Trial Discussion Thread #16

[fox1lady]

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/oscar-pistorius-trial--the-invisible-witness-141058347.html

Oscar Pistorius Trial: The Invisible Witness

I have an imaginary fear of men attacking me on dark nights... is it alright to start shooting at one if he walks too close behind me?

 

[shane13]

Deeply troubling? No, not for me. The reason being that no one is saying that OP never fired that gun that night or that he did not kill Reeva. Now, if OP was claiming that a stranger came into the house, took OP's gun and then used it to kill Reeva I would have a problem with it.

Who fired the gun has never been in question.

My post is not about whether that is suffcient to get OP off-it shouldn't but a judge can use this and do whatever she likes.

It was about not doing what was 2nd hand nature for decades to him.
Even van Rensburg said he was livid, prob. becuase he knows judge can uses this to throw the case.

Indeed, and curiously, just before the trial started I recall a statement from Nat. Pros. Authority spokesperson. It went something like "The main reason many crimnals go free is not that they are innocent, but because police mishandle the evidence." [Or words to that effect]

 

[Viper]

Definitely not blood. It looks like small pieces of tape to me. Could it be something used to lift fingerprints?

On Edit: O.K., after reading more comments, it may be blood spots that are too small to see from the photo.

BIB. Noooo! :smile: You are maybe only the 1st or 2nd person that can see the 12 marks besides just the arrows. It looks like bat strikes on the glass, that type of glass can chip and not break. To break it you would need to hit it super hard, preferably with an object that is as hard as steel and with a small contact point. There is something to the 12 marks.

If I had to speculate: OP was throwing this tantrum for 17 minutes so he likely leaned back on the sink at some point, bat in hand. He struck the shower door at least 12 times leaving this marks from the wooden bat, perhaps strike everytime he hear a wrong answer or a super loud scream. We will see if it is brought up.

 

[steveml]

Huh?!

All this info has been kept to PT and DT themselves.

It was illegally taken from crime scene; that is all we know!
So how can you ask me such a thing?

No worries, we can just leave it as missing phone, whereabouts unknown.

 

[jay-jay]

Originally Posted by jay-jay View Post
No, I get that .. but I'm just a bit confused about why a different scenario would need to be put forward when a definite one has already been provided by the ballistics expert

BIB Because the defense team needs Reeva's screams, immediately before and during the shootig, to magically disappear; make it that no one ever heard Reeva's death screams. To do that she needs to be killed instantly with a bullet to her head before any other shots are fired. So the DT ballistic expert is going to say Reeva was just getting off the toilet (because that is why she was in the WC :no when the first shot went through her brain killing and the second shot followed immediately (double tap) hitting her in the hip as she slid off of the toilet and the 3rd or 4th shot hit her upper arm just before it fell behind the toilet. These hired "experts" can be truthful people or they can say whatever their employer wants, it is fairly easy to screw around with this but I don't believe that his version will be believable compared to the truthful bullet guy's investigation results and testimony.

Hi Viper .. I think the trail of this discussion has gone a bit awry .. that wasn't what I was referring to at all .. you'd need to follow the trail backwards to see what I was referring to (basically where a poster, soz can't remember name, was insisting Reeva was standing in the LH corner of the toilet cubicle, even when it had actually already been confirmed by the ballistics expert that she was standing directly behind the door <<-- and I had explained this a number of times). I think this one is probably best left now though, because it's all getting too confusing .. mainly because you ('one') can't see all the previous quotes/comments in the conversation.

 

[BritsKate]

I think that's fairly common though .. because people are more likely, generally, to lock up all their doors and windows on the ground floor but are more lax with their upstairs windows.

(edit: do you mean 'first floor'? I don't recall the bedroom/bathroom/toilet suite as being on the second floor .. there is a ground flour and a first floor .. unless that is a UK thing ..)



I think that (in OP's version), that would've been because the 'burglar' would've heard a noise himself (i.e. OP) and hid in the toilet cubicle.

(.. not that I believe any of this stuff, you understand ..!)

RBBM

It is, indeed. Ground = first; first = second. Now back to debating Cookie vs. Biscuit with my British husband. (He's wrong, of course. But refuses to admit it.) :biggrin:

 

[nastasya]

That's a valid point.

