by Mandy Wiener
I grabbed my 9 mm pistol from underneath my bed. On my way to the bathroom I screamed words to the effect for him/them to get out of my house and for Reeva to phone the police. It was pitch dark in the bedroom and I thought Reeva was in bed.
I noticed that the bathroom window was open. I realised that the intruder/s was/were in the toilet because the toilet door was closed and I did not see anyone in the bathroom. I heard movement inside the toilet. The toilet is inside the bathroom and has a separate door.
It filled me with horror and fear of an intruder or intruders being inside the toilet.
I thought he or they must have entered through the unprotected window. As I did not have my prosthetic legs on and felt extremely vulnerable, I knew I had to protect Reeva and myself. I believed that when the intruder/s came out of the toilet we would be in grave danger. I felt trapped as my bedroom door was locked and I have limited mobility on my stumps.
I fired shots at the toilet door and shouted to Reeva to phone the police. She did not respond and I moved backwards out of the bathroom, keeping my eyes on the bathroom entrance. Everything was pitch dark in the bedroom and I was still too scared to switch on a light. Reeva was not responding.
When I reached the bed, I realised that Reeva was not in bed. That is when it dawned on me that it could have been Reeva who was in the toilet. I returned to the bathroom calling her name. I tried to open the toilet door but it was locked. I rushed back into the bedroom and opened the sliding door exiting onto the balcony and screamed for help.
I put on my prosthetic legs, ran back to the bathroom and tried to kick the toilet door open. I think I must then have turned on the lights. I went back into the bedroom and grabbed my cricket bat to bash open the toilet door. A panel or panels broke off and I found the key on the floor and unlocked and opened the door. Reeva was slumped over but alive.
I battled to get her out of the toilet and pulled her into the bathroom. I phoned Johan Stander (‘Stander’) who was involved in the administration of the estate and asked him to phone the ambulance. I phoned Netcare and asked for help. I went downstairs to open the front door.
I returned to the bathroom and picked Reeva up as I had been told not to wait for the paramedics, but to take her to hospital. I carried her downstairs in order to take her to the hospital. On my way down Stander arrived. A doctor who lives in the complex also arrived. Downstairs, I tried to render the assistance to Reeva that I could, but she died in my arms.
I am absolutely mortified by the events and the devastating loss of my beloved Reeva. With the benefit of hindsight I believe that Reeva went to the toilet when I went out on the balcony to bring the fan in. I cannot bear to think of the suffering I have caused her and her family, knowing how much she was loved. I also know that the events of that tragic night were as I have described them and that in due course I have no doubt the police and expert investigators will bear this out.
Everyone in the room exhaled, almost collectively.
Roux concluded reading the affidavit by placing the standard requirements into the record – that the accused was not a flight risk and would not interfere with the investigation or with the witnesses. Pistorius then confirmed the content of the statement to the court. Roux read three more affidavits into the record: from Oscar’s friend Alex Pilakoutas, from Justin Divaris and from Justin’s girlfriend Samantha Greyvenstein. These were character statements in defence of the sportsman.
Pilakoutas stated that he considers Oscar one of his closest friends and they see each other several times a week. He recalled how Oscar had told him in November that he had a met a woman, Reeva, whom he intended taking to the sports awards.
‘Oscar told me that his relationship with Reeva was not like any of his previous relationships. Oscar had really fallen for Reeva and he wasn’t afraid to express it. Even though it was still early days in the relationship, Oscar and Reeva were very comfortable around each other and they were happy,’ he said.
