Episode 91 - Oscar Pistorius & Reeva Steenkamp

0:15 Welcome to Crumb Besties to episode 91.

0:18 Had a few false starts this morning but that's OK.

0:21 Meg just said who'd start a podcast.

0:24 I don't know what more idiots, morons we and of course, today's

0:28 the day that we really need to get the recording done quickly

0:31 because our bigger kids are going are playing into school

0:33 sports today and we'd love to go and watch them totally.

0:36 Oh, God. But you know, of course, today's

0:38 the day that shit's not working. It's not working and everything

0:41 decides to like, you know, to be different.

0:43 The screens are different and yeah, and.

0:46 Oh my God sake, honestly. Now tell me, how's your week

0:50 been? Mental, absolutely mental.

0:52 Just everything I've had kids doing deciding that their life's

0:58 ruined by teachers telling them off for laughing.

1:01 I've had, yeah, you know, you name it.

1:04 Their work's just insane. Yeah, just ready for the

1:07 weekend. But then I know the weekend's

1:08 gonna be full on, too. Like, it's just.

1:10 It's not gonna be the children I'm thinking I'm gonna need.

1:13 But no, no, of course. Not crazy crazy as in like just

1:16 the regular sports stuff. But I literally was like, I

1:19 don't know the sports on when we get to these double sport

1:21 season, I'm sure you're feeling the same, that it's like you

1:24 sort of go, oh, OK, well, yeah, that's on on Saturday, but

1:27 Sunday we're gonna get stuff done.

1:28 And no, there's more sports, I guess.

1:31 Oh God yeah, that just eats into your day more.

1:33 And more exactly. And my SO, Oliver, my oldest

1:35 son, he is, he's gone up an age bracket in basketball.

1:40 You know what time his game is this weekend?

1:42 What? 4:15 PM.

1:43 Oh. My God, 4/15 Oh, that's like

1:48 time to be at home with a glass of wine.

1:49 Oh. Obviously, it's really cutting

1:51 into my, you know, yeah, wine time.

1:53 That's some that's. Drinks and nibbles time, as my

1:56 parents would say. From back in the day, I love a

1:59 Saturday although drinks and nibbles.

2:01 Nibbles. Potter nights?

2:02 Yep. Potter Day Saturday.

2:03 Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

2:04 But no, no, not until at least 530 probably.

2:09 No, that's so, yeah. And the thing with that is that

2:12 you've still got your little that's games probably mid

2:15 morning. Yeah, that.

2:17 Yeah. And that's because I'm literally

2:18 this morning like looking at how can we gonna fit in, like just

2:20 picking up the groceries. And not that I do like a walk

2:22 around the shop these days. I do it.

2:24 Does anymore? Seriously, when I hear people

2:26 who do that, I'm like why? Why are you wasting your time?

2:29 Exactly. But yeah, I've jumped online.

2:31 I've got my shop all ready to go, but I'm like, when will I

2:33 book it for pickup, like kind of thing.

2:35 And I'm a shocker it I book it for the morning, regardless of

2:38 what time I'm going to pick it up.

2:39 You're one of those. I'm one of those really annoying

2:41 people in a I get a text message from Woolies saying get here.

2:44 Yeah, I've never had that. You might be surprised to hear

2:47 I've. Only had it a couple of times.

2:50 Like clearly they've just been banked up.

2:52 They've got too many orders sitting there or something.

2:54 Yeah. But yeah.

2:56 So like, I'm like, when am I going to pick me out and pick

2:58 groceries up this weekend? And I'm like, OK, I think I'm

3:01 going to have to get up extra early and try and go and pick it

3:04 up and get it home and unpack it before we then leave for

3:07 basketball and Oh my God, fuck this.

3:09 That's always an after sport thing that I do, not a before.

3:12 Definitely. We'll have to soon.

3:14 You'll have time in between. Yeah, well, in between the next

3:16 time, Yeah. Oh my God.

3:18 Oh, it's oh, see my kids, 'cause they're a bit closer in age, I

3:21 guess. Oh.

3:21 That's. True, there's probably still

3:23 always flow onto each other a little bit more.

3:25 Yeah, you end up with the gap, which has helped with footy but

3:27 not with basketball. That's right, although footy

3:29 this weekend has been a bit weird too.

3:31 Anyway, whatever, it's fine. We have to manage it all.

3:35 We all know that the the juggle of it the juggle is real.

3:37 Oh yeah, I mean this weekend 40 I'm like drop one, drop, go drop

3:41 the other one, go back to the other one, watch that game, pick

3:43 that one back and take the other one like it's.

3:44 I'm just Oh yeah, your minor at least flow on from one to the

3:48 next, not a much time in between.

3:49 But we'll go there. Yeah, yeah.

3:51 No, this week will be a lucky they're near each other in terms

3:54 of distance because it can be shit with that.

3:55 Yeah, that's it. It's just fitting everything in

3:58 is just mental. And then where are we meant to

4:00 fit in? You know, going to the gym?

4:02 Oh yeah, no, that's what you need a thick Richard for.

4:07 Oh. No, I'm no, this is where I need

4:08 to invest. In a Rotary and not and not.

4:11 My issue with that is I need one that can suck up the most amount

4:14 of dog you've ever seen. There's got to be.

4:16 Something. There's got to be one that's

4:19 made for that. Look, they are.

4:21 They get they're made for dog hair but not that level.

4:25 Level of dog hair, Yeah. I I mean look, I vacuum most

4:28 most other days pretty much. Look, if you're flowing around

4:31 with a stick vacuum picking up most of it, then a robo vac

4:34 could be fine surely? Yeah.

4:36 Surely. Surely.

4:36 Yeah, I might just have to read Doc every like a little more

4:40 more often than than other than for other people.

4:43 Yeah. I wonder if they all communicate

4:45 with one another and they're like, oh fuck, I've been placed

4:47 in a household where I have to suck up bloody dog hair all day.

4:50 And the other ones like well, I'm in a household without kids

4:53 and animals so I'm. I have a fucking that sits on

4:55 me. I.

4:57 Love those videos. Does Greece?

5:00 Oh no you don't have one. I was like, does Greece get

5:02 freaked out by? I used to have one, my old dog

5:05 when I had one in previously and yeah, and he used to get fully

5:09 freaked out by it. Yeah, I had to always put him

5:11 out when I had it going. He did not like he'd literally

5:13 he wouldn't. He'd never barked that, my

5:15 lovely fudge, but he would. He would literally just shit

5:18 himself and. Like run to the other room.

5:19 And like shot himself like no, actually poop.

5:21 No, no no, no. He would run to a room and cry,

5:26 have to put him out so he didn't see it because if he saw it, it

5:28 was like. Devasiety.

5:30 Yeah. Full anxiety.

5:31 Yeah. Piper, even Luna was the same.

5:33 They just ignore it like it's not a thing.

5:35 Yeah, I'll see. Chris doesn't even like the

5:37 regular vacuum like so. Piper doesn't like our stick

5:40 fat, No, but she she's fine with the robo.

5:42 Yeah, right. Figure.

5:43 See, that's weird. See, like, because I get freaked

5:45 out by it when I walk around the house, when I see it here and

5:47 stuff. And I'm always like, Oh my God,

5:48 I'm on your way. I don't know what to do.

5:52 What do I do? Where do you want me here?

5:54 Oh my God. It'll go around you.

5:57 It's fine. Oh God.

6:01 Anyway, I we have a lot to get through in terms of shout outs

6:05 today, so I'm gonna get started on that so we can get straight

6:08 into today's episode, you know? We don't want more people

6:10 bitching about our long oh. My God, seriously, if you don't

6:15 like our banter, that's OK. Skip ahead.

6:17 Skip ahead. We always put in the show notes

6:19 when the banter's done, and when that case starts, you don't have

6:23 to send this message about it. Just skip ahead.

6:25 Skip ahead. Awesome.

6:26 Great. The majority of people love it

6:28 so much they just get these randoms like Oh my God that's

6:30 terrible. Yeah, so many people message us

6:33 and they're like, I love your banter a lot.

6:34 Yeah, well, okay, yeah, we're doing this for the people.

6:37 The people. All right, so first of all,

6:40 patrons, Yeah, we have quite a few new Patreons.

6:44 So first of all, we had Tracy V this week and I just wanted to

6:47 give a special shout out to her friends Catherine and Caroline.

6:50 They're based on the NSW South Coast.

6:52 Yeah, a group of three besties. They catch up for for coffees

6:56 most Friday mornings and TCB has been a topic of conversation for

7:01 them on more occasions than one. So shout out to the three of

7:06 you, Tracy, Catherine and Carolyn and I love a little

7:08 little girl group and the fact that you catch up every week.

7:11 Love it. Pick that up.

7:12 Very cool. We then have Rebecca, Bunt,

7:15 Shaz, Haley, Heaney and Kimberly.

7:19 So thank you to all of you guys for joining our Patreon this

7:23 week. You are all in the draw to win a

7:25 merch power. You are and literally this is

7:28 the last couple of days before we this episode will drop on the

7:32 2nd of June and you have until the 4th of June.

7:35 So you only have two days left guys to enter in outdoor draw to

7:39 win that merch pack. So if you are really wanting to

7:42 do that, this is your last chance.

7:44 So jump in there and join the Patreon and you might win a

7:47 merch pack. Good luck to everyone who

7:49 absolutely will enjoy. That very soon.

7:51 Now buy me a coffee. Oh, Miss Tan strikes again.

7:56 I think we've mentioned her in the last three episodes.

7:59 By the way, I actually saw a bit of a photo of her from our

8:01 socials. Oh holy fuck, what a hot man Hot

8:05 grandma, holy shit. She's gonna.

8:07 Think I'm amazing? Oh.

8:09 Miss Tan, you go, girl. Crap grandma Bullshit and her.

8:13 Like her grandkids are a teeny teens.

8:15 Yeah, what? I was like blown away.

8:18 Oh, Miss Tan, you go girlfriend. Yeah.

8:20 So last week she bought US1 coffee and then she bought us

8:24 another one this week and she's like oh I didn't realise I only

8:26 bought 1 and there's two of you so I've bought you.

8:28 Another one we share. No, and we won't.

8:33 Well, no. Emma will down that one before I

8:36 get a look in. Yeah, bloody earth.

8:37 Oh God, I can gulp them back. You really can, yeah.

8:39 It's hard to keep up some days, but I try.

8:43 Right, So we've also had like so much engagement on the socials

8:46 this week. It's really hard to pick out

8:48 different comments, but I've done my best to pick out a few a

8:51 few of the the ones that really kind of stuck with me.

8:53 So first of all, thank you to Louise Francis.

8:57 She said we are her new favorite podcast and we are she got up to

9:03 date in the last three weeks. Oh my God, we actually have

9:06 listened to 80 odd episodes, 80 whatever 9 episodes.

9:09 Including those first few. All the first ones.

9:11 I'm so sorry, Louise, but thanks for sticking with us regardless.

9:16 Jennifer Newth, she said. She just absolutely loves our

9:19 banter. See and our insightful

9:23 storytelling. So thank you, Jennifer.

9:26 Yes, we like to think we're insightful.

9:29 Definitely. I love it when I I shared that

9:31 screenshot to you guys in our in our TCB group chat with producer

9:35 Pete and he was like, make sure you shout out the asshole that

9:38 you know. Yeah, gave us the bat.

9:39 I'm like, no. I'm not giving.

9:41 I don't even know what his name was actually.

9:43 It was a bloke too. Why am I assuming it's all?

9:45 Gone. I know.

9:45 I think it was. I think it was a woman.

9:47 I looked OK. I did look a bit into it.

9:51 Lauren Gibson. So she actually made she, I

9:54 think you had the banter back and forth with her on the

9:56 socials. But she made a comment that she

9:59 can hear Chewbacca in our intro music.

10:01 Yes. And now that I hear it, I can't

10:03 unhear it. Yeah, totally.

10:08 So do it again. Do it again.

10:11 Do it again because I'm already going to embarrass myself in

10:13 this episode with different accents and whatnot.

10:16 And then I just wanted to give another shout out to a really

10:19 long time follower of ours, a really loyal listener named

10:22 Rouge. She's had a baby named Harper,

10:24 and she sent us the most beautiful photos of Harper with

10:27 her pet toy, Axolotl. Not pets, toy, no.

10:31 One else is that stupid? And apparently her dad said that

10:36 Harper looked like an axolotl when she was born because her

10:38 hands were always up by her face.

10:40 So, oh, so, so cute. Marianne Dawson, who I have to

10:45 say, I see her name coming up all the time in all our story.

10:49 She always likes them, claps them, you know, whatever.

10:52 Yeah, I do see her name coming up.

10:53 And that just, it means so much. Like, I really appreciate that

10:56 kind of engagement. And then finally, I need a

11:00 massive shout out to Annie and her best friend Melissa.

11:03 So Melissa gifted Annie a piece of shit mug at dinner last

11:08 night. Absolute piece of shit mug.

11:11 Not the mug's, not the piece of sheet.

11:13 No, that's the slogan on the mug.

11:15 Yeah. For those that you're watching

11:16 at home. It's just showing off hers.

11:19 And she also. Melissa also bought one for

11:21 herself. So they can think of us and each

11:24 other when they're having their coffees.

11:28 And Annie just also said that she may possibly use hers as a

11:33 wine cup in the evening. Don't hate that.

11:36 Like when we play a game sometimes of is it coffee when

11:39 we go in a footy at night, Yes. Have you?

11:42 Have you a cup with? Everyone keep cup, keep cup.

11:45 And then we'll send a photo and have a guess what's in my cup

11:49 tonight. Tonight AG and T night.

11:51 You're on a groaning. Oh yeah, I love me and Negroni.

11:55 Maybe it's an Negroni on occasion.

11:57 When I go not coffee. That's it, that's it anyway, so

12:01 thank you absolutely everyone so much support.

12:04 We, I know I say this every week, but it really isn't lost

12:09 on us just how wonderful people are and how like how engaged our

12:14 audience are we really? Really appreciate, haven't

12:17 mentioned to you and I off the top of my head now I can't

12:19 remember who because there's a good few people that have sent

12:22 this to us actually. Yeah, this video of an axolotl

12:26 who was clearly a lot smarter than Kyle.

12:28 Oh yeah, who plays tic tac toe with their owner on the tank.

