One Tragic Night (83 page)

‘You see because, Mr Pistorius, your version is a lie.'

Oscar finally agreed that with the items in the positions as photographed, his version could not be true. But the scene had been tampered with, he insisted. And yet, despite this, his defence counsel had not put questions about these specific items being moved to the two officers who would have been the likely suspects – Van Rensburg and Van Staden.

Nel seemed to summarise his objection to the accused's contention: ‘That is why you have to come up with things because now we have to look for a policeman that did the following: that moved the duvet to the carpet, that moved the fan back, that moved the curtain more open. Those three things, am I right?' asked Nel.

‘That is correct, My Lady,' confirmed the witness. Could it be this was the first time Roux and the defence team were hearing these claims? ‘You see, Mr Pistorius,' said Nel, ‘It was never moved … Nobody moved anything.'

Nel used two markers to prove the duvet had to have been on the floor where it was found by the police. The first was the location of the pair of inside-out jeans. Pointing to a photograph, Nel said it appeared that part of the jeans had come to rest on top of the corner of the grey duvet – these were the pants Oscar said he picked up to block a blue LED light that was bothering him, but dropped them when he heard a noise in the bathroom. For the jeans to be on the top of the duvet, the duvet had to be there first. Oscar didn't see this as a problem, claiming that if various items had been moved around the room, it wouldn't be surprising if the jeans were also moved.

Roux also objected, saying it merely appeared that the jeans were on the duvet, but this was not necessarily so. It appeared he may have identified a parallax error, but one not as obvious as the cricket bat in the bathroom.

The second marker was found in the same photograph. When Oscar was carrying Reeva, a jet of blood had spurted from a wound at about 90 degrees out to her left – which meant it was squirting forward relative to the way she was being carried. This spurt trail is most visible on the walls down the flight of the stairs and in the kitchen, where it sprayed from her location at the base of the stairwell. But it appeared that when Oscar carried Reeva down the bathroom passage, her heart pumped, sending a jet of blood into the bedroom towards the balcony door. Nel asked Van Staden to magnify the picture, and there on the carpet were the fine drops in a line leading up and onto the duvet. The blood on the bedding lined up with the blood on the floor, which to Nel was irrefutable proof that the duvet must have been on the floor at least from the time Oscar passed there with his dying girlfriend in his arms. Oscar said the blood could have transferred to the duvet when he went to collect his phones from the bedside table, like the blood that transferred to the wall above the bedside table.

Oscar accepted that if the items depicted in the pictures were in an unaltered location, then his version of events could not be true.

The state's argument was that for Oscar's version to be true, a policeman would have had to:

And this would have had to have been done without knowing what the accused's subsequent story would be in terms of how events in the early morning had unfolded. In the end, Oscar had offered possible explanations for the location of the items, like the possibility that he might have kicked the fan or tripped over the cable, but admitted that he simply couldn't remember.

‘Ja. It is because it never happened. That is why you cannot remember it,' said Nel, goading the witness.

‘In the beginning of my evidence, I said that I remember everything from when I woke up to the time that I discharged my firearm, my memory after that is not very clear. There are things that I do not remember. This is one of them. So I am not looking for an excuse.'

Before Nel could respond, Oscar continued talking. His speech picked up pace and his voice trembled. ‘If I do not remember it, I do not remember it, My Lady.'

‘Mr Pistorius, are you okay? You are not emotional?' asked Nel, hinting at his suggestion that the accused used his apparent anguish to avoid difficult questions.

‘No, I am fine, My Lady …' said Oscar, belying what was evident to the court. ‘If I kicked the fan it would have been in my favour to say I kicked the fan, to explain where the small fan landed up. But I cannot say that because I do not remember it.'

Again, the prosecutor tried to get a word in, but the witness continued his emotional gallop. ‘… So there are things that are in my favour if I say them, but I do not remember.'

‘Are you getting emotional?' asked Nel, finally able to speak to the accused who sat flustered, trembling in the box.

Oscar was exasperated and frustrated at the prosecutor's stubbornness and unwillingness to believe him. The accused turned his gaze from Masipa and dropped his head forward as he continued to cry.

The judge called for an adjournment and Aimee rushed to support her brother.

Oscar had spoken with confidence about the ‘experts' and ‘specialists' who had pored over the photos and identified clear evidence that the scene had been tampered with. He listed Wollie Wolmarans as one of the witnesses who would present this evidence to the court. But when Wolmarans testified, he never said a word about the crime scene being ‘contaminated, disturbed and tampered with'. And neither did the defence team's other expert, Roger Dixon.

In fact, Oscar was the only defence witness to make any mention of the police's alleged mishandling of the crime scene. And with no expert to support his claims that items had been moved, and himself further conceding that for the most part he had no independent recollection of where he had left certain items, the defence's position had fallen flat. Roux and Oldwadge would have to focus their attention elsewhere – on vulnerability and Oscar's psychology.

