Trial Discussion Thread #50 - 14.08.8, Day 40 ~final arguments continue~

[liesbeth]

1. I'm not saying Burger/Johnson are lying. I think they were credible witnesses. I'm saying that they were mistaken as to whether the screams were male or female.

2. The whole point is that the help help help came BEFORE the shots (listen to burger's testimony). Therefore, he would have had to have come up with this intruder defence before he shot her. That's just nonsense. I agree that its the best defence possible, but I think its totally implausible that he came up with the idea before/during shooting her and went to the lengths of creating his defence/alibi by screaming out for help.

Its also not right to say that burger didn't say the man screamed. She said in her examination in chief that the man screamed for help (link below at 45 mins in):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3e9aUB5a4Ig

In Afrikaans Dr Burger said the man "het om hulp geskree" which means the man called for help. The interpreter incorrectly uses the word "scream" so at 45:50 Dr Burger corrects the interpreter who then corrects the translation and says the man yelled for help.

 

[soozieqtips]

I'd also like to add - if you believe that Oscar Pistorius sounds sufficiently like a woman when he screams to convince four educated, sensible people that he was one, why didn't we hear a recording of it?

His vocal cords are his vocal cords, they haven't changed in 18 months. If he could do it then, he could do it now and evidently he tried....and failed.

The ONLY inference anyone can reasonably draw from this is that, in fact, he sounds nothing at all like a woman when he's screaming.

But you'd just prefer to go ahead and believe that he does.....because?

BIB - exactly. I don't know why this crucial fact is being overlooked, especially as Roux made such a big thing of how he was going to 'prove' it, and never did. All he actually proved was that there was no proof OP ever screamed like a woman, so therefore, witness testimony that claimed a woman was screaming should stand, and Roux's claim should be dumped, along with the other things he was going to 'prove', but wasn't able to.

 

[Jake18]

BiB… could you elaborate a bit on that ?

I will but later tonight (mid morning here now in Australia) when I can pick it apart properly. That does mean I have to listen to Roux again as well so I need time and sustenance.

 

[LemonMousse]

It's the same on all forums talking about this.

About 5-10% of the posters are Pistorians, and have managed to convince themselves that they alone are open minded and unbiased.

And I agree....I had no idea who he was either. I believe he is guilty because the evidence so strongly indicates it.

Jake - as a doc, are you disappointed Nel didn't make something of the heart beating/ arterial spurts? I am. (Disappointed, not a doc!). To me that was the smoking gun and totally convinces me of his guilt.

 

[AJ_DS]

In Afrikaans Dr Burger said the man "het om hulp geskree" which means the man called for help. The interpreter incorrectly uses the word "scream" so at 45:50 Dr Burger corrects the interpreter who then corrects the translation and says the man yelled for help.

Wow Afrikaans translator in our midst… great resource !

To be fair… what is the difference between scream, shout, yell… it doesn't fundamentally alter anything, does it ?

 

[LemonMousse]

I know.

But I think the ear witness testimony has never been taken as seriously as it should by some posters, here and elsewhere.

On what planet, really, can four separate people listen to a man screaming/shouting as he's confronting an intruder and all think it sounds like a male AND a female involved in an altercation of some kind, with the woman sounding like she's in fear of her life, but the man not?

And, remarkably, they make this mistake seconds before a man shoots a woman dead.

Not this planet.

EDIT: Sorry...this was meant to be in response to Soozie.

 

[AJ_DS]

I definitely spend way too much time on WS… I have to wean myself off, lol

anic:

 

[Val1]

No problem with that… it's not a change in her story it's a clarification of terminology between what she means by screaming and by shouting… to tell you the truth I'm not certain that I could explain the difference myself… and I don't believe it is relevant either way.

Let me try, a woman's scream is considered "normal" just as a man's shouts are considered "normal". Both may even be trying to convey the same emotion(fear/anger/pain), however, a man's voice is "normally" incapable of the high pitch that the descriptive term of screaming is meant to portray and therefore the descriptive term of shouting is more commonly attributed to men. Ergo Roux's insistence that OP's voice when under stress sounds like a woman's.... imo.

 

[Cherwell]

In Afrikaans Dr Burger said the man "het om hulp geskree" which means the man called for help. The interpreter incorrectly uses the word "scream" so at 45:50 Dr Burger corrects the interpreter who then corrects the translation and says the man yelled for help.

Thank you, liesbeth. I was about to remind everybody again that witnesses have testified in several different languages during this case. If everybody's first language was English, then there might be some point in analysing their choice of words, but it is not so.

 

[BritsKate]

Just a thought...I think many people are very accustomed to jury trials. A bench trial is so different - essentially its mostly a legal exercise - or would be, were the defendant not famous and simultaneously running a PR campaign from the dock.

Nel doesn't have to reconstruct an entire puzzle like any good prosecutor does for a jury. He need only prove the black and white letter of the law pertaining to the charges and in that respect, Oscar has already done a lot of the work for him. Roux, however, has had to go above and beyond a standard putative defence. All the better for the appellate process.

JMO





Please pardon errors as posted via Tapatalk with a less than stellar user.

 

[Jake18]

It's the same on all forums talking about this.

About 5-10% of the posters are Pistorians, and have managed to convince themselves that they alone are open minded and unbiased.

And I agree....I had no idea who he was either. I believe he is guilty because the evidence so strongly indicates it.

Jake - as a doc, are you disappointed Nel didn't make something of the heart beating/ arterial spurts? I am. (Disappointed, not a doc!). To me that was the smoking gun and totally convinces me of his guilt.

