Trial Discussion Thread #31

[nastasya]

Look at ALL the state witnesses, the Gestalt of what was presented.

There were GUNSHOTS ---> Screams ----> Cricket bat

That sequence fits EVERY State witness testimony. <modsnip>

Not one witness testified to hearing a cricket bat. You're Gestalt is 100% wrong.

Woman screaming in terror, and man and a woman's voice, followed by gunshots is their testimony.

No matter how many hundreds of post you make trying to say that wasn't their testimony, it doesn't change the fact that's what the witnesses said.

I'm sure you'll try again though, and I'm sure that it won't change what the witnesses said.

 

[Feynman]

IIRC Stipps, Burger and Van d Merwe all described screams stopping after 2nd series of bangs. Though d Merwe only heard 4 bangs. Johnson and Dr Stipp said they heard male and female sounds together. The Stipps heard first shots at 2.58 am. Johnson last shots at 3.17 am. Burger hears shouts for help at 3am, tried to phone, heard screams then 4 shots, pause, then 3 more shots. There may be some slight variation here, the separate accounts do suggest what they heard is fairly accurate.

Its not a stretch of the imagination for the time of death to fit with Helen75's account. Though I'm not sure why she thinks this in particular will convict OP. Except that account would mean the final shot came later.

So when were the bat strikes?

Merwe heard "loud voices" as in a fight - almost all a woman's voice. I think we need to distinguish such a voice from screams.

 

[soozieqtips]

Your personal remark about me and how YOU think I perceive witnesses is misplaced (and wrong)

I have frequently praised Stipps as an excellent witness. The others are a mixed bag as with any group of witnesses. I have stated many times I would not accuse any of them of lying (for the main part), but witnesses with best intentions do get things WRONG. That is why, for the most part, witnesses are encouraged to stick to what they actually saw and heard and NOT what their interpretation is.

The "woman's screams" in question are the screams after the gun shots. I did not comment about the possibility of a single scream between hip shot and head shot... though I think it VERY unlikely. The time of a few seconds would not likely give time to react to shock and utter a scream. Even if it did it would in the time available be little more than a squeak, and masked by 4 loud gunshots in a confined space. Anyway THAT is not what I was referring to.. it is the screams well after that that Stipps and Burgers reported.. after the first bangs, but before the second. Almost certainly they were OP. (IMO)

THIS is embellishing.

"I rushed back into the bedroom and opened the sliding door exiting onto the balcony and screamed for help".

He screamed 'help help help' on ONE occasion... on the balcony. That's it! Now, after knowing what the neighbours actually heard, he's suddenly screaming all over the place, crying and screaming "like I've never cried or screamed before". Tailoring, much???

 

[jay-jay]

I remember this differently. The carpet meets the tile at the beginning of the hallway leading to the bathroom. OP fired from a point further on than that. OP said he went down the left side of the hallway and fired from the entrance to the bathroom leaning back on the left wall; this makes sense as it frees up his right arm and hand for firing the gun. I remember Mangena saying the shots were fired from 60 cm to 3 m away.

Thanks for this .. BIB .. I mentioned this a few pages back, as I was pretty certain that is what I had heard OP say. In which case my point still stand then that OP did not use enough screen/cover when entering the bathroom and just prior to shooting .. if that really had have been an intruder, OP would've ended up being shot dead himself before he had chance to fire .. and OP would've known this, and if he really had thought it was an intruder, he would've kept over to the right, well behind the right hand side of the wall and then fired from there.

 

[nastasya]

The fact that he was against the wall and shielded by the corner, shooting at a fairly severe angle - to me that suggests more that he was afraid of being shot at or attacked and was trying to remain at a distance and behind some cover while shooting.

It's not a fact that he was against the wall and shielded by a corner. That's your story.

The fact is he could have been right outside the door looking through the crack in the door directly at Reeva when he fired the first shot.

 

[patCee]

Merwe heard "loud voices" as in a fight - almost all a woman's voice. I think we need to distinguish such a voice from screams.

Corrected in my post 885.

