The Pistorius trial: Witness Timelines 1 (M. Burger)

Everyone knows that eyewitness/earwitness testimonies are not always fully reliable, even when they are given clearly by people who are entirely independent and speaking in complete good faith.

This is exemplified in the ongoing Oscar Pistorius trial, where witnesses to the sounds emerging from Pistorius' home during the slaying of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, give differing accounts of what they heard; not just because some were farther away than others and therefore understandably heard less, but because some literally heard things that others did not hear, or they heard the identical same things but seemingly in a different order.

It's a fascinating exercise to see if we can organize all the events/sounds that were heard to take place in the early hours of Feb. 14, 2013 into various possible orders, and by attributing probabilities to them according to the number of witnesses that agree, make a final determination of the most probable order.

To make this experiment, the first task is to carefully listen to the testimony of each one of these earwitnesses and note the description and order of the events they describe.  So far there have been four of these, and I believe that more may testify in the coming days or weeks.

1st witness: Michelle Burger

House at distance of 177 meters, windows open and facing Pistorius'

Summary of testimony:

I woke up just after 3 from a woman’s terrible screams. 

I sat up in bed, my husband also, he jumped up and went out to the balcony. 

I was still sitting in the bed and I heard her screams. 

She screamed terribly and yelled for help. 

Then I also heard a man screaming for help three times, "help, help, help".

I told my husband it didn't help to stand out there on the balcony.
I told him to come back and call security.  He came back in.

I took my cell phone, dialed security and gave the phone to my husband. 
He told the story twice over, but it was the wrong number.

It was the estate where we used to live, not Silverstream. 

My husband ran back to the balcony. 

There were screams again, worse, more intense.  It was a climax.  She was very scared. 
Just after her screams I heard four shots, four gunshots.   

The time between the first and second shot was much longer 
than between the second and third and the third and fourth. 

BANG.  (pause.)  BANG-BANG-BANG. 

I heard screams during the shots; the woman's voice faded away after the last shot.

After the man screamed for help we did not hear him again.   

I thought it was a home attack, a housebreaking.

I hoped he had not been shot in front of his wife.

When I heard about Oscar Pistorius the next morning I said "It can't be that.

That's not what we heard."