Trial Discussion Thread #31

[Cape Town Crim.]

What is also interesting about that photo is that the grey pillow on the side where Reeva was supposed to have been sleeping, is propped up against the headboard .. now assuming that bit wouldn't have been touched right from the time OP shot Reeva (and there's no reason why it would've been, either by OP or by crime scene officers) then why is it in that position? Reeva would've have slept with a pillow up like that, surely? That's yet one more thing that indicates to me that neither he or she were asleep, and they had been up pretty much half the night before the shooting.

I agree with you completely.

The most obvious inferences in this case are IMHO the correct ones.

A model who did yoga goes to 'sleep' in the same clothes, without removing mascara? That on it's own is beyond the realms of the reasonable.
She was 29, not an 18 year old party through the night girl leaving her face paint on.

It might seem small and irrelevant, but to me it's a logical 'red flag' in terms of Oscar's story. And there are so many more - as you have once more pointed out.

Sometimes things really are just what they appear to be IMHO. They never went to bed at all.

 

[Viper]

That was me, and I'm more than happy to retract it. My thought processes were : I read something Dixon said about a bullet fragment being found in Reeva's abdomen and wondered if it had done any damage. Then when I read of the liver was pale from blood loss I wondered if that was from direct liver trauma. But I'll readily admit to speculating. The thing is, every one of Reeva's organs would have been removed and examined but the media have largely commented on the most dramatic injuries. We'll never know if there were other injuries.

Thank you!

If you Google Juror13 Blog you should be find Lisa's blog. She has practically everything there including tons of images. There are a couple of images of Reeva, her head and face. She looks very beautiful despite the injuries; but she also does not look as though she lost very much blood at all. Check it out when you have time.

 

[jay-jay]

BIB. I imagine that the arguing started, or continued, downstairs in the kitchen or game room. And OP would naturally let the dogs outside for natures call or just to let them get away from the two people arguing. I don't believe they would bark at whatever their master was saying if they were outside; but I do believe that they would bark if they saw the argument become physical.

ETA: I also suspect that the dogs were scared to death just hearing two people arguing, especially their master, it must have completely freaked them out!

I'm glad you've mentioned that because I keep meaning to say how 'we' (well, I'm sure some people do anyway!) tend to forget about the animals in such incidents, even in general DV situations where it doesn't result in a killing but just the general mayhem of it all .. it must be terrible for them, not knowing what the heck is going on My cat was only a tiny little kitten at the time of my own DV experience and I hate to say but she used to get forgotten about in the total chaos of it all, and quite often various doors/windows/etc would get thrown open by him at some point (and then by me, trying to escape) and I've no idea what whether she had darted out or not because I was too busy trying to protect myself at the time. I'm lucky that she didn't end up running away completely .. or having her stolen, because he did try to kidnap her the day he came round and smashed my front door down and trashed my house while I was out (and the neighbours told me they saw him putting her in a wheelie bin while he was busying himself doing other things in my house). I feel terrible that I put her through all of that I keep thinking about OP's pet monkey, too .. but I would imagine that would've been kept somewhere outside in a cage maybe?

 

[Cape Town Crim.]

Thank you!

If you Google Juror13 Blog you should be find Lisa's blog. She has practically everything there including tons of images. There are a couple of images of Reeva, her head and face. She looks very beautiful despite the injuries; but she also does not look as though she lost very much blood at all. Check it out when you have time.

I am most impressed with that blog. She has done a fabulous job.

It's the GO TO fact file IMHO.

 

[sleuth-d-]

My guess is that they didn't check all of these individual things is because they already have one, if not two or more, pieces of damning evidence .. one of them, I think, is something to do with Reeva's clothing ... see this from 32:00 - 32:57 (particularly from 32:43) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYRFEnT9-d0

wasn't it op-mentioned that they were his clothes? white basketball shorts.
yet at the beginning of the evening he stated [and couldn't explain why] that she was changed into her pyjamas when he first entered the house.

forgive me if i have mis-remembered.

 

[minor4th]

Well I hope we will still be getting 'The Evidence Room's' animated version of events according to Oscar, along with the 'Scream 7' recordings.

Wolmarans/vd Westhuizen and their ballistic evidence will be utterly boring by comparison. (Although the re-introduction of the wonderful interpreter might shake things up a bit; Wollie will need her in order to be understood)

I'm actually looking forward to hearing from Wolmarans. I think Womarans is the scream witness, no?

I do hope we get to see the animation too!

 

[zwiebel]

BBM

Try these links ...

http://juror13lw.files.wordpress.co...de-of-bed-holster-seen-to-the-right-of-it.png
http://juror13lw.files.wordpress.co...-in-between-lamp-on-left-and-bed-on-right.png

If you visit OPs twitter account he has photos posted there, one has him with the tan / blonde dog in his bed. They were inside dogs, pets. He also said that he had to put on his legs before he opened the bedroom door to let them in with him because otherwise they would knock him down to the floor upon entering.