 

[jay-jay]

Didn't they attempt a live reconstruction at the scene? Seems all they succeeded in doing was waking people up and pissing off Mrs Stipp. :floorlaugh:

I really don't understand that reconstruction .. how would they have known whether those witnesses were actually going to be at home that night? They may have been away on holiday/business or something. IMO, they should've told each one of them and also had another person there with them to independantly verify if and what they could hear. Really stupid experiment, IMO.

 

[soozieqtips]

I don't think it was ever the defense case that the first gunshot was to the head.

BBM - you didn't? Roux insisted Reeva couldn't have screamed because the first shot was to the head - therefore anyone and everyone who claimed to hear a woman screaming must have heard OP screaming. You don't remember this being the reason he insisted it had to have been OP screaming and not Reeva? This 'mistake', along with the double tap theory was quietly dropped.

 

[Rumpole]

I did say Van d Merwe only heard 4 bangs at about 3 am. The screaming would have included Johnson, not her, my mistake. My thinking was that the witness accounts would likely tie in with Helen75's opinion that RS death was likely to have been after the last bangs/shots. Bearing in mind that Stipp and Burger heard 2 lots of bangs/shots, it does raise the issue, for me, of which were the bat strikes, which were the shots.

Helen75 made some excellent points.
As I covered in my reply to her, I accept what she presented, and it does cast doubts on the shots being as early as some witnesses seem to indicate. However I have NEVER been happy with that time being as early as 3:00.
Stipps was "on the ball" and after first bangs he was getting ready to assist and on phone when he heard second set of bangs. I do not think Stipps was hanging about for 17 minutes before phoning, and so with second bangs set at 3:17 I have always assumed that first ones were closer to 3:10, 3:12

I did ask Helen75 how that time would sit with blood pulse evidence.

I have to repeat what I have said before... Nel's Contention that shots were at 3:17 I see as leaving an IMPOSSIBLE sequence of events that must have occurred over the next 5 minutes... when OP met Stander at 3:22.

 

[Irisha]

He never said there was definitely a ladder propped up to the bathroom window. He said ladders were left out and that crossed his mind that they could have been used to get in an window upstairs. <modsnip>
Remember there was no intruder either?

Exactly!, you finally get it! Hurrah!!!!!!!!!

 

[fox1lady]

Quick question - Why does it matter that OP shot four shots into the door and not one if he perceived there to be more than one person in the toilet? If he perceived 4 persons for example wouldn't that be equal to one shot (per person)? It seems that it would have been ok if he only fired one shot...

Am I even making sense... it's late and my first day back to work tomorrow so I guess I should get some sleep really.

 

[minor4th]

BBM - you didn't? Roux insisted Reeva couldn't have screamed because the first shot was to the head - therefore anyone and everyone who claimed to hear a woman screaming must have heard OP screaming. You don't remember this being the reason he insisted it had to have been OP screaming and not Reeva? This 'mistake', along with the double tap theory was quietly dropped.

I remember at the very beginning when Burger and Johnson were testifying to hearing screaming during the "shots" and for a moment after the "shots" - Roux made the point that it could not have been Reeva screaming because she would have been incapacitated by the gunshots. I really don't think he said the first gunshot was to the head - and logically he wouldn't say that when he knew his expert was going to testify that the first shot was not to the head.

ETA: I also remember him giving the double tap scenario - which did turn out to be a mistake, as Nel doggedly pointed out

 

[minor4th]

Quick question - Why does it matter that OP shot four shots into the door and not one if he perceived there to be more than one person in the toilet? If he perceived 4 persons for example wouldn't that be equal to one shot (per person)? It seems that it would have been ok if he only fired one shot...

Am I even making sense... it's late and my first day back to work tomorrow so I guess I should get some sleep really.

I don't think it matters other than to show that his intent was to kill the intruder(s)

 

[soozieqtips]

Quick question - Why does it matter that OP shot four shots into the door and not one if he perceived there to be more than one person in the toilet? If he perceived 4 persons for example wouldn't that be equal to one shot (per person)? It seems that it would have been ok if he only fired one shot...

Am I even making sense... it's late and my first day back to work tomorrow so I guess I should get some sleep really.

I doubt you could get 4 people in that toilet. It's really small!

