One Tragic Night (49 page)

‘These “petals” that fold out were furthermore specifically designed by the manufacturer to have very sharp jagged edges and this causes even more tissue damage as the bullet tumbles in the tissue.'

It had become clear that Oscar had armed himself with killer ammunition, designed to cause as much damage to the target as possible.

Saayman described his findings related to other parts of Reeva's internal organs, with nothing significant or out of the ordinary – until he arrived at the stomach.

‘The stomach contains approximately 200 ml of partially digested food residue with the appearance of primarily vegetable matter and with a slightly green and grey colour, in which whitish cheese-like particles may be seen,' he said.

This was a significant finding for the prosecution team, and its importance soon became clear. Saayman took some time to explain to the court that digestion periods vary from person to person and depend on the type and volume of food consumed. ‘It is likely that the food we see in the stomach of the deceased had been introduced within approximately two hours of her death, or less,' said Saayman, pausing briefly before clarifying his finding. ‘In other words, two hours prior to her death, she probably ingested this food.'

It was common cause that Oscar had killed Reeva just after 3am. The food in her stomach and Saayman's conclusion puts her up, awake and eating at about 1am. According to Oscar, the couple was asleep at that time. He believed she must have got up to go to the toilet, and that was when he had mistaken her for an intruder.

Only a few millilitres of urine were discovered in Reeva's bladder – no more than a teaspoonful. Could this be the result of her urinating moments before being shot? Oscar stated in his bail application that in hindsight he believed that Reeva must have gone to the bathroom, and it was argued by Roux that this finding related to the bladder supported the claim.

Nel asked Saayman to discuss the presence of private pathologist Dr Reggie Perumal at the postmortem. Saayman acknowledged him being there as nothing unusual, and that Perumal had been given a watching brief by Oscar's legal team. He explained that in such a situation, Saayman would verbalise his observations, providing running commentary as he conducted the autopsy to ensure there was no misunderstanding as to what the findings represented:

The court was thus surprised several weeks later when another pathologist took Perumal's place in the stand to testify for the defence. It was first prize for any legal team to have its own expert present to witness the postmortem, so why would Roux not call the man dispatched on a watching brief?

Oscar's legal team later issued a statement saying that Perumal's absence was the result of his lack of availability and that he remained a member of their
expert team. When contacted, Perumal was not prepared to divulge why he did not testify.

One source in the defence team told us that Perumal was kicked out because he had spoken to the media, but another suggested that while this was a concern for the lawyers, it wasn't the main reason he wasn't called.

‘With Perumal, he was there to see if Gert Saayman was correct in his postmortem. He confirmed the correctness of the postmortem. It was never disputed by the defence so there was never a need to call Perumal to the stand. Yes, the defence legal team was frustrated that Perumal had spoken to the media but that wasn't the reason he wasn't called. The reason was simply that the postmortem was not in dispute and Perumal's evidence was just to confirm Saayman,' said the source.

Nel then turned to explore the effect the various wounds would have had, had they been sustained individually – starting with the hip wound.

Saayman said that the hip wound would have caused almost immediate instability or loss of stability related to the limb – the person would collapse, and it would be very unlikely that the person would be able to get back up on their own.

The pathologist told the court that the injury to the right arm would be a particularly devastating injury – breaking and shattering the right upper arm. ‘There would, for all practical purposes, have been no functionality retained in that arm after the injury.'

And the head wound? ‘Probably almost instantly fatal, M'Lady,' he said.

Saayman further added that the injuries to the hip and arm individually could also have been fatal – adding that people routinely die of similar injuries.

The state's first expert witness had thus provided the court with a graphic account of how the deadly projectiles ripped through Reeva's body, and how each of these shards of high-velocity steel would have affected the target. Several other expert witnesses, including those for Oscar's defence, relied on this information to compile their reports and plot Reeva's likely movement as the bullets pierced the wooden door. But perhaps one of the most important findings for the state was the content of the dead woman's stomach, which the defence would call two witnesses to refute.

The focus of Roux's cross-examination was mostly on the issue of gastric emptying because if the court trusted Professor Saayman's findings in this regard, it would put Reeva up and awake at about 1am, two hours prior to her death, and coincide
with a neighbour's testimony that she heard what sounded like a woman arguing coming from Oscar's house at about 2am. This was contrary to Roux's client's version of events that they were both in bed and asleep, as well as the security guards' assertion that all was quiet and peaceful while doing their patrol at about the same time. But the defence advocate's experience in medical malpractice litigation meant he was in familiar territory when dealing with medical literature.

