Trial Discussion Thread #31

[JuneBug67]

Only if you believe all the witnesses only heard the bat sounds and not the gunshots.

That is what follows from the evidence. It's not a matter, at least for me, of picking the subjective narrative I prefer.

 

[steveml]

Cocked or the magazine being removed (which I have no idea if it sounds the same, similar or what) as CVR said he saw Botha had taken the magazine out?

According to Van Rensburg it was the sound of the gun being cocked, as he wasn't facing the ballistics expert at the time.

'I was speaking on the phone. I heard a gun *advertiser censored* and when I turned to look he had the firearm in his hand and he was not wearing gloves.'

 

[minor4th]

But the mucked up crime scene was first mucked up by OP, friends and family, long before VR got there.

Yes, OP removed Reeva and carried her downstairs, retrieved his phone and called Stander, Netcare and security. Are you suggesting he should have just remained perfectly still until a crime scene photographer stumbled upon the scene?

 

[Val1]

According to Van Rensburg it was the sound of the gun being cocked, as he wasn't facing the ballistics expert at the time.

'I was speaking on the phone. I heard a gun *advertiser censored* and when I turned to look he had the firearm in his hand and he was not wearing gloves.'

Which makes little sense because hadn't VR already determined that the gun was cocked and ready to fire as it lay on the bath mat?

Anyway, I will have to pick this up tomorrow, family is calling.:seeya:

 

[lisasalinger]

That last pic of the magazine rack does look like it was placed there over the pool of blood

I can see where one might think that but you also have to consider...

1. There was blood spatter and blood smears found on the front of the magazine rack, indicating that it was indeed in that toilet room. She came to rest on top of the rack, the blood from her head dripped in to the toilet and the blood from her arm dripped on to the floor forming that pool.

2. There are no smudge marks in the pools of blood or the droplets of blood indicating that this rack was slid around the room.

3. There are no stump or foot marks in the pools or droplets of blood that would indicate that Oscar was "shuffling" around trying to pick her up. I think he walked in, hoisted her up and took her out. I don't think he struggled to lift her at all. There's just no physical proof of that.

4. Also, the wood plank appears to be exactly where it would have fallen out of the door. If Oscar was shuffling around with her in his arms, he would have likely disturbed that piece of wood.

Those are my observations when I look at this scene.

 

[Val1]

Yes, OP removed Reeva and carried her downstairs, retrieved his phone and called Stander, Netcare and security. Are you suggesting he should have just remained perfectly still until a crime scene photographer stumbled upon the scene?

He made his calls supposedly before he dragged RS out, remember he called Stander because he needed help moving her... so he already had his cell, but both he and Ms.Stander made at least two more trips up into the crime scene area to get towels and RS' purse, plus that extra trip that Dr.Stipp saw and who knows how many more? That's not even considering that OP may have mucked it up, either deliberately or in a state of panic, before he brought RS down. ie. how did his prosthetic socks not get blood on the soles?

 

[liesbeth]

RBBM
I'd missed Roux stating it so this is where I was coming up with the 3:12...

http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2014-04-09-pistorius-trial-week-five-day-three/#.U1cnMfldWMM

Thank you. I found a reference on lisa's blog. (Looking at the YT video and will post the link here when I find it. Edit: On second thoughts maybe not.)

https://juror13lw.wordpress.com/2014/04/10/oscar-trial-day-18-oscar/

Roux asks Oscar approximately how long it was in between the gunshots and the cricket bat hitting the door. Oscar says he’s mapped this out and he estimates that it was 5 minutes. Roux points out this is consistent with Mr. Johnson’s notes that the female screaming was occurring around 3:12pm and the second bangs were around 3:17pm.

 

[minor4th]

He made his calls supposedly before he dragged RS out, remember he called Stander because he needed help moving her... so he already had his cell, but both he and Ms.Stander made at least two more trips up into the crime scene area to get towels and RS' purse, plus that extra trip that Dr.Stipp saw and who knows how many more? That's not even considering that OP may have mucked it up, either deliberately or in a state of panic, before he brought RS down. ie. how did his prosthetic socks not get blood on the soles?

And what's your point? Does that mean that the police investigators should not try to preserve the crime scene as they find it?

 

[anagrammy]

The toilet IMO is exactly where there is a lot of blood, i.e. down the bowl where the water looks positively black so to turn a couple of litres so opaque would imo need a lot of blood. In respect of arterial spatter, not including that found around bathroom and toilet, Van der Nest testified to arterial spurting over the void of the landing and falling onto the chair/sofa below as OP carried Reeva downstairs as well as all down the stairs. I also seem to recall one of them, Rensburg or Nest I think, saying there was a lot of blood going from toilet to the hall downstairs.

