One Tragic Night (47 page)

‘I could see the person that she was because, you know, when a person brings you closer to her, that means something,' he said.

So impressed was Nhlengethwa with Reeva, he told Oscar, ‘This one is for keeps.' The athlete told his neighbour that he would soon be moving out of the estate to a house in Joburg because he wanted to be closer to Reeva.

For Roux, this demonstrated the loving relationship between his client and Reeva. It showed that Oscar was a friendly, courteous neighbour who was well liked by those around him. But it also exposed a potential lie: Oscar later told a psychiatrist that the reason he wanted to move to Joburg was because he was scared for his safety at Silver Woods.

On 14 February Nhlengethwa recalled being woken by his wife who said that she had heard a bang, which she thought could have been inside their house. He got out of bed to check on his daughter in a neighbouring bedroom, and then walked around the house checking doors and windows for anything suspicious, before returning to the bedroom. It's then, he testified, that he could hear a man crying very loudly, as if he needed desperate help, and realised something was wrong.

He said the noise was very high pitched. Roux had told state witnesses that when his client is anxious, his screams sound like those of a woman – and this neighbour confirmed that it was a man's voice – albeit high pitched – that he had heard.

This was an absolutely critical statement from the witness. Here was a neighbour, who lived considerably closer to Oscar than any of the witnesses who had been called to testify. While the others had claimed to have heard what sounded like a woman screaming, Nhlengethwa believed it to be a man. It was a clincher for the defence. They would later argue that they did not believe it necessary to call an expert to prove that Oscar sounds like a woman when he screams because Nhlengethwa, and others, had testified to this. This statement also questioned why, perhaps, the state had not called Nhlengethwa – because his testimony would have undermined their case.

Roux referred Nhlengethwa to the security phone records that showed he called security twice at about 3:16am when he told security that there was an emergency and someone urgently needed help. He said that as the crying continued, he peeked out of his window waiting for the guards to arrive. While his wife, Rontle, would testify to hearing a man call for help three times, Nhlengethwa said he did not hear this, possibly because he was on the phone at the time.

Nhlengethwa watched as the security vehicle briefly stopped outside the Stipps' house, before speeding off and a car from that same house speeding away a short while later. He saw them all come to a stop outside Oscar's house. It was then that Nhlengethwa went outside to offer assistance and he stayed until the paramedics left, when he realised there wasn't much he could do. Nhlengethwa said he looked inside the house from the front door and saw Oscar kneeling over the dying woman, but never ventured into the house. ‘I could not take watching what I saw in that point in time,' he said.

Under cross-examination Nhlengethwa admitted to Nel that he had followed every word of the trial as it happened in court from day one, but he was satisfied that his statement to the police was accurate. He admitted, too, that he found it hard to believe the testimony of the Stipps and Burger and Johnson. They lived much further away from the crime scene than he and yet claimed to have heard so much more, but he conceded that he might well have slept through the commotion.

Nhlengethwa said he did not hear any shots or loud bangs, and clarified that he and his wife did not hear anything that sounded like a door being broken down with a cricket bat. This immediately called into question the value of this witness, because even on Oscar's own version, he first shot at the door before hitting it with the bat – and this witness hadn't heard a thing.

‘You never heard anybody scream?' asked Nel.

‘I heard a man that was crying,' Nhlengethwa said, adding that he also could not establish exactly where it was coming from.

Rontle Nhlengethwa was one of two of Oscar's neighbours who re-enacted the screams as they heard them on the morning of the shooting. She said she was woken up on the morning of 14 February by a ‘bang', which is the only way she was able describe the loud noise. She didn't know what it was or where it came from, but it was enough to startle her and prompt her to wake up her husband. Rontle's recollection of events mirrored her husband's, except for the point where he left her in the room to inspect the house when she heard what sounded like a man calling for help three times very loudly. She then heard a man crying, which she described as sounding as if the person was hurt and needed urgent help.