12:33 Right. I maybe should share the

12:35 socials. The video, which is absolutely

12:37 gorgeous. So my kids have been attempting

12:39 to play it as requested and hasn't gone well it feels.

12:44 Like a floating turf. Like I just don't really.

12:47 Brody reckons he won a game. As in.

12:50 Kyle won a game. Kyle, he reckons Kyle won one of

12:53 the games, but he goes. But that was, what do you say?

12:56 He goes, he goes, oh, but that was me kind of, you know, giving

12:59 him a leg up, like. What do you mean?

13:02 You mean playing on his behalf? Yeah, like choosing a square

13:04 that might beat you like. Which is he never lets anyone

13:07 else do so impressed that he didn't cry because Kyle won.

13:11 Yeah, that's. True, that's true.

13:12 He's growing. He's growing as a human I.

13:16 Love it, but yeah, it's been attempted, but now the glass of

13:18 the tank looks horrendous because I didn't have a

13:21 whiteboard marker at home. It's just not something I have

13:23 lying around my house. So they've used the chalk

13:27 markers, liquid chalk that I use on my other board.

13:29 Yeah, on the tank and Oh my God, I just.

13:32 Need isopropyl alcohol? Yeah, no, it's super clean.

13:34 Clean it because like the Windex is really does.

13:36 Not no the Windex. Doesn't not.

13:37 And I don't really want that going in the tank, I guess.

13:41 Yeah. So yeah.

13:42 Maybe you don't want the isopropyl alcohol going, you

13:44 know that. Little giggly drunk little.

13:47 Sensitive laughter a little. Oh my God, yeah, so the tank's

13:54 looking filthy now, so they're playing, trying to play tic tac

13:57 toe with. Him, so no.

13:58 Is this a weekend for cleaning out Kyle's tank?

14:00 Definitely. Oh my God.

14:02 Oh God it's gross. Oh yuck.

14:05 It's a nightmare. All right, well, you enjoy that?

14:07 Well, I'm a sipping well after bloody 5:30 PM, sipping on the

14:12 mimosas and whatnot. Yeah, do that.

14:14 Yeah, I'm. Gonna send you a photo.

14:17 You might need to have one while you're cleaning the tank.

14:19 That's the only thing that'll make it semi bearable.

14:22 True. Yeah.

14:23 Yeah. Let's.

14:23 OK, You're welcome. OK.

14:24 Thank you. Today we are discussing, I think

14:27 we spoke in a Patreon episode, I don't know, a few a few months

14:32 ago about cases that really stick with us.

14:34 And this is one of the cases that has really stuck with me

14:37 for honestly, the reason was because I was glued to the the

14:44 court proceedings that was broadcast internationally at the

14:47 time. And honestly, it was probably, I

14:50 mean, I was probably too young to really be invested in the OJ

14:54 Simpson court case. And seeing that, although I do

14:57 remember seeing bits and pieces where I was a bit older when

15:00 this happened and more invested and more engaged, especially in

15:04 the court process. And I remember that really

15:06 intrigued me and fascinated me at the time.

15:08 Two of like who he was like before all these things.

15:11 But you said who we're doing, we're doing the Oscar Pistorius

15:14 and the murder of Reeva Steenkamp.

15:17 Yes, let's call it that, yeah. So yes.

15:21 Sorry, I think he he was, I mean particularly like this is like

15:24 within a time frame of him becoming well.

15:28 No, he was so famous. So famous at the time.

15:31 Like, not long before this happened.

15:33 I mean, we're gonna get into all of this, but not long before

15:35 this happened, he was performing on the world stage.

15:37 Exactly. Everyone knew who he was because

15:39 he was. He has a unique story.

15:41 Definitely. So all right, let's get into it.

15:43 I wanted to actually go through Reeva's background first.

15:47 Yeah. Just because you know she is the

15:49 victim in this, let's highlight her.

15:51 We really need to highlight her. So.

15:53 Reeva Steenkamp Reeva Rebecca Steenkamp was born on the 19th

15:57 of August in 1983 in Cape Town, South Africa.

16:01 Her parents are Barry and June Steenkamp.

16:04 Her dad was a horse trainer and when she when Riva was young,

16:09 her family relocated to Port Elizabeth, which is along the

16:13 coast of South Africa. When I look it up, it's

16:15 beautiful. It's really lovely.

16:18 She spent the rest of her youth there and ended up finishing off

16:22 her schooling there. Yep.

16:24 When she was growing up, she was a pretty avid horse rider

16:26 herself. I mean, given the fact that her

16:28 dad was a horse trainer, I guess you grow up in that environment.

16:31 That's something that, you know, she developed a real passion

16:33 for. Yeah.

16:34 And when she was in her early 20s, she actually suffered a

16:37 really severe fall from a horse. She broke her back at the time

16:42 and she had to undergo like really intensive rehabilitation

16:46 to get herself even. Walking again to walk again,

16:48 that kind. Of stuff, yeah.

16:50 I think that shows that, you know, I think that would develop

16:53 a resilience in a person that that's something that would

16:57 change a life. And for her, I guess it could go

17:00 both ways, but for her it definitely meant she put her

17:06 mind to something and she wanted to get back walking and get back

17:08 to. All the other level of doing

17:10 gratitude for life and what that can bring, I guess like in terms

17:15 of, yeah, putting your mind something and sticking at it,

17:18 but also this idea of life short, like live it to the most,

17:21 yeah. Yes, I think you're absolutely

17:23 right. Yeah, when she was 14, so this

17:25 was before she had this fall, but when she was 14, she began

17:29 modeling. Her parents were quite strict

17:32 and they education was 100% paramount to them, but they

17:37 allowed her to continue modeling and, well, start modeling and

17:41 building a career in that arena, provided her schooling didn't

17:46 drop off. Yeah.

17:47 Because she was a really intelligent, really intelligent

17:51 young woman. Yeah.

17:52 So she after she finished school at Saint Dominic's Primary

17:56 School, she enrolled at the University of Port Elizabeth,

17:59 which is now called the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University.

18:03 And she actually graduated with a bachelor, Bachelor of laws

18:07 degree in 2005. So I think that says a lot about

18:11 her intelligence. She's incredibly intelligent.

18:13 Yeah, yeah. And her dedication, I mean,

18:15 that's not an easy degree to obtain, no.

18:18 But yeah, she was, she was amazing.

18:20 She worked as a paralegal after finishing, you know, actually

18:23 while she was at university, she was working as a paralegal and

18:26 then continued that on after school after finishing

18:29 university. But her modelling career at that

18:32 time really started to take off. Can you imagine being the person

18:36 who, you know, like you can, you've got this option in life

18:39 where you can either be a lawyer or have it be a successful

18:42 model. I mean, there's being a model

18:44 and then there's a successful model, you know, like kind of

18:46 thing. And being able to have the jobs

18:47 that she ended up with. Yeah.

18:48 And the level of modelling that she was doing, I mean, that's

18:51 just incredible to have been that well-rounded, I think in

18:54 everything. But also when I was looking at

18:57 photos of her doing this, Jesus, she was stunning, stunning to

19:02 the point of every photo I looked at her.

19:04 She had minimal makeup. And I love that she was such a

19:08 natural beauty. But you could really, you can

19:10 see the light coming through from the internally, I think

19:14 like there was beauty within like not just externally, I

19:18 mean. Yeah, I know what you mean.

19:19 She had it it. Yes, and like just this natural,

19:24 completely natural, breathtaking beauty.

19:26 She was stunning. She had amazing hair too, Yes.

19:30 Like really good hair. I mean, she was, she just

19:33 literally is like this. I say, well, sorry, amazingly

19:38 talented, intelligent person academically, but obviously

19:42 someone who could attract people and draw, you know, to her, you

19:46 know, to to, you know, engage with people.

19:49 And also then through her modelling as well, that and then

19:53 presenting and things that she did as well.

19:55 She did a lot of moved into that realm as well.

19:57 So incredible. Yeah, she's incredible.

19:59 So her career. As I said, started to take off a

20:02 little bit after she finished university and that basically

20:06 meant that she needed to move to Johannesburg in South Africa in

20:09 order to really take advantage of all of the opportunities like

20:13 where she was living. There wasn't a huge amount of

20:15 scope there. So she moved to to the main city

20:18 and this was sort of in the early 2000 and 10s.

20:22 By this stage she was a cover model she worked for, she

20:28 appeared in FHM magazine. She became the very first face

20:32 of Avon in South Africa. Do you remember Ding Dong Avon

20:36 calling my mum's? One of my mum's friends was an

20:40 Avon lady. Yeah.

20:41 And she used to have this basket of samples, and on the odd

20:44 occasion she'd like, she must have let her customers and stuff

20:48 have the samples for a few days. And sometimes she'd leave the

20:50 basket at our house. Yeah.

20:52 And I'd get to, like, try all of the things.

20:54 Oh, my God. It was like heaven.

20:55 It was like heaven. Oh, gosh.

20:58 So she also then worked as a live presenter for Fashion TV in

21:03 South Africa. And she's starred in so many TV

21:06 commercials, like, heaps and heaps.

21:07 She was the kind of person that brands wanted to represent them.

21:12 Yeah, you know, yeah. Because of her beauty and and as

21:14 you said, she had that sort of it factor.

21:16 She definitely did. She was in the process of

21:20 transitioning into a bit of a reality TV stream and not long

21:24 before all of the rest of this took place that we'll be talking

21:28 about in a minute. And she landed a role as a

21:32 celebrity contestant on Season 5 of the reality TV show Tropica

21:36 Island of Treasure. It was set in Jamaica, so she

21:39 got to go there and and film a season of that.

21:42 And it's it was released I think a couple of days after she

21:47 passed away. So it was just.

21:50 Yeah, she was sort of really like her career was like really

21:53 taking off in another realm or like kind of another.

21:57 Factor, she was kind of going to that.

21:58 Next level, wasn't it? Yeah, Yeah.

22:00 Yeah, yeah. I mean.

22:01 Really I think sad in this because she gets known a little

22:04 bit as a celebrity girlfriend when actually she had her own

22:07 career in her own right to being in that celebrity world.

22:10 I think you're so right and that's why I felt like it was

22:12 really important to start with her because I think a lot of her

22:16 achievements and accomplishments go unnoted in a lot of a lot of

22:20 the things I've read don't even mention that she had a degree or

22:24 you know, the way that she started.

22:26 I, I think, you know, she, she was a whole person and just

22:30 because her boyfriend was a celebrity, I mean, she was too.

22:34 She was. And not on the world stage like

22:36 he was. But she was getting to that.

22:38 That's what I feel like if there was, if there was more time for

22:41 her, that that's she would have ended up there.

22:43 Yeah, I can. Really.

22:44 Yep, see that that way, which is.

22:46 Just shit. Yeah, Really, really shit.

22:48 I'm gonna start now with a bit of background on Oscar

22:51 Pistorius. So Oscar Leonard Karl Pistorius

22:56 was born on the 22nd of November in 1986 in Stanton,

23:00 Johannesburg, South Africa. His parents are Henker and

23:04 Sheila Pistorius. He was the middle child of three

23:08 siblings. Now he also grew up in an

23:11 incredibly strict family. They were very, I've heard them

23:17 described as a very prominent family known within a lot of

23:22 social circles in South Africa. Yes.

23:25 So Oscar was born with a rare congenital condition.

23:29 It was called fibula hemimelea, which basically means that he

23:32 was born without the fibula, which is the outer narrow bone

23:35 in the. Lower leg, long bone of the leg.

23:37 Yeah, and he also was missing certain parts of his feet.

23:42 So his parents were given the option of either they could do

23:46 reconstructive surgery, which would potentially take multiple

23:50 surgeries when he was young. And then as he grew, he would

23:53 have to continue to have surgeries until he was fully

23:55 grown. The other option was to amputate

23:58 his legs just below the knee and in which case he could, you

24:02 know, get prosthetic straight away and just learn to live like

24:06 that right from a from a very young age.

24:08 So they made, it would have been a really tough decision, but

24:10 they made the decision when he was 11 months of age to amputate

24:14 his legs below the knee. He then a few months later got

24:18 his first prosthetic peg legs. I think by the age of 17 months

24:22 or something he was walking. On prosthetics, yeah, absolutely

24:25 phenomenal. I mean, I guess if you grow up

24:27 that way and and look, Oscar, when he's interviewed about

24:30 this, he says that he he knows no different and his parents

24:34 certainly didn't treat him like he was anything different

24:36 because of. He was quoted as saying, like,

24:38 you know, for having what he'd gone through in terms of, you

24:40 know, having amputated legs. He had the most typical, usual

24:45 childhood. So much so that he played all

24:47 the sports that everyone else played, like rugby, swimming.

24:50 Yeah, his parents treated him no differently.

24:53 He was to, you know, do what everyone else was doing, no

24:56 questions asked. I think he also has mentioned in

25:00 several interviews that I've been listening to that his

25:02 parents had this like sort of no excuses policy in the house.

25:06 So they they weren't allowed to say no, I can't.

25:08 Yeah, They had to try their best at whatever it was that they

25:12 were doing and give it their all.

25:14 And so that probably put him in pretty good stead for, you know,

25:18 the trajectory of his career and how that.

25:20 Yeah. I should also mention too, that

25:21 with this surgery, when he had his legs amputated, the surgeons

25:24 were able to remove the heel from his foot that he did have

25:29 and be able to attach that to the base of his the amputation

25:33 so that he was able to then walk on the stumps of his amputation

25:38 without pain and things. So there was still that padding

25:41 of like what would be the bottom of your foot being able to be

25:44 used as well. So he had the options then of

25:46 being able to walk without prosthetics and or with

25:50 prosthetics, obviously not as as easily without them.

25:54 Potentially it would be more awkward I guess, but still

25:56 without pain and be able to manage that.

25:59 Yeah, I we'll get to what I think about that later, about

26:03 walking on his stumps, I mean. Yeah, Yeah.

26:05 That's why I thought it's very important.

26:07 We mentioned very impossible agree that he can do that, yes.

26:10 So apparently he was a really energetic child and throughout

26:14 his school time he would always compete with able bodied peers.

26:19 He never played like rugby and stuff like that.

26:22 It wasn't like it was, you know, oh play tennis where it's non

26:24 contact or something. He did play tennis.