Divaris told the court that he and Oscar had a mutual love of cars and often spoke to each other on the phone. He had introduced the couple at a track day he had hosted at Kyalami race track and the two had hit it off. Oscar invited Reeva to attend the South African Sports Awards with him and their relationship blossomed, but they were ‘taking things slow’. In December 2012, the couple joined Divaris and his girlfriend, Greyvenstein, on holiday in Cape Town and the relationship became increasingly serious. ‘Oscar would often tell me how much he loved Reeva and that she was a fantastic person who understood him. He said he loved spending time with her and that she could be “the one”. Apart from seeing and speaking to Oscar almost on a daily basis, as a couple my girlfriend Sam and I saw Oscar and Reeva together almost twice a week. They were always happy and you could see that they enjoyed each other’s company immensely. The only issue in the relationship that I was made aware of was that Reeva sometimes thought Oscar was moving a little fast. However this did not derogate from the fact that they really truly loved each other. Oscar often told me that Reeva could be the girl he would one day marry.’
Divaris’s girlfriend Greyvenstein expressed equally fond words about the accused in her sworn statement. ‘I got on well with Oscar immediately, I found him to be an extremely polite, well-mannered, humble man. He was the epitome of a true gentleman,’ she stated.
The statements portrayed Oscar as a loving boyfriend and depicted the relationship with Reeva as one of happiness. The final affidavit to be presented by the defence was that of Oscar’s first cousin Graham Binge. The two had spoken on the phone on the evening of 13 February from around 20:25 until 20:45. Oscar was looking at buying his sister Aimee a new car and was seeking advice. They chatted about vehicle theft syndicates and a house Oscar had recently bought in Johannesburg.
Roux concluded his presentation and, with just over an hour left of the court day, Nel asked that the matter be postponed until the following day. The defence did not object. Captain Hilton Botha, the detective in charge of the case, was bracing himself for his time on the witness stand.
Bumbling Botha
Hilton Botha is a short man, fairly well built, with broad shoulders and an olive complexion, evident of someone who spends a lot of time outdoors. A career policeman, Botha spent 24 years in the police service, 16 of those as a detective. He strode into the courtroom, a brown police file tucked under his arm and a black suit jacket slung over his shoulder. With his jaw locked tightly, he took his seat in the witness stand. He would be the state’s main witness in this bail application and its case would stand or fall by his testimony. The pressure was immense.
Inside the courtroom Oscar’s family took up their spots directly behind where the accused would sit. In preparation, the defence team had already set out their files and other documentation on the row of desks in front of them, and several members of the team huddled over what appeared to be the floor plan of Oscar’s house – likely to be used to plot movement on the morning in question.
Prosecutor Gerrie Nel stood, adjusted his black robe, and began guiding the policeman through his evidence.
Botha had arrived at Oscar’s house at about 4:15am that Valentine’s Day after receiving a call from his station commander. He found Reeva’s body at the bottom of the stairs, bloodied and covered in towels. She had been shot three times and had been declared dead by paramedics.
Nel asked Botha to describe what he found when he entered the home, and the policeman took the court through a virtual tour of the accused’s home through a clumsy description of left and right turns. He explained that he had gone through the main door, passed the deceased’s body, up the stairs and into the main bedroom where he found a king-size bed, book cases, cupboards and a couch. An overnight bag was on the couch to the left of the bed and a woman’s slippers were found on the same side. He had then walked through a passageway lined with cupboards into the bathroom.
Nel: Now what did you find in the bathroom?
Botha: In the bathroom I saw a part
of the door, the toilet door lying in the bathroom itself, cartridges, there was a cartridge at the entrance but still in the hallway.
Nel: In the passageway?
Botha: In the passageway there was one cartridge.
Nel: Yes?
Botha: 9 mm. And there were three in the bathroom.
Nel: And did you see any firearm?
Botha: There was a firearm on a shower mat in front of the shower on your right-hand side.
This was the first vivid first-hand account of the crime scene and those in the gallery hung on to every word, anticipating descriptions of a bloody cricket bat and bullet-riddled door. Nel continued to guide Botha through the scene.
Nel: How big is this toilet?
Botha: The toilet is exactly 1.4x1.14 metres in diameter.
Nel: Let’s get back to the firearm. You saw a firearm which was where?
