Trial Discussion weekend Thread #18

[Gbtaketwo]

Agreed. It seems to me that the police may have struggled with passwords at some point but the media meme of "OP forgot/refused to give the correct password " always seemed odd to me.

The Iphone pincode can be reset at any old Apple store.
The Apple/iTunes ID is not related to a specific device. If we had his id and password any of us could login to OPs account from our computer. Apple could reset that without seeing a physical phone.

If the actual phone needed to be taken to the US it was for recovering deleted data or downloading other records or phone usage, I think. Stuff that needs special software or know how. Not to change a password. IMO.

I agree it was probably to retrieve the deleted Whats app messages that I think must have originally been backed up to iCloud and then may subsequently have deleted .If they hadn't been backed up I think they are lost forever after 7 days which coincidentally is around the time the phone was handed in .
I think the removal of the phone will be a thing that he will be questioned about but obviously there has been time for a plausible explanation such as someone forgot it was in their pocket .The explanation of how and who took it from the crime scene will be interesting .
Another thing that keeps distracting me is that there has been no mention of any kind of computer belonging to Reeva as it is suggested that both iPads were OP's
She must have had one somewhere ,would just like to know whether they found one or not even if the prosecution didn't think there was anything useful on it .

 

[kittychi]

This is where common sense comes into play. Common sense tells you if OP was so paranoid about the prospect of intruders he would keep his gun within arms reach. Not under the bed where he has to feel around for it in the dark, should he need to defend himself urgently. I would suggest he would keep it either on the bedside table or under his pillow. Are we to believe if an intruder had made it into his bedroom, he would get out of bed & fumble around on the floor under his bed seeking out his gun?

Yes....and if he was going to sleep on the other side of the bed, he would take the gun with him. That would be consistent with a fear of intruders.

My thinking is the questioning would be:

Nel: When you switched your sleeping side of the bed, why didn't you move the gun also?
OP: I had a beautiful woman in my bed and the gun slipped my mind.
Nel: Then how did you forget she was there when you heard a noise in the loo and put four bullets through the door to hit the person inside?

Oscar cannot even claim he was groggy from sleep, because he had just been awake enough to bring fans in, close doors, and close curtains.

 

[jay-jay]

Tainting the public against OP worked. Seems like there was a lot of running out to report on all the slimy details and not a lot of retractions.

To be honest, I don't think anyone actually needed to 'taint' him. He killed his girlfriend, end of.

 

[Gbtaketwo]

As for Oscar's version , it still doesn't seem probable to me at all that they didn't see / realize each other in the bedroom .

Acc to him , Reeva was in bed on the balcony side and at that exact moment he was out in the balcony grabbing the fan.
She gets up , passes near the bed (not realizing him tangling with tha fan ?)
and when she is just on the footside of the bed , Oscar would come in imo.

Was she teleported to get to the bathroom while OP was coming in ?

both didn't see/ realize each other ,
she didn't hear him coming in from the balcony on her way to bathroom
she didn't hear him closing the blinds and curtains
he didn't hear her in the bedroom , hallway walking towards the bathroom

sounds like a silent movie, or an invisibility cloak from Harry Potter maybe.. :facepalm:

I always struggled with this as well after noticing the size of the balcony ,the sleeping positions and the restricted space at the right hand side of the bed .
Another thing troubling me at the moment is why on earth would Reeva be moving around inside the toilet if she thought the imaginary intruder was coming towards her.
She didn't shout back through fear but was then moving around .......
Then there is the fact that neither of them put so much as a bedside light on when they knew the other partner was awake.
At the very least you would have thought Reeva would have taken her phone to use as a light bearing in mind she must have known ( if we believe OP ) that the toilet light wasn't working as this was the second night she had stayed in a row .
The mind boggles .

 

[steveml]

He has killed his girlfriend, of that there's no doubt, and trial by both media and judge is underway.

However, it's one thing reporting on a story that OP is a reckless *******, and another thing to leak information with the intention of planting the seed that he maliciously planned a murder.

 

[Lyra500]

Tainting the public against OP worked. Seems like there was a lot of running out to report on all the slimy details and not a lot of retractions.

The public do not need 'tainting' and I find this theory curiously one-sided given the huge amount of briefing given from OP, his rapidly appointed PR company and his camp literally from a few hours after he shot Reeva dead. They were briefing the media about his intruder story by the very next morning and the police made it quite clear that information had not come from them.

In addition I would have thought that 'tainting' was not necessary since OP has shown himself to be a liar already. His WhatsApp message indicates that it was indeed him who fired the gun in the restaurant and then got one of his friends to claim responsibility.

In fact, since it would be a shame if people lost sight of this fact, I am seriously considering referring to him as SCLOP from now on (Self Confessed Liar Oscar Pistorius).

And as other FMs have quite reasonably pointed out, the man shot an unarmed woman dead in his house without checking she was safe first - even if you accept his version. No need for 'tainting' at all.

 

[kittychi]

Tainting the public against OP worked. Seems like there was a lot of running out to report on all the slimy details and not a lot of retractions.

Very poor job by the expensive PR firm that was hired, then.

 

[steveml]

I always struggled with this as well after noticing the size of the balcony ,the sleeping positions and the restricted space at the right hand side of the bed .
Another thing troubling me at the moment is why on earth would Reeva be moving around inside the toilet if she thought the imaginary intruder was coming towards her.
She didn't shout back through fear but was then moving around .......
Then there is the fact that neither of them put so much as a bedside light on when they knew the other partner was awake.
At the very least you would have thought Reeva would have taken her phone to use as a light bearing in mind she must have known ( if we believe OP ) that the toilet light wasn't working as this was the second night she had stayed in a row .
The mind boggles .