26:25 He probably would have as well in all of it, but I mean very

26:28 much contact. Sports were boxing and stuff

26:30 like that and yeah, playing like he'd do boxing and, you know,

26:34 other things that you think you would need a fair bit of, you

26:37 know, movement and dexterity for.

26:39 Yeah. But yeah, he, he was amazing.

26:41 So personally, he had a little bit of a tragic childhood.

26:45 He when he was young, his parents divorced and his dad was

26:51 very, very strict. And look, there's not a lot out

26:55 there to sort of say exactly what was going on in the

26:58 household. But just reading between the

27:00 lines, I just wonder whether there was a bit of maybe verbal

27:03 abuse going on. I think he was a really hard

27:05 man. You can certainly see interviews

27:09 with him now since all of this has come out in the media.

27:12 He's he's given interviews, he's seen in the court when all of

27:17 this was going through. And maybe he's softened a little

27:21 bit in his old age, I don't know.

27:22 But I guess the children were given the option of who they

27:27 wanted to live with after the divorce and they all chose to

27:30 live with their mom, unfortunately.

27:33 When in 2002, when Oscar was only 15 years of age, his mother

27:39 passed away. So she had a hysterectomy and

27:42 they gave her some pain medication that he she had a

27:45 severe allergic reaction to and she passed away.

27:50 So the kids then obviously, I mean, what a what an absolutely

27:53 tragic thing to happen at such a pivotal time in your life.

27:56 Yeah. They then were set, like

27:59 obviously went to live with their dad.

28:02 And look, I just think, I can't even imagine what that would

28:07 have been like for him and his siblings.

28:09 No, that was really, really tragic.

28:11 And from what you sort of get from what I've read, it really

28:14 did hit him hard. And I'm not probably his

28:17 siblings equally. I'm not, you know, but you

28:19 unfortunately hear about Oscar in terms of that.

28:21 Yeah. Yeah.

28:22 He did take it really, really badly.

28:24 Yeah. Yeah.

28:24 Yeah, as you would. Yeah.

28:26 So in 2003, so by this stage it was a year after his mother had

28:31 passed away, he was 16 years of age and he suffered a really

28:36 severe injury when he was playing rugby.

28:38 It shattered part of his knee. Now, obviously he needed the

28:43 movement in his knee to be able to operate his prosthetics.

28:47 And so it was sort of put to him that he probably shouldn't ever

28:52 play rugby again. And then as part of the

28:55 rehabilitation, coming back from this really severe injury, part

28:59 of what he could do to sort of build some strength back up in

29:02 his knee was to start running. And he found that he had quite

29:06 the knack for it. And it was something that he

29:09 just kind of really naturally took to his, like, a little

29:12 little child prodigy at this point.

29:15 Yeah, in terms of running. And it wasn't anything he'd done

29:17 before. He hadn't trained.

29:18 For not for running, like I mean, obviously running in other

29:21 sports and always been noted as being, you know, pretty quick,

29:23 but then to actually right do it as a you know, focus sport is a

29:26 very different thing too, though he.

29:29 Competed at the Junior championships in 2004, so it was

29:32 only a couple of months after he began training.

29:34 Anyone. Yeah.

29:35 Won everything. Yeah, won everything with this.

29:37 I've watched a few of his races, like an early races particularly

29:40 like that I went back to that like, Oh my God, he didn't win.

29:43 He absolutely killed it. Like he was, he was winning by

29:46 like lapping people basically. So he competed in like 100

29:49 meter, 200 and 400 meter. 400 meter was his absolute jam

29:53 though, too. Like so he would in in that he

29:55 would literally lap people. Yeah.

29:57 Which is insane. Yeah, crazy.

29:59 And we're talking able bodied as well as other disabled bodied

30:02 people. So equally as much, yeah.

30:05 He was incredible. Yeah.

30:06 So because of this, so he around this time, people in South

30:11 Africa certainly were taking notice of him.

30:13 He was obviously doing something amazing and he it was coming up

30:17 for the Olympics and Paralympics and he tried out for the 2004

30:23 Athens Paralympics. He was only 17 years old at the

30:25 time. They nicknamed him from that

30:29 Olympics on with the Blade Runner because he had these

30:31 carbon fiber sort of J shaped prosthetics that he would use

30:36 when he was running. They were called the Flex Foot

30:39 Cheetah. He got a bronze medal in 100

30:42 meters and a gold medal in the 200 meters at the Athens

30:46 Paralympics. And one of the commentators in

30:50 one of his races said he's the fastest man on no legs, so.

30:55 Funnily enough, he did become the 22nd fastest man on the

30:59 planet, and that is. Able bodied and.

31:02 Not any man running whatever, like any person running 22nd

31:07 fastest in the world. That I mean, someone who is AW,

31:11 double amputee. Holy cow.

31:13 Yeah, insane. Insane, absolutely insane, yeah.

31:17 He then continued his training and competing and he competed in

31:21 the 2008 Beijing Paralympics where he.

31:24 This was his year. He just got gold into it,

31:26 everything he went for. So as you said, the 102 hundred

31:29 and 400 gold medals in all of that.

31:33 So because he was sort of really.

31:37 He was winning so easily. So easily and and it was like,

31:40 if you watch some of the Beijing, Beijing Olympics,

31:43 you're like, oh, he was winning by like 100 Peters in some

31:47 instances. It was just insane, yes.

31:49 So he decided that he wanted to not just dominate para.

31:55 Yeah. He wanted to move into the

31:57 mainstream, yeah. And wanted to compete at the

32:02 able bodied Summer Olympics. Yeah.

32:05 In order to do this, he had to apply through the International

32:08 Association of Athletics Federation's the I Double AF.

32:13 They initially banned him from mainstream competitions because

32:17 they felt that there were several reasons.

32:20 They felt that his blades gave him an unfair advantage, that

32:25 because he didn't have lower limbs, that he was lighter.

32:29 And somehow therefore that made him would make him quicker.

32:35 Yeah. They also, I guess they didn't

32:37 really understand the technology of his prosthetics because they

32:41 thought that the the shape of the prosthetics would give him

32:44 like a bit of a spring of spring, even though.

32:48 So upon appeal, because Oscar was like, no, no, no, yeah, this

32:51 is none of this is actually true.

32:53 He took it to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and they

32:56 did all of the actual bio mechanical research into was

33:01 this an advantage or wasn't it because they wanted it to be

33:04 fair too? Yes, which?

33:05 Is totally fair, I get it. And.

33:07 He probably wanted it to be fair so that when he wins, it's a

33:09 legitimate win. No one can question it.

33:11 Nobody can question it. Yeah.

33:13 And they did. So he ended up, he missed out

33:17 qualifying for the able bodied Beijing Olympics, but he's then

33:21 set his sights on the London 2012 Olympics.

33:24 And he'd been given the green light to be able to compete.

33:27 Yeah, which he did. So he actually really in the

33:30 lead up to the 2012 London Olympics, he really started to

33:36 gain notoriety internationally because people are looking at

33:38 this Paralympic runner who's now moving into the mainstream.

33:43 At the 2011 World Championships in South Korea, he won a silver

33:48 medal as part of South Africa's 4 by 400 relay team.

33:52 Now that really was the thing that I think captured global

33:55 attention. And then I think, you know, the

33:59 media were following his story then all the way through to the

34:01 2012, the London 2012 Olympics where he made history by

34:05 becoming the first double amputee to compete in the

34:09 Olympic Games. He ran in the individual 400.

34:12 He I think he got to the semi finals and then in the 4 by 400

34:18 they got a silver medal, I believe.

34:20 So he was by the end of this campaign, he was a Global Icon.

34:25 Like I remember, I remember it. I mean, it's not that long ago

34:28 really when you. It's really not, no.

34:31 He was named Time magazine's one of the top 100 most influential

34:36 people, along with all of the fame and notoriety that he got

34:40 from, you know, from being this sort of Global Icon.

34:44 Now, he had also attracted a huge amount of sponsorships,

34:47 yes. And so he had sponsorships with

34:49 Nike, Oakley, like so many of watch brands.

34:53 Just said that Oakley, when I fully remember the Oakley ad now

34:56 that I'm like thinking, yeah, Oh my God, yeah, yeah.

34:57 The Blade Runner sunglass. Yes, yes, I remember it so.

35:00 Distinctly, yeah. Yep.

35:02 And so he ended up amassing quite an income and quite a

35:08 fortune at this time. He was you know, this was multi

35:11 $1,000,000 deals that he was doing over over the course of

35:16 these years. Yes.

35:17 So he basically, I think at the time that all of the incident, I

35:24 think he was worth something like maybe almost 10 million

35:29 U.S. dollars. Yeah, I feel like you might be

35:30 right. I feel like I've read that.

35:31 Yeah. It's.

35:32 It was a considerable, you know, sort of net worth.

35:35 Yeah. All right.

35:37 So how did Reeva and Oscar meet? Now there's a little.

35:41 Have you did you find there were like a couple of different

35:43 stories? Slightly different stories, but

35:44 also like when I looked into this too, I was floored by the

35:47 fact of like how short their relationship was.

35:50 Because the way I guess for us on the outside of all this, at

35:54 the time when it was coming through the media, it was Reeva

35:57 Steenkamp, Oscar Pistorius's girlfriend.

35:59 You know, like that's all you knew of it.

36:00 So you kind of had this assumption of.

36:02 It had been going on a while. Girlfriend, it wasn't as long

36:05 term as we all, I think, perceived it as at the time.

36:08 I'm fairly sure that most people would think the same way, yeah.

36:11 I definitely did until I until we were looking into this.

36:14 Yeah. So he basically the first public

36:18 outing they had was their first date.

36:20 Yeah, yeah. They'd literally, they'd met at

36:22 a few places and both were, had, I think, significant others at

36:25 the time when they hadn't first met and, you know, more

36:28 casually. But Oscar had eyed her off and

36:31 being like, she's amazing. And so, yeah, he called her

36:35 because he had needed a date at the last minute here.

36:37 I think he's actually broke off with his girlfriend or

36:39 something. Yeah, at the time.

36:41 And then he went on. Crap, I need a date for this

36:43 event. Yeah.

36:44 Was it the sports something or some sports awards?

36:47 Things the South African Sports Awards so that during that day,

36:51 though, he'd been at an event for a car dealership where he'd

36:55 bought like his, you know, luxury McLaren or whatever it

36:58 was some some like super lux car that he'd bought.

37:01 Yeah. And Reeva just happened to be at

37:05 this event as well. That's right.

37:06 And the person who organized the event, Justin Davares, knew both

37:09 of them independently of each other, which is why he invited

37:12 them both to the event. Yeah.

37:13 And I think this Justin knew that Oscar was going to this

37:18 event that night and and that he'd recently broken up with his

37:22 girlfriend and was like, oh, why don't you take Reba knowing that

37:25 Oscar sort of, you know, liked the look of Aaron?

37:28 Yeah. So that's kind of how that came

37:30 about. Yeah, yeah.

37:32 So they walked the red carpet of that event as their first date.

37:36 Like it's a bit weird. And it's also like, you can see

37:40 red carpet footage from that night.

37:41 They both get kind of interviewed on the red carpet.

37:44 It's a bit awful. It's a bit awkward, but also

37:46 like at one stage Reeve was being interviewed and they were

37:49 interviewing her about her stuff that was going on for her.

37:53 And she kind of had she, I think to her credit was like, but

37:56 tonight I'm here for Oscar, like and she flipped it back to the

37:59 the light being on him, which I think as you know, so she didn't

38:02 have to do that. She could have promoted herself

38:04 at the time and she didn't. She answered the question.

38:07 I'm not to say she dismissed them entirely, but she then

38:10 flipped it back to kind of go, but I'm here tonight for Oscar

38:12 and like, it's about him tonight.

38:13 And yeah, so it was really interesting.

38:17 Yeah. But yeah, they pretty much from

38:18 that night on. Who?

38:19 It was fast and furious. Yeah, which apparently Oscar was

38:23 known for. Yeah, he was known for meeting

38:26 women and really, well, use the words love bombing.

38:31 Really over the top like that actually saw a really

38:34 interesting interview with him go which it was being presented

38:38 as if this was like, you know, Oscar what a great guy, which I

38:43 just saw what he said I found quite revolting.

38:46 OK, So what it was was he, he was saying that he was in the

38:50 interview, he was saying how some kids are a bit unsure about

38:53 him when he's on his blades, right.

38:55 And so, and kids will ask questions like, because they're

38:57 like kids being kids and he will quite often like joke with them

39:00 and everything and try and give him a scare and go, you know,

39:02 they'll say like, oh, how did you lose your legs?

39:03 Oh, shark bot bit me or, you know, a tiger, you know, funny

39:07 haha. And he goes unless their mum's

39:09 nearby and she's good looking. And then I'll tell them like,

39:12 you have to eat your vegetables like, otherwise you'll lose your

39:14 legs, you know, just, you know, And he like kind of cheekily

39:17 like, and I'm like. If we didn't know, if we didn't

39:22 know what we know, maybe you'd be like, oh, cute.

39:24 Cute, but like he's something like I think 2324 in this

39:27 interview. Like, I mean, he's younger than

39:28 I thought too to be. Honest with all this.

39:30 Again, that was something else. I just assumed of him being

39:33 older as well. But yeah, he was like 2324

39:36 saying this that I just kind of go, why are you hitting on mums?

39:39 Like, do you know what I mean at that age, Like, you know, and

39:41 why are you commenting about? Maybe he's very audience because

39:45 he he was very good looking. He was very.

39:47 Looking absolutely, but just kind of got an you just get this

39:51 this idea of him being a little bit like someone who I don't

39:55 know oh good women and like kind of had an opinion of women that

39:58 you know they were his to flirt with and do what he wanted.

40:01 I don't know, I just kind of got a vibe that I'm like, I'll.

40:04 Yeah, OK, you got the ick. Yeah, I did get the ick, yeah.

40:08 Yeah. So I think as as we were saying

40:11 that their relationship was very intense very quickly, Yeah.

40:14 And it was only a few months in that everything kind of started

40:18 to unravel. So let's get into it.

40:22 Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, so first of all, I'll give a

40:24 bit of context about where Oscar was living and because I think

40:28 it's, I think it's important as part of the story.

40:32 So Oscar was living in a very affluent part of South Africa.

40:40 Yeah. And in Johannesburg or in

40:42 Pretoria, Sorry. Yeah.

