by Mandy Wiener
Experienced court reporter Zelda Venter says that in the 20-odd years she’s been covering the High Court in Pretoria, Saayman has been a regular feature in the biggest cases. ‘He’s a no-nonsense professional and very highly regarded. I can’t remember a case where his evidence has been rejected. The professor is respected by the legal fraternity, and counsel very rarely questions his evidence; they tend to accept his findings,’ she said.
Saayman conducted the postmortem on Reeva the day after Oscar killed her, before compiling his report, which was signed off on 1 July 2013.
‘M’Lady, I concluded that the deceased had died as a result of multiple gunshot wounds.’
Nel flicked through the professor’s report, asking him to confirm what each section entailed – the report was a mere 12 pages, but set out in great detail the types and extent of injuries Reeva sustained.
And then, as the doctor was describing the injuries observed on the corpse, switching between medical jargon and layperson explanations, the sound of someone gagging became audible in the court. Oscar was heaving forward with his head in his hands.
‘My Lady, may I just have a moment?’ said Nel, looking back at where the accused was seated. ‘I get a report from there that … My Lady, I understand that the accused got sick in court. May I ask for a short adjournment?’ The judge granted the request.
Oscar was inconsolable. Aimee and Carl immediately went to support their brother. Aimee sat down next to him, to his right, and with her left arm over Oscar’s shoulder she leaned in to whisper in his ear. When she pulled back, a solitary tear could be seen trickling down the bridge of her nose.
Carl was standing upright on the other side of the wooden barrier, his right hand stroking Oscar’s back. There was little they could do, and it was going to get worse as the graphic details of his girlfriend’s injuries were read into the court record. A court orderly fetched a bucket from outside the courtroom, probably from the cleaners’ storeroom, and placed it on the floor between the athlete’s legs. His cheeks and ears were bright red, while beads of sweat stood out on his brow and trickled down his temple to mingle with his tears. Members of the public in the gallery as well as journalists were stunned – more than a year after the incident, these detailed descriptions conjured up raw memories of what Oscar had done to another human being. His reaction appeared sincere, but outside the court his detractors were not convinced, with some critics dismissing the vomiting as part of a stage-managed show to win hearts and minds. It was difficult to watch.
After seven minutes, Oscar was again alone in the dock. Judge Masipa and her assessors re-entered the court. ‘Is your client fine for now?’ she asked Roux.
‘My Lady, he is not fine, but it is not going to be fine. So it is a difficulty and I think we should continue.’
‘But what does he say?’ Masipa showed concern for the accused. ‘Would he proceed? Can you please find out?’
Roux had been faced with a similar situation during the bail application when Nair questioned the well-being of Oscar, who had broken down when his version of events was read into the record.
The advocate told the magistrate that this was an issue they had become accustomed to, and that the situation was not going to change. It was agreed, after he briefly consulted with Oscar, that the advocate would keep an eye on his client, and that the trial should proceed.
Court was on several occasions interrupted by the retching sounds of Oscar with the bucket gripped between his legs, his body heaving, as Saayman explored in graphic detail how Reeva’s body was damaged.
Masipa was at pains to be reassured that the accused was in a position to understand proceedings. Her concern, experienced by some as an indication of ‘softness’ towards the accused, was actually more orientated to ensuring he was following what was happening in court.
Having dealt with the external injuries, Saayman turned to his findings upon dissecting the body, starting with the head. He described the type of wound caused by the bullet to the head, which indicated that it hit at a very shallow angle of entry, but further there was a large area of the right side of her skull that was cracked, including on the bone sutures.
‘The base of the skull also had fractures and this is purely because of the explosive nature of the projectile as it enters the skull with a lot of kinetic energy being released and there being energy waves which disbursed through the skull causing fractures in the skull at a point distant from where the bullet had entered the skull.
‘So there were multiple fractures involving virtually the whole skull, both the dome part and the base of the skull.’
Saayman commented that when Reeva’s brain was removed from the cranial cavity, the cause of this devastating damage became apparent. He found a jagged piece of projectile lodged into the bone at the base of the skull – Ranger or Black Talon ammunition. The pathologist and prosecutor used the two names interchangeably to refer to hollow-point ammunition. While the particular variety was an issue of contention amongst the ballistics experts later in the trial, we studied crime scene photographs that revealed the headstamp on a spent copper cartridge in the bathroom to bear the lettering ‘WCC +P+’, while the bullets in Oscar’s pistol magazine showed that the projectiles were black-tipped. Firearm enthusiast websites, mostly in the United States, identify the rounds as Winchester SXT, a 127-grain hollow-point. The Black Talon round is identified by its nickel-plated cartridge and is a heavier 147-grain bullet.
The pathologist explained that Black Talon was first produced by the US company Winchester, and was later removed from the market but was subsequently replaced and marketed under the brand name Ranger.
‘Have you had experience with this Ranger type ammunition?’ asked Nel.
‘It is something which unfortunately we, as forensic pathologists in South Africa,’ said Saayman, ‘get to deal with gunshot injuries on a more regular basis I think than most and yes, I have had a number of previous cases where the victim has suffered injury as a result of so-called “Black Talon ammunition”.’
He said manufacturers develop specific kinds of ammunition to perform different purposes – some are built to have a high penetrating value, while others are designed to break up and destroy human tissue. ‘This particular kind of projectile is referred to as an expanding bullet,’ the pathologist explained, taking care to note that he was not a wound ballistics expert. ‘It is designed to open up, or to flatten out, or to mushroom upon striking tissue, such as human tissue and in the process, it becomes markedly deformed and larger in frontal or cross-section diameter.
‘So it is a projectile that is designed to cause maximal tissue damage,’ he said.
Saayman referred the court to a picture in the album of Reeva’s skull cavity with her brain removed, to a section showing where part of the bullet had become lodged in the bone. The next page in the album showed the lead core and jagged slivers of the metal jacket recovered from Reeva’s skull.
‘The fundamental feature of this projectile is that as it strikes tissue, the usual result is that it folds out like the petals of a flower; it opens up and in that way presents a much broader front or presenting face to the tissue, which therefore facilitates the transmission of kinetic energy.
‘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 f
inding 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:
Saayman: So at the time really all I asked of Dr Perumal was, ‘Are you satisfied? Are you happy? Is there anything more to be done and is this how you also interpret the findings?’
Nel: And he said what?
Saayman: To the best of my recollection, he was in agreement with what I had, obviously at that time not yet reported, but I had indicated to him how I interpreted these findings and he agreed that that was essentially correct.
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.’
