Olympian Oscar Pistorius charged with girlfriend's murder

Parent Cafe
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<p>Calla1, the toilet room in our bathroom has a window so I don’t need to turn on the lights because moonlight is streaming through the window.</p>

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<p>calla, I don’t turn the bathroom light on when I go in the middle of the night. The light and fan control pads both have small lights on them that provide enough light so that the main lighting doesn’t need to be turned on at night. It’s nice because it doesn’t disturb my H and it also means that my eyes aren’t blasted with light which can be unpleasant when you’ve been sleeping.</p>

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<p>That makes sense, alwaysamom. Maybe he has those small light sources.</p>

<p>krlilies, I was counting out moonlight because the balcony window was open and he said it was pitch black.</p>

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<p>Premeditation can be anything longer than in the moment. The story the prosecution is putting together is they argued and argued loudly, that at some point she locked herself in the toilet stall and Pistorius fired through the door at her. The implication the detective made was that she must have been talking to him so he knew she was on the toilet and so he fired at it instead of just into the door. We’ll see if the prosecution can carry this case, if the physical evidence matches the assertion he did not fire from the lower heigh of his stumps and if the witnesses hold up, etc. In other words, a domestic dispute gone bad that just happens to involve a well know person. </p>

<p>If the witness who heard gun shots 17 minutes apart holds up, then I’d say his goose is cooking if not cooked. The specificity of the detective’s account of that is compelling. A casual witness doesn’t notice lights turning on and the exact passage of time. Of course, we have to hear what that witness actually said and what the testimony is.</p>

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<p>Did any one see this? I feel like these kinds of stories are the precursors to events like this poor girl’s murder
[Abusive</a> newsman Rob Morrison quits WCBS-TV anchor post after arrest for choking wife; source claims marital infidelities led to his 2008 ouster from NBC - NY Daily News](<a href=“New York News - New York Daily News”>Rob Morrison quits WCBS-TV anchor gig after arrest for choking wife; sources claims the abusive newsman was about to be fired and that marital infidelities led to his 2008 ouster from NBC)</p>

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<p>…
Testimony by Detective Warrant Officer Hilton Botha of the South African Police Service left prosecutors rubbing their temples, only able to look down at their notes as he misjudged distances and acknowledged a forensics team left in the toilet bowl one of the bullet slugs fired at Reeva Steenkamp. </p>

<p>…
prosecutors saying a witness can testify to hearing “non-stop talking, like shouting” between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. before the predawn shooting on Feb. 14. However, Botha later said under cross examination that the person who overheard the argument was in a house 600 meters (yards) away in Pistorius’ gated community in the suburbs of South Africa’s capital, Pretoria.</p>

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<p>600 meters?!</p>

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<p>Lergnom,</p>

<p>I don’t know what you are reading, but…</p>

<p>In his affidavit (para 16.4), Pistorius says that he and Reeva canceled plans to go out with others and spent the time together at his home instead. His claim as I understand it is that he thought she was asleep in bed, but she must have gotten up to go to the toilet while he was out on the balcony retrieving the fan and he didn’t notice this. </p>

<p>His attorney admitted at the hearing that they may have quarreled earlier. </p>

<p>It’s also come out there’s no proof that he was using steroids. The detective admitted on the stand that the substance seized is still being analyzed. Defense says it is a perfectly legal drug used by many athletes and it’s not a steroid. (Personally, I don’t think the defense would risk a lie about that.) </p>

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<a href=“http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/20/oscar-pistorius-case-police-blunders[/url]”>http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/20/oscar-pistorius-case-police-blunders&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Absolutely bizarre that the police let Pistorius’s friends take the extra ammunition.</p>

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<p>And the bloody cricket bat? What happened to that?</p>

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<p>Leaked photo of the witness who overheard the conversations from 1,800 feet away:</p>

<p><a href=“http://farm3.static.■■■■■■■■■■/2568/4109336697_ef9b0e8b7c_o.gif[/url]”>http://farm3.static.■■■■■■■■■■/2568/4109336697_ef9b0e8b7c_o.gif&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>LOL Xiggi! Quite the case this is turning into.</p>

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<p>xiggi,</p>

<p>Did you happen to run across the photo of the eyewitness (Peeping Tom) with the telescope in Kenya?</p>

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<p>Remember, this is a bail hearing not the trial and the actual witness is not present. We hear what the detective reports. We don’t know how far the witness actually was because that witness has not testified. The defense’s purpose is to get Pistorius bail so casting doubt on the detective’s statements is useful but that doesn’t affect what the witness actually saw, heard, etc. There seems to be a lot of talk about 600 meters or 300 meters but that is only important in the context of whether he gets bail, not the actual trial.</p>

<p>I thought he said she was out but I said I might be wrong. Not a big deal.</p>

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<p>The people I know who are from South Africa, visit there and have friends and family there, do consider it to be highly unsafe still. So I can believe someone keeping a gun and being afraid of intruders. That said, I can’t believe you would not assume that a member of the household was in the toilet in order to use it. Her bladder could have been empty because she had already used it while he was on the balcony. I probably sometimes reflexively lock the door in the middle of the night. I simply can’t believe that if my husband and I were in bed and I heard noises in the bathroom, that my first assumption would not be that he was in there. It just doesn’t make sense.</p>

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<p>I could probably hear screams or shouts 600 meters away in a very quiet area. I’m a light sleeper and our neighborhood is very quiet at night. There’s protected open space about ½ mile away that is fenced in. A few times in the wee hours of the morning I would hear coyotes howling and fighting with each other despite the fact that all the windows and doors in our house are closed.</p>

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<p>There seems to be some disagreement about how far this supposed witness was from the Pistorius house. The question, I would think, is why isn’t there someone closer who heard this argument, if there was such screaming as to be heard at a distance? The photos I’ve seen make it appear that the homes are very close together there so it’s unlikely that if there were a loud screaming match in the middle of the night that the only witness would be one who is so far away.</p>

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<p>[Oscar</a> Pistorius will likely get off because fear animates much of South African lives: Kelly | Toronto Star](<a href=“http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/02/19/oscar_pistorius_will_likely_get_off_because_fear_animates_much_of_south_african_lives_kelly.html]Oscar”>http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/02/19/oscar_pistorius_will_likely_get_off_because_fear_animates_much_of_south_african_lives_kelly.html)</p>

<p>An interesting article on the fear of crime in South Africa.</p>

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<p>Alwaysamom, you’re right. If there was some screaming the next door neighbors on either side should have probably heard it unless they were all heavy sleepers, not home, air conditioning was on as white noise, wearing ear buds/plugs, watching a dvd in their home theater. Still, if one is truly scared of intruders you probably shouldn’t leave your balcony door open with the fan outside before you go to sleep. Another suggestion is to probably get an indoor dog so it starts barking when there is an intruder. I have a toy dog and he starts growling if he hears something odd.</p>

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<p>I read one newspaper account which said that the time between the first shot and the last three shots was 17 minutes. Why would there be such a gap?</p>

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<p>Eh… eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable.</p>