40:44 And it was called this Silver Woods County estate.

40:47 Now we know, I think everyone knows that crime in South

40:52 Africa, especially at this time we're talking.

40:56 It was just, it was a very interesting time, I guess in

40:59 South Africa post apartheid. Yeah.

41:01 And it was, it was a dangerous place to be.

41:07 So if you were wealthy and you could afford it, you would live

41:10 in one of these gated communities.

41:12 Now again, you can go and have a look online and see what the

41:16 actual fortress has looked like. Fortress, I love that you called

41:19 it that it. Is literally concrete walls with

41:21 240 Volt like almost prison razor wire on the top to deter

41:27 people from getting in. Now he lived in in one of these

41:31 really sort of one of. These states.

41:35 Yeah, yeah. It had a 24 hour man security

41:38 gate, biometric access. So you couldn't just like steal

41:44 someone's gate card to get in. It was actually biometric

41:47 access, foot patrols by armed guards.

41:49 They had golf carts that would go around and literally patrol

41:53 the gated community 24 hours a day.

41:57 A bit of context about South Africa.

42:00 In 2013, which is the year that all of this takes place, there

42:05 were 45 to 47 murders per day per day in South Africa.

42:13 The the next most common, the most common crimes that were

42:20 reported were carjackings, robberies of businesses like

42:24 shops being burgled and home invasions.

42:27 And they were those 3 crimes were sky rocketing at the time.

42:31 So it was something that S Africans, people who lived there

42:35 were really cognizant of that these things were going on.

42:40 Similar to, I guess in some ways, America, the gun laws

42:43 there are were, I don't believe they've changed from my from

42:48 memory that, you know, you could carry a, you know, a gallon and

42:52 all these sorts of things. So which I guess as Australians

42:55 we find it's fine. I find that really hard to yeah,

42:58 I get to get my head around. Actually do you want to talk now

43:01 about the lead up, the two gun issues that?

43:03 Yeah. You want to put that here?

43:04 Yeah. So it's.

43:05 Worth. I think it gives a context.

43:07 Because this I think, I think we need to sort of say like

43:09 building up, obviously with this being the context of what Oscar

43:12 was living in that, you know, yes, but everyone, this was a,

43:14 you know, anyone could have time.

43:16 Yeah, perfect. Oscar became quite paranoid

43:21 around crime. And so he and he did, he was

43:25 someone who was very much into guns and protecting himself.

43:29 And I guess it's a celebrity. Yeah, I guess you'd do even

43:32 higher level of like thinking people would be maybe target

43:35 out. But but he seemed to have a

43:37 whole nother level of paranoia around that.

43:40 And I say that from his friends have commented on that.

43:43 The idea of security was really heightened to him.

43:47 And I think it's worth noting, like, one of his mates was a

43:50 really famous boxer. And one of the incidents, he was

43:54 actually sort of in the vicinity.

43:56 Well, he was with him at the time.

43:58 Yeah. And he was just as well known at

44:01 the time of this incident as Oscar.

44:03 And he even says like that wasn't he wasn't.

44:06 He didn't have the same level of.

44:07 No, no, yeah, yeah. So it was something that Oscar

44:11 was particularly sensitive to, I suppose.

44:13 So one of the incidents where there was a gun issue in all

44:19 prior to the incident that happened in 2013, the murder

44:22 that happened in 2013, he was at a dinner with a group of mates,

44:27 including this boxer, a couple of other friends, and somebody

44:31 handed him a pistol under the table, a handgun, sorry, under

44:34 the table. And he accidentally shot it into

44:41 the marble floor of the restaurant that they were in,

44:43 right? It grazed the toe of his mate

44:46 who was sitting next to him. Apparently there was blood

44:49 everywhere. Like he's so lucky he didn't

44:51 shoot his toe off. It would have because of the

44:54 look. Again, you and I are not gun

44:55 people, but the calibre of the gun or something meant that it

45:00 would have blown his toe off, possibly blown his foot off.

45:03 The millimetre the other way. Like, kind of literally.

45:05 And then because Oscar was notoriety, you know, he was

45:09 becoming really well known at this time.

45:10 He said to his friend, oh, you've got to take the blame for

45:12 this. Like, you take it.

45:13 You take it. Yeah.

45:14 And at the time, his friend was like, oh, yeah, OK.

45:16 I mean, it was an accident. But then why two things?

45:20 Why are you handing someone a gun under a table?

45:23 Like what the fuck is going? On to like, yeah, what are you

45:25 talking about? I would imagine that if it's

45:29 like the United States, where if you have a license to carry,

45:33 especially a concealed weapon, there's rules around that.

45:37 Like you can't just go and bloody, you know, wave it

45:39 around, wave it around or anything like that.

45:41 It has to be in a proper holster and has to have the safety on

45:44 and all of that. What the fuck's going on there?

45:46 Yeah, and who's handing someone a gun and going like you, you

45:49 having a gun registered to you is different is one thing, you

45:51 know, kind of thing and having it on you, but passing that to

45:53 someone else like that's and then no, I don't know.

45:56 I just find it all really like weird culture between like even

46:00 mates of what was going on like there.

46:02 That just seems odd. Yeah Oscar did have 1 pistol of

46:06 his own and the other incident happened and it was with his own

46:10 own gun. Yeah, and he was driving with a

46:13 girlfriend and ex-girlfriend now at the time.

46:16 At the time was his girlfriend, Yeah.

46:19 And did they have a fight or something?

46:20 Like that. I just think he was driving too

46:22 fast or something. I'm not sure.

46:24 But no 'cause the cops pulled him over.

46:25 Yeah, yeah. I don't know what he what they

46:27 got pulled over for, though. When I think about it now, I.

46:29 Don't know. Either he got pulled over, but

46:31 he wasn't happy with what he'd been pulled over for.

46:34 He was very disgruntled around what the police officer had

46:37 pulled him over for. But again, I find that just

46:40 arrogance of like who do you know who I am kind of a bit.

46:44 So anyway, it did finish what the cop wanted to speak to him

46:48 about. Cop left and in anger he has

46:51 fired his gun out, the sunroof of his car hitting a sign like

46:58 just yeah, just purely out of. Anger his girlfriend at the time

47:02 she's spoken about the incident and she was terrified like

47:06 absolutely because she's like he just lost control like he just.

47:09 Snapped. He snapped.

47:11 Crazy. Yeah, scary.

47:14 Really, really scary. Absolutely.

47:18 The other thing that was going on in South Africa at the time

47:21 is there was an absolute epidemic of violence against

47:23 women, yes, and domestic violence.

47:25 And it was something that culturally, I think, you know,

47:31 the police and the authorities were trying to start to shift.

47:34 I mean, there was definite recognition of the fact that it

47:36 wasn't a really serious issue within South Africa at the time.

47:41 Reeva had had a previous boyfriend who she had had some

47:45 domestic violence within that relationship.

47:48 And from that she had then become a bit of a spokesperson

47:50 for domestic violence with it being such an epidemic at the at

47:54 the time. And to actually the day of this

47:57 occurring, she had been an event supporting, you know, Victor

48:01 Charity and everything around domestic domestic violence.

48:04 So yeah. In 2013, which was the year that

48:09 this all took place, a woman was killed by an intimate partner in

48:12 South Africa roughly every 8 hours.

48:16 The sexual assault statistics were just beyond comprehension,

48:21 honestly. I think they still are today, to

48:23 be honest. It's it's horrendous, yeah.

48:26 Oh, just absolutely, absolutely horrible.

48:29 Yeah. OK, so Oscar lived at 286

48:36 Bushwillow St. within this Silver Water compound.

48:40 The house was incredibly luxurious.

48:43 It was three stories. It was a villa, and it was quite

48:48 spacious. It was quite minimalist in terms

48:50 of the decor, which I guess, you know, it looked really modern

48:53 when you look at photos. Yeah, certainly back in the day

48:56 it would have been an incredibly modern home.

48:59 I think it had four bedrooms maybe.

49:01 And the master bedroom was located on the upper floor, on

49:06 the top floor. OK.

49:08 So to give a bit of context about the layout of the room,

49:12 which I think kind of needs to needs to be said.

49:15 Yeah, the master bedroom LED directly into a long open plan

49:23 master bathroom. Yeah.

49:24 And then there was a shower room.

49:26 So like, it was basically a pretty, yeah, it was a floor to

49:30 ceiling shower door that you would open and go into a

49:33 completely enclosed shower room. Next door to that on the left

49:37 was a toilet room where there's just a toilet.

49:40 There was a magazine rack in there because who doesn't need a

49:42 good read when you're, you know, doing your poos.

49:46 And but basically as you walk into the toilet room, the toilet

49:50 is on the left wall facing like so if you if you walk into the

49:55 toilet room, you would have to turn left and back on, sorry,

49:58 right and back onto the toilet, if that makes sense.

50:01 So it wasn't directly as you open the door straight in.

50:05 Yeah, Yeah. That kind of will come into come

50:08 into play. It was a tiny room.

50:10 It was 1.4 meters by 1.2 meters, I think.

50:13 So it was tiny and all it had was a toilet.

50:15 Toilet. Yeah.

50:15 That's it. Yeah.

50:16 There was a window in the toilet cubicle that opened to the

50:21 outside and the at the time Oscar was doing some renovations

50:26 to the house. There was just a few upgrades

50:28 that he was doing and a few maintenance things.

50:30 There was a ladder that was left.

50:32 So basically where the where the window was for the toilet, for

50:36 the toilet, sorry. There was like a little roof

50:40 sort of just down below it and there was a ladder that kind of

50:43 went up onto that roof that one of the contractors had left

50:46 there overnight. Yep.

50:49 OK, so that sort of sets a bit of the scene.

50:53 So we should say so Oscar and Reeva have been dating for three

50:57 months at this point. And I don't believe it was

51:00 official official that she'd moved in, but she'd been living

51:03 in the house basically for about 3 days or three evenings at this

51:08 point, consistently staying overnight.

51:10 That's right. So I don't know that they were

51:12 living living together though they.

51:13 Weren't because the only reason I say that is because I know she

51:17 came with a fresh bag that night.

51:19 Yeah, so she must have gone home, changed over her clothes

51:22 or whatever and brought them like a fresh bag of clothes to

51:25 his place for that night. Yeah.

51:27 So this is on the 13th of February in.

51:33 Yeah, the 14th of Feb. So the the night of the 13th.

51:36 Night of the 13th. Yeah, the 14th.

51:37 So it's all Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day The night before

51:40 Valentine's Day. So they've decided to obviously

51:42 spend the night together. And they had plans for the

51:44 following day for Valentine's Day.

51:45 Yeah, apparently Oscar had bought her a bracelet for

51:50 Valentine's Day and they were going to go and pick that up and

51:52 they had a few other bits and bobs planned.

51:54 So there were definitely plans and things that they were they

51:57 were looking to do the following day and spend the day together.

52:00 Yeah. OK, so Reeva comes over and the

52:07 timing of this is not 100% set in stone.

52:14 And it's really frustrating because I think some, some of,

52:18 and even some of the phone calls that happen and all of that,

52:21 there's, there's conjecture around it.

52:24 The reason for the phone calls is because there were several

52:26 phones at play. But yeah, it's, it's really hard

52:31 to get an exact timeline. And I, I wish that we could

52:34 because I think it would give a little bit more clarity.

52:37 Like I'm even talking about when they ate dinner.

52:39 Yeah, you know, there's, there's even conjecture around that.

52:42 Yes. So, all right, let's, let's get

52:45 into it. Between 6:00 and 7:00, Riva

52:50 arrives at Oscar's home and with the plans to spend a night,

52:54 she'd brought a fresh bag of clothes Somewhere between 8:00

52:57 PM and 10:00 PM, the couple eats dinner.

53:01 Now, this is a point of contention for the prosecution

53:06 because of the amount of undigested food that was found

53:13 in Reeva's system at the time. But I will get to that when we

53:16 kind of when we kind of get to talking, talking a bit later.

53:19 Yeah. Oscar's recount of the night is

53:23 that at 10:00, they go off to bed, go off to the master

53:26 bedroom. Reeva is doing yoga exercises,

53:30 and Oscar was watching TV. He'd taken his prosthetic legs

53:35 off because he never slept in them.

53:37 Fine, I'm sure it would be uncomfortable to sleep with

53:39 plastic things hanging off the end of your legs.

53:42 According to him, they fall asleep shortly after.

53:45 Now, it's also worth noting that it was a really, really, really

53:50 hot night. Yeah.

53:51 And part of the renovations to Oscar's house meant that that

53:56 particular night, they didn't have air conditioning.

53:58 Oh, wow. So it was apparently was

54:01 incredibly humid as well. So much so that Oscar had opened

54:05 the door to the balcony that came off the master bed, and he

54:08 had two fans. 1A tripod fan, 1A pedestal fan.

54:12 He'd put them both sort of on the balcony to blow fresh air

54:15 into the room. Yep.

54:17 OK. Right.

54:19 Yep. Sitting the scene there.

54:20 Yeah, Yep. Apparently he was not a great

54:25 sleeper and anything would disrupt him.

54:28 He didn't like light, he didn't like sound, he liked pitch black

54:32 and anyway, and also it was like oppressively hot.

54:35 According to him, he's fallen asleep and then he wakes up

54:43 because he's hot and what he decides is it's too hot outside.

54:48 So he's going to he on his stumps, goes over to the

54:51 balcony, brings the fans inside and closes the balcony door and

54:57 closes the blinds across the balcony.

55:00 He then hears something, or so he so he thinks, right, So he

55:07 thinks he's hearing something coming from the.

55:10 Bathroom and it's pitch black. And it's pitch black now because

55:12 he's closed the blinds and all of that.

55:16 He takes his gun, which he keeps under his mattress, walks on his

55:23 stumps to the bathroom where he can hear.

55:28 Well, there's 22 versions of events from him.

55:31 Yes. First version of events is that

55:33 he heard a window opening. The window opening?

55:37 Yeah. The second version of events is

55:39 that he just heard somebody in the toilet room.

55:43 Yeah, he says. He whispered to Reeva at that

55:46 point. Call the.

55:48 Playlist OK. Yeah.

55:54 Then he says he doesn't even remember really doing this, but

56:00 all of a sudden he shoots into the toilet door 4 times.