Botha: In front of the shower, on the shower mat, there was a silver coloured Taurus 9 mm firearm.
Nel: That’s not all that was there?
Botha: No, there was also two cellphones, one iPhone 4 and one iPhone 5 that was lying next to the firearm on the mat. The one iPhone 4 was a bit under the mat but you could see it.
Botha explained that he had also found two BlackBerry phones on a cupboard in the bedroom. He had checked to see if any of the four phones had been used that morning and had established they had not. No one had called an ambulance and no one had called the police from any of those devices.
Nel then turned his attention to the bullet-riddled toilet door. Botha described that the top part of the door had been broken, and four shots had been fired through it. Botha stated that Oscar had used a cricket bat to break through the door.
Botha confirmed that he had found a cricket bat on the scene, lying on the floor, and that the bat had likely been used to break down the door. However, that would only be confirmed once ‘tool markings’ had been established by ballistics experts. Nel wanted to know from his witness where the shooter was likely to have been standing, whether the distance the shots had been fired at could be determined and whether the trajectory of the bullets had been established. This would prove to be a crucial exchange and a position that the state would later have to do an about-turn on.
According to his preliminary investigations, the detective believed that the shooter would have to have been standing inside the bathroom, with his back to the basins, when he fired the shots directly at the toilet bowl.
Nel: You were able to, with the people on the scene, form an idea of how far the shooter must have been from the door when he fired the shots, is that correct?
Botha: That’s correct. 1.5 metres.
Nel: And where would he have been?
Botha: He would have had to stand next to the shower with his back against the washing basins.
As a disclaimer, Botha told the court that the ballistics and forensics tests still needed to be completed, but from his analysis it appeared that the bullet trajectory was from the top down, suggesting that Oscar was wearing his prosthetic legs at the time of the shooting.
Nel: The accused’s version is that he was, he never had his prosthesis on when he was standing over there shooting or wherever he was standing shooting. I say the version of the accused is he went to the bathroom with his gun, without his prosthesis on and he then fired, so one will have to know, check the angle and if the bullet was fired up or down to indicate if that was correct. But you were there, you saw it?
Botha: Yes.
Nel: Now just seeing it for yourself, what was the angle of that bullet, up or down?
Botha: It seemed to me that it was down, down. It was fired down.
Nel: So, from the top down?
Botha: Yes.
Nel: And you measured it against whom?
Botha: I measured it against myself; if I would have drawn my firearm and I would have shot normal stance it would have been down.
After a query from the magistrate, it was agreed that plans of the house would be projected onto a big screen to make it easier to illustrate the events. The defence team hooked a laptop up to the projector, and a floor plan in blue ink was soon visible on a white screen behind the prosecution team. The diagram showed the upper level of Oscar’s home – with his bedroom, balcony, passage and bathroom marked out on the plan.
Pointing to the diagram, the officer explained how there was just one small window in the toilet cubicle and no other way of escaping the room. Botha then took the court back to Oscar’s bedroom and described how a person walking from the balcony – where Oscar said he had retrieved a fan before hearing noises in the bathroom – would have had to pass the bed where Oscar believed Reeva was sleeping.
Nel moved on, enquiring what else the police had found in Oscar’s bedroom.
‘On the cabinet below the TV we found two boxes of steroids and …’ said Botha. Gasps rippled through the stuffy courtroom. Nel quickly interrupted his witness.
‘Steroids or testosterone?’
‘Testosterone,’ clarified Botha. ‘Testosterone and needles and injections. It’s not anabolic.’
Oldwadge quickly looked up from taking notes and squinted at Botha, a look of utter disbelief on his face. It was a significant revelation, and one that would support the so-called roid-rage version as previously reported.
Nel then read from Oscar’s affidavit in which he claimed he was worried about crime in South Africa and had fallen victim to crime on several occasions. Botha testified that despite these claims, there was no police record of Oscar ever opening a case in which he was the victim of crime.
