by Mandy Wiener
Every time I looked up, there were more people in the house. There were more policemen. There were people going up and down the stairs. I was standing in the kitchen against the … where the far side of the kitchen is, away from the dining room where there is prep bowl small sink and I asked a policeman if I may wash my hands. Because the smell of the blood was making [me] throw up and he said he would ask and Mr Van Rensburg, Colonel Van Rensburg came back to me and he said [to] me, I may wash my hands. I do not remember washing my chest. I just remember washing my hands and washing my face. At that point I was still standing in the kitchen and I saw Mr Hilton … Hilton Botha arrived. He came in straight from the front door up to me. He asked me if I remember him. He immediately from where I was, he went upstairs. He came downstairs some time later. At the time I was in the kitchen, I could not look around the corner. Because every time I saw Reeva, I got sick. So I stayed … stayed more inside the kitchen and at a time … and a time I went and sat in the pantry against the washing machine.
‘Can you remember the photographer that arriv[ed]?’ Roux guided him.
I was … I was still in the kitchen. It was some time and Mr Botha came downstairs, when he went up the second time Mr Van Re … Colonel Van Rensburg came up to me and he said to me that, he put his hand on my shoulder and he said to me that I do not have to speak to anyone but I need to go to the garage. They would like to take some photos. There will be a police photographer. I think the same officer that was standing at the bottom of the staircases … staircase, he followed me with Mr Van Rensburg to the … to the garage. There was a police officer that stayed in the garage the whole time. I think it was the same gentleman who was at the bottom of the staircase and I was in the garage for several hours. I asked the police photographer if he could just please take all the photos he needed so I could take my clothes off because they were also stained.
‘And from the garage, where did you go to?’ asked Roux.
From the garage I was taken to the foyer of the reception area of my home and a police officer, surname Labuschagne, came up to me. He introduced himself. He told me he was a friend of a family member of mine and that I did not have anything to worry about. I must just … he was there to look after me. It was at that point that Colonel Van Rensburg said to me that because I was the only person in the house, that they are going to charge me. He charged me at the time, he said to me that I was under arrest.
Roux then began to build the timeline around Oscar’s version that would be so crucial to the defence case. Through Oscar’s evidence, he laid the foundation.
Roux: In relation to time, if I may take you through times that we could establish by virtue of the telephone records. We know there was a time 03:17 where witnesses, there is a variation but where … if I look at Doctor Stipp’s evidence and Ms Stipp’s evidence, where they heard the sound … three sounds, doef, doef, doef. Which to them resembled firearm shots and then we know at 03:19, approximately two minutes later, you made a call to Mr Stander. Do you have any idea, on your version, the three sounds, what would that represent by 03:17?
Accused: M’Lady, I … the three sounds would have been the cricket bat hitting the door.
Roux: But if the 03:17 you say, were you walking in the bathroom shortly before you hit the cricket bat?
Accused: Yes, M’Lady. I was walking … I was walking through the bathroom when I went to go and kick the door, when I went to go and fetch the cricket bat, I was walking through the bath … through the bathroom with my prosthetic legs on.
Roux: Doctor Stipp and Ms Stipp also gave evidence about prior shots. You hear that in court?
Accused: I did, M’Lady.
Roux: What would that have been?
Accused: That would have been firing my pistol, Ma’am. M’Lady.
Oscar had walked the court and the world through those dramatic moments and had recounted in extraordinary detail the moment he shot and killed Reeva Steenkamp. With his full version now before the court, his testimony would have to withstand the extreme test of cross-examination.
Trapped in a Secret
Samantha Taylor woke up and looked at her phone. There were multiple missed calls and messages piling up on the screen.
‘Rest in peace,’ she read, to her horror. Over and over again.
It was Valentine’s Day and news had broken early that morning that Oscar Pistorius had shot dead his girlfriend. Taylor had dated the runner until November the previous year and, in the confusion, many assumed it was she who was the ‘blonde victim’.
