

I have to say that I had never heard of this Annamarie until today. I just scanned part of the links - is she for real or should she be the one undergoing 60 days of psychiatric evaluation? Does she truly have a connection with the surgeon who operated on OP or is just just a total delusional looper?

No..she was originally from South Africa and became a US citizen in 2009. She resides in Florida. (Known in the US as a state where a lot of wackos live :razz: sorry Floridians.)

http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/2013/02/24/pistorius-psychic-is-a-tea-party-nutjob/

 

[kittychi]

OP' changed statement:





I'm curious to see how the defense will explain these changes of mind....
.
.

Also...it was rumored that one or more witnesses also saw lights on in his home.

If true, that testimony will certainly bury him.

You may not always be able to discern sounds, but Roux will have trouble trying to erode a statement saying that lights were on in OP's home.

 

[whiterum]

The witness said she heard the woman scream for help with blood curdling fear and emotion in her voice , then the man's voice with little emotion, just help, help, help, three times. Makes you wonder if he was mimicking poor Reeva's cries for help in his rage before firing the shots.

 

[sorrell skye]

So if he had just spoken to Reeva, right before he brought in the fans, then he knew she was awake. And if he knew she was awake, why would he assume the noise in the bathroom was an intruder, and not Reeva?

And if he truly believed there was an intruder in the home, wouldn't he warn his girlfriend to run away while he confronted them with a weapon?

This is another inconsistency (in addition to one fan suddenly becoming 2 fans) between his bail hearing affidavit last year and the statement his attorney read on his behalf yesterday.

In his affidavit last year, he never mentioned speaking to Reeva before he supposedly went out onto the balcony to bring in the fan(s). IIRC, he stated that he believed she was asleep in the bed.

I totally agree with you - if he had just spoken to her, he would have known she was awake. It makes no sense that he heard a noise in the bathroom & immediately assumed it was an intruder, even accounting for his fear of a home invasion & the high crime rates in SA.

He retrieved his handgun from beneath the bed where he & Reeva had allegedly been lying. That would have been the perfect time to warn her to get out of the bedroom. He claims he told her to call the police as he made his way to the bathroom and that he shouted at the *intruder* to "get out of my house".

Oh - and in his bail hearing affidavit, he stated that he didn't turn on any lights because he was too afraid to. He claimed the house was pitch dark.

As it stands now, he would have been better off not making any statements at all - including the bail hearing affidavit and the statement yesterday, especially since the two statements are already in conflict.

Roux wants to badger witnesses with what he asserts are inconsistencies. He needs to take a look at his own client's inconsistent statements.

 

[sorrell skye]

The witness said she heard the woman scream for help with blood curdling fear and emotion in her voice , then the man's voice with little emotion, just help, help, help, three times. Makes you wonder if he was mimicking poor Reeva's cries for help in his rage before firing the shots.

The same thought has crossed my mind.

One would think that his shouts for help would have been filled with emotion if his version of events is true.

 

[Tssiemer]

Saying it was premeditated, what's the motive??


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[Madeleine74]

Premeditation (at least here in the US) is a legal concept of forming a rational thought or intent to kill. Like if someone is being strangled, it takes 3+ minutes to strangle someone to death. Within mere seconds the killer knows if he/she continues to restrict the victim's airway they will die. If they continue to do so, that constitutes "premeditation."

So in the OP case, one could argue that he knew if he picked up a gun and fired shots into a small closed bathroom he would likely kill whoever was in there, or at least grievously injure them. And then he shot the gun anyway, pausing between the first and second shot, as he did so. A good prosecutor would argue that the intent was formed from the point where OP picked up the gun and completed 4 shots. Premeditation can be formed in a matter of seconds. It doesn't require pre-planning a killing.

If you know you could kill someone by your weapon & actions & then you continue with your actions, that could meet the premeditation burden.

 

[katydid23]

Saying it was premeditated, what's the motive??


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Personally, I think it was an act of rage. And was not premeditated in the long term sense of the word. He did not plan to turn in life insurance or anything.

But I do think he premeditated in the short term sense, by going for his gun, when she locked herself in the bathroom.

 

[kittychi]

Saying it was premeditated, what's the motive??


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My guesses would be:

1. Anger
2. Jealousy
3. She learned something about him that she threatened to expose


IIRC, in South Africa you can call it pre-meditation even if it occurred over a brief period of time.

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/feb/19/news/la-pistorius-charged-premeditated-murder-20130219


Nel said there was no evidence available that supported the athlete’s contention that he thought Steenkamp was a burglar and shot and killed her by mistake.

"There is no possible information to support his version that it was a burglar," Nel said.

But even if he had made that mistake, Nel argued, it would still have been a premeditated murder because he shot through the door into a tiny room, measuring no more than 16 square feet.

He said the couple had argued and that Steenkamp fled to the toilet, seven yards from the bedroom and locked herself in.

No one would fire into a room of that size hoping to merely scare off a burglar, Nel said, adding that the motive of shooting in that fashion was to kill, because there was no way for Steenkamp to escape the bullets.

