Trial Discussion Thread #7 weekend thread

[Interested Bystander]

Please read some of the Bail Hearing again and let us know what you think. This is just some of it.

IMO Botha did a reasonable job but he said too much and some of that was wrong. He overestimated the distance to Michelle Burger's house and assumed the herbal remedy was steroids. He should have measured the distance or said it was just a long way away and said he did not yet know what was in the many boxes he found but it was being tested. If he wanted to mention steroids, he could have said they could be steroids or medication, etc.

worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/20/17026594-oscar-pistorius-in-court-defense-exposes-cracks-in-police-evidence?lite

All Botha had was a few days to find enough evidence to stop OP getting bail. I am not a Botha apologist, but just imagine his task. I guess Van needed a rest after working 24 hours straight so had little time so Botha was given the task.

I think Botha made a few mistakes and perhaps did not check on information that turned out to be crucial. There really was not much time to get it all together before the Bail Hearing. Roux therefore hung him out to dry. I am also very suspicious of the reintroduction of the charge of murder against Botha. IMO to muddy the water. As far as I can see he was only doing his job in trying to stop a vehicle containing criminals by trying to shoot out the tyres. I have not seen what happened with respect to that charge. Does anyone know? It is my suspicion that it will be quietly dropped.

 

[Dmacky]

I think Botha made a few mistakes and perhaps did not check on information that turned out to be crucial. There really was not much time to get it all together before the Bail Hearing. Roux therefore hung him out to dry. I am also very suspicious of the reintroduction of the charge of murder against Botha. IMO to muddy the water. As far as I can see he was only doing his job in trying to stop a vehicle containing criminals by trying to shoot out the tyres. I have not seen what happened with respect to that charge. Does anyone know? It is my suspicion that it will be quietly dropped.

Hmm you are right IB
I found this, but it doesn't tell WHY the charges were reinstated. I wonder if the other four PO's charges were also reinstated?? They are alleging he was drunk, but they did not take blood samples.

(this is a article from last year]
Mr Botha, who wilted under cross examination yesterday, was one of four police officers who opened fire on a mini-bus in 2009, allegedly while drunk.

The officer denies the charges and says he was never asked to give a blood sample.

The charges were initially dropped but were reinstated on February 4, according to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA). Mr Botha is reportedly due in court to face the charges in May, according to Eyewitness News, which broke the story.

taken from
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...n-off-case-over-attempted-murder-charges.html

 

[Lyra500]

Yes. Everything seemed to happen so quickly according to the witnesses. OP only had minutes from the time the shots, screams and cricket bat were heard, to construct a plausible story and alter the crime scene. That is why I am willing to give OP the benefit of the doubt at present. I seem to be the only person I know who wants him to be innocent. I don't want him to get away with it. I want him to be innocent. Does anyone out there agree with me?

How can he be innocent? At the very, very least he shot four times at someone trapped in a confined space without any discernible threat against his safety. Going to fetch a gun and shooting someone four times is a crime. The degree of punishment (premeditated murder or culpable homicide) has yet to be determined, but surely the term 'innocent' cannot reasonably be applied here.

 

[Interested Bystander]

Hmm you are right IB
I found this, but it doesn't tell WHY the charges were reinstated. I wonder if the other four PO's charges were also reinstated?? They are alleging he was drunk, but they did not take blood samples.

(this is a article from last year]
Mr Botha, who wilted under cross examination yesterday, was one of four police officers who opened fire on a mini-bus in 2009, allegedly while drunk.

The officer denies the charges and says he was never asked to give a blood sample.

The charges were initially dropped but were reinstated on February 4, according to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA). Mr Botha is reportedly due in court to face the charges in May, according to Eyewitness News, which broke the story.

taken from
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...n-off-case-over-attempted-murder-charges.html

I actually hadn't heard that he was drunk but the NPA said they reinstated the case on 4th February but they released the information on the day of the BH, I believe. They said they were waiting for more info. before going to press. All very convenient, methinks. What is even more unexplainable is that he was due to face charges in May and yet nothing has happened yet and that was May 2013. One has to wonder why.

 

[jassy writer]

Another part of his affidavit that I am finding completely unbelievable is that he shouted for Reeva to call the police. In SA you would not do that if there was a faster option available. He would have shouted (given an actual crime situation) for her to press the panic button or call the estate security, who would have arrived much faster.

Also, shouting for the burglar to "get out of my house" seems crazy when the so called burglar is locked in a toilet! I am wondering whether Oscar shouted this to Reeva when they were fighting, remembered the words, and tried to incorporate them into the affidavit in case anybody had overheard them.