She was horrified by the news. Her immediate thought was that it was Jenna Edkins, another of Oscar’s ex-girlfriends. It was only when she switched on the TV that she discovered it was Reeva.
‘My first impression … I didn’t think it was Reeva. I thought it was Jenna and when I phoned my mom I said to her, “I didn’t actually know he was still with Reeva.”’
The soft-spoken 20-year-old, who put her marketing studies on hold to become a life coach following the trauma of the shooting, cast her mind back to that February morning in an interview with us.
‘My first thought was everybody has a gun for a reason, and that reason is to eventually use the gun. So I was thinking, “Oh my goodness, he’s used his gun on a human.” When they said it was an intruder, I mean, I can’t say what happened that night. I don’t think the truth – the real truth – would ever come out because there are three sides to every story, so unfortunately, I don’t know what happened that night, but I can only tell from my experience.’
Taylor’s experience was dramatic. And explosive.
She met Oscar in 2010 at a Springbok rugby game at Loftus Versveld Stadium when she was only 16 years old. ‘It was a bit of a random meeting because the electricity had just gone out and we were just waiting in the cafeteria to get drinks and food and, you know, you end up making conversation with everyone around you. I thought he was very good looking, but I didn’t actually know who he was. He was very vibrant, very charming. And he had quite a good sense of humour.’ After someone pointed out his celebrity status, she Googled him to find out more details.
They were both in relationships at the time – Oscar was still dating Edkins. Around a year later, Taylor received a Facebook invite from him.
‘We started chatting a lot over Facebook and he had ended his relationship and coincidentally I had also ended my relationship. He was overseas at the time, doing season training and we started talking on the phone a lot and it was like we almost became best friends,’ she recalled. When he arrived home, he went to visit her and the relationship blossomed.
Taylor’s mother, Trish, was charmed by Oscar. ‘When they first started dating, I was absolutely fine with it. He and I got on really well and … he was very, very nice. I found him very well-mannered, very softly spoken. He would often just sit and we would chat about stuff. Like when he went on an overseas trip he would come back and show me all his photographs. He had a good sense of humour, so we really welcomed him into our family, I must say, quite quickly.’
Taylor and Oscar were together for the next year and a half. During this time the couple grew close and Taylor spent up to four nights a week at his Silver Woods home. Oscar stayed over in Dainfern, too, and in this period Taylor got to know his family fairly well.
‘Do you know, Arnold said in an interview that he had never met any of Oscar’s previous girlfriends, but I had actually gone to Arnold’s house many times before,’ insisted Taylor. ‘We used to go there after gym in the morning and have egg and toast either with his cousins or with his aunt. Arnold was often there. He showed me around the house so I know exactly what the house looks like. He used to take me down to the pond at the bottom where they had some swans. I know he earns a lot of money. He’s got a very big house, he’s got nice cars so he’s definitely very wealthy and I’m sure whatever business he has I’m sure he’s a very powerful man.’
But she said Oscar and his uncle Arnold weren’t close. ‘They didn’t
seem to have a great relationship, but I know he got along with his cousins quite well. His sister and him had a very good relationship, they loved each other so much and she was such a good support for him. She’s very quiet and very soft, so he was very gentle with his sister. Him and his brother also had a good relationship but I think they clashed quite a bit. I think they were doing a bit of business together and there was, you know, a bit of a rocky relationship as well, but they were quite close. Him and his father, he never spoke about his father, he told me they never had a good relationship. I don’t know anything about his father.’
Taylor said Oscar spoke about his mother often, describing her as his rock. ‘I actually joined him and his brother and his sister on his mother’s birthday and we had a dinner in the garden and just prayed in remembrance of her. He loved his mom very much. He said she was such a strong woman, she used to empower all of them, so I think that definitely affected the family a lot.’
It was an idyllic picture, but under the surface, the Taylors experienced a different Oscar. Taylor’s mother became suspicious.