But Oscar had made what was thought to be a significant concession: if the duvet on the floor was in its true location, with the denim jeans lying on top of it and if the curtains were wide open, with the fan in front of the door and the light switched on – as depicted in the official photographs – his version of events could not possibly be true.

Picture 136 was minimised, ready to be expanded and displayed across the computer screens in the courtroom when the cue came from the prosecutor. ‘What we can see there is the effect the ammunition had on a watermelon. It exploded. Am I right?' asked Nel.

‘That is correct, My Lady,' agreed Oscar, having just watched a video of himself shooting a high-powered revolver at the red and mushy-centred fruit, before declaring on tape, ‘It's a lot softer than brain, but fuck it's like a zombie stopper.'

The Smith & Wesson 500 he was using that day is touted by the manufacturer as ‘the world's most powerful handgun'. A camera placed beside the target shows how the .50 calibre bullet, equivalent to 12.7 mm in diameter, caused the watermelon to explode, sending chunks of the fruit and fine spray in every direction.

‘You know that the same happened to Reeva's head? It exploded,' spat Nel, with his gaze fixed firmly on the accused. He had a menacing tone to his voice. ‘Have a look. I am going to show you, Mr Pistorius, it had the exact same effect. The bullet that went into her head.'

The close-up picture of the right side of Reeva's face flashed across the courtroom screens. Brain matter spoilt her blood-soaked hair. A collective gasp of disbelief broke the stunned silence as the prosecutor waited for an answer. Hands reflexively shot up to cover mouths. While Aimee and Carl shook their heads with tears rolling down their cheeks, unable to protect their sibling from the state's opening salvo, June Steenkamp and her entourage sat with their heads bowed, not looking up. They had been fully briefed about what was to come and knew to keep their eyes away from the screens. The live television feed from Court GD featured the banner ‘Graphic Evidence. Viewer discretion is advised'. It was 12:03pm on 9 April when the world was shown what Oscar did to Reeva.

‘Have a look there, Mister Pistorius,' said Nel, his tempo and aggression increasing as he goaded the witness. ‘I know you do not want to, because you do not want to take responsibility, but it is time that you look at it! Take responsibility for what you have done, Mr Pistorius!'

The witness snapped. ‘My Lady, I have taken responsibility. By me waiting … I am not wanting to live my life, but waiting for my time on this stand to tell my story for the respect of Reeva and for myself, I have taken the responsibility,' said Oscar, with his head and eyes pointed directly at the judge, unwilling to look at Nel or the image of his dead girlfriend on the screen.

‘I will not look at a picture where I am tormented by what I saw and felt that night! As I picked Reeva up, my fingers touched her head, I remember. I do not have to look at a picture! I was there!' His voice had reached a crescendo of tempo and pitch, lending credence to his counsel's claim that when anxious he sounds like a woman.

‘It is the same thing as the watermelon! You had it now in practice, Mister Pistorius,' said an unrelenting Nel, as Roux stood to object to the line of questioning. The defence advocate was not objecting to Nel's style, but rather that the suggestion that watermelon was the same as brains was ‘unfair' and ‘there was no evidence that it had the same effect'.

Oscar broke down in the dock as Masipa asked that the picture be removed from the screen. His sobs turned to loud wails when court was adjourned to allow him to regain his composure. Aimee rushed across the courtroom to comfort her brother, making a remark in the direction of Advocate Johnson as she passed the prosecution bench – it's not known what she said, but her disdain was unmistakeable.

Members of the defence team were similarly disgusted at Gerrie Nel's conduct during the trial and the approach he took with the accused. Says one member: ‘I was very upset, totally upset, I couldn't even speak at how upset I was. To make a comparison between a human head, a watermelon and that of a zombie! I think it worked because it would have upset me as well. I've got great respect for both Gerrie Nel and Barry Roux, but with this tactic of Nel I was shocked and very disappointed with his line of attack.'

A relative of the athlete voiced his disgust at Nel's astonishing tactic. ‘Do you know what is a lunatic? That is a lunatic!' said the family member about Nel and the watermelon incident.

Despite the vociferous criticism, this approach was a carefully orchestrated opening act from the prosecution team. And Nel succeeded in doing precisely what he intended: rattling the witness. No amount of consultation and rehearsing
of questions and answers could have prepared Oscar for that. And now, under cross-examination, he was alone. He could not speak to Roux, Oldwadge or his attorneys.

It was no coincidence that the team managing the live broadcast had changed the banner to display the graphic image warning. An investigator said that the prosecution team had met with June Steenkamp during the 11am tea break, warning her about what was to come. It's understood that she told them to do whatever they felt was in the best interests of the case and that she trusted them. The plan to show Oscar the photo was conceived when the video footage of the accused shooting the watermelon and making the ‘zombie stopper' statement was broadcast on Sky News.