"She couldn't go anywhere. You can run nowhere,” Nel said. "It must have been horrific."

Nel argued that up until the moment he shot her, Pistorius’ plan was to kill Steenkamp, although afterward he might have regretted his actions.

 

[jilly]

Premeditation (at least here in the US) is a legal concept of forming a rational thought or intent to kill. Like if someone is being strangled, it takes 3+ minutes to strangle someone to death. Within mere seconds the killer knows if he/she continues to restrict the victim's airway they will die. If they continue to do so, that constitutes "premeditation."

So in the OP case, one could argue that he knew if he picked up a gun and fired shots into a small closed bathroom he would likely kill whoever was in there, or at least grievously injure them. And then he shot the gun anyway, pausing between the first and second shot, as he did so. A good prosecutor would argue that the intent was formed from the point where OP picked up the gun and completed 4 shots. Premeditation can be formed in a matter of seconds. It doesn't require pre-planning a killing.

If you know you could kill someone by your weapon & actions & then you continue with your actions, that could meet the premeditation burden.

Four shots through a closed door. This is what Oscar Pistorius will have to prove was a reasonable reaction to his alleged perceived fear that his life was in danger when he shot dead his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

.......

“On the particular facts of this case (the Pistorius case) putative private self-defence has never been successful in a South African court where the accused fired through a closed door thinking his life was in danger. In this case the door was locked, so the intruder would have had to break down the door to enter the house.

“Subjectively he could have foreseen that his life was in danger, but that is not the test. The test is, if that subjective belief was objectively reasonable and if he could have taken other preventative steps.

“The law is quite clear. If you can escape the imminent danger without putting your life in danger you have to do it. If you kill a person it must be in such severe circumstances that there’s virtually no other way open to protect your life.”.....

Good article to read: http://citizen.co.za/129328/reasonable-reaction/

 

[Madeleine74]

The day before the shooting, Reeva had lunch with her ex-boyfriend, someone she continued to stay close to even after they had broken up. Some allege this might have been the impetus for whatever disagreement and words were exchanged between OP and RS. He was someone known to be jealous and insecure, according to friends who have given some interviews.

 

[Harmony 2]

Interesting points for me were:

Two fans brought in....why would he change it to two fans? So did he need to pretend he was out on the balcony longer?

Trying to suggest that MB heard a cricket bat banging on the door instead of the gun shots.

Suggesting that when OP screams, he sounds like a woman!

Were two fans found? I don't see any fans on this graphic...

http://www.scribd.com/doc/126918194/What-police-found-in-the-house

 

[Feynman]

The witness said she heard the woman scream for help with blood curdling fear and emotion in her voice , then the man's voice with little emotion, just help, help, help, three times. Makes you wonder if he was mimicking poor Reeva's cries for help in his rage before firing the shots.

OP's "help"s before the shooting are hard to understand, but the above makes some sense!

 

[Irisha]

Personally, I think it was an act of rage. And was not premeditated in the long term sense of the word. He did not plan to turn in life insurance or anything.

But I do think he premeditated in the short term sense, by going for his gun, when she locked herself in the bathroom.

I read/heard ( don't recall where) they argued because she was in contact with an ex who she was still friends with. I don't read trashy magazines so I know it wasn't from 1 of them.IMO

 

[Madeleine74]

I wonder if OP would have shot RS if she hadn't run into the bathroom and closed/locked the door. I wonder if her act of retreating from him set him off. She must have felt threatened and in that little water closet (i.e. toilet room) she was a sitting duck, with nothing but a toilet to try and shield herself. Further, I wonder if her screams came after she went into that bathroom or right before she ran in there and if the neighbor would have heard the screams the same in either area. And then finally, I wonder if the decibel of screams was later tested from inside a locked bathroom versus not inside the bathroom to see if both could be heard from that neighbor's house.

 

[Irisha]

The day before the shooting, Reeva had lunch with her ex-boyfriend, someone she continued to stay close to even after they had broken up. Some allege this might have been the impetus for whatever disagreement and words were exchanged between OP and RS. He was someone known to be jealous and insecure, according to friends who have given some interviews.

LOL, I should have read ahead.

 

[aa9511]

I have wondered if she started defending herself with the cricket bat before she ran into the bathroom and that's why he was screaming.

That is new information for me, though, that he was screaming during the gunshot event. He states he yelled off his balcony for help AFTER "it occurred to him" that he shot her.

Oh that is interesting and quite a contradiction.

There is really no explanation for what the witness heard, other than he's lying:

-if he believed it was an intruder, he would have no reason to lie about his screams for help. He would have just said, something like, I was screaming for Someone to hear and help me (from the intruder).
-he didn't mention Reeva's screams. If she screamed after he shot her once, why the other 3 shots? And he would have no reason to lie about it if it was all really just a terrible accident.

You make a very goof point about the cricket bat. Maybe Reeva was using on him for defense, that's why he was screaming for help. She locks herself in bathroom. He is incensed, gets his gun out, and goes and shoots her.

But if he really didn't have his prosthetics on, why wouldn't she just run out the door (during the struggle/fight)?