 

[Dmacky]

In his own words – How Oscar Pistorius Killed Reeva Steenkamp (from his affidavit)

With visual images of his house ~

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/0...s-how-oscar-pistorius-killed-reeva-steenkamp/

 

[Really?]

Another part of his affidavit that I am finding completely unbelievable is that he shouted for Reeva to call the police. In SA you would not do that if there was a faster option available. He would have shouted (given an actual crime situation) for her to press the panic button or call the estate security, who would have arrived much faster.

Also, shouting for the burglar to "get out of my house" seems crazy when the so called burglar is locked in a toilet! I am wondering whether Oscar shouted this to Reeva when they were fighting, remembered the words, and tried to incorporate them into the affidavit in case anybody had overheard them.

:cheers: :clap: :goodpost:

 

[lisasalinger]

I've always wondered why Pistorius posed his locked bedroom door as a problem for him, in his bail hearing affidavit?

He made it sound like that locked door prevented him from leaving the bedroom and therefore that he had to get his gun and go right into the face of his supposed intruder. It was more difficult for him to turn a key in the lock and leave the bedroom, than it was to walk around the corner into the bathroom? How did he know the supposed intruder wasn't standing by the sinks or in the toilet doorway, ready to shoot him dead the minute he walked into the bathroom?
He could walk into the arms of a dangerous intruder, but he couldn't unlock a door!

Nothing Pistorius says makes any sense whatsoever, it does, though, help him delay getting help for Ms Steenkamp.

BBM... Very good points!

Perhaps the locked bedroom door comes in to play because he knows he will eventually have to explain the damage to the door. Let's see what kind of creative stories he can up with to explain yet another bullet hole through another door and more damage that appears as if he was trying to pry the door open.

Sure looks to me like there was a lot of hiding behind locked doors that night that wasn't too well received.

 

[weeeva]

How can he be innocent? At the very, very least he shot four times at someone trapped in a confined space without any discernible threat against his safety. Going to fetch a gun and shooting someone four times is a crime. The degree of punishment (premeditated murder or culpable homicide) has yet to be determined, but surely the term 'innocent' cannot reasonably be applied here.

OK. I was not talking in legal terms. What I mean is what if he is telling the truth?
What was he supposed to do if there was in fact an intruder in his home. Fight or Flight?
He has no legs, so unless he had his running blades on he wouldn't get very far if he decided on Flight. We all know that SA is a dangerous place to live. He seems to have been especially fearful as his friends have seen him on at least 2 occasions reacting to what he thought was an intruder. The man has no legs, it is natural that he would feel more vulnerable than an able bodied person. He is gun happy which is wrong, but does it mean that he deliberately killed Reeva?
I just can't understand why most people WANT him to be guilty of murder. Why would people want that?

 

[lisasalinger]

I Have a feeling we haven't heard the last of that Smashed in metal bath panel yet, first set of bangs?.

How about that air gun in the bedroom and hole in the bedroom door.

There are your additional gunshots that the defense claims can only possibly in any scenario imaginable on the face of this planet be a cricket bat hitting a door.

 

[Really?]

[video=youtube;-MedbKo8mgs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MedbKo8mgs[/video]

 

[AlwaysShocked]

Do we know if there was a Panic Button in OP's bedroom? Do we know if it was functioning?

IMO even as of right now there is ALMOST enough evidence to determine guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. I suspect there is much more evidence to come. I am very interested in hearing what the blood spatter expert has to say.

Barry Roux is good at his job. He is not, however, a miracle worker. So he can "do his thing" from now til next never, but in fact the evidence is mounting in this case. There have surely been evidence errors by police in cases here in the U.S. Judges have to be very used to hearing about errors. Many of them, such as with the gun evidence here, don't really affect the outcome of the trial. It does not matter whose fingerprints were on the gun, Oscar says he fired it into the door.

By the way, regarding Barry's favorite saying of "Let me put it to you" or "I want to put it to you". In some areas of the U.S. (I live in Pennsylvania) this phrase can be used as a euphemism for "Let me have sex with you" or "I want to have sex with you"!

 

[lisasalinger]

OK. I was not talking in legal terms. What I mean is what if he is telling the truth?
What was he supposed to do if there was in fact an intruder in his home. Fight or Flight?
He has no legs, so unless he had his running blades on he wouldn't get very far if he decided on Flight. We all know that SA is a dangerous place to live. He seems to have been especially fearful as his friends have seen him on at least 2 occasions reacting to what he thought was an intruder. The man has no legs, it is natural that he would feel more vulnerable than an able bodied person. He is gun happy which is wrong, but does it mean that he deliberately killed Reeva?
I just can't understand why most people WANT him to be guilty of murder. Why would people want that?