56:05 Now. Again, the cadence of this is

56:08 interesting because according to the prosecution and to the

56:12 police, it's four fairly spaced out shots.

56:21 Yeah, not Bang Bang, Bang, Bang. It's not Bang Bang Bang Bang.

56:23 No, it's Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang again.

56:32 This will come into come into play a bit later.

56:34 Yeah. He then says that he goes over

56:39 to the bed. He said he realized then after

56:43 shooting Oh Reeva. Like he thinks about Reeva and

56:48 so then goes to the bedroom to check on her.

56:53 Well, to rouse or to which I mean, apparently the gun, these

56:57 this particular gun, which I've got it written down.

56:59 I'll, I'll have a look what it is in a SEC.

57:01 But this particular gun and it had hollow point bullets.

57:04 No Talon, Talon bullets, was it? And they've they're evil.

57:08 Have you seen what happens when they get shot?

57:10 They kind of like they become. Claws, they become talons.

57:13 I mean, yeah, there's plenty of stuff online you can see, like

57:16 people comparing what one of these bullets will do and what a

57:19 regular bullet will do and the way that it curls back on itself

57:24 and it will RIP like flesh, flesh.

57:26 So it goes in similar to any other bullet, but the external

57:30 wound of what comes out the other side, it literally rips

57:34 your insides out with it. It they are.

57:38 Why anyone would put these in a gun, I don't understand.

57:42 I do not understand why you. Would for maximum destruction

57:46 like why else? Would you use that?

57:48 What's wrong with another bullet like I just to make it even

57:51 worse for whoever you've shot and killed.

57:52 I don't know. It's just that they.

57:54 I can't understand that stuff. I'm so anti that sort of thing.

57:58 I can't understand it. But yeah, these things like rip

58:00 your insides out with it as it claws it makes this claw in the

58:04 back of the bullet as it comes out.

58:05 It's awful. Yeah, OK.

58:09 But yeah. So he goes to the side of the

58:10 bed to check Riva, to which he discovers obviously she's not

58:16 there. So now it's still pitch black,

58:19 so he reckons he's like patting the bed to kind.

58:21 Of see if she's there, but then he's so then he's like Oh my

58:24 God. He realizes that could be Riva

58:27 in the bathroom, to which he then grabs a because the door of

58:31 the toilet is locked. From the inside, yeah.

58:34 Yeah, so he grabs his cricket bat, which is nearby as well and

58:40 starts to hit and try to sorry, puts his prosthetic legs on

58:44 first before doing that sorry because he also tries to kick

58:47 the door in using his prosthetics, trying to kick the

58:49 door in which when that doesn't work, he then gets the cricket

58:52 bat and starts bashing the door with the cricket bat to try and

58:55 get in to the bathroom to the toilet.

59:00 So he finally finds that the door, he can get the door open

59:04 to which he finds them. Think.

59:05 He like, bashes a hole in it and can reach through and unlock it.

59:08 Yeah. And he finds Reeva barely,

59:13 barely alive. Yes.

59:15 She's been shot 3 times. So three of those 4 bullets hit

59:19 her. Apparently her arm was like just

59:22 destroyed. 1 hitter in the hip and then one in the one in the

59:25 head. Yeah.

59:29 He this is this, this is where there's a little bit of

59:32 conjecture as well about what he does next.

59:34 So his account, I think is that he calls his neighbor who's a

59:41 doctor, yeah, to come over. Then he calls the ambulance and

59:49 then he calls the estate security.

59:52 Well, I believe he rings like, well, their version of Triple O

59:55 kind of thing, yes. And it's not, it's like there's

59:59 something wrong with it. It's like, yeah, it was down or

1:00:02 something, which blows my mind. Which has been like can be

1:00:07 corroborated by the calls out kind of thing.

1:00:09 So and I think that is when he calls security.

1:00:15 OK, so then for them to alert them and then he tries the

1:00:19 triple O version again and gets through.

1:00:22 OK. It's worth noting here though.

1:00:25 Like I don't know, I think this sounds like it's pretty standard

1:00:28 unfortunately. But the ambulance took a long

1:00:31 time. The police took over 25 minutes

1:00:34 to get on site. That sounds like insanity.

1:00:39 Like just that's all. I mean he's living in a built up

1:00:43 area. Yeah, like, you know, it's not

1:00:45 like it's in the middle of nowhere.

1:00:46 No, I mean, to me, if I'm thinking about living in the

1:00:49 city of like Melbourne, you call the police, call police in

1:00:53 central sort of in that, you know, built up area kind of

1:00:55 level of stuff, you'd find that cops would get there very

1:00:58 quickly. Especially if it was a murder.

1:00:59 A murder, Well, someone's died, yes.

1:01:02 Or dying. Dying, at least.

1:01:03 Stephen like so the Doctor Who lives next door, or very close,

1:01:07 anyway. He's the first to arrive on

1:01:09 scene. Yeah.

1:01:10 And by this stage, Oscar had actually carried Reeva

1:01:14 downstairs. Downstairs to Oscar, carrying

1:01:17 her down the. Stairs.

1:01:19 Yeah. And so he's trying to provide

1:01:21 first aid now. He said that she was literally

1:01:23 barely hanging on to life at the time.

1:01:26 Her breath was incredibly shallow.

1:01:28 He couldn't really feel much of A pulse.

1:01:32 And it wasn't until the ambulance got there that she was

1:01:37 pronounced dead. But he's like, I think his

1:01:40 account of it basically is that she passed away not long after

1:01:44 he and he brought his daughter. Did he the doctor?

1:01:47 I feel like you might be right with that Someone with.

1:01:49 Him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:01:52 So, yeah, at this stage, she's, you know, she's now deceased in

1:01:57 the home. Once the police arrive there,

1:02:00 they they do start to try and get a bit of a story from Oscar.

1:02:03 Now the first thing he says to them is now he's got blood all

1:02:09 over him because when he finds Reeva on the toilet, slumped

1:02:12 over, almost deceased, he's then carried her body down the

1:02:16 stairs. He is covered in her blood.

1:02:20 His hands are covered in blood. Yeah.

1:02:25 And he says to the police, can you just take photos of my hands

1:02:27 so that I can go and wash them? I can't stand the smell.

1:02:30 It's making me feel sick. They do that.

1:02:33 He goes and washes his hands. He starts to tell them the

1:02:35 story. And halfway through it, he's

1:02:37 like, I need to go and have a shower.

1:02:39 I I need to get these clothes off me.

1:02:42 And they do allow him to do that.

1:02:44 You can see photos that they took prior to him taking a

1:02:47 shower. You can see the blood spatter

1:02:48 all over his prosthetics, over his clothes, over just

1:02:52 everywhere. There's just blood everywhere.

1:02:55 It's, it's the the photos are horrific.

1:02:58 So if you want to go and look at them, yeah, if you want to go

1:03:01 and look at them, just be aware that they are absolutely

1:03:03 horrific. But his first account to the

1:03:06 police is that, well, apparently at about 2:20 AM, the regular

1:03:10 patrol of the security guard came past his house, noted

1:03:13 nothing, nothing untoward between 3:00 and 3:10 AM.

1:03:19 This is where the story kind of deviates.

1:03:21 Yeah. So Pistorius says that he wakes

1:03:25 up to the heat, as we said that Reeva was awake and said to him,

1:03:29 can't you sleep, Bubba? And he gets up, brings the fans

1:03:33 in, closes the sliding doors, and obviously that plunges the

1:03:36 room Into Darkness. And then the rest of the story

1:03:39 happens the way the way that we said, According to him, the

1:03:43 prosecution, I guess their case at this point is that he they

1:03:49 think that there's been a fight between the two of them, between

1:03:52 Reeva and Oscar. It's escalated.

1:03:55 Reeva is absolutely terrified because she what they find when

1:04:00 they go and investigate that little toilet room is her mobile

1:04:03 phone's in there with her. And the toilet sits down.

1:04:05 The toilet sits down. She so she was sitting on top of

1:04:10 the toilet essentially. Yeah, she was partially dressed.

1:04:13 So now if this has happened at it happened between 3:00 and

1:04:17 3:10 AM and this, we know this because neighbors heard the

1:04:21 gunshots and reported called police, reported times, all of

1:04:26 that sort of stuff. They she was partially dressed.

1:04:31 The top half of her was in clothes in a bra.

1:04:34 You don't wear clothes in a bra to bed, do you?

1:04:37 No. The other thing was found was at

1:04:41 the bottom of that window in the bathroom was a pair of jeans,

1:04:48 oddly enough. I thought the jeans were in the

1:04:51 room. Like, they would be out the

1:04:52 window. So is there an inference there

1:04:58 that she was trying to escape, trying to escape and like, threw

1:05:01 her pants out kind of going. I'll put them on when I get out

1:05:04 of here because I need to get out of here.

1:05:05 Like, you know, getting dressed, terrified, terrified, getting

1:05:08 out of that room. Oh.

1:05:10 My God. I find that a really interesting

1:05:12 bit of evidence. Isn't it?

1:05:15 There's so many interesting bits of evidence, like I just think

1:05:18 if you're, I mean, if I go to the toilet in the middle of the

1:05:21 night, I don't take my phone. But no, I mean, I have kids and

1:05:24 I often take my phone to the toilet, but not in the middle of

1:05:26 the night, no. But I can maybe come at it,

1:05:31 maybe locking it, but locking the door?

1:05:34 No, I find IP with the door open.

1:05:36 Yeah, in the middle of the night.

1:05:37 Exactly. Yeah, because you want some sort

1:05:41 of light as to what you're doing.

1:05:42 Yeah, that's the only thing that.

1:05:44 I kind of could come out with her bringing the.

1:05:47 Phone for. The torch for the.

1:05:48 Torch, absolutely. That's the only thing I could

1:05:50 think of too, but locking the door actually is my clincher.

1:05:53 Same. When do you lock the door for

1:05:55 the toilet? I lock the door.

1:05:56 The only time I ever lock the door for the toilet is if

1:05:58 there's, I mean, someone else's home and there's other people

1:06:01 that you don't know or whatever. Yeah, other people that are,

1:06:03 Yeah. Like, you know what I mean.

1:06:04 You're at a party at someone's house kind of scenario is what

1:06:07 in my mind I'm thinking like, you know, I don't lock the door

1:06:09 when I use your bathroom. I don't lock the door in my own

1:06:11 house when I go to the toilet. Like.

1:06:13 And yeah, the only time I can think of that is when, like, if

1:06:16 I had, say, a tradie working in my home or something.

1:06:19 Yeah, I might lock the door when I go to the toilet then.

1:06:22 Yeah. Just to avoid embarrassment,

1:06:24 nothing else. Yeah.

1:06:25 The other person maybe ever more than me.

1:06:30 Yeah. Yeah.

1:06:30 Like I can't imagine a a three month in relationship locking

1:06:36 the door. I don't know, that didn't make

1:06:39 sense to me other than trying to get away from someone and

1:06:44 protecting yourself. Yeah.

1:06:46 Yeah, Oh. God, it's just absolutely, just

1:06:51 absolutely horrific. The the police do read Oscar his

1:06:54 rights at the scene and they do arrest him immediately.

1:06:59 I mean, this is a little bit awful because I find this really

1:07:02 interesting. The one of the police officers

1:07:04 and we can get into one of them a little bit more.

1:07:06 But he one of the detectives was quoted as saying to Vanity Fair

1:07:13 that he 100% just believed he was guilty of he murdered her

1:07:18 from the moment he walked into the scene to a whole much weight

1:07:21 in that, in that you can't make immediate assumptions of a

1:07:23 police officer. I think that's terrible of a

1:07:25 police officer to do. The police officer need to go in

1:07:26 there with an open mind as to what could have taken place

1:07:29 here. Do I agree with him?

1:07:31 Possibly. But do you say that divinity

1:07:33 fair? Just find that really.

1:07:37 Interesting choice. Yeah, I I get what you mean.

1:07:41 I mean, yeah, I think I I know, I know who you're talking about.

1:07:45 I just wonder whether, you know, he just wanted his his 15

1:07:48 minutes, didn't he? So look, I think, yeah, there's

1:07:52 something to be said about that. But.

1:07:53 And and he was kind of telling the world what they wanted to

1:07:56 hear, I think at the time, too. So whether he actually thought

1:07:59 that or not, I don't know. No, I think you would have to

1:08:02 keep an open mind because the the reason I say that is because

1:08:07 from the very get go, and that first statement that Oscar made

1:08:12 his at the time, his story was pretty concise.

1:08:16 Yeah. He said what he did and it fit

1:08:21 in terms of where things were at.

1:08:24 There were things that needed to then be considered later.

1:08:27 For example, if you are so concerned that an intruder is

1:08:33 going to get into your house, why are you sleeping with your

1:08:35 balcony door open? Yep.

1:08:38 You know, like there's just so many things that a upon

1:08:41 reflection and upon analysis, you think, OK, well, maybe.

1:08:44 Well, so you might actually. Think that that became.

1:08:47 I actually. I actually think that's what the

1:08:49 argument was over. About the door being open or

1:08:53 closed or closed, Yeah, yeah. I actually think that's what the

1:08:56 argument was over. OK.

1:08:57 I think he would have been so paranoid where she was maybe

1:09:00 like, it's so hot, we've got no air conditioning.

1:09:03 Like just leave it open. Like, yeah.

1:09:05 And I reckon he has got. Griever's mum has a different

1:09:09 theory. Oh.

1:09:10 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've read a bit about her but I

1:09:13 haven't heard her theory. So so she did, I actually

1:09:15 remember even watching this like at the time, but she did an

1:09:19 episode of insight and which is like one of my favorite shows on

1:09:23 SBS freaking with you me. Oh my God, love it.

1:09:27 So she did an episode of and it was about justice, basically

1:09:32 like whether whether justice is served in certain situations.

1:09:34 And they had parent in the same episode.

1:09:36 They had parents from one of the men, young men killed in flight

1:09:42 MH17 and they had lots of different people, but she was in

1:09:47 it. And she based basically said

1:09:50 that her theory of what happened and what I mean, she feels she

1:09:53 knows this is that Reeva wanted to leave him.

1:09:59 They there had been a lot of things in the lead up to this

1:10:03 that really concerned her as a mom, and she didn't know the

1:10:09 half of it until all of this came out.