However, he started by questioning the effect the rapid succession of shots striking the body would have on cognitive function and what response could be expected from the victim. Saayman responded that the head wound would cause immediate incapacity, but the trauma of the other wounds could impact cognitive ability for a few seconds. Roux was trying to rule out the possibility that Reeva could have screamed – to allege that after the first shot Reeva was so shocked that she couldn't think clearly, and the remaining shots followed so quickly that she died before she regained any cognitive ability.

Turning to gastric emptying, the advocate listed several medical journal articles and asked whether Saayman had consulted a specific one. Saayman had not; rather, he had consulted several articles and textbooks, and relied on a ‘synthesis of my own experience, own observations and reading the literature'. Roux asked to see the articles Saayman had relied upon, asking for a brief adjournment.

When the session resumed, Roux asked Saayman to read into the record the titles of five medical journal articles related to how food is digested and passed through the body. This was clearly going to be an academic argument in which the defence fought its case with the literature while the witness who had conducted the postmortem relied on literature as well as decades of experience to reach his findings. Roux noted that the professor was at great pains in his evidence to point out that the time it took food to pass through the stomach varied from person to person and depended on the type and volume of food consumed.

Saayman agreed, adding that he tried to be balanced when presenting the evidence. But Roux questioned whether the pathologist had examined Reeva's small intestine, to see how much food had been passed through. He hadn't. The advocate said that according to the literature this step was necessary to establish a more probable time the food was ingested prior to death.

By this point, despite the continued graphic reference to Reeva's internal organs and discussions related to body function, Oscar had recovered from the inconsolable state seen earlier, although his bucket remained within reach and he occasionally buried his head in his hands with his fingers to block his ears.

Roux referred to
The Forensic Medicine: Clinical and Pathological Aspects
, and Saayman directed the court's attention to a particular paragraph: ‘The following
gastric emptying times are given in the literature. One to three hours for a light, small-volume meal. Three to five hours for a medium-sized meal. Five to eight hours for a large meal.'

The professor read further, noting clarity in the article that despite these findings, quite often a four-hour period would ensure that a stomach was empty.

Roux referred Saayman to a table in the same publication, which explained that the volume of meal would have to be known prior to the food being consumed to make a time determination based on the amount found in the stomach. Almost as the professor stopped reading, Roux hit home his point. ‘Now in this case, what is the percentage of the volume of the last meal that you found in the stomach?'

‘I would not know, M'Lady.'

The advocate was not only trying to show that gastric emptying as a means to determine time of death was an imprecise science, but also that the professor had not conducted an examination of the entire digestive system in order to make a conclusive finding.

Roux quickly snapped to other well-known literature in this regard to make the point that there would be great variations from meal to meal, person to person and day to day in the same person. The defence was hitting straight at the reliability of the pathologist's claim that he believed Reeva had eaten a meal no more than two hours prior to death. What had started out as riveting evidence was now more like a debate on medicine in a university lecture hall.

But Saayman stood his ground, confidently providing an elaborate explanation for how science and studies worked, and used an analogy of firing a shotgun at a wall and how some pellets might stray, but most would be concentrated in a narrowly distributed area.

‘I must stress that it is proper scientific methodology to say that we tend to abide in the first instance, by that which science and literature and repeated research has shown us, to be the probable values and on that very basis every single day, thousands of endoscopies and gastroscopies are done, because gastroenterologists know that after four to six hours, after a meal, the stomach is for practical purposes empty.'

‘I understand that,' said Roux. ‘Thank you, M'Lady. I have no further questions.'

Saayman had remained firm despite the defence advocate's attempts to undermine his findings, but Roux would call two witnesses in an attempt to cast doubt on the professor's evidence.

Nel explored only three aspects in his re-examination of Professor Saayman, starting with cognitive function after being shot – it was the state's case that Reeva was screaming up until the last shot to the head killed her. He referred to Saayman's answers to the question from Roux about a stress response after being shot – the fight-or-flight mode. ‘Now cognitive function … I just wanted to know, would that include screaming? Would screaming be possible?' asked Nel.

‘Yes, screaming would of course be possible and that is a voluntary action and probably an expression of fear or anguish,' said Saayman.

‘And the wound on the arm …?' Nel explored a potential reaction from someone who had sustained such a wound.

‘I would think it would be somewhat abnormal if one does not scream when you sustain a wound of this nature, or wounds of this nature,' Saayman said. This, of course, opened the door to the probability that Reeva would have screamed after being struck first in the hip and then in the arm, before the final shot to the head rendered her unconscious. Those screams would tie in with the evidence of neighbours, who testified they heard the terrified high-pitched calls of a woman in distress up until the last shot was fired; the suggestion also raised the question that, if Reeva was screaming, why did Oscar keep shooting at the door?