I can't speak for others, only myself... I've never wanted him to be guilty. I'm incredibly sad that a man who had so much inspiration to share with the world pissed it away. Don't be mistaken, he did piss it away all on his own.

His vulnerability and fears do not allow him to act him more recklessly than is reasonable. I don't deny his fears, I believe they are absolutely real. But he intentionally aimed to kill whomever he thought was in that small enclosed room without provocation according to his own statement. A decent person who appreciates human life does not act that recklessly with weapons that are loaded with hollow point bullets.

It's really not about wanting someone to be guilty... it's more about looking at the terrible destruction that he has caused and holding him responsible.

 

[lisasalinger]

Do we know if there was a Panic Button in OP's bedroom? Do we know if it was functioning?

IMO even as of right now there is ALMOST enough evidence to determine guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. I suspect there is much more evidence to come. I am very interested in hearing what the blood spatter expert has to say.

Barry Roux is good at his job. He is not, however, a miracle worker. So he can "do his thing" from now til next never, but in fact the evidence is mounting in this case. There have surely been evidence errors by police in cases here in the U.S. Judges have to be very used to hearing about errors. Many of them, such as with the gun evidence here, don't really affect the outcome of the trial. It does not matter whose fingerprints were on the gun, Oscar says he fired it into the door.

By the way, regarding Barry's favorite saying of "Let me put it to you" or "I want to put it to you". In some areas of the U.S. (I live in Pennsylvania) this phrase can be used as a euphemism for "Let me have sex with you" or "I want to have sex with you"!

BBM... I agree. Have you ever watched a trial where the defense doesn't criticize the police work? It's as basic as the court swearing witnesses in.

 

[lisasalinger]

I thought the bath panel may have been bashed in from a backswing of the cricket bat as it was swung at the bathroom door.

I didn't think that part of the wood panel that came out was laying pretty near the bath too - so maybe it's possible that when the wood flew out, the corner hit that bath panel and made that particular, pointy looking dent?

But a caveat; I still don't understand how a panel bashed IN with a bat, managed to fly OUT into the bathroom. I would if it had been ripped out by hand, but I think Roux insists that is not the case, for some reason?

I believe the metal plates on those baths are lightweight and easily damaged by the way - or at least, they are in my neck of the woods. Not so easy to bring a whole line of tiles off though. It must have been hit with some force.

BBM... I'm very curious to hear more about the tiles being smashed and on the ground! It's hard to get a good look at them from the pics that were shown.

There was an awful lot of damage done in that bathroom. Nobody testified to the door causing it (from what I can recall) otherwise I'm sure they would have pointed out where on the door they believe it hit the tiles.

 

[Val1]

No one's casting doubt on that.
The point was that (according to his version of events) there was only a few seconds in which she could have done this without his being aware.

Actually, seeing the small spaces involved, I'm not convinced that he wouldn't be aware of her getting up anyway. I had imagined that the bed was quite a bit further from the window than it was.

The other question that comes to mind for me, is if the holster was on the left side of the bed and the ammo was on the right side, just how can OP explain that he didn't notice that RS was not in the bed, no matter which side it was, before he went and shot up the toilet room? Unless he had actually just told her(referring to his statement as presented above that he had spoken to her just before going to get the fans) to go lock herself in there and call the police because he'd "heard a noise"....

 

[Pisto_lius]

Thanks Pisto_lius, I had no idea ALL these people where there!
Yet not a single person from Reeva's family even called?????

OP called Stander, relatives and friends.... But he never - until today - called Reeva's family....

Reeva's family was informed about what happened by a call from Botha...

‘I remember the 5am phone call from Inspector Botha,’ she says. ‘He was the detective in charge of the case. He asked me if I had a daughter, and what was her name.

‘He said there had been an accident, someone had been shot, my Reeva was dead.’

Hysterical, June phoned her husband who was out collecting firewood. ‘I was crying and screaming over the phone, and he couldn’t understand what I was telling him.

'He thought I was telling him the dog was dead. I think he just couldn’t take in what I was trying to tell him. When he came home we went through it together. Since that moment all the joy has gone out of our lives.’