 

[Rumpole]

Quick question - Why does it matter that OP shot four shots into the door and not one if he perceived there to be more than one person in the toilet? If he perceived 4 persons for example wouldn't that be equal to one shot (per person)? It seems that it would have been ok if he only fired one shot...

Am I even making sense... it's late and my first day back to work tomorrow so I guess I should get some sleep really.

Personally... I cant see why he stopped at 4.

I am NOT from a gun ownership place

But I imagine that if you are going to fire in fear for your life (self defense) it would make sense to give it your "best shot" (pun intended) and empty the magazine.
I do recall cases of Cops firing "in error" and hitting some poor guy multiple times... often multiple Cops at the same time.

ETA
Thinking about it. I guess hypothetically a really smart person would keep some shots in reserve, just in case there were more intruders coming in the window?

 

[Bazinga]

I really don't understand that reconstruction .. how would they have known whether those witnesses were actually going to be at home that night? They may have been away on holiday/business or something. IMO, they should've told each one of them and also had another person there with them to independantly verify if and what they could hear. Really stupid experiment, IMO.

And incredibly insensitive given how traumatic that night of 13/14 Feb 2013 would have been for the Stipps and other neighbours. It comes across as nasty and that they couldn't care less about the neighbours.
AND pointing out that the Stipps' curtains were drawn shut that night and implying they lied about them being open on the night Oscar killed Reeva. :facepalm:

 

[jay-jay]

Good point about the window in the bathroom. How would....better yet why would a burgler/intruder assume they could just slide the window open........heck with all the open windows that night in the hood.....why pick a closed one????

Yep, exactly! .. and OP would've realised this, just in the same way he says the he immediately thought of the ladders .. if he had heard that noise of the window sliding, then he wouldn't immediately have thought it was an intruder trying to gain entry, he would instead have instantly recognised it was the person he was sharing his bedroom with. The brain processes all these things fairly quickly and comes to a logical conclusion!

 

[Jake18]

Ever use the expression, "This is like herding cats...?" That is what this seems like to me. LOL!!!

Quote from the following link:
Defence advocate Barry Roux asked the colonel if it was possible if blood on Pistorius's hands could have spattered onto walls and other surfaces while in motion.

Van der Nest said it was.

Thank you Mr. Roux and Colonel Nest! So if Dr. Saymaan is correct in his determination the Reeva died within seconds of being shot through her brain, then Nest can only be right if the blood spatter on the walls was as he said caused by blood from OPs hands spattering the walls as he ran downstairs the first time, and as he carried Reeva down the second time, and as he ran back up stairs a third time - each time his hands would be bloody.

http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/analyst-explains-reeva-s-blood-trail-1.1663753#.U1fg5b-9LTr

IIRC this alluded specially to the blood in the bedroom. Arterial blood splatter is very highly specific, pulsatile and characteristic and isn't just determined by there being spots on the wall. It's impossible for OP's potential cast off pattern to fully reproduce this "undulating" pattern every single time so as to fool both the blood splatter expert and the computer.

 

[nastasya]

Quick question - Why does it matter that OP shot four shots into the door and not one if he perceived there to be more than one person in the toilet? If he perceived 4 persons for example wouldn't that be equal to one shot (per person)? It seems that it would have been ok if he only fired one shot...

Am I even making sense... it's late and my first day back to work tomorrow so I guess I should get some sleep really.

Firing 4 shots matters for number of reasons:

• The first shot hit Reeva in the hip. Then there was a pause. He changed where he was aiming and the next shots were directly at her head.
• He claims he didn't intentionally fire the gun. He now must prove he fired four shots, not just one, unintentionally.
• He paused after the first shot, meaniing he had time to consider firing again or not.
• The witnesses testified to hearing screaming then silence, meaning he kept firing until he knew Reeva was dead.

 

[Bazinga]

Merwe heard "loud voices" as in a fight - almost all a woman's voice. I think we need to distinguish such a voice from screams.

Re BIB (bolded by me)
Yes I agree with you. She heard a woman arguing. Nowhere in Oscar's version does he claim to be arguing in a female voice and nowhere does he state that Reeva was arguing so his version does not match this witness testimony.