On Thursday morning we got the first verdict from trial of Oscar Pistorius for the murder of his girlfriend, the model Reeva Steenkamp. Pistorius was found not guilty of premeditated murder.
The trial has been followed and dissected from the start especially thanks to the Judge President Dustan Mlambo ruling that the entire trial could be broadcast live on audio and major sections could be broadcast live on TV.
Because of that we’ve been voyeurs to Pistorius crying, faultering under cross-examination and vomiting while Steenkamp’s injuries were read out.
As emotive as these scenes were, they didn’t given us any insight as to where the verdict would go. The question of what the lauded Judge Thokozile Masipa would finally rule (South Africa doesn’t have a jury system)had been up for debate until the very last second.
Now, with the trial itself passed, we take another look at the main points of contention, the facts and arguments that were were always going to sway Pistorius’s fate and what we knew about Reeva Steenkamp’s final moments.
One witness said they heard gunshots, screaming and then more gunshots, though it later came out that the witness was 300m away. Pistorius says she didn’t scream and his ears were ringing so he couldn’t hear himself screaming. The prosecution asked if his ears were ringing how he knew she didn’t scream. The defense also suggested that the screaming heard by neighbours was actually Pistorius screaming for help and the bangs were when he broke down the door with a cricket bat.
The defence and prosecution agreed that Pistorius was on his stumps when he fired the shots. The question is when he put on his prosthesis. Pistorius says it was before breaking down the door with a cricket bat when he thought Reeva might have been the one in the bathroom, though marks on the door suggested he was still on his stumps. Inconsistencies like these throw don't on Pistorius's overall story.
How could Pistorius have not known that Steenkamp had gone past him into the bathroom and was no longer in the bedroom? Why didn’t he check for her before firing into the bathroom? Why didn’t he check the rest of the house for her before breaking down the bathroom door? Pistorius says when he thought it might have been her behind the door he didn’t want to “waste time”.
Contents of Steenkamp’s stomach showed she had eaten around 1am, Pistorius says they ate at 7pm and went to bed around 9-10pm. The judge stated that when she ate was not relevant. A neighbour said she heard arguments around the time suggested that Steenkamp would have been eating.
Pistorius said he went to bring in two fans, the original bail application only mentioned one. Pistorius said he spoke to Steenkamp around 3am when she asked him if he couldn’t sleep, the bail application suggested he didn’t know if she was asleep or awake. Pistorius says he heard the toilet door shut and that’s when he thought there were intruders in the house, this was not mentioned in the bail application.