Who really knows what his dogs did that night? I have a German Shepherd, one brought over from Germany not an American GSD, and I can tell you that she goes ballistic at anything unusual, literally anything! She's a complete maniac!!! But our family loves her for it! But in the past I had a wonderful Bassett Hound, his name was Barney - God bless him; he too was noisy if something unusual happened, but only when I was at home, otherwise he remained completely quiet (he wanted backup just in case! :smile.

Germany has the barkiest dogs I've ever come across. I think it must be because in rural areas, nobody seems to mind - in fact it's their job to bark and warn of any strangers.

My (thoroughly English) dog will bark, but if people start getting angry and shouting or making loud noises, he hides and goes completely silent.

 

[zwiebel]

Has there been any reference to where the dogs were kept? If they were normally kept outside for example, they would surely go off if an intruder was skulking around. Am wondering if OP got the dogs for security purposes?

I think OP or Sam Taylor testified that there was one time when OP heard a noise and woke Sam to ask her if she heard it. It turned out to be his dogs downstairs, knocking things over. So it sounds like they were kept in the house.

They are probably lucky he didn't shoot them, that night.

 

[minor4th]

wasn't it op-mentioned that they were his clothes? white basketball shorts.
yet at the beginning of the evening he stated [and couldn't explain why] that she was changed into her pyjamas when he first entered the house.

forgive me if i have mis-remembered.

He did say both of those things - I took it to mean that she changed into the basketball shorts and t-shirt, and that is what she sleeps in at Oscar's house so he referred to it as 'pajamas.'

He also said he changed into his pajamas when he got home and cleaned up - his pajamas also consisting of basketball shorts.

 

[Gbtaketwo]

The police report about the mssing watch may be pretty standard if the OP definitely knows there's a watch missing and might have been encouraged by Van M to report it as such but I'd be curious to know if he's since made a claim on insurance for it and what date as that to me would show how he was more worried about the watch than he was his dead girlfriend.

I'd also completely forgotten about Reeva's sandals being found on the left hand side of the bed. Which now means OP's prosthetics, vest and gun are all on the balcony side of the bed and yet we're to believe he spent the night on the left hand side?

Another thing I failed to notice until looking at some of the recent photos were the horizontal blinds on both the bathroom and toilet windows and I don't recall at any moment of OP's testimony that he heard the blinds moving - which they most definitely would have and they'd also be quite loud.

Thanks for your post about the blind as I was thinking that myself when I was looking at the mystery hand .It is also strange that he heard wood moving and movement in the toilet ( from someone that was supposed to be terrified and therefore still ) but no key being turned in the lock . A key turning in a lock is usually quite noisy and something that you can instinctively tell what it is . His selective memory over this will likely be due to the fact that he would be forewarned by his defence team that if he testified to hearing it being locked then he would not be able to escape from the fact that his imaginary intruder was attempting to flee or hide so was not posing as much as an immediate threat to justify shooting . In those circumstances you think think that the reasonable thing to do would be to enquire who was behind the door before shooting or at least fire a warning shot .JMOO

 

[Mr Fossil]

My guess is that they didn't check all of these individual things is because they already have one, if not two or more, pieces of damning evidence .. one of them, I think, is something to do with Reeva's clothing ... see this from 32:00 - 32:57 (particularly from 32:43) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYRFEnT9-d0

Interesting. I've never considered what she was wearing to be unusual at all; my 20-something year old daughters have worn similar clothing to go to bed at times.

 

[jay-jay]

that's why I dismiss entirely the fiction of 'the deep terror', the 'noise' of the window sliding, the telling of Reeva to 'call the police'.. like , as if those words have ever crossed OPs little lips on this earth, the creeping along shouting 'get out, get out'.. the careful aiming of the gun, the sequence of shots,...

and the biggest fiction of all, . . back in his bedroom, the 'dawning' that Reeva wasn't there, and all the embroidery of patting the bed and along the curtains, the balcony call for help.. .... oh .. fer petes sake.. its ...

Entirely and totally fabricated.

.. absolutely .. but .. what I keep finding is that little bits of what he said has now become 'the truth' .. for instance, Reeva locking herself in the toilet. I've noticed that many people keep asking the question "why would anyone lock themselves in the toilet in their b/f's house?" as if it's the truth, but we don't actually know if it is the truth because the only person who would've witnessed this is OP, and the only person who has told us that Reeva locked herself in is OP .. and we all know what his word usually is, don't we? OP might well have locked her in there himself, we just don't know, and that's why none of the things that happened that night should be taken as gospel truth because pretty much all of it has come from OP's mouth. The only things we do know as fact are 1) OP fired 4 shots through the door, 3 of which fatally injured Reeva, 2) OP broke down the door and 3) OP carried Reeva downstairs .. oh, and we have data evidence of the times of the phone calls just after the incident .. and that is about it, none of the rest of it is known fact and shouldn't be taken as such, not even down to "Reeva locking herself in the toilet".

 

[sleuth-d-]

just a few thoughts, looking at the door.
there is a lot of resistance to the version regarding bat strikes first and then gun shots. mainly due to the crack that runs though one bullet hole [bullet hole d].

my 'version' is that there were three sets of events...