‘Something inside me often worried and early on I could see he was lying about where he was or what he was doing. That didn’t sit well with me. I used to get a knot in my stomach,’ said Trish.
She suspected he was cheating on her daughter. ‘In the beginning I gave him the benefit of the doubt. One of my other daughter’s friends was at the house early in the relationship and she said, “Oh no, Samantha’s got to be careful, he’s such a cheat. He cheats on all his girlfriends,” and I still said, “I’m sure he’d never, he’s so mad about Samantha, he’d never cheat on her,”’ she said.
Taylor didn’t need prompting to reveal what she euphemistically referred to as ‘problems’ experienced by the couple. ‘Our relationship in general was really amazing, we both loved each other a lot, but like every relationship, there were problems and our problems grew over time. There were quite a lot. He’s got quite a short temper and he gets irritated very easily, so it was always like walking on eggshells. I didn’t know what to do or where to go in case he didn’t agree with it,’ said Taylor. She carefully selected her next words.
‘I think it was … I don’t know how to describe that … I think it was very … almost possessive. It was a bit obsessive.’ She said she could ‘definitely’ relate to Reeva’s emotions in the messages she sent to Oscar, which were read out in court, saying he scared her at times.
‘He was so protective. You know, when I was away from him or when he was overseas he was always asking me, “Where are you? Who are you with?” If he didn’t believe me, he would make me send photos or he would phone my home phone to see if I’m home or he would phone my sister to see where I am. Often I used to see his friends at the same restaurant I was at, so I don’t know if maybe he wanted them to check up on me and who I was with, but definitely, you know, it was very strange to me.’
And Taylor spoke about Oscar’s gun as if it was a third party in their relationship. ‘He’s very stringent with his gun. He keeps it on him all the time, he’s always got it around him; he sleeps next to it, so he was obsessive with his gun, he always had it on him,’ she said.
Did she ever think he was capable of shooting another human being with it?
‘There were many times, like I said in my statement, where the gun was a little bit scary. I think that even though it’s a very dangerous weapon, he often handled it like it wasn’t really much and there were times that I hid his gun from him. So, I didn’t ever think he would shoot someone, but I did know that having a gun around, anything can go wrong.
‘There was a time that I did hide his gun under his bed when he was drunk because he got quite aggressive, so I needed to just be cautious, if anything,’ she said, referring to an incident that she had detailed in her affidavit. ‘We had some friends over that night and he was a little bit drunk and he jumped onto his friend’s back, but the floor was wet and they both slipped and Oscar chipped his tooth. So his mouth was bleeding. We said, “It’s time-out now, let’s all go to bed,” and by the time we had gone to bed, he didn’t realise that he had fallen, I think he thought that I had beaten him up,’ she said astonishingly. ‘I hid the gun from him and the next day he was looking for the gun and I had to tell him what happened but I don’t think he had any recollection of what he had done.’
When asked if she thought he was capable of physical abuse, Taylor said she took the view that it was safer to indulge and ignore, than to stand up and provoke him.
‘You know, I think any man that’s angry or has a short temper could be abusive and every woman would react differently. In my position, I’m the type of girl if I’m shouted at, I wouldn’t retaliate, I wouldn’t provoke someone because I know that it would only get worse. I would probably cry if I was shouted at. And another woman’s perspective would be to retaliate or become abusive, so in my position, I definitely would not have provoked someone who is already angry.’
Another ‘problem’ Taylor said recurred throughout her relationship with Oscar was the persistent presence of his ex-girlfriend Jenna Edkins.
‘She kept contacting him and eventually she ended up contacting me. She was a very big problem in our relationship. That girl was such a problem. I’ve had contact with Jenna, I’ve told her to back off, I’ve told her … I’ve had to, as the girlfriend of Oscar, I should not have to be messaging his ex-girlfriend, saying, “Leave my boyfriend alone; stop contacting him.” And as much as she was contacting him, he was obviously contacting her back.’
Taylor’s voice rose in pitch as she exclaimed that she had to send Jenna messages ‘all the time!’