She said her husband sat down, shaking. ‘I told him the inspector had said he wanted to tell us so that we didn’t hear it on the radio or in a newspaper. It was important for us to know.’

http://cached.newslookup.com/cached.php?ref_id=117&siteid=2109&id=2383775&t=1372587091

In the emotional interview, Steenkamp's mother, June, described how police called her Feb. 14 asking whether she had a daughter:

"I said, 'Yes,' and he said, 'There's been an accident, and she's been shot.' And I said, 'All I want to know is if she's alive or she's dead.' And he said, 'I'm sorry to have to tell you, but she's dead.'

http://abcnewsradioonline.com/world...-father-wants-blade-runner-to-come-clean.html

.
.

 

[Feynman]

quote excerpted:

List of things that for me don't ring true from the start of Oscar's "story"

1) Reeva not turning a single light on on her way to the toilet.

I don't see any problem with this. There's ambient light coming in through the balcony windows at this time, and there's ambient light in the bathroom. And she knew the layout of the bedroom/hall/bathroom by then. (Also, I never turn on the light when I go to the loo in the wee hours.)

 

[curiousjo]

Question: Was bathroom key kept in that loo door or bathroom area? Or was it on key chain with master bedroom key kept at the bedside? Was tv remotes also attached - if so then I would expect kept at bedside... What do prior girlfriends say about this? Concerning this happened after a 1 hour+ shouting match! That was a terrible fight! At 2am most people aren't having fights like that! Seems as thought she had to flee to bathroom since master bedroom door locked, so she was trapped!?

I never turn light on at night so I agree that not an issue. But the fact that the doctor only saw bathroom light on after 2nd round of shots is a problem, as OP would have turned on that room light if he truly didn't find her in bed and was frantically searching
for her!

 

[Pisto_lius]

Hilton Botha and the OP case

Speaking about the initial hours and days of the Pistorius investigation, Botha said if he had to do it all over again, he would proceed in the same way.

"Everything I did was above board, in line with best international policing practices. The few [people] that were there on the scene in the early hours of the investigation and for the following four days were good. We worked with what we had and did the best we could."

Botha said the problems came at the bail hearing.

[….]

Asked about the killing, Botha, one of only two murder and robbery detectives at Boschkop police station, said on walking through Pistorius' home, he could see what had happened. "We did the walk several times . right from the beginning I did not believe him.

"When we went through the house we knew there was only one way the [killing] could have happened and I immediately told my commanding officer to arrest him."

Read more: http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2013/03/08/oscar-cop-why-i-ve-quit-the-force

Botha talked about “WE” so I assume he meant him and van Rensburg....

At four A.M. on February 14, Detective Hilton Botha, a 24-year veteran of the South African Police Service, was awakened by a phone call from his colonel.

Fifteen minutes after the call, Hilton Botha was at Pistorius’s home.

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2013/06/oscar-pistorius-murder

Asked why he had been replaced, he referred to telephone records, forensic and ballistics reports that he was trying to get, but could not.

"They probably felt I had made a few mistakes, which were not my fault,” he said. “I couldn't testify about evidence I didn't have in the case file. I couldn't even give hearsay testimony because I hadn't got the feedback I needed.

"I didn't want to stand up there and lie. If you lie in front of a court it discredits you, although — in this instance — I've already been discredited even though I didn't lie."

[…..]

"My rank (detective warrant officer) is just too low for anybody. The head of the forensic team was a colonel. I tried but they wouldn't listen to me, so I think a general will run things properly."

Read more (2 pages): http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/det-botha-speaks-article-1.1270104

At nine P.M. on his first day of testimony, he received a call from a fellow officer, saying that a two-year-old case, since withdrawn, was being reopened. In 2011, when Botha and other officers were investigating the grisly murder of a woman, a mini-bus taxi drove straight at them at 100 miles per hour, forcing them off the road. When the driver attempted to flee, Botha shot out the taxi’s tires. Now the resultant charges—seven counts of attempted murder, one for each unharmed person in the taxi—were being reinstated. “I knew they had it in for me,” Botha told me. “I think that they thought if I’m not on the case they have no one to testify from the scene.”

The next day Botha was removed from the Pistorius case.
At page 6: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2013/06/oscar-pistorius-murder

Botha: I was the scapegoat

Police detective Hilton Botha says he was thrown into the deep end and when police needed a scapegoat after things went wrong during the Oscar Pistorius bail application, he was made that person.

No effect on Pistorius investigation - police

The police said on Friday Botha’s resignation won’t affect the murder investigation of Pistorius, Sapa reported.

"No, it will have no effect on the case. Investigations are ongoing. If he is needed for court he will be subpoenaed," said Brigadier Neville Malila.

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Botha-I-was-the-scapegoat-20130308

.
.