1:10:11 And so she felt that Reeva was probably making a decision

1:10:15 around this time that she kind of had enough.

1:10:18 Something's obviously happened on that night that escalated to

1:10:20 a point where she's then gone. I actually can't do this any,

1:10:23 this is Reeva's mom's, you know, theory.

1:10:26 I can't do this anymore. I'm leaving.

1:10:30 And that's what got the fight going.

1:10:33 I mean, yeah, see, I reckon it was probably the door started

1:10:36 and then it became Reeva going like this is what we're arguing

1:10:40 over. Like this is how aggressive

1:10:42 you're getting I'm out. Like, you know, either can it.

1:10:44 It went from I went went from point A to there to that, you

1:10:48 know, kind of level of I'm going to go like I'm getting out of

1:10:51 here. Like I'm not going to stay here.

1:10:52 It's you're too aggressive and I'm scared and yeah.

1:10:56 In the investigation of all this, and once it went to court,

1:11:01 all of their text messages between each other came out.

1:11:04 And it was mostly through WhatsApp.

1:11:06 But yeah, the messages between themselves came out.

1:11:08 And one of the things, one of the things that Riva says in a

1:11:12 message to him at some point is basically that, you know, he

1:11:15 scares her. I think I've got.

1:11:17 The I've got the exact quote you've.

1:11:18 Got it there. Grabbing them out.

1:11:20 Where are we? Yeah, she says.

1:11:21 I'm I'm scared of you sometimes and how you snap at me.

1:11:25 And how you will react to me? And then she says, you have

1:11:29 you've picked on me incessantly. She was.

1:11:33 This was her responding to Oscar apparently becoming jealous at a

1:11:36 social gathering and accusing her of flirting.

1:11:40 Now not just that that I just find such.

1:11:43 Disgusting. And she also made the, the

1:11:46 statement around her, her being criticized all the time.

1:11:48 And she said the the quote was don't do this, don't do that.

1:11:51 Like it's constant. So there was a number of yeah,

1:11:54 text messages around that, that concept, that that idea.

1:11:58 I mean, look, I have to say it's a three month long relationship

1:12:01 and this is where you're at and your text messages.

1:12:03 I mean, I understand that potentially like relationships

1:12:06 can, you know, go on OverDrive and you can get deep quick.

1:12:11 But. I was actually having reflection

1:12:13 on this of like a three month relationship and I I had sort of

1:12:16 a similar time frame relationship in my early 20s

1:12:19 that I honestly couldn't even tell you his surname.

1:12:24 But I'm like, this is 3 months in and you're arguing like this?

1:12:27 Like if like this is just him. No, no, no for me.

1:12:31 Yeah, the defense basically said that, oh, this was just like

1:12:33 normal banter between a couple. And I'm like, no, no, not three

1:12:37 months in. No, she was, she was scared.

1:12:40 She was worried for his behavior.

1:12:42 Yeah, she actually even one of the text message she sent him

1:12:45 was I can't be attacked by outsiders for dating you and be

1:12:48 attacked by you. Oh my God.

1:12:51 So clearly, because there were other people saying about the

1:12:53 relationship already, they were saying this is not healthy and

1:12:58 we're telling Reeva to get out. He he was very jealous.

1:13:01 I know she'd had a was it 2 days before her death?

1:13:06 She'd had coffee with a male acquaintance.

1:13:09 Like nothing was going on between them at all.

1:13:11 He was just a friend of hers. Yeah.

1:13:13 And Oscar found out and apparently he would, he would

1:13:15 just flipped in a jealous rage. And that was two days before she

1:13:19 died. So I'm like, was all this stuff

1:13:21 building up? And yeah, it wouldn't have taken

1:13:23 much then to potentially flip him over the edge to to what?

1:13:27 What ended up happening? Exactly.

1:13:29 I mean, it's definitely, look, the prosecution put forward

1:13:33 these sorts of things. The defence had another

1:13:34 perspective and yeah, read these messages as being a normal

1:13:38 relationship, but I don't know how you can.

1:13:40 I honestly don't think it's normal in any relationship with

1:13:44 a three months long or, you know, or 30 years long.

1:13:47 Yeah, for someone to say that that I'm scared of you sometimes

1:13:52 that is a giant red flag that says no one should be saying

1:13:57 that about their partner at any point in their relationship.

1:13:59 Never. I mean, no.

1:14:00 So he there was clearly stuff going on in this relationship

1:14:03 that, yeah, he was showing his aggressive nature.

1:14:05 And they look, there was other girl, another ex-girlfriend as

1:14:09 well as the one who was in the car with him when he shot the

1:14:13 sunroof. Yep.

1:14:14 Another girlfriend came forward saying that he was, you know,

1:14:18 aggressive in that relationship too.

1:14:19 And it's why it ended. And they've been together for a

1:14:22 long time. I think they've.

1:14:23 Been together longer? Yeah, 14 or 15 months, something

1:14:26 like. Yeah, like he's had lots of

1:14:28 like, I guess in scheme of things, short term

1:14:31 relationships, but he was young. I'm not not shaming that

1:14:33 whatever, but I guessed. What was, I think, time shorter

1:14:37 this happened 27 he. Was like 26. 26 maybe, yeah.

1:14:40 He. Yeah.

1:14:41 So he wasn't he, you know, he was in his young years.

1:14:44 Yeah, go do that. But I think these relationships

1:14:46 were ending short term. Yeah.

1:14:48 Because of his aggressive nature, not because of like him

1:14:53 necessarily being, you know, putting to have multiple

1:14:56 girlfriends or anything like that.

1:14:57 Yes, Yeah. It was more the fact that it

1:14:59 wasn't sticking because he love bombed and then he became

1:15:04 aggressive and these women were like, Oh no, I'm out.

1:15:06 Yeah, Reeva was only 29 when she when she died too.

1:15:09 I think that's definitely worth noting.

1:15:11 Yeah, she was very young. Too Yeah oh gosh horrible.

1:15:15 Absolutely so I guess the trial of the century comes after this

1:15:19 doesn't it Yeah. So in 2014 we from March to

1:15:23 September the trial went for it was so in South Africa there is

1:15:28 no jury yeah system it is all all the trials are judge alone

1:15:34 and then the judge appoints a couple of I guess the help.

1:15:39 Advisors. They're called legal assessors.

1:15:41 Legal, legal assessors and they can be either legal people or

1:15:45 they can be community people and they're meant to be able to sort

1:15:48 of bring expertise from like whatever topics are being

1:15:52 discussed within that that. Court case, Yeah.

1:15:55 And help the judge come to her decisions.

1:15:58 Yeah, which is an interesting system I find.

1:16:00 Yeah, so the system moved to that after the apartheid?

1:16:03 Yeah, it was during apartheid that they during apartheid,

1:16:05 yeah, that they went to this abolished, they abolished juries

1:16:08 because, well, because juries were completely made-up of white

1:16:12 people in in the court system. Then they did abolish it all

1:16:16 together. Instead of going, Oh no, we

1:16:17 should open up to everyone having, you know, make this more

1:16:19 fair for any defendant. Instead of doing that, they

1:16:23 went, Oh no, we'll go the other way and just get rid of having

1:16:25 juries. Interestingly, though, the judge

1:16:27 that presided over this case was a fame, a black female judge by

1:16:31 the name of Judge Masipa. She was she she was a badass in

1:16:37 the lead up to this. And as in, you know, her career

1:16:41 was that of absolute, you know, stellar proportions.

1:16:46 Really. Yeah, but it what what sort of

1:16:51 came of it I find very interesting.

1:16:54 Yeah, it's OK. So.

1:16:56 The trial the. Trial, the trial.

1:16:58 So we had the prosecution who was led by Jerry Nell, AKA the

1:17:04 Pitbull, which in all of in everything, it's like the

1:17:07 people. There's the Pitbull that I think

1:17:09 he probably called himself that. Oh.

1:17:11 I totally reckon he called himself that.

1:17:14 Look, he was formidable, yeah, wasn't he?

1:17:17 He did a really, really good job.

1:17:19 I think he did. I definitely.

1:17:21 I wouldn't want to have been on the other end of.

1:17:22 Him oh God, no. He was quite aggressive.

1:17:24 He was cross examinations of people.

1:17:27 I'm like, you would not whether you're on his side or not, you

1:17:30 wouldn't want to be on the end of that.

1:17:31 No, just like absolutely shooting him.

1:17:34 I'd be shooting myself. He didn't ask questions like

1:17:39 his, his method was really interesting.

1:17:42 He didn't really ask questions. He kind of, I put it to you,

1:17:47 yes, I put it to you that this happened and.

1:17:48 Then you had to agree or disagree with him.

1:17:50 Like, and if you disagreed with what he was saying, the fuck

1:17:53 would you just get ripped to shreds?

1:17:55 Yeah, but he really like tried to, I suppose, dismantle the

1:18:03 character of the witnesses that were supporting Oscar

1:18:05 Pistorius's case, but he really did a good job of that.

1:18:09 Yeah, I thought. Yep, I agree.

1:18:10 I agree. This was the first trial that

1:18:13 was broadcast internationally. So we obviously had OJ Simpson

1:18:17 prior to this, but that wasn't broadcast all around the world.

1:18:21 We got snippets of it through like through the carriers and

1:18:26 stuff. Yeah, in the United States,

1:18:28 whereas this was actually broadcast by nations worldwide.

1:18:32 Yeah, which I remember watching it and stuff at the time.

1:18:35 And so there's loads and loads of visuals and also videos of

1:18:40 and what went on in the in the in the trial.

1:18:42 So you jump online and see all of that stuff still to this day,

1:18:45 obviously. The way that Mel wants to

1:18:48 characterize Pistorius, I think he's funny.

1:18:50 It's like he's this gun toting self obsessed narcissist who

1:18:55 basically just wouldn't take responsibility for his volatile

1:18:58 temper and just had literally got one good thing to say about

1:19:05 him. I can at least acknowledge his

1:19:08 great achievements and his athletic ability.

1:19:10 Didn't touch on that. Yeah, the defense was led by

1:19:14 Barry Roo. So, oh, he's the one.

1:19:18 Sorry. Barry's the one who was like, I

1:19:19 put it to you, that was his. Thing Yeah, right, I put.

1:19:21 It to you that this happened, I put it to you that this

1:19:23 happened. So he's not really saying that

1:19:25 these things happened. He's just like inferring that

1:19:28 these might be the things that happened.

1:19:32 He really used, I guess South Africa's, what is it like their

1:19:42 their sensitivity around home invasions and the how vulnerable

1:19:46 they are as his main motivating factor for his defence.

1:19:53 So basically he said like, of course he had.

1:19:57 Now interestingly enough, I, I did look into this a little bit

1:20:00 because I'm like, you know, in America they've got different

1:20:03 self-defense laws to what we even do in Australia.

1:20:07 Yes, South in South Africa, you even if you kill somebody in an

1:20:14 active self-defense, you are still bound to a manslaughter

1:20:20 type charge. Yeah.

1:20:22 And So what he. Is basically saying is that he's

1:20:26 trying to, I guess lessen or give make make the case that he

1:20:33 really thought this was an intruder so it wouldn't end up

1:20:35 being a murder charge, that it'd be downgraded to manslaughter,

1:20:39 essentially what we call what we call it.

1:20:41 They call it something different, but.

1:20:42 Yeah, yeah. But and to really try and I

1:20:46 guess maybe get him off on community service or something

1:20:48 like that, because if you did have a home invader and they

1:20:51 were armed and all of that kind of stuff, you probably, that's

1:20:53 probably the what the course of the way these things would go.

1:20:56 Yeah. When you're shooting into a room

1:21:00 where there's a locked door and you don't know who's behind

1:21:02 there. And that person has no way out

1:21:04 kind of scenario. You know, interesting.

1:21:11 Yeah, there's, there were a lot of witnesses called to their

1:21:14 trial witness to this and I think for, for.

1:21:16 Being something that you'd sort of go, no one else saw what

1:21:18 happened. There was a ton of witnesses

1:21:21 which I found really interesting.

1:21:22 Me too, because the way that then the prosecution put those

1:21:26 forward, but then what the defence sort of came and brought

1:21:29 to dismantle what they had put forward.

1:21:31 So we've spoken about the fact that that door was open at one

1:21:35 point and then closed. Let's just say when the police

1:21:38 arrived, that door was closed. We don't know really when it was

1:21:41 closed other than what Oscar says he's so.

1:21:44 Living witness to this whole. Absolutely.

1:21:46 And he does say he went out onto that balcony and and called for

1:21:50 help too. We didn't say that before, but

1:21:51 he did yell out for help from that balcony.

1:21:54 See, that gets me too, because he said so.

1:21:57 He's then reopened the door, gone out there to scream for

1:22:00 help, closed it, come back in, closed it, closed the curtains.

1:22:04 Yeah, because it was still pitch black in there and the curtains

1:22:07 were fully shut. Like come.

1:22:08 On none of it, all make doesn't all make sense.

1:22:10 So there's not one, There's not 2, but 345 neighbors, yes, who

1:22:18 swear by pretty similar kind of stories that they work.

1:22:23 Two blood curdling screams that they heard a woman screaming,

1:22:29 they heard gunshots. Some, but not all stated that

1:22:33 they heard arguments, arguments prior to the gunshots.

1:22:38 So yeah, not all of them said that, sorry.

1:22:43 And I'm talking. I mean, we can name Michelle

1:22:44 Berger, Carl Johnson, Estelle van der Meer.

1:22:48 All came forward saying similar stories to what they had heard.

1:22:53 However, the defence brought forward a man by the name of Oh

1:23:01 my gosh, Ivan Lynn, who is an acoustic expert who claims that

1:23:07 from that inside of that toilet or inside that apartment or

1:23:13 house, you wouldn't be able to hear that now if more than one

1:23:19 person is saying that. But that was discounted.

1:23:22 This is it because So what I think what the the conjecture

1:23:27 around that testimony was. So when Oscar was on the stand,

1:23:33 they asked him, did you hear Reeva scream?

1:23:38 So he's shot the gun once. Did you hear Reeva scream?

1:23:42 And he says no, because the gunshot was so loud, because he

1:23:47 told him about this, Yeah, he couldn't hear anything.

1:23:50 So the defence are saying, well if he couldn't hear that, he

1:23:56 couldn't hear Reeva screaming and he was right there, then how

1:24:00 did the neighbors hear it? Now as.