Also, the toilet has already been flushed once, as you can see from the streaks. A poster several threads ago analyzed the toilet bowl for us, describing how blood would stick to the dry porcelain bowl and the streaks would be where the the water jets were.

So there could have been urine and toilet paper in the bowl as well as blood and gore. The black bowl that appears there filled up AFTER OP flushed it. By the way, he never mentioned that he flushed it and he was the only one who could have.

 

[lisasalinger]

That's the same photo steve posted.

You're right! I just looked at it again. I thought he had posted the pic of it totally spread out the way he was describing it.

Oops... did I just blame my mistake on Steve? :floorlaugh: Oscar is getting in to my head!

Sorry about the confusion.

 

[crasshopper]

"Pathologist Gert Saayman told the court that Steenkamp did not take more than a few breaths after suffering her head wound."

The trouble is that you are taking what he said to mean she only stopped breathing, that Dr. Saymaan was not describing Reeva's dying.

And then you go off on your speculation that her heart was still beating and pumping blood, and she was alive for 6-20 minutes to be able to have arterial spurts on the way downstairs, and the reason that there is only a small amount of blood is because she was bleeding internally from the gunshot to her hip so we don't see the blood. And <modsnip>, her severed artery in he right arm stopped bleeding, the two gunshots wounds to her head too, and her hip as well. Did I get all of that right?

um, no...

-Dr. Saymaan said she took at most 2-3 breaths after the shot to the head & died shortly thereafter. There is no accurate transcript of his testimony.

-You said earlier the base of her skull was crushed. The picture I saw of Reeva's head injury did not demonstrate that. Maybe you have another reference or source.

-I don't think Dr. Perumal, previously hired by the defense, would lie and say that everyone agreed that Reeva died on the stairs if this were not the case.

-Unfortunately, he may not have realized at the time how much this destroys OP's story.

Reeva's heart was beating when OP walked through the bedroom, no question. She might have been " dead" but her heart was still beating and could have done so for several minutes after the GSW to the head.

There is not point rehashing the many known physiologic principles which would account for the smaller than expected pools of blood in the toilet room, palor of skin, muscles/heart & liver, etc but at NO TIME was internal bleeding put forth as part of the picture, nor did it happen.

 

[lisasalinger]

He made his calls supposedly before he dragged RS out, remember he called Stander because he needed help moving her... so he already had his cell, but both he and Ms.Stander made at least two more trips up into the crime scene area to get towels and RS' purse, plus that extra trip that Dr.Stipp saw and who knows how many more? That's not even considering that OP may have mucked it up, either deliberately or in a state of panic, before he brought RS down. ie. how did his prosthetic socks not get blood on the soles?

Dixon's testimony about how he investigated the sock fibers on the door (to prove that OP kicked it with his prosthetic legs on) was the most ludicrous thing I've ever heard! I can't stop laughing about it. Let me see if I can summarize:

1. A fiber was removed from the bottom of Oscar's right prosthesis. They looked at it under a microscope. For what purpose, I have no clue, because they never looked at any other fibers under a microscope.

2. Dixon never tested the actual sock. He never even saw it. He only saw a photo of Oscar wearing socks from the crime scene photo and made the match off of that.

3. Here is where it gets really good... He was never able to ascertain a photo of the fibers stuck to the door prior to court because he didn't have "a good camera and decent lighting." Apparently those things are not provided for in crime scene investigation. So there is not one single pic of the fibers stuck to the door prior to March 13, 2014.

4. March 13, 2014, rolls around and all of a sudden when Dixon enters court he sees fibers on the door because the lighting in court is glorious, he can now see and decides to take a photo. These are the photos that are entered as evidence for his testimony.

5. Nel takes the wind out of his sails by reminding him that cleaning ladies wiped down the door earlier that morning (which Dixon had witnessed and supposedly wasn't happy about)... but yet, he still took the photos of the fibers anyway, never ruling out that they could be from the cleaning cloth!!!!

Dixon for President.

 

[Jake18]

um, no...

-Dr. Saymaan said she took at most 2-3 breaths after the shot to the head & died shortly thereafter. There is no accurate transcript of his testimony.

-You said earlier the base of her skull was crushed. The picture I saw of Reeva's head injury did not demonstrate that. Maybe you have another reference or source.

-I don't think Dr. Perumal, previously hired by the defense, would lie and say that everyone agreed that Reeva died on the stairs if this were not the case.

