<p>“We have people here that beat their SO’s brains in with baseball bats. Doesn’t matter where you are.”</p>
<p>That’s for sure. It happens all over the place. A woman gets murdered, and the most likely attacker by far is her boyfriend, ex-boyfriend, ex-husband or husband.</p>
<p>I read about domestic violence every day it seems. You can practically fill in the blanks when you hear it on the news:</p>
<p>“The victim, who recently broke up with the assailant, was shot in the head while walking into their place of employment…”</p>
<p>And I practically can chant in unison with the reporter, “police have taken the spouse/s.o. into custody.”</p>
<p>It’s disgusting.</p>
<p>And it’s likely to get worse as the vawa is held up and governors cut funding calling the programs unnecessary. </p>
<p>DV rates have gone down considerably in the last few decades, but because of programs that are now in danger of not existing. It’ll get worse as shelters start to close.</p>
<p>The story he told in Court is somewhat idiotic: he fired through the door of the bathroom because he mistakenly thought an intruder was inside. Why would an intruder be in the bathroom? He doesn’t say he was asleep; he says he was standing outside on his balcony. The suggestion, unclear in the statement, is he then went inside and picked up his pistol from next to the bed - where other statements have said he kept it - and yet he is not supposed to have noticed she wasn’t in bed. He says he used the cricket bat to break down the door. </p>
<p>The prosecution version is “The applicant armed himself, attached his prosthesis, walked seven metres to the bathroom and shot the deceased while she was in the toilet. He shot four times…There’s no possible explanation to support his report that he thought it was a burglar.”</p>
<p>The physical evidence will be important. What injuries did she suffer and in what order? Were all the shots that hit her fired through the door? (If not, he’s definitely guilty.) Were there other injuries, as has been suggested? What is on the bat? A little blood is one thing but striking a person leaves other traces and creates damage on the body.</p>
<p>All this said, the story he offers is far-fetched. And then when you realize what you’ve done, of course you are shattered.</p>
<p>Perhaps they will argue that drugs and alcohol caused him to think or believe certain things (like the presence of an intruder), that an unimpaired person wouldn’t have believed. This might at least result in a lesser charge.</p>
<p>The autopsy results will be very enlightening, I am sure.</p>
<p>Do they release those to the general public in South Africa?</p>
<p>The argument his lawyer is making is that he felt vulnerable and afraid out on his balcony, so he put on his prosthetics, grabbed his gun and then fired through the door. That is nearly a quote. Makes little sense, if only because there would be no reason at all for an intruder to be in the bathroom, especially when Pistorius couldn’t put up a fight without his prosthetics.</p>
<p>I think it makes a bit more sense when you read the affidavit:
[Oscar</a> Pistorius’ account of fatal shooting, in his own words - CBS News](<a href=“http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57570059/oscar-pistorius-account-of-fatal-shooting-in-his-own-words/]Oscar”>http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57570059/oscar-pistorius-account-of-fatal-shooting-in-his-own-words/)</p>
<p>I’m not saying I believe his statement–just that his version is a bit more complicated.</p>
<p>If there’s not much other evidence, it will be a tough case. His story is far-fetched, but not completely unbelievable.</p>
<p>It just seems bizarre. It never occurred to him that it might have been his own girlfriend in the bathroom? Without even asking, he just started shooting? </p>
<p>The other thing that struck me was that he said the bathroom door was locked. So she got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, and closed and locked the bathroom door? Who does that? It was just her and her boyfriend in the apartment; why would she have locked the bathroom door? Even if she liked privacy while using the toilet, seems odd to not just close the door but lock it. I don’t believe his story.</p>
<p>I agree with you Simpkin. I wonder how long they have lived together because it seems midnight bathroom breaks are not the norm in their household. He just starts presuming it’s an intruder and shoots the door. When I go to the bathroom sometimes I close the toilet door sometimes I dont but I never lock it. If the bedroom door is locked why do I need to lock the toilet door if its just me and my husband inside the bedroom? </p>
<p>It seems to me the more plausible explanation is Reeva was afraid of Pistorius, ran to the toilet and locked herself inside.</p>
<p>His story is not believable. Blind rage is believable. Perhaps he shot at the door in a rage, and then realized, too late, what he had just done. That I could believe. Just my opinion.</p>
<p>What I don’t like to hear is that putting on his legs is seen as evidence of premeditation. Just like anyone who wears glasses would put them on if they thought there was an intruder, I bet folks with prosthetic legs can put them on very quickly and would do so if they thought there was an intruder.</p>
<p>With that said, I agree that his story doesn’t really add up.</p>
<p>I’m not familiar with South African courts. From news accounts, it appears there are no juries; he will be tried by a judge.</p>
<p>In the US, issuing a statement like his affidavit would be absolutely idiotic. It’s a bad idea to tell the prosecution your version early on so it can poke holes in it. Even if you are innocent, it’s best to keep your mouth shut. </p>
<p>I think this will be a very difficult case to prove if SA has “beyond a reasonable doubt” as the rule. (Based on a google search, this seems to be the case.) Of course, it depends on the evidence. I think there are at least 2 factors which will be critical:
(1) Did he strike her with the cricket bat? If so, game over.
