Witness at Pistorius trial recalls hearing screams
Source: AP-Excite
By GERALD IMRAY and CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA
PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) - "Bang ... bang, bang, bang."
The murder trial of Oscar Pistorius opened Monday in South Africa with testimony from a neighbor who described the sound of what she said were four gunshots and recalled the "blood-curdling screams" of a woman who prosecutors say was the girlfriend slain by the onetime star athlete in his home.
"It's the most helpless feeling I've ever had in my life," university lecturer Michelle Burger said of listening to the screams. "I knew something terrible was happening in that house."
The 27-year-old double-amputee runner, whose stature peaked at the 2012 London Olympics and then plummeted when he shot model and television personality Reeva Steenkamp in the pre-dawn hours of Valentine's Day last year, stood in the dock in a dark gray suit and black tie, writing in a pad and sometimes passing notes to defense lawyers. At one point, he smiled at a person sitting behind him. Steenkamp's mother, June, sat near Pistorius but there was no communication between them.
FULL story at link.
Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20140303/DACAEEAO2.html
Oscar Pistorius stands in court shortly after arriving for his trial at the high court in Pretoria, South Africa, Monday, March 3, 2014. Pistorius is charged with murder with premeditation in the shooting death of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in the pre-dawn hours of Valentine's Day 2013. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe, Pool)
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Last edited Fri Mar 4, 2016, 11:54 PM - Edit history (1)
The chief defense lawyer...contended that Burger heard just Pistorius screaming for help. He also suggested that she had...heard...the sound of the athlete breaking down the toilet door with a cricket bat after realizing he had shot Steenkamp.
From 200 yards away? I suppose that's possible that early in the morning.
"I approached the bathroom, armed with my firearm, so as to defend Reeva and I," Pistorius said in the statement. He said he then heard a noise in the toilet cubicle and was in a "fearful state" because he was unable to run away or defend himself physically since he was not wearing his prosthetic legs. He said he shouted at what he thought was an intruder and then shot through the toilet door, only later realizing that he shot Steenkamp.
Mega-sketchy. He had time to retrieve his firearm but not check the bed for Steerkamp; or to wake her and leave the apartment via the front door; or to give HER the gun since she was the more mobile of the two. And how did he manage to hear the bathroom window open?
rocktivity