1:24:02 The neighbors heard the neighbors heard screaming, like

1:24:05 arguing and screaming, shrieking for the first gunshot.

1:24:11 So this guy also tried to claim though.

1:24:13 Oh. Yeah.

1:24:15 That it's not a you're not able to distinguish between a male

1:24:18 and a female screaming so these people saying they heard a woman

1:24:21 screaming probably just heard Oscar screaming after it had

1:24:25 happened and realizing. What had gone on balcony and

1:24:28 started screaming? Yeah.

1:24:31 Like, oh, my God, I just find it really, to me, there were too

1:24:34 many. I mean, from what I could

1:24:36 gather, it did say that this evidence from this Ivan Lynn

1:24:39 weakened slightly. The prosecution's case.

1:24:43 However, to me, sitting on, if I was on a jury, say, yeah, you've

1:24:46 got three people with the same story from different houses.

1:24:50 To me that says more than this expert because I mean otherwise

1:24:54 the. Thing that this expert said was

1:24:56 that potentially what they're thinking they're hearing is the

1:24:59 cricket bat breaking down the door.

1:25:02 Now that I can imagine nobody hearing from doors and doors

1:25:05 away like 2. One of the neighbors was like

1:25:07 200 meters away, yes I can understand.

1:25:09 One there was 600, but there was one that.

1:25:11 Was 200. Yeah.

1:25:12 Yeah. So you, I I totally get the

1:25:13 fact, yeah, that you won't hear a cricket bat hitting a door

1:25:16 from 200 meters away. Yeah, you would fucking hear

1:25:18 gunshots. Gunshots and a those were also

1:25:21 screaming bullets. And someone screaming like I, I,

1:25:24 I get that, yeah. Yeah, and they also like say

1:25:29 that she maybe they heard her screaming whilst the gunshots

1:25:32 were going right now, but the the witnesses say no, no, no, I

1:25:36 heard the screaming prior to the gunshots right now.

1:25:39 The thing is you think about her being shot once she's not

1:25:42 screaming. I'm sorry.

1:25:44 She's actually not screaming in when that amount of impact has

1:25:48 been made. I don't think that her.

1:25:50 Arm was the first thing to get struck so I can come at maybe.

1:25:54 Even would then the loudest screaming is going to be prior

1:25:58 to that even. Definitely.

1:25:59 I honestly believe that that's the screaming you would hear,

1:26:02 not necessarily. The to me in pain scream isn't

1:26:08 necessarily that kind of scream. I think I, I I get what you're

1:26:13 saying because you're, you're saying like in the lead up to

1:26:16 that first gunshot, Yeah. She was terrified.

1:26:19 She was screaming for her life. Yeah, that's a different type of

1:26:24 scream than being shot and hit and screaming.

1:26:26 Out. That's immediate.

1:26:28 Like to me, that's a shock. Of that, yeah.

1:26:30 That's a shock pain and shock scream.

1:26:32 That's different to I've got to stop this happening scream like,

1:26:36 yeah, yeah. So I think that I think it's

1:26:40 valid to say that, yeah, you didn't hear screaming when she

1:26:42 was being shot because, well, yeah, I don't know that there

1:26:44 was screaming when she got shot. She quickly after one or two of

1:26:47 those bullets was probably not making any noise whereas prior,

1:26:53 yeah, valid hearing screaming and then he's what saying oh,

1:26:57 you wouldn't be able to hear it anyway through that space.

1:27:00 But I think I think the door was open.

1:27:03 I think that they did hear what they heard.

1:27:04 Yep. Yeah, another one of the

1:27:07 defenses, I guess they're little pillars that they were hanging

1:27:11 on, was the fact that Reeva's bladder was empty.

1:27:16 Yeah, yeah. So what they say is that she'd

1:27:19 gone to the toilet, had finished her business, had flushed the

1:27:22 toilet and put the seat down when the first shot came.

1:27:26 Yeah, but he's he's heard a noise, yes, and thought that's

1:27:29 an intruder hasn't. Actually just anything in any

1:27:31 statement about flushing the toilet.

1:27:33 There was no nothing in the toilet to suggest that she

1:27:36 hadn't yet flushed it. No, I suspect like if she's

1:27:41 died, like she's possibly let go of her.

1:27:43 You're you're more likely to hear the flush of the toilet

1:27:45 than someone moving like to just to like to in that moment of

1:27:50 like who's. Hearing me again, that's a moot

1:27:52 point, but they're just trying to introduce that, aren't they?

1:27:55 Yeah, it was interesting that that didn't come up much in the

1:27:58 trial where, you know, like the like the defence would have

1:28:01 wanted that being spoken about, the fact that where's the flush

1:28:05 who he never mentioned. Oh, no, no, no, right.

1:28:07 No, no, no. Yeah, why is she in that toilet

1:28:09 then, if she's not flushing it? Yeah, other than trying to

1:28:12 fucking get away from you, mate, yeah.

1:28:14 Yeah. God, the other big one for the

1:28:18 prosecution that they had was a pathologist, Dr. Gert Simon.

1:28:23 MM hmm. Now he gave graphic detail in

1:28:25 trial and it's actually his testimony is a lot of it's been

1:28:28 retracted even in the live stream of it, because it's

1:28:32 pretty intense. People in the courtroom found it

1:28:36 disturbing, so he gave. Oscar vomited during some of his

1:28:40 testimony because he found it so yeah, so difficult to watch and

1:28:44 listen to. Yeah, her injuries, he gave very

1:28:47 graphic detail of those injuries.

1:28:48 As we said, those bullets were horrendous that he used, but he

1:28:52 also gave gave evidence around the trajectory of those bullets.

1:28:56 Now, what was suggested by Doctor Goetz Salmon was that

1:29:02 Oscar was wearing his prosthetics at the time, based

1:29:06 on the height on and the trajectory of the bullets.

1:29:10 Yeah. So they can kind of see through

1:29:11 the door, that angle at which the bullets went through the

1:29:15 door. And if he were on his stumps,

1:29:17 and I mean, obviously he loses, you know, what would it be a

1:29:21 foot or two of height when he's walking on his stumps as opposed

1:29:26 to walking on his prosthetics, The angle, the trajectory of the

1:29:31 bullets doesn't match him being on his stumps.

1:29:35 The bullets are actually almost in a downward pointing way.

1:29:40 And so he wouldn't have really been able to do that unless he's

1:29:43 got the gun up. Yeah.

1:29:45 And he's shooting like that. But apparently the.

1:29:47 Kickbacker. Meant you couldn't do.

1:29:49 That not even with his strength of you know, and ability in

1:29:52 terms of athletic ability, yeah, why would you do that like.

1:29:54 Yeah. So that puts into doubt, yeah,

1:29:58 Oscar's version of events, because if he was, if they were

1:30:03 actually in bed and he had taken his limbs off and his

1:30:08 prosthetics off, and then, yeah, they wouldn't be on.

1:30:13 The other thing that Doctor Simon Says is that the food in

1:30:19 Reeva's stomach at the time, so he said there was something like

1:30:23 200 mils of partially digested food in her stomach, which, had

1:30:26 they eaten when Oscar said they ate, wouldn't have been there.

1:30:30 No. So he suggests that they

1:30:32 probably ate later. Were they arguing into the

1:30:34 night? He he thinks that Reeva was

1:30:38 actually probably downstairs having a bit of a snack at this

1:30:41 early part of the morning, right.

1:30:42 And they've possibly had a fight down there and come back

1:30:45 upstairs. That to him also explains why

1:30:48 she's partially dressed still. And then maybe as this fight

1:30:52 ensued, that's when the rest of what?

1:30:54 The prosecution. 'S theory is about what

1:30:56 happened. Yeah, who knows?

1:30:58 It's really hard to say. And I mean, with these things,

1:31:01 it's not an exact science. He's speaking from experience

1:31:05 and. I mean same with the trajectory

1:31:09 of the bullets things. I mean, different to here in

1:31:11 Australia, they were able to bring in their own experts that

1:31:15 counteracted what the the prosecution.

1:31:18 Really, had they brought the door to the into the courtroom?

1:31:22 Yeah. It was really hard though,

1:31:23 because he also then used the cricket bat to break down the

1:31:26 door. So there was some, a lot of a

1:31:29 lot, a fair bit of the evidence was actually destroyed in that.

1:31:31 So yes, I think, I think the defense were able to pretty

1:31:36 successfully argue that, yeah, it wasn't the way the

1:31:42 prosecution said. I I feel like in the end that

1:31:44 kind of ended up evening itself out.

1:31:46 This is the thing, I mean, that's frustrating from that

1:31:48 perspective of the court system being you're, you're allowed to

1:31:50 do that. Yeah, Here in Australia you have

1:31:52 to agree on an expert, yeah, between the defence and the

1:31:54 prosecution, so that you only sort of really get one side of

1:31:58 the story. Which, well, one it's not even a

1:32:00 side of a. Story no like 1. 1.

1:32:03 Expert. Expert's opinion.

1:32:04 Yeah. So I think you can actually, you

1:32:06 can agree on multiple experts, but you but at the same time

1:32:10 that you agree on them. Whereas in this system, the

1:32:14 defence can bring their own, the prosecution can bring their own

1:32:16 and they just counteract each other.

1:32:18 I mean, that can be incredibly confusing.

1:32:20 And which I think is a jury, if there was a jury involved in

1:32:22 this, that becomes really challenging because as a

1:32:26 layperson sort of going like, oh, OK, well, this guy said

1:32:29 this, but then this one said this and they crossed each other

1:32:31 out. How do you get to a solution?

1:32:33 I think that's part of like, one of the benefits of having a

1:32:37 judge boss. Yeah, Judge.

1:32:38 Only in this. In this system, yeah, for sure.

1:32:41 A few things came up about like the botched policing that

1:32:45 happened. Oh, let's go.

1:32:47 Let's go there. So lead Detective Hilton Botha.

1:32:50 Yep. He admitted to walking through

1:32:52 the crime scene without booties on.

1:32:54 Yep. Now he saw the blood trail

1:32:58 basically leading from the downstairs all the way through

1:33:02 upstairs. He just walked on it.

1:33:03 Yeah. Yeah.

1:33:05 Yeah, contaminating all of the footprint evidence that may have

1:33:08 given a little rise to what what had actually gone on.

1:33:13 They also missed a spent bullet casing that had bounced into the

1:33:17 toilet bowl somehow, or behind the toilet bowl.

1:33:20 Completely missed that. Just missed it.

1:33:21 So they thought, they thought at the time, maybe there were three

1:33:25 bullets. Those 3 bullets hit Reeva.

1:33:27 Turns out, Nah, there were four shots.

1:33:29 Just missed that initially. The other thing that happened

1:33:34 was that one of Pistorius's incredibly valuable watches, he

1:33:39 was a watch collector. Yeah.

1:33:41 A horologist, if you will. Oh, I hadn't heard that word

1:33:45 before. That's like a watch a watch

1:33:46 person. Yep.

1:33:47 Yeah, love that. Don't ask me how I know that.

1:33:51 Yeah, yeah, Apparently it was in a storage box and then

1:33:59 disappeared. Disappeared.

1:34:00 That's. Interesting.

1:34:04 Yeah, what have you got about the police?

1:34:05 Well, so. Hilton Brother was a very

1:34:08 interesting person. Very interesting.

1:34:10 So during the this investigation it became evident that he

1:34:16 himself, the lead detective, was being looked at for not one, but

1:34:24 7 attempted murders. Sorry, corruption.

1:34:28 Sorry what? Sorry, what?

1:34:30 Corrupt, corruption, basically. What this was all in one event.

1:34:34 I will say that it's not like 7 separate attempted murders.

1:34:37 Yeah, but what had happened was it was a taxi full of like a

1:34:41 minibus kind of taxi of like 7 people that these cops had like

1:34:45 shot at. There was a couple of them and

1:34:48 yeah, and nearly killed all these people in with absolutely

1:34:52 really, by the sounds of things, no reason to have been doing

1:34:55 this. And it turns out there was like

1:34:56 alcohol involved and that he must was probably really, really

1:35:00 drunk during this episode. So he had, you know, charges

1:35:04 basically being about to be laid up against him in regards to

1:35:08 this attempted murder of seven people.

1:35:12 So yeah, he was a really unusual.

1:35:14 He was very quickly then taken off of the case at that point

1:35:17 once they realized, ah wait, no you can't.

1:35:19 Be but he still had to give testimony at the trial.

1:35:21 But because he was the person at the scene, he still had to give

1:35:24 trial, give that. So I know the prosecution

1:35:27 actually quoted as jokingly sort of saying, well, there goes my

1:35:31 case because, yeah, this guy's gonna make, I mean, the

1:35:34 defensive got like a absolute field day here to pick him apart

1:35:37 and just absolutely destroy all the evidence that he collected

1:35:41 from the scene. He did do the majority of the.

1:35:44 I mean, this is a case where the scene is there the scene like he

1:35:47 has done the major part of this. This isn't 1 where, you know,

1:35:50 you've got a reported missing person and they were looking

1:35:52 into it. Yeah.

1:35:53 And then, you know, when the major parts of the action

1:35:55 happened, he's already been removed.

1:35:57 No, no, no. He was there on the action day.

1:36:00 So therefore he has the most amount of evidence to give

1:36:02 regardless of someone else being put on the case later.

1:36:06 So he had to sit at trial and yeah, the the defense.

1:36:08 Sorry, like, right. Just.

1:36:10 Oh really ripped through all of his his testimony.

1:36:14 I mean Oh my God, what the hell are they thinking putting him

1:36:17 still in a in I mean at the minute that happened, he surely

1:36:20 he would have to have gone on like, you know, some sort of

1:36:24 leave. I don't know like he couldn't

1:36:26 keep him in the job. Oh.

1:36:28 No way. I don't know what happened to

1:36:29 him after, but. Surely not, no?

1:36:32 Surely not from the trial. The one thing that really sticks

1:36:38 out to me is, and this is just my memory of it when I think

1:36:42 about it, even before researching this, Yeah, is when

1:36:46 they get Pistorius to take his prosthetics off in court and

1:36:49 walk around in court. Don't.

1:36:51 It's awful. It's awful.

1:36:53 Yeah. It's.

