Trial Discussion Thread #12 - 14.03.24, Day 14

[Cherwell]

I agree. If there is evidence in these messages it should be exposed. But private conversations read out (badly) is not evidence of much at all. Reading out the "bad bits" from messages conceded to be 90% loving messages is pushing a false notion. Selective evidence is always questionable. A few arguments in 1000's pages of loving messages.

I was listening and thinking of Reeva's private messages being exposed...

Did he actually say that 90% were "loving messages"? I thought it was 90% "normal" - ie, a lot of them probably just consist of mundane "OK" "see you later" type of messages.

Moller testified that he had retrieved nearly 2 000 messages the couple exchanged while they were dating, and stressed that about 90% of these were simply "normal conversation" and many were "loving".

http://mg.co.za/article/2014-03-24-reeva-found-oscar-often-bad-tempered

Not wishing to split hairs, but to say 90% "loving" seems a bit misleading to me.

 

[steveml]

Did he actually say that 90% were "loving messages"? I thought it was 90% "normal" - ie, a lot of them probably just consist of mundane "OK" "see you later" type of messages.


http://mg.co.za/article/2014-03-24-reeva-found-oscar-often-bad-tempered

Not wishing to split hairs, but to say 90% "loving" seems a bit misleading to me.

I think you're right. I'd be a bit suspicious if I started receiving 90% loving messages. What's she after etc etc.

 

[james83]

The thing is anyone could create the craziest theory about what happened and it would still be as believable as Oscar's fairtytale.
For instance i could say i believe It was aliens who fired the first shots to kill Oscar's dogs, they then beamed up the dogs's and as is a custom on there planet through down a pair of jeans as a thank you, they then seized control of oscars mind and made him fire the 2nd set of shots, then the alien's secret leader Hilton Botha turned up to create confusion m'lady,

 

[Gbtaketwo]

Thanks. Having a look as I'm a bit curious about the lights now.

I could give a very good explanation for why the toilet could be slightly illuminated to one person and off to another .
I just went outside and put my bedroom light on and left my toilet door closed to but not completely shut . From some positions I could see the light but if I moved a couple of steps I couldn't .
Mr and mrs stipp's can't have both been stood on the same spot hence the difference but they both saw the bathroom light on .

 

[Viper]

I am more interested in Mrs Stipp's evidence regarding TIME.

Her 3:02 (on a clock 3 to 4 minutes fast) is at odds with other time points... whichever "side" you are on.

I am reluctant to disregard evidence simply because it does not fit my hypothesis.. I am critical when others do that, but I do question that time (lets call it 3:00) for the first set of bangs.

Coincidentally I got into the habit yesterday of typing "3:00" when I meant "3:10"

3:10 would make more sense for her evidence too.

She is at odds with her husband on this point. He heard bangs with time established by phone records at 3:17 and he also estimated the first set of bangs to be "10 minutes" before that... so at around 3:07. Of course there is wiggle room... so around 3:10 covers that... but NOT around 3:00. Whatever your hypothesis that time ("3:02") does not sit well?

Aside from what the primary argument is, gun bat bat gun, have you taken into account all of the damage OP did to his bathroom panels and wall tile outside of the WC? Have you considered that in your "sounds" timeline?

 

[Insp.Dots]

Sorry, I didn't intend to be personal.

I don't see his behavior with her as isolated. In context, it is who he is...didn't take responsibility for shooting the gun at the restaurant, wildly shooting a gun in a car and in a rage at police.

IMO In the end, he does not want to take responsibility for his rage at Reeva, for whatever reason.

I understand that OP is responsible...but the more I read it the more I think how crazy that none of those witnesses to his reckless actions saw them as serious enough to report at the time. Maybe he wouldn't of had any guns to shoot!!
Scary world we live in....

 

[lisasalinger]

I agree. If there is evidence in these messages it should be exposed. But private conversations read out (badly) is not evidence of much at all. Reading out the "bad bits" from messages conceded to be 90% loving messages is pushing a false notion. Selective evidence is always questionable. A few arguments in 1000's pages of loving messages.

I was listening and thinking of Reeva's private messages being exposed...

As a human, I also feel very badly for Reeva that her private messages are exposed. She didn't deserve any of this.

Oscar putting in to his bail affidavit that "they were deeply in love and he knows that she felt the same way too" really opened a Pandora's box. You can't make that kind of statement and not qualify it. I am appalled that he chose to speak for her in his statement after he killed her. Just classless beyond belief.

All of this, he did to himself.

 

[Feynman]

I agree. If there is evidence in these messages it should be exposed. But private conversations read out (badly) is not evidence of much at all. Reading out the "bad bits" from messages conceded to be 90% loving messages is pushing a false notion. Selective evidence is always questionable. A few arguments in 1000's pages of loving messages.