Yes, but I can see why he didn't. I've debated this extensively on here and my personal feeling is that the arterial blood on the landing etc was from a weakly beating heart which could and does occur for some minutes after a person stops breathing (there's sufficient absorbed oxygen in the body cavity to maintain this for some time). The post mortem also mentioned a "pale heart and liver" from "blood loss" (though this was less widely reported than the dramatic injuries to Reeva) so there was bleeding. Both the not breathing after the head shot and the blood loss would have contributed to her having a full cardiac arrest some minutes after the shots, IMO. However the blood splatter expert - van der Nest? - who was also at the autopsy concluded that Reeva's heart stopped beating 6 - 20 minutes following the shots. To me, six minutes sounds about right if you bear in mind that they wouldn't have been strong spurts at all. That puts her death around 3:22 which is sufficient time for her cornea to be cloudy when Dr Stipp arrives. However the 20 minutes overlaps with the DT's timeline just enough to not disprove it. Re the breathing I think OP saw her last breaths because he shot her at 3:17 but it is possible for air to be expelled from the lungs on movement (like old fashioned bellows) so she may have seemed to breathe as he moved her. Nel seems to be focused on things he can prove and has stayed away from speculations.

 

[Val1]

Quote Originally Posted by Jake18 View Post
Why is it implausible that at the time of getting a gun he decided to create the only obvious alibi?

The DT would have him too busy startling, freezing, flighting and exploding from his "slow burn" at that time but the physiology they've based their case on was quite different to the physiology I learnt at medical school.

He had the presence of mind to get his gun so he had the presence of mind to accept that he was going to be in deep deep trouble.

BiB… could you elaborate a bit on that ?

bbm - Excuse me for butting in here but from my own experience with adrenaline(aka overdosed with allergy serum among some real life situations like a cop at my front door telling me about my husband, been physically assaulted, etc)where my body may freeze or try to flee(I've never had the fight response), my mind has always gone into overdrive, certainly a lot of things flashed through my mind, including possible responses to the situation at the time. I would love to know if my reactions correspond with the data taught in med school!

 

[LemonMousse]

I hadn't heard that about the 6-20 minutes. That would explain why Nel didn't make anything of it, then.

Yes, he's concentrated on what he can actually prove - frustrating for us with our fixation on jeans, bashed in doors and heartbeats, but sensible in terms of getting a conviction.

Thanks for your explanation.

 

[AJ_DS]

To believe there was an intruder one would have to discard 5 earwitness testimonies that they heard a woman screaming before the shots (comprising 5 people who did not know OP, and who had never known or met each other and who voluntarily offered themselves to go to court to tell their story). I cannot see how, logically, one can do that.

To be exact I believe it is 4 witnesses only : Burger, Johnson, Stipp and Stipp… as EVDM did not hear Reeva screaming… just arguing loudly




:bigfight:

 

[Jake18]

bbm - Excuse me for butting in here but from my own experience with adrenaline(aka overdosed with allergy serum among some real life situations like a cop at my front door telling me about my husband, been physically assaulted, etc)where my body may freeze or try to flee(I've never had the fight response), my mind has always gone into overdrive, certainly a lot of things flashed through my mind, including possible responses to the situation at the time. I would love to know if my reactions correspond with the data taught in med school!

From memory that was the part that seemed unusual, Roux had cerebral brain flow moving in all sorts of counterintuitive directions. Anyway, I have to go and make the house the kids have destroyed habitable before the OH returns.

 

[JudgeJudi]

Right - and OP's changing his story between his bail statement and cross examination was a "clarification of terminology" too... ;-)

I don't think burger was lying at all. But, as this shows, people change their accounts slightly between their written and spoken evidence and within their oral evidence too. This doesn't automatically mean that they are lying. It seems that the state witnesses are being given a free pass on inconsistencies greater than OPs.

I'm not going to weigh into this debate except to say that IMO there's a very big difference between there being a few inconsistencies in what 4 independent witness recollect and the fact that there were countless inconsistencies in OP's version. The independent witnesses have nothing to gain. OP has everything to lose.

 

[BritsKate]

That was after 3:17 - on the state's timeline. Hence after the screams heard by Burger with the help help help. On burger's evidence he screamed out for help before he shot her. That would mean that he created his alibi/excuse before he committed the crime. Totally implausible.

As implausible as another murderer digging their victim's grave prior to murdering them? Or securing a body double to create an alibi? Or buying a boat with the specific intent of disposing of your wife's body?

I'm not implying he was creating an alibi but pointing out how very possible that scenario could actually be if one is planning to commit murder. Personally, I believe he was mocking Reeva's screams for help - it occurs relatively often in emotionally abusive relationships as mocking is demeaning and dismissive.

Further, I truly don't believe Oscar ever believed he'd be charged, much less face trial.

All JMO

Please pardon errors as posted via Tapatalk with a less than stellar user.

 

[AJ_DS]

:bedtime:

fftobed:

:countsheep:

Good night all !

 

[soozieqtips]

Right - and OP's changing his story between his bail statement and cross examination was a "clarification of terminology" too... ;-)

I don't think burger was lying at all. But, as this shows, people change their accounts slightly between their written and spoken evidence and within their oral evidence too. This doesn't automatically mean that they are lying. It seems that the state witnesses are being given a free pass on inconsistencies greater than OPs.

State witnesses haven't murdered anyone and have no reason to lie, unlike the pathological liar and trigger-happy killer who IS on trial for murder. I don't think there have been any inconsistencies greater than the ones uttered by OP during his days on the stand.

 

[atthelake]

O/T for the ol' timers...today is Caylee's birthday. Join the old timers to light a candle at http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?217552-Light-a-Candle-by-Your-Computer-Tonight-3/page9