The bathroom window is adjacent to the opposite houses which are very far away in comparison. Mrs Stipps window shows how far away these houses are (72 meters away). You would naturally shout towards you nearest neighbours than shout across an expanse of open land.

I have included apples this time, rather than gingerbread men, to indicate the direction that I would expect somebody to shout.

I think the state may have made a big mistake not using witnesses close to the house. Unless the properties were vacant at the time, they must have heard things.

http://www.itv.com/news/2013-02-20/...hearing-told-witness-heard-non-stop-shouting/

Here's a more valid point.

Why shout to neighbors for help at all? Especially when at the time he hadn't event turned on the lights yet?

"When I reached the bed, I realised that Reeva was not in bed. That is when it dawned on me that it could have been Reeva who was in the toilet. I returned to the bathroom calling her name. I tried to open the toilet door but it was locked. I rushed back into the bedroom and opened the sliding door exiting onto the balcony and screamed for help. I put on my prosthetic legs, ran back to the bathroom and tried to kick the toilet door open. I think I must then have turned on the lights."

So he sees the empty bed then he runs around and goes from...

Bed > bathroom, door locked > bedroom > deck (shouts) > gets legs > bathroom > turns on lights > kicks door > bedroom > bat > bathroom > hits door > finds Reeva shot in head


What's missing from this drama?

When did killer say he looked for the keys to the bathroom?

Killed shouted for help from neighbors, then kicked door, then hit it with bat, all the time forgetting to bother to look for the keys or call police.

Right....

 

[jay-jay]

RBBM

It is, indeed. Ground = first; first = second. Now back to debating Cookie vs. Biscuit with my British husband. (He's wrong, of course. But refuses to admit it.) :biggrin:

Oh right, thank you!

 

[Gbtaketwo]

BIB. Noooo! :smile: You are maybe only the 1st or 2nd person that can see the 12 marks besides just the arrows. It looks like bat strikes on the glass, that type of glass can chip and not break. To break it you would need to hit it super hard, preferably with an object that is as hard as steel and with a small contact point. There is something to the 12 marks.

If I had to speculate: OP was throwing this tantrum for 17 minutes so he likely leaned back on the sink at some point, bat in hand. He struck the shower door at least 12 times leaving this marks from the wooden bat, perhaps strike everytime he hear a wrong answer or a super loud scream. We will see if it is brought up.

I could see the marks in the picture you posted but just not 100% sure what caused them and then got confused by other people saying they were not there in other photo's .
That doesn't surprise me though because I have yet to see a good picture of the broken downstairs window so am assuming a lot of photo's out there are just not clear enough in detail .

 

[steveml]

Here's a more valid point.

Why shout to neighbors for help at all? Especially when at the time he hadn't event turned on the lights yet?

"When I reached the bed, I realised that Reeva was not in bed. That is when it dawned on me that it could have been Reeva who was in the toilet. I returned to the bathroom calling her name. I tried to open the toilet door but it was locked. I rushed back into the bedroom and opened the sliding door exiting onto the balcony and screamed for help. I put on my prosthetic legs, ran back to the bathroom and tried to kick the toilet door open. I think I must then have turned on the lights."

So he sees the empty bed then he runs around and goes from...

Bed > bathroom, door locked > bedroom > deck (shouts) > gets legs > bathroom > turns on lights > kicks door > bedroom > bat > bathroom > hits door > finds Reeva shot in head


What's missing from this drama?

When did killer say he looked for the keys to the bathroom?

Killed shouted for help from neighbors, then kicked door, then hit it with bat, all the time forgetting to bother to look for the keys or call police.

Right....

I'm not sure Nastasya, this is something I'll be waiting to here from OP.

The only thing I've heard about the keys is that they were on the outside of the toilet door with a green fob.

How and when they got there is still unknown to me.

 

[fox1lady]

This may already have been posted but in case not everyone has seen it I've posted it anyway

The OJ Simpson Lawyer's Verdict On Pistorius - YouTube

 

[Viper]

I've looked at quite a few pictures of that toilet door now, and the gap under it is so tiny (probably no more than half a centimetre) that that would be impossible. It looks no different to my own bathroom door, and you cannot even see the area of floor just under the door itself let alone anything behind it!