-Unfortunately, he may not have realized at the time how much this destroys OP's story.

Reeva's heart was beating when OP walked through the bedroom, no question. She might have been " dead" but her heart was still beating and could have done so for several minutes after the GSW to the head.

There is not point rehashing the many known physiologic principles which would account for the smaller than expected pools of blood in the toilet room, palor of skin, muscles/heart & liver, etc but at NO TIME was internal bleeding put forth as part of the picture, nor did it happen.

I'll admit that I proposed that there may have been bleeding from the liver as it was pale from blood loss. But I can let that go!

Thanks for reintroduction of clarity re arterial blood loss.

 

[liesbeth]

I'm not following that first question. The point is Motha was in the crime scene while Van Staden was supposed to have been there alone taking the initial photographs before any other investigation was done in the crime scene.

I was referring to this post you made.

No, they were taken during the same minute but no seconds were given. That time also happened to correspond with Van Staden going back into the bedroom for a few shots before returning to the bathroom.

So for example VS could have taken a picture in the hallway at 6:04:03, then moved to the bedroom while Motha then takes a shot in the hallway at 6:04:47

Also, Roux produced pretty solid proof that Mothas pictures were at the same time as Van Staden's by reference to Motha's photos that showed items in their original positions in the bathroom and before they had been moved.

BBM 1: Here you say that Van Staden was not on Motha's photo because the photos were not taken at the same time and even though both times are the same those photos could have been taken almost a minute apart.

BBM 2: Yet here you say that the fact that things look the same in both Van S. and Motha's images prove the pictures were taken at the same time.

You can't have it both ways.

By your own reasoning one can then just as easily say Motha's photos could have been taken shortly after Van Staden took his.

 

[sorrell skye]

At 1:33 in the video linked below, the "S" pattern of the arterial spurt on the wall can be seen that van der Nest testified to.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/0...-crime-scene-where-pistorius-shot-girlfriend/

The image of the blood stain pattern in the video is much clearer and closer up than the images we've been able to see that were shown in court.

 

[shane13]

I think shane13 would disagree with your description of "mistakes". When you really look at some of the testimony, timing, evidence(missing cell and possible evidence such as the thumbdrive with no repercussions, all kinds of people allowed into a crime scene that should not have been), colonels and brigadiers showing up to "take care" of OP, and what we as the public haven't been allowed to see or hear, it does kinda point to some kind of "care taking" from higher up, including OP's bail conditions all being pretty much revoked other than the deposit and not even by the same court that had imposed them but by a higher court. Who gets that kind of treatment, it sure isn't "normal"?

Nice summary. much more.
Of course these aren't "mistakes."

 

[PPKik]

We're not entirely certain that the gun was cocked when it was found.

Col van Rensburg said that while he and colleagues were collecting evidence on the morning of February 14, 2013, shortly after the shooting, he heard the sound of a gun being cocked behind him.

Are you saying that you believe the police cocked the gun before it was photographed on the rug?

Did Col. van Rensburg elaborate? That is an extraordinary statement, that "he heard the sound of a gun being cocked behind him." Do you know who was behind him? Did he identify OP's gun as the one being cocked?

ETA: Do you know if the magazine was still in the 9mm when it was photographed?

 

[shane13]

Seriously, I hate to tell you this but you're not coming across as informed in this area AT ALL. The blood does tell a story, but you're posts suggest you can't read it.

Arterial spurt doesn't mean gushes of lot's of blood that sprays everywhere. She had weak cardiac activity. Maybe OP noticed the spurts and covered them by shifting her body a little as he moved her.

C: Did you see my earlier post about help for your Mom?

 

[crasshopper]

At 1:33 in the video linked below, the "S" pattern of the arterial spurt on the wall can be seen that van der Nest testified to.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/0...-crime-scene-where-pistorius-shot-girlfriend/

The image of the blood stain pattern in the video is much clearer and closer up than the images we've been able to see that were shown in court.

Thank you, the literature I read yesterday called them "undulations," I thought a nice term. Apparently the appearance is pathognomonic.

 

[shane13]

Seriously, I hate to tell you this but you're not coming across as informed in this area AT ALL. The blood does tell a story, but you're posts suggest you can't read it.

Arterial spurt doesn't mean gushes of lot's of blood that sprays everywhere. She had weak cardiac activity. Maybe OP noticed the spurts and covered them by shifting her body a little as he moved her.

And did you see my post about angular momentum and inertial brake in getting blood to come off Reeva or her clothing?