Roux asked Rontle to demonstrate to the court what she had heard. She composed herself, taking a few seconds and clearing her throat, before she let out a loud, long wail in the courtroom. ‘But in a voice of a man,' she was quick to qualify. The court sat silent, imagining this scream breaking the silence in the dead of night.

But why hadn't Roux asked the previous witness, a man, to demonstrate what he had heard? Rontle did, however, state that the crying was high pitched, as had her husband.

‘It is interesting that more people heard: “Help! Help! Help!”' said Nel to Rontle in cross-examination. ‘Stipp,' he continued, ‘heard: “Help! Help! Help!” after the second of the shots he heard.'

It was now clear that the state would argue that these witnesses' versions of events followed the second set of noises heard by other neighbours, which would explain why the Nhlengethwas only heard Oscar crying and no screaming.

The question thus remained: could a bang loud enough to wake a neighbour have been the cricket bat, as argued by the defence, or a gunshot as contended by the state?

Another neighbour who shared a wall with Oscar is Rika Motshuane, who lived to the right of the athlete's house. She woke up on the morning of 14 February hearing a man crying, and subsequently roused her husband. ‘The crying was very loud and it was very close,' she said.

Just as he had done with Rontle Nhlengethwa, Roux asked the witness to demonstrate to the court what she had heard. Motshuane let out two long wails, which she said were continuous on the morning in question. Roux had now asked two female witnesses to demonstrate the crying they had heard – again, why had he not asked the male witness who had also heard it?

Motshuane, she says, peeked out of her window towards Oscar's house when she heard a commotion from that direction. Her husband called security, who explained that whatever was happening at Oscar's house was being taken care of.

The witness told Nel in cross-examination that in her statement to police, she had estimated that she heard the crying at about 3:20am – this was squarely after the second set of noises that the state believed were the gunshots. Motshuane didn't hear any gunshots.

In early May 2014, while Oscar's closest neighbours were testifying for the defence, a sideshow erupted in court, drawing attention away from the content of the witness testimony, much to the defence legal team's frustration.

Oscar was accused of trying to intimidate Kim Myers by going up to her in the public gallery and asking, ‘How can you sleep at night?' The exchange was reportedly heard by those around her, including a warrant officer who reported the incident to prosecutor Gerrie Nel. Myers, through her attorney Ian Levitt, also lodged a complaint with the National Prosecuting Authority.

In a statement, Levitt suggested that Oscar may have been upset by comments made by the Myers family in media interviews. ‘My client, Kim Myers, was approached by Oscar Pistorius in court today and in a very sinister tone was asked, “How can you sleep at night?” My client views this unwelcome approach as extremely disturbing and I have been in communication with the National Prosecuting Authorities as well as the Investigating Officer. All other parties have also been informed. My client however will remain focused on the trial and will continue to attend court in support of Reeva.'

But when reporters in court questioned Oscar about the claim, he replied: ‘No, I haven't spoken to her.' He insisted: ‘I haven't spoken to them for a year and a half. I walk past them in the corridors and hold doors open for them but they don't look me in the eye.'

Oscar's attorney Brian Webber dismissed the allegation as ‘grossly untrue'. A source within the defence team told us that they were annoyed that on a day when their witnesses had made significant strides in countering the state's neighbours' testimony, the media focus was only on the alleged incident between Myers and Oscar. There was very little reporting on what the neighbours had told the court.

Ten neighbours – five for the state and another five for the defence – testified in total. Add to this the evidence of the guard who was in charge of security at the estate on the morning of the shooting.

The opposing sides in the murder trial had presented starkly contrasting versions of events. On the one hand, there was the evidence of what sounded like an argument, then the blood-curdling screams of a woman, the image of a man walking in Oscar's bathroom, the light on in his house and then bangs. The state believed that the terrifying screams before the shots could only have been Reeva fleeing her boyfriend in the moments before she was killed and that it was
compelling testimony of an argument between Oscar and Reeva, which led to him shooting her intentionally in a fit of rage.