BIB

Reeva's phone ended up in the bathroom after she was dragged out of the toilet, perhaps she took it with her for that very reason?

 

[Gbtaketwo]

He has killed his girlfriend, of that there's no doubt, and trial by media is underway.

However, it's one thing reporting on a story that OP is a reckless *******, and another thing to leak information with the intention of planting the seed that he maliciously planned a murder.

It is funny but despite all the bad press it his his own statement that make me lean towards him being guilty . His statement is like a snowball effect in that there has to be so some many unusual implausible things to have happened for it to be true .
Probably not explaining my self very well but that is just my gut feeling and has not been brought on by the press but by me trying to think his version through .

For what it is worth if he did know it was Reeva I do think he likely did it in a moment of anger/madness rather than a thought out plan to kill well in advance.

Occasionally I pity him for ruining his own life and everything he has worked for as well as taking Reeva's but quickly come back round to the fact that if found guilty he deserves his punishment .
Reeva's parents will never get over this and will be suffering for the rest of their lives but seeing justice done may help them .

 

[Gbtaketwo]

BIB

Reeva's phone ended up in the bathroom after she was dragged out of the toilet, perhaps she took it with her for that very reason?

I did consider that but we have no proof it was actually in the toilet at this point and if that had been the case how could he not have seen the light on the way to the loo . Again for his story to be true we would need to think that she took her phone but didn't use it until she reached the bathroom . Just an extra stretch for me ,but I do try

 

[Val1]

BIB

Reeva's phone ended up in the bathroom after she was dragged out of the toilet, perhaps she took it with her for that very reason?

Yet it was found outside the toilet room on the floor, as if it had been dropped in a scuffle, while she was in a locked cubicle that OP's lawyer now claims had a broken light? I suppose the "intruder/s" had fought with her before he/they slipped back out the window and jumped from the 2nd storey, those darn ninjas seem to appear in a lot of murder cases...

 

[wb180]

He has killed his girlfriend, of that there's no doubt, and trial by both media and judge is underway.

However, it's one thing reporting on a story that OP is a reckless *******, and another thing to leak information with the intention of planting the seed that he maliciously planned a murder.

Leaking false information backfires anyways as it gives credibility to OP which leads to people thinking, by extension, other aspects of his version of events are true.

 

[Rumpole]

I'm convinced of OP's guilt and would condemn him harshly.
But I'm also glad not to be the judge.

I think EVERY defendant would be judged as guilty by Forum.. and sentenced harshly... most put to death.

I don't follow every case.

I do not recall ANY case where Forum posters consensus was "Not Guilty"

Has there been ANY such case?

 

[Interested Bystander]

Tainting the public against OP worked. Seems like there was a lot of running out to report on all the slimy details and not a lot of retractions.

As there is no jury and the judges are oblivious to tainting I would very much doubt what anyone in the general public thought or said would make a jot of difference to the proceedings.

 

[Trooper]

I think EVERY defendant would be judged as guilty by Forum.. and sentenced harshly... most put to death.

luckily , Oscar lives in a civilized nation that has discarded the death penalty 20 years ago......

I'm lucky I live in one, too.. I've lived my entire lifetime without a death penalty in the criminal code....and well before I was born.


except for Treason..

 

[Trooper]

I think EVERY defendant would be judged as guilty by Forum.. and sentenced harshly... most put to death.

I don't follow every case.

I do not recall ANY case where Forum posters consensus was "Not Guilty"

Has there been ANY such case?

generally not on websleuths...it is overwhelmingly a victim friendly site..


that's irregardless of the gender of the victim or the perpetrator... men killing women, women killing men, men killing children , women killing children....


its quite standard in that regard...

 

[Trooper]

Id be as cranky with Reeva if she had murdered Oscar in the exact same circumstances...

 

[steveml]

Yet it was found outside the toilet room on the floor, as if it had been dropped in a scuffle, while she was in a locked cubicle that OP's lawyer now claims had a broken light? I suppose the "intruder/s" had fought with her before he/they slipped back out the window and jumped from the 2nd storey, those darn ninjas seem to appear in a lot of murder cases...

There's a problem here though.

The phone wasn't found where it had been photographed (this point I referred to earlier) they moved the phone elsewhere.

What we then found out via further questioning was that the phone was found under a towel. This may have been found in the bathroom but we don't know what's been moved and what hasn't. So is the phone under towel photo correct? If so, then we are at a stretch to believe that Reeva dropped the phone in a scuffle, but a towel jumped on top of it. See how ridiculous that sounds. Although, it doesn't, and it isn't ridiculous because then you just say, ah, well OP used the towel and put it over the phone. The defense reply, ah well....

This is how a story becomes too stretched for trial purposes. They have to stick to the reasonable things they know to be true. OP may explain these details but nobody else can.

If Reeva did have a phone in that small cubicle, we can reasonably say there's a very good chance it came out with her as she was being pulled out.

 

[04009margaret]

Are we actually going to see any of the trial next week, or is it all just going to be audio. Someone posted on an earlier thread that all the DT witnesses would be audio only, if this is the case I'm going to be one unhappy camper lol. I had hoped that OP wouldn't choose this option. I think it's important when he gives his testimony, to see his facial expressions & his body language, not just hear his words.

 

[Trooper]

we can always watch Oscar propped up behind Roux.. its when Roux does his stuff, that Oscar tends to stir from his immobility..


and hopefully... we will be able to see him when Nel does his cross examination.. now that is what I am intrigued by..