(2) Can the police prove that any of the bullets that struck her did NOT go through the toilet door? As I understand it, the police are claiming that he shot her and she ran into the bathroom and locked herself in the toilet and he fired 3 more times through the door. I don’t know enough about ballistics to know if it’s possible to say beyond a reasonable doubt that one of the bullets did not go through the door. Or maybe there are only 3 bullet holes in the toilet door? </p>
<p>The whole “don’t wait for the EMTs; take her to the hospital yourself” line would not work in a major US city either, but maybe it’s different in South Africa. The police got there before the friend he called first did. </p>
<p>To me, the fact that Pistorius carried her out of the bathroom, allegedly to perform CPR is damning. Why? If she was bleeding before she ran into the toilet, Pistorius took her out of the toilet room and carried her outside so he can claim the blood outside the toilet got there when he carried her out. </p>
<p>It makes no sense to me that you would carry her through the apartment to the front door and THEN start CPR.</p>
<p>Of course, I’ve never been in such a situation. Whether it was an accident or a moment of rage, it’s certainly possible that he just wasn’t thinking clearly. Maybe he didn’t try CPR immediately and then thought he should have.</p>
<p>I think his account seems plausible but it still does not account for the alleged earlier visit from the police despite them supposedly being in love. And it does not account for blood on the bat if that actually happened.</p>
<p>I have only read the last few pages of the thread so firgive me for jumping in but this article indicates that there is evidence that her skull was crushed by the cricket bat.</p>
<p>[Oscar</a> Pistorius case: bloodied cricket bat is key evidence, paper claims | World news | The Guardian](<a href=“http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/17/oscar-pistorius-cricket-bat]Oscar”>Oscar Pistorius case: bloodied cricket bat is key evidence, paper claims | Reeva Steenkamp shooting | The Guardian)</p>
<p>
I’ve been married to the same man for 27 years and I always lock the bathroom door, even in the middle of the night.</p>
<p>When I read his statement, it makes very little sense to me that he would find an intruder inside not the bathroom but the little toilet stall. He essentially says that when the intruder was finished using the toilet, he would come out to get them, rob them, etc. In other words, the intruder wasn’t in the “bathroom” and he didn’t fire through the “bathroom door”, as is so often reported, but was in the little room where the toilet is. He says he shouted and gave sufficient warning. So why then did he not hear her respond? </p>
<p>I find the entire idea falls apart when I think about it. He says the bathroom window was open. If the intruder knew someone was home - an armed home invasion - it makes zero sense the intruder would use the toilet when the intended victim might be in the bedroom. And Pistorius says he yelled - and somehow couldn’t hear his girlfriend though she was only in the little toilet area. If the intruder heard the yell, why wouldn’t he try to get out through the open window - assuming it was actually open and he didn’t do that afterwards. If the intruder thought no one was home, why would he close the toilet door? He would leave it open so he could hear if anyone came home or into the bedroom. If the intruder was armed, why hide in the toilet? And so on. It makes no sense.</p>
<p>I lock the door in the middle of the night. It’s just a habit that’s hard to break. It’s like closing the door when you go in your house. Just muscle memory.</p>
<p>I don’t buy his story, but that’s not why.</p>
<p>Lergnom, I agree that the intruder story is questionable, but I think you are focusing too much on details about behavior of a non-existent intruder. We know there was no intruder, no need to worry about whether or not an intruder might have hidden in the toilet room. The question is Pistorius’ subjective belief, not whether the imagined intruder’s behavior is rational.</p>
<p>I once had a crazy person come into my apartment. It was a neighbor, but I hadn’t met her before, and she was behaving quite oddly. It was day time, I called the police, they took her away, and I later learned that she was a student with a history of mental problem. But the things that the real intruder did in my house made no sense at all, and the fact that she was behaving oddly only heightened my level of fear. (She wasn’t directly threatening me so I didn’t leave, but she did grab a sharp kitchen knife and brandish it – though that might have happened after the police were there.)</p>
<p>But I guess it’s my own experience that also makes the shooting story implausible. It seems to me that if one has an intruder apparently locked in the bathroom, the logical thing for the homeowner to do is to hold the gun at the ready, pointed at the door while calling the police, not firing through the door.</p>