Pistorius Trial: Witness Timelines (Defense Scenario Interview)

In this post we're going to reproduce an interview with someone who believes that Pistorius is telling the truth, reacting in the first place to the contradictions with witness testimony, and in the second place to certain aspects of his story which may appear unlikely.

Q: Pistorius describes the shouts and screams between the two sets of bangs as all coming from him.  His description does not resemble the panicked, continuous and intensifying screaming of a woman described by witnesses.

A: Those screams were described by witnesses at quite some distance away.  The next-door neighbors, who were much nearer, describe a man's howling, crying voice during the same time period (minutes preceding 3:17) and no woman's voice during that time.  I believe that the nearer neighbors heard more accurately than the farther ones, so I believe that the farther neighbors took Pistorius' crying and wailing for a woman when it was really him.

Q: Pistorius describes the shots (first set of bangs) and subsequent activity as taking place in the darkness.  He does not say at what time he turned the lights on.  But Anette Stipp saw light in the bathroom at the time of the first set of bangs which she places before or at 3:02am and continuously through to the second set of bangs (3:17am).

A: Pistorius stated in his testimony that he does not remember turning the bathroom lights on, but at a certain point they were on.  However, he is sure that he shot in the dark.  I think that in fact he shot, and then hardly consciously flicked the lights on to see what he had done, then hurried back to his bedroom where it was still extremely dark.  I think that Anette Stipp heard the bangs, and that the lights came on during the moment it took her to sit up in bed and focus on the houses across the green so that she saw them at once.

Q: Pistorius states that he shouted from the balcony for help between the two sets of bangs.  This contradicts Johan Stipp's testimony of hearing the shouts after the second set of bangs.

A: But this matches the testimony of at least three other witnesses. Burger and Johnson heard the cry of "help, help, help"  before the set of bangs at 3:17am.  Mrs. Nhlengethwa heard the cry of "help, help, help" before her husband called security at 3:16.   I believe that Johan Stipp made a mistake and the cry of "help, help, help" occurred before 3:17.  In fact, I would say that this is established as a certainty by the testimony of Mrs. Nhlengethwa, who heard "help, help, help" before her husband made the phone call to security that was clocked at 3:16.

Q: Maybe she is the one making a mistake.

A: During her cross-examination, the prosecutor tried to make out that she had been woken up by the 3:17 shots and that she had heard "help, help, help" subsequently, so after 3:17.  But she responded that this was certainly not the case.  The bang that woke her occurred several minutes before her husband's 3:16 call to security.

Q: Pistorius says the first set of bangs was made by the gunshots, but there were four gunshots and Anette Stipp heard only three bangs in the first set. She was lying awake and was certain that she did not miss any previous bang in her sleep.

A: I think it is possible that she was dozing and missed the first one of the four shots.  It is not always easy to say whether you were awake or dozing.  Alternatively, she may have miscounted the shots in quick succession, which is also an easy mistake to make.  Indeed almost all the other witnesses had different memories about just how many shots there were.

Q: As for the bangs at 3:17, Michell Burger is certain that she heard four bangs and only three bat marks were found on the door, indicating only three blows.

A: There were other marks on the door that were not really investigated by the experts. 

Q: Several witnesses do not believe the sounds they heard at 3:17am were made by a cricket bat rather than by a gun because they were in such quick succession.

A: It's possible to hit a door with a bat very quickly if you don't fully swing it back between blows.  I myself would have used the bat like a battering ram, although that is not what Pistorius did.  Also, he is an athlete with a powerful upper body.  It's normal that ordinary people would not make the same movements with the same speed as he would.

Q: Why would Burger and Johnson have heard the cricket bat blows at 3:17 but not the earlier gunshots which would have been much louder?

A: They were sleeping, so the gunshots may have been what woke them up.  They were standing on the balcony listening attentively at 3:17 which explains why they heard better.  Mrs. Nhlengethwa was awoken by what she heard as one very loud bang several minutes before her husband's 3:16 call to security, and she did not hear any bangs at 3:17 at all.

Q: Why was the duvet found on the floor when Pistorius says it was on the bed? Do you believe police moved everything in the room?

A: It is a fact proven by the photographs that several objects were moved by the police. However, Pistorius may have also wrenched the duvet off the bed when feeling for Reeva and flung it on the floor in the pitch darkness and just not remember doing that.  If that was the moment when, as he claims, it hit him that it might have been Reeva in the toilet, he would be overwhelmed by horror and panic then.

Q: How do you explain that Reeva never made a sound or let Pistorius know where she was during the whole time that he was screaming to the intruder to get out and screaming to her to call the police?

A:  Pistorius' own explanation is that as she was in the bathroom opening the window for a bit of air, she heard him suddenly shout at an intruder.  She must have thought that in closing the balcony door, Pistorius had found an intruder on the balcony or in the bedroom.  So she locked herself into the toilet for safety.  As she heard him edge slowly down the hall towards her, still screaming, she would have thought that Pistorius was backing away from the intruder and maybe the intruder was advancing, and she would have kept very still so as not to alert the intruder to her presence.

Q: But why wouldn't she have called the police then?  She had her phone in the bathroom with her.  Also, why do you think she had her phone with her?

A: The toilet light was broken.  She probably took her phone with her to light her way to and in the bathroom.  She might not have called police because she didn't dare to make a noise, or because she wasn't sure that Pistorius was facing a real intruder (once before he had gone into combat mode because of a washing machine making noise), or because she was frozen.

TO BE CONTINUED