There is really no need to look at your bathroom door. I mean if I look at mine and report back to you that the gap between my door and the floor is large enough to see under would that have any real meaning to this conversation about OPs door? There is a gap, that really goes without saying and we will never know if he ever looked under and through it. We are just speculating about this odd little thing, that's all.

 

[BritsKate]

Well thanks for that.

But without so much testing that was not done, there remains many possibilities.

E.g., is it possible that when laid on top of the bed (hypothetically) angles and wounds could be such that arterial spray went up? To the wall?

Also remember this is moments according to Dr Perumal from when Reeva's heart stopped beating alltogether.

I tend to believe in an argument that ended, ultimately, with Oscar striking Reeva. I think that's where the blood in the bedroom came from. I think that was her 'aha' moment. She ran to the toilet after that, having every intention of leaving the relationship...

To my mind, her speech on abusive relationships got her thinking - she started putting pieces together, seeing patterns she'd lived once before already - and confronted him over his behaviour, sparking the argument.

JMO

 

[Gryffindor]

He could have been saying that to anyone.....not necessarily talking about himself. Though I agree he is arrogant.

He retweeted it which means it's an opinion/value he holds and agrees with (about himself).

 

[Viper]

I tend to believe in an argument that ended, ultimately, with Oscar striking Reeva. I think that's where the blood in the bedroom came from. I think that was her 'aha' moment. She ran to the toilet after that, having every intention of leaving the relationship...

To my mind, her speech on abusive relationships got her thinking - she started putting pieces together, seeing patterns she'd lived once before already - and confronted him over his behaviour, sparking the argument.

JMO

Thanks, wonderful post, as always!

I was hoping, and to a certain extent I still am, that Reeva punched the *#%¥ out of OPs nose and it is his blood on the wall and the duvet! :smile:

 

[Gbtaketwo]

Here's a more valid point.

Why shout to neighbors for help at all? Especially when at the time he hadn't event turned on the lights yet?

"When I reached the bed, I realised that Reeva was not in bed. That is when it dawned on me that it could have been Reeva who was in the toilet. I returned to the bathroom calling her name. I tried to open the toilet door but it was locked. I rushed back into the bedroom and opened the sliding door exiting onto the balcony and screamed for help. I put on my prosthetic legs, ran back to the bathroom and tried to kick the toilet door open. I think I must then have turned on the lights."

So he sees the empty bed then he runs around and goes from...

Bed > bathroom, door locked > bedroom > deck (shouts) > gets legs > bathroom > turns on lights > kicks door > bedroom > bat > bathroom > hits door > finds Reeva shot in head


What's missing from this drama?

When did killer say he looked for the keys to the bathroom?

Killed shouted for help from neighbors, then kicked door, then hit it with bat, all the time forgetting to bother to look for the keys or call police.

Right....

I have lost track of just how many implausible actions/ scenario's there are in Op's statement with regard to normal everyday responses so have stopped trying as it has been driving me mad.

I Am now trying to learn and fully understand more points of law in South Africa so as to take a view on what I feel the likely outcome will be .

Will still of course listen to the defence but my gut feeling is

It looks like a rat ,smells like a rat so it probably is a rat even if I can't prove beyond reasonable doubt to myself that it is a rat

That is not to say I wouldn't change my view with some compelling new evidence from the defence ......emphathis here on " compelling "

 

[Gryffindor]

Rubber handle which was removed from bat? Nothing significant or noteworthy then from prosecution?

 

[steveml]

Rubber handle which was removed from bat? Nothing significant or noteworthy then from prosecution?

When Vermeulen was asked about this, he indicated he received it from fingerprinting with the rubber handle removed, but didn't elaborate any further on the test results.

 

[Gryffindor]

There is really no need to look at your bathroom door. I mean if I look at mine and report back to you that the gap between my door and the floor is large enough to see under would that have any real meaning to this conversation about OPs door? There is a gap, that really goes without saying and we will never know if he ever looked under and through it. We are just speculating about this odd little thing, that's all.

Agree. It's totally irrelevant and pointless . . .

 

[Gryffindor]

When Vermulen was asked about this, he indicated he received it from fingerprinting with the rubber handle removed, but didn't elaborate any further on the test results.

Thanks Steve. Yeah, I assume nothing substantial then :-\ Thanks