1. physical actions by op on the door.
shoulder barging. kicking. powerful bat strikes [enough for the sound to be confused with gunshots]. all done with extreme anger at a closed/locked door... with poor reeva quietly hiding in her perceived safe place behind that door. these bat strikes knocked out a small amount of wood on the right hand side of the door centre panel. but didn't crack the door. imagine the tiny gap opening, and how that bat would have appeared/sounded to reeva on the inside… breaching the safe place. hence the screams that wouldn't stop.

2. four gunshots into the door. the screaming stops.

3. the process involving removal of the panels to gain access.
this would not create a great deal of noise. obviously, the first panel is the most difficult to remove, involving inserting the cricket bat into the small space already created at [1] and then twisting/levering.
note, the 'stuttering/ratcheted/edging' marks in the wood at door handle level… where, as this first panel was twisted the handle gouged into the wood.
note also, how the vertical crack aligns with the end of the handle. as the twisting reached extreme point, the panel cracked at the point where the wood could not pass the door handle.
once the first panel is removed the subsequent panels are much easier to knock or pull out.

 

[Gbtaketwo]

for me, it was the hours after the reporting of the crime.. 4 shots. That's it. As things have unfolded, it became as concrete for me. His bail hearing was an introduction to a crime that was going to be played out among heavy hitters with no holds barred and so it is turning out to be so.

From Mrs VanderMewre's testimony of the argument, that went on intermittently for about an hour before the shooting, it appeared it was going to be just another ordinary murder, man loses temper with woman, fires gun and kills her, then is frightened of consequences.. and nothing has changed in that respect.. because that is precisely what it is. A very ordinary murder, one done every 8 hours in SA and not much less in the USA. Its not a complicated story, either..

The only thing unusual about it, but not very unusual, just a tiny bit is the short time they knew each other.. but in that short time, there was big trouble, a fundamental difference in perspective that had inbuilt into it an escalating differential in expectations..


There really is nothing that could change it, for me. I suppose if a man and woman close to the house gave testimony that it was them arguing and eventually screaming in synchronicity with OPs firing his gun, maybe..maybe..

That is such a sad statistic to read . One intimate murder every 8 hours .
3 per day ,truly awful. We have a lot in the UK but I don't think it will be anywhere close to those statistics .

 

[wb180]

Interesting. I've never considered what she was wearing to be unusual at all; my 20-something year old daughters have worn similar clothing to go to bed at times.

Good point but I thought she had her own set of clothes in the bag?

Maybe OP or herself wanted to wear his clothes?

I guess that is understandable as it is their first valentine together which also means why the heck would they go to bed at 10pm.

Going to bed at 10pm day before valentine is for couples who are married with kids who are married as well! (not trying to give offence to our older generation websleuthers! )

 

[sleuth-d-]

Good point but I thought she had her own set of clothes in the bag?

Maybe OP or herself wanted to wear his clothes?

I guess that is understandable as it is their first valentine together which also means why the heck would they go to bed at 10pm.

Going to bed at 10pm day before valentine is for couples who are married with kids who are married as well! (not trying to give offence to our older generation websleuthers! )

haha. yes, but we are talking about two christians here [not trying to give offence to christians! ]

 

[Gbtaketwo]

Another good point. The dogs.

One could keep this list going forever; so many things to be questioned. And this on it's own is proof that something is rotten in the state of Oscar.

**I did a little mobile phone light test a few nights back. I stood in our main bedroom and walked down the passage (rather long) away towards our 3rd bedroom right at the bottom. My husband had his back turned towards the passage, and he saw shadows dancing on the walls in front of him and on the sides of him like it was a 1999 festival of llight.

No ways he wouldn't have seen that. He has no legs below the knee, he isn't blind is he?

Good post I totally agree with this because my hubby often comes to bed after me and uses his phone but I am still very aware of it even when turned away from him on my side .

 

[wb180]

haha. yes, but we are talking about two christians here [not trying to give offence to christians! ]

OP gives a bad name to christians! Maybe he got angry that RS wasn't giving out haha but then seems like he can get angry over the most trivial things

 

[jay-jay]

yes that makes sense. but if this was the case... the lack of any conversation recorded at the netcare end, would expose a really big op lie [even by his standards]. imo.

just saying it is a shame there is no recording, to see one way or the other. i guess the netcare system cannot determine/record a 'call' unless something is said...
again the absence of something is just as damning as the presence.

To me, it just seems like he put the call in to NetCare just to ensure there was evidence of the call on his phone data .. I think he really was that calculated about it. Same with the call to Baba/Security. Just to get them both on record as him having dialled their numbers .. only it does tend to look just a wee bit odd that they weren't the first people he called, and instead it was Stander (and what is more astonishing is that OP testified that he tried to use Reeva's phone to call NetCare first, but then when he gets hold of his own phone, who does he call first? Nope, not NetCare, but Stander :facepalm: )

 

[jay-jay]

Cant be because the camera grip is on the left and Motha was holding the camera

What type of camera was that, do you know (make/model)? All of my cameras (DSLR, etc) have a grip on the right hand side (seeing as the majority of people are right handed).