The prosecution shifted focus to an incident at Tashas restaurant, a popular and trendy eatery at the Melrose Arch shopping complex in Johannesburg. Nel was attempting to create an image of a volatile young man who was prone to violent outbursts, trigger-happy and overly enthusiastic about firearms.
It had emerged that Oscar and a group of friends, including training partner UK athlete Martyn Rooney, professional boxer Kevin Lerena and Darren Fresco were sitting at a table at the restaurant when Fresco handed Oscar his firearm. Oscar was handling the weapon under the table when it accidentally went off, the bullet fortuitously lodging in the floor. Botha said the Paralympian feared bad publicity as a result of the incident and convinced Fresco to take responsibility for the accident.
Nel asked Botha about why someone who slept with a firearm under his bed and was apparently fearful of crime would fall asleep with a sliding door to the bedroom left wide open.
Botha said he found the holster for the firearm on the same side of the bed on which he had found Reeva’s overnight bag and slippers. It seemed that the prosecution was now exploring the implausibilities of Oscar’s version of events. How, then, did he not see that Reeva was not in the bed at the time he unholstered his weapon?
‘I would have tried to find out where my girlfriend was because he was on her side of the bed, and tried to get her behind me and maybe leave the room …’ testified Botha.
Nel then guided the investigating office to statements taken by witnesses in the housing complex and what the neighbours saw and heard. Some claimed to have heard the couple fighting in the hours leading up to the gunshots ringing out.
Botha confirmed that a neighbour claimed to have heard what sounded like fighting and loud talking between 2am and 3am, before hearing gunshots. Crucially, Botha claimed a witness saw lights on at the athlete’s home prior to the shots. Nel, it seemed, was reaching a crescendo.
Nel: Mr Botha, the accused’s version of self-defence and protecting himself, do you believe that?
Botha: No, it can’t be believed. There’s no way that that could have happened that way.
Nel: What do you believe?
Botha: I believe that he knew that she was in the bathroom and that he shot four shots through the door and killed her.
The state had built its case against bail and, by all accounts, it was looking solid. But as is so often the case with the drama of legal a
rgument, only one side had been presented and an alternate picture was still to emerge. Doubt would be cast on Hilton Botha’s interpretation of the evidence and his own credibility would also be called into question.
With the skill and ease of an experienced criminal advocate, Barry Roux began to dismantle Botha’s testimony, block by block. Why did he testify that Oscar had not given him a version on the scene? How did he know how far the bullets travelled? Had he tested the visibility in the bedroom at night? Did the witnesses say they specifically heard Oscar or Reeva’s voices?
Oldwadge was grinning from ear to ear, staring smugly at the investigating officer as he was forced to make one concession after the other to Roux. Just minutes earlier, Botha had been confident, easily providing Nel with answers without hesitation. Now he was stuttering, his grasp of the English language failing him as he battled to find answers to Roux’s questions. Botha confirmed that the athlete did provide the version of the burglar at the scene that morning. Roux then put it to Botha that the trajectory the bullet had to follow to hit the toilet bowl was consistent with his client’s version, and once again the seasoned investigator couldn’t dispute this. Botha had earlier testified that the shooter was standing in front of the basin in the bathroom, but Roux pushed him to concede that the location of the cartridge was more consistent with a person standing in the doorway, where Oscar in fact claims to have been.
The advocate then moved to question the neighbours’ statements. He took issue with the allegations that one of the neighbours saw a light in Oscar’s house prior to the shooting, and also questioned the number of shots fired.
Roux: As a matter of interest, have you tested the visibility at any point in the evening, of course, inside that bedroom where the curtains are drawn and the blinds are closed?
Botha: No, I haven’t.
Roux: We have and I can tell you it’s pitch dark. Do you have any reason to say that statement made to you now could not be true and, if so, why?