She elaborated: ‘She sent me messages saying he cheated on her all the time. It’s normal in their relationship. So for her, it’s normal for him to be with other girls because she knows that she’ll still have him when he falls back … I know she had a connection with his mother, so … she kind of … probably feels that she needs to be supportive there.’
Taylor painted a picture of a relationship between Jenna and Oscar that would not be extinguished, despite its turbulence – one that she claimed ran in parallel to any other relationship that Oscar entered into.
‘I think they had a problematic relationship, if anything. I think it was one of those relationships that you are stuck in for years and you never get out and I think every time he had a girlfriend and, like in my case it was a year and a half – he was with Jenna before me, he was with Jenna during me, he was with Jenna after me. He was with Jenna before Reeva, he was with Jenna while he was dating Reeva and he’s probably still with Jenna now. So … that girl is always going to be in his life and … you know, that’s why he can’t be with other women, because that’s cheating!’
It didn’t surprise Taylor when we revealed to her that Jenna was present in Oscar’s life the evening before he shot Reeva. That Oscar had spent nearly ten minutes on the phone to Jenna before the shooting. And that he had made telephonic contact with her on several occasions after he had a fallout with Reeva.
‘Typical!’ Taylor exclaimed. ‘I would not be surprised. At all. At all!’ It was as if a missing piece of the puzzle had dropped for Taylor.
‘You know, we both suffer from insomnia. Often I would wake up and he would be sitting on his phone. I often saw her name, although it was not saved under “BabyShoes” at the time. It was “Jenna Edkins”. I often saw her name. If he was showing me a photo on his phone and her WhatsApp message would pop up – we fought over that a lot. She was a very big problem in our relationship, a huge problem,’ Taylor repeated.
And then, as if a floodgate had been opened, she detailed her thoughts on the extent of the relationship. ‘I can confirm that she was at his house. I used to find products that only ladies would use. We bought a puppy, well he wanted a puppy and I was with him at the time so it kind of became like our little baby and at the time I found a photo of Jenna with the dog and I know when we got the dog so I know it was when we were tog
ether. So that’s caught red-handed. Lying on his bed with our dog. I had problems with Jenna our whole relationship.’
But surely Oscar and Jenna could simply be friends and there might be no romantic involvement? After all, they shared a powerful history together and one that linked Oscar to his late mother? Was Jenna only an emotional crutch or was there more to it? Taylor claimed it was the latter.
‘When we started dating he told me that they were kind of still friendly. They had just ended their relationship, they were kind of still friendly and the reason why they spoke was because she was there to support him. Her mother knew his mother and obviously which I understand and which I respected – is that his mother passed away while he was very young and if there’s any attachment to your mother, you would want that in your life. So I think having Jenna, always there in his life, he just knew that his mother was still kind of in his life, which I respected. I said to him, “If you want to be friends with her, that’s fine with me.” But again, in my eyes, if you are messaging your ex-girlfriend, or seeing your ex-girlfriend with intentions, that is cheating. He didn’t want me to know that he was in contact with Jenna, which was already sneaky. If they were just friends, why was Jenna never around? With me, I said, “If you are just friends with Jenna then why can’t I come with you to see her?”’
During Oscar’s holiday to Cape Town in December 2012 – before Reeva flew in to join him and their friends Justin and Samantha – Taylor claimed that Edkins posted a photo of herself and the athlete to her Instagram feed and then apparently took it down hours later. Taylor pointed to this photograph as evidence of her claim that Jenna and Oscar were still involved, although the photograph could also simply be evidence of a good friendship, as Edkins insisted in her response to our questions.
Taylor laughed at the ‘Babyshoes’ term of endearment Oscar used to refer to Edkins on his phone contact list. It was a moniker he had used for her too. ‘I know we always used to joke because my feet are so small compared to his.’ But the most common term of endearment they had shared was ‘Baba’ – the same name Oscar and Reeva adopted for one another.