I was listening and thinking of Reeva's private messages being exposed...

I think what Moller said was something like 90% of the messages were normal, often loving. So perhaps not all the 90% were "loving".

I found the messages presented today pretty damning. This is too early in the relationship for “You have picked on me incessantly”, “I was not flirting with anyone today and I feel sick that you suggested that”, "You do everything to throw tantrums ...I’m certainly very unhappy and sad.”

Compare that to OP in the affidavit: "We were deeply in love and I could not be happier. I know she felt the same way."

 

[soozieqtips]

A bit confused with that. Is that a suggestion that all OP's previous girlfriends before Reeva were teenagers?

Sam Taylor
Jenna Edkins
Melissa Rom

I believe they were all teenagers when OP was dating them, although I'm happy to be corrected if I'm wrong. I think Reeva was the only one who was older than him though? But he's back to teenagers anyway despite still mourning his beloved. I didn't mean to imply all his previous g/friends were teenagers, but at least 3 of them were. I will see if there are more.

 

[minor4th]

I'm trying to view my own opinions from a distance and determine why exactly I don't think the state has made its case when so many others think they have. Here's what I have come up with:

• One thing is the way Oscar acted immediately after the incident and at the bail hearing and even during this trial. In my mind he does not act like the typical 'guilty' person. He was immediately remorseful and very emotional, he called out the windows for help before he even got her fully out of the toilet; he has seemed depressed and subdued since the incident - corroborated by messages he sent Cristo. When I compare that to others who I had a strong confidence in their guilt like Jodi Arias, Casey Anthony, Martin MacNeill, Joran Van der Sloot, Mark Hacking, to name a few, there is a really drastic difference in the way he acted. He hasn't been caught in outright lies showing a consciousness of guilt, he hasn't been found to have covered up or hid things, and he didn't just go on about his life as though all was well. To me his emotion an remorse appears genuine.
  
  
• Although I considered his bail statement suspicious and even unbelievable or outlandish, the state has not provided anything that shows it to be manufactured or staged or impossible
  
  
• While he seems like an insensitive, rather entitled brat towards his girlfriends, there's no a history of abuse or lying or threats or things like that. Compare his jealousy to that of Arias - stalking ex-boyfriends, spying on their emails and text messages, slashing tires, etc. That is pathological jealousy that can truly lead to an inference of motive for violence; what we've seen of Oscar is more an immature type of jealousy that is undesirable but not pathological or indicative of violence.
  
  
• He didn't have some sort of big secret or double life that was about to be exposed. He wasnt facing a break up or divorce that would have resulted in losing custody of kids or paying child support or alimony or losing property
  
  
• There's just nothing that's been presented that really indicates he would lose his cool and shoot someone dead - his jealousy did not rise that that kind of level, his temper tantrums did not rise to that kind of level, and there's been a lot of talk about "rage" but I don't see it as anything beyond anger, perhaps unreasonable anger, but not "rage"

So it's not just that I'm trying to justify anything or convince anyone that he is definitely innocent - and I certainly do not think much of his character or personality from what I've heard. But it's the whole context that to me does not at all paint a picture of a guy who flew into a rage on Feb 13 and intentionally got his gun and killed his girlfriend.

 

[minor4th]

Reeva was older than OP and older than OP's previous teenage girlfriends, so it's possible she was harder to 'control' than his exes. He doesn't have to have been physically abusive to past girlfriends in order for him to have killed Reeva intentionally. Where's your position on all the witnesses who say they heard a woman screaming? Do you still maintain it was OP screaming? Could there be any doubt about that if you concede that some of his affidavit is a lie?

Absolutely I concede that it could be a lie. That's why I want the state to give me something that really convinces me that there are significant lies in the affidavit.

At the moment, I am up in the air about the witnesses hearing a woman screaming. I admit that it is compelling coming from such a variety of witnesses and that is something that Oscar will have to deal with and deliver some good evidence. However, the woman screaming doesn't fit with what I believe the sequence and timing of gunshots, so I'm undecided for the time being, and awaiting Oscar's explanation.

 

[Interested Bystander]

Ok. Although the gun wasn't fired at Sam. OP's showing off and clearly irresponsible.
Driving a car at speed is irresponsible - we accept OP is clearly irresponsible.
Phone messages with no threats. Suggestion of control - nothing in texts - not even a threat. OP must have called many others to account and not intentionally murdered them.

Why Reeva? What's the motive? How does the above show premeditated murder and not murder?

We don't actually know what OP called RS but I imagine it was something like or wh**re as she pointedly said she did not feel like a lady that evening but that is only a guess. In fact most of what was said obviously was not restated in the text but she was very, very upset about whatever it was he called her at the engagement party. I feel we are going to hear much more about his attitude tomorrow.

Although only 10 per cent of the calls were about him being controlling, abusive etc, simplified one could view it as being one 1 day in every 10 he was controlling, abusive, unkind, hurtful. She must have been on tenterhooks the whole time wondering when next she was going to be scared, very scared, frightened or hurt in some way.

Premeditated in SA law is somewhat different to other countries. It doesn't necessary involve preplanning. It can be shooting through the door at an unseen/unknown person several times, ie having shot once he made no attempt to stop shooting in the full knowledge that, by continuing, the likelihood was that whoever was behind the door would be killed.

If you accept Reeva did scream after the first bullet, he continued firing at her three more times knowing in all probability he would kill her.

 

[Gbtaketwo]

Absolutely I concede that it could be a lie. That's why I want the state to give me something that really convinces me that there are significant lies in the affidavit.

At the moment, I am up in the air about the witnesses hearing a woman screaming. I admit that it is compelling coming from such a variety of witnesses and that is something that Oscar will have to deal with and deliver some good evidence. However, the woman screaming doesn't fit with what I believe the sequence and timing of gunshots, so I'm undecided for the time being, and awaiting Oscar's explanation.

What is your viewpoint on the bathroom light being on ?That also contradicts his statement .

 

[Gavel Rash]

Just recalling my aggravating Christo Meneaou 3.08am....3 claps of thunder...that caused major thread anxiety for someone as being speculative and not in the current tabled statements of evidence......that was his house, on the right, lit up like a proverbial Xmas tree..yes? Seems to fit ever so closely to the time stamps being bandied about of 3.02 to 3.08?
Has there been any descriptive nature of the bangs...I would have imagined the first set of bangs, if a cricket bat, to be slightly further apart and have a bit of thwack sound to them...however everyone appears to call them shot sounds. I wonder also where the bedroom door damage figures in sound -assault sequence.

 

[soozieqtips]

~snipped~

There's just nothing that's been presented that really indicates he would lose his cool and shoot someone dead - his jealousy did not rise that that kind of level, his temper tantrums did not rise to that kind of level,
and there's been a lot of talk about "rage" but I don't see it as anything beyond anger, perhaps unreasonable anger, but not "rage"

BBM - Sam Taylor said in her testimony that OP would 'scream' at her and at other people, not shout... scream. That doesn't sound like rage to you? If someone is screaming at me, I will absolutely assume they're in a rage.

“He has screamed at me, my sister, my best friend, another friend and his best friend.”

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/oscar-pistorius-trial-ex-girlfriend-samantha-3218856

 

[Rumpole]

I know you have a sense of humor so I hope you will laugh at this:

They gave you a body, the murder weapon, and the confessed murderer; what are you waiting for, a video captured in the bathroom of the actual murder taking place? :smile:

It needs more COWBELL!!! :floorlaugh:

"killing weapon" sounds daft, but he is has not confessed murder... only killing.

I don't think the State CAN prove beyond reasonable doubt the OP knew Reeva was behind the door... their case has been 3 weeks (wasted) largely trying to do that... to the exclusion of arguing what might well get them "a result"

 

[minor4th]

What is your viewpoint on the bathroom light being on ?That also contradicts his statement .

I have no idea as I haven't really followed that line of inquiry. Even if I did, I doubt I would give any of it much weight if it either contradicted or supported Oscar's version - because eyewitnesses are inherently unreliable, and I just don't think this issue is important.

 

[kittychi]

On Twitter today:

Barry Roux ‏@BarryRouxLaw 11h
Oldwage cross examining gives me time to catch up on my Candy Crush Saga game. #OscarTrial

:floorlaugh:

 

[steveml]

No idea what you are on about, i am expressing by opinon/theories on a forum, this is not a court i do not need hard evidence to have an opinion on what happened.

Of course you're entitled to your opinion. But in fairness you replied to my post where I was asking for a motive, and didn't provide one. There's nothing really to get upset about.

I could say 'maybe he got pineapple topping and he wanted anchovies', that's why he went into full combat mode. It's speculation, but I've not provided what can be construed as a suitable motive.

People will natural question others findings on a forum, unless everyone agrees with everybody else of course.

 

[Gbtaketwo]

I have no idea as I haven't really followed that line of inquiry. Even if I did, I doubt I would give any of it much weight if it either contradicted or supported Oscar's version - because eyewitnesses are inherently unreliable, and I just don't think this issue is important.

I am surprised by that because his statement clearly states he was too frightened to put the light on . If the light was on then why would he assume it was an intruder and not Reeva .
Also the bedroom would have been partially illuminated .