1:36:53 Really awful. And then someone from the

1:36:57 defence, this a woman from the defence team, she goes up and

1:37:02 like, you know, almost comforts him and takes him back to his

1:37:08 seat. Like he's like because their

1:37:10 thing was he's so vulnerable on. Him they tried to make out as if

1:37:13 like you know someone in his position of not being having his

1:37:16 prosthetics on made him more vulnerable to an intruder and so

1:37:20 his fear and heightened level of fear was what made him then

1:37:23 shoot at someone who was had invaded his.

1:37:25 Bone, the prosecution at the time when they came up with that

1:37:27 argument, the prosecution was like, yes, but if you're a

1:37:30 trained marksman, which he was, which Pistorius was, yeah, And

1:37:35 you've got a gun license, you know that you have to fire a

1:37:38 warning shot. That's like, that's a thing,

1:37:42 right? Apparently.

1:37:42 OK. Yeah, right.

1:37:43 If you're using it, especially when that person's behind a

1:37:46 locked door. Oh yeah.

1:37:48 That's the whole thing that gets it.

1:37:49 From me. He didn't do that, obviously,

1:37:50 because the first shot hit Reeva in the arm.

1:37:53 Yeah, so he doesn't fire a warning shot into the ceiling.

1:37:56 No, Did he? But that's the thing that kills

1:37:58 me with this case is that this person, OK, let's say it was an

1:38:02 intruder, they're behind a locked door and he his only

1:38:05 claim to getting help is saying whispering to Reva, call the

1:38:14 cops. Now wouldn't you immediately

1:38:17 grab the phone and call the cops or you know, do that straight

1:38:20 away if you actually thought there was something in your home

1:38:23 rather than shooting through a door being your immediate go to,

1:38:27 let alone like get a warning? Shot or I don't know.

1:38:30 Yeah, get out. Yeah.

1:38:32 You also know is that person armed?

1:38:34 I guess you assume an intruder probably would be I.

1:38:37 I really don't know. But then you've got the you've

1:38:39 got the advantage there of that person's in that tiny little

1:38:43 room locked in there that you can leave.

1:38:47 Yep, you he could have gone down the stairs and got out the

1:38:49 front. That's what I mean on the phone

1:38:50 to the cops, like there's so many other options and shooting

1:38:53 through that door ass. Next door.

1:38:55 Yeah, yeah. You've got security not too far

1:38:57 away. Yep, just it does.

1:39:00 Yeah, yeah. On the 12th of September in

1:39:04 1994, Judge Masipa delivers what I must say was an incredibly

1:39:10 shocking verdict. Totally.

1:39:12 She acquits Pistorius of murder. Yep.

1:39:15 And she ruled that the state failed to provide intent.

1:39:19 We'll talk about that in one second.

1:39:21 She instead finds him guilty of culpable homicide, which is the

1:39:24 South African equivalent of manslaughter, ruling that he

1:39:27 acted negligently in his in his actions.

1:39:31 But yeah, it was they, it wasn't.

1:39:36 He didn't intend. Now, if you were firing through

1:39:39 a door, regardless of who you think is on the other side,

1:39:43 you're intending to kill that person. 100% four times, 4 times

1:39:47 once OK, once a warning shot, maybe 4 times through that door

1:39:53 you're intending to. Kill that person.

1:39:56 Kill that. Person that's.

1:39:57 Regardless of who it is, Yeah, Whether it was Riva or whether

1:40:00 it was an intruder, Yeah. So that's murder now.

1:40:06 I agree. If it was an intruder, then

1:40:08 maybe mitigating circumstances that might mean you get a

1:40:12 reduced sentence. I can understand that.

1:40:14 Which I mean he got five years at this point.

1:40:18 So I mean, to me that sounds like very light for the extent

1:40:25 of what he. Apparently, the minimum normally

1:40:28 for this negligent, what do they call it?

1:40:31 Sorry, culpable homicide. Yeah, is 15 years.

1:40:35 Right. He got 5 now, she the judge said

1:40:40 it was because of his disability, because of his

1:40:42 remorse that he showed, because of the fact that he was willing

1:40:46 to be open in court. Was his remorse for Reeva or

1:40:49 remorse for himself? Was for himself.

1:40:53 There's some really interesting shit around this too.

1:40:56 This kind of this taints it a little bit for me.

1:40:58 But I mean, not that I think he's any less guilty.

1:41:01 No, but he started paying Reeva's mum and dad the day she

1:41:07 died because so she was financially supporting her mum

1:41:11 and dad and Oscar knew that. And then basically as soon as

1:41:19 she passed away, he started paying them something like 300,

1:41:23 the equivalent of 300 U.S. dollars a week, which is what

1:41:27 she was paying them. And they said at the time that

1:41:30 they accepted that money because they had no other money.

1:41:34 Right. But their intention was to pay

1:41:36 that back. Now, they, the parents, Reeva's

1:41:40 parents, wanted that money to be disclosed.

1:41:42 They wanted everyone to know that he was paying them a

1:41:46 stipend because they felt like it was a conflict, although they

1:41:49 felt like they didn't really have any choice because they

1:41:51 were. They had been relying on Reever.

1:41:53 And until all of her affairs were sorted out, there was kind

1:41:56 of nothing. Yeah, but Pistorius did not want

1:42:01 anyone to know that he was paying them because it like, it

1:42:04 looks like it's blood money. Yeah, right.

1:42:06 Yeah. Anyway, sorry, that was just an

1:42:09 interesting little tidbit I found.

1:42:11 I didn't find that, no. That's really interesting.

1:42:14 So the prosecution decide to appeal the sentence because they

1:42:18 said it was just way, way too inadequate, Like way too low.

1:42:23 Yeah. So sorry.

1:42:26 In October of 2019, he'd been in prison for just one year.

1:42:31 Yep. Right.

1:42:33 He was released from prison at that time to serve the remainder

1:42:36 of his arrest. A remainder of his sentence.

1:42:39 Sorry. Under house arrest at his

1:42:41 uncle's? Yep.

1:42:43 Stunning. Stunning mansion?

1:42:45 Yep. Swimming pool.

1:42:47 And May, oh, but he couldn't leave.

1:42:49 We couldn't leave Emma. He was stuck.

1:42:51 There. Oh, he could leave, but he

1:42:52 needed a special he couldn't have.

1:42:53 Parties. Yeah, or drink alcohol.

1:43:00 On the 3rd of December in 2015, the Supreme Court of Appeal of

1:43:04 South Africa overturned Judge Masipa's culpable homicide

1:43:08 verdict. This was under Justice Eric

1:43:11 Leach, and he ruled that the implied intent of him firing

1:43:20 these hollow point bullets into this tiny little locked cubicle

1:43:23 would have definitely killed anybody inside.

1:43:25 Yep, Regardless of who he thought it was.

1:43:27 And he is officially at that point, convicted of murder.

1:43:30 Yep. Finally.

1:43:31 Oh yeah. Oh, yeah.

1:43:33 But but Yep, he goes back to sense sentencing.

1:43:38 And Judge Masiba is the judge who sentences him then for that

1:43:41 murder. For six years, he gets an

1:43:45 additional year for it being changed from manslaughter.

1:43:48 Oh no, no, it was to murder in addition to it was 13 years in.

1:43:52 Total No, that was the second. Oh, was it?

1:43:54 Oh God. OK, I'm getting ahead of myself.

1:43:55 Oh, we second. Appeal had they had to appeal

1:43:58 again. Sorry, you're absolutely right.

1:44:00 That was like another year later.

1:44:02 They had to go back again, the prosecution said.

1:44:04 This is ridiculous. Shockingly, how?

1:44:07 Can you lenient? Was what they said.

1:44:09 Yep, how can you go one year more for now, deciding it's

1:44:13 murder from manslaughter? I'm sorry, that's just.

1:44:16 What is wrong with her I? Don't get it?

1:44:19 But eventually he is sentenced to 13 years.

1:44:23 And five months which? Is five months.

1:44:24 Yep. But again, the statutory

1:44:26 statutory minimum for murder at the time was 15 years and he

1:44:31 only got 13 1/2. And then only served 9.

1:44:33 Yep. So.

1:44:35 After well served 9 but will. He's still.

1:44:40 Be on house. Arrest, he's under house arrest

1:44:42 kind of thing, but he's also, and he will be looked at closely

1:44:45 until 2029. So yeah, he's got an extensive

1:44:49 period of parole, but he is out on parole after nine years, so.

1:44:54 Yeah. So he was released on the 5th of

1:44:56 January in 2024. Yeah, on parole, Yeah.

1:45:02 He's not allowed to travel 2025, was it 20252025 he not allowed

1:45:07 to travel, alcohol restrictions, He's not allowed to talk to the

1:45:10 media and he has to do mandatory anger management.

1:45:14 Yes, courses there are stuff like that.

1:45:17 Therapy. Yeah, let's hope that that has

1:45:19 some sort of impact. But he's he's keeping a low

1:45:22 profile. He's still living at his

1:45:24 uncle's. Yeah.

1:45:25 Mansion, yeah. Yeah, he, he keeps a low

1:45:29 profile. He's he doesn't, he's not

1:45:30 competing obviously in sports and things like that.

1:45:32 Although he has done a triathlon recently.

1:45:35 And so which, you know, they say is sort of part of his mental

1:45:38 health and things like that, which I totally get that someone

1:45:40 who's been in that world needs to be exercising, etcetera.

1:45:44 It's you really have to do. Why don't you exercise around

1:45:47 your community? Why do you have to enter into an

1:45:48 event I? Guess, you know, competitively,

1:45:50 I don't know, I kind of can't argue with like, you know, at

1:45:52 least he's not going out there going, you know, like winning it

1:45:55 maybe or something. I don't know.

1:45:57 There's another video clip I saw of him, which really I found

1:46:00 disturbing before all this happened.

1:46:03 And it was actually not all that long after the 2012 Olympics

1:46:07 where I guess other people who have who are amputees, sort of

1:46:12 the technology around the blaze and things like that was

1:46:14 increasing. Yep.

1:46:15 And so he did. He was in a couple of events and

1:46:18 we're probably talking early 23rd, late 2012, early 2013 at

1:46:21 this point where he didn't win the event or if he did win, it

1:46:27 wasn't by as much as he was winning previously.

1:46:30 And so and after the event he had quite the dummy spit, which

1:46:34 was really interesting. That was on in an interview,

1:46:37 like at the end of the race where he was complaining about

1:46:41 the the fact that really he hadn't won.

1:46:45 So he was, he was making excuses.

1:46:47 Yes, he was like, well, they've got.

1:46:48 They've got Yeah. And he was, yeah.

1:46:51 Yeah, yeah. Just not a good sport.

1:46:53 No, it was very interesting to see him.

1:46:56 I don't know. He wasn't the Golden Boy.

1:46:58 I think they all wanted him to be, you know?

1:47:01 No, I think the facade definitely was starting to.

1:47:05 Yeah. To come down.

1:47:06 Yeah. Yeah.

1:47:08 People were seeing different things.

1:47:10 So where is he now? He's dating a woman who looks

1:47:15 strikingly like Reeva, and her name's Rita.

1:47:22 Oh. Honestly, they could be sisters.

1:47:25 I don't. Like that?

1:47:28 Very uncomfortable. Yeah, that does not sit well.

1:47:31 Rivas So in that insight episode I was just talking about before,

1:47:37 Reeva's mum talks about the impact of Reeva's death on hers

1:47:43 and Barry's relationship. Yeah.

1:47:45 So their marriage broke down after Reeva died, She said.

1:47:49 They just grieved in such different ways and it just

1:47:51 wasn't really compatible with each other.

1:47:55 Barry died in September of 2023. He was aged 80.

1:48:01 June still continues to speak out against Pistorius.

1:48:07 She has said she did say that she forgives him.

1:48:10 I think that's, I don't know how people do that.

1:48:12 No, but find that hard, find that I, I don't really

1:48:17 understand it. But she also acknowledges the

1:48:20 fact that, like, he's incredibly like, potentially dangerous to a

1:48:25 future partner. Yeah.

1:48:26 But she think he's doing the therapy.

1:48:28 And yeah, that's true, she said in a statement in January of

1:48:33 2024, when he was released. There can never be justice if

1:48:37 your loved one is never coming back.

1:48:40 And no amount of time served will bring Reeva back.

1:48:44 We who remain behind are the ones serving a life sentence.

1:48:49 And that's. It is so true, so true.

1:48:52 So, so true. Oh.

1:48:54 Gosh, because he's, I don't think he got as much as he

1:48:57 should have. No, in terms of a sentence for

1:49:00 it, particularly once it was reverted to a a murder charge.

1:49:04 Yeah, seems woefully inadequate. I wonder what will happen after

1:49:10 2029 and his paroles over. Like do you think he will come

1:49:13 back out in the meteor and try and spin his story?

1:49:16 I don't know. The people would have it.

1:49:17 I don't think the public would have it.

1:49:19 You and I were kind of discussing this a little bit

1:49:21 yesterday. But when I do.

1:49:22 I know, but we had to stop ourselves.

1:49:25 But I was saying to you, often when I'm, when we're

1:49:28 researching, I do like to try and get opinions from both sides

1:49:32 of the fence just for my own. Like I want wholeness and

1:49:37 completeness in my research. Of course, we always come up

1:49:39 with what we think and we let you guys know what our thoughts

1:49:42 are and what our theories are and who we believe and who we

1:49:44 don't. But I like for completeness to

1:49:47 try and get do a bit of research into the other side of the

1:49:50 story. Yeah.

1:49:51 I couldn't, aside from a few friends who have very tiny

1:49:55 little bits to say. Yeah, there's not really anyone

1:50:01 in on any mass scale anyway, who believes him.

1:50:04 No, and those that do don't agree with the recklessness of

1:50:10 what he did. They agree with the thought that

1:50:13 he might have had an intruder in his house, but they don't agree

1:50:17 with shooting that person in the way.

1:50:19 Regardless, they don't condone his no.

1:50:22 So that's where I feel like even if he did like, as you say, 2029

1:50:25 hits and does he come out in a bit of a media storm and, you

1:50:27 know, like, you know, try and go back to his old life, I don't

1:50:31 think that's going to be possible because even those

1:50:32 people that support him in some way are like, yeah, but mate,

1:50:36 you took it too far. You're still fucked up.

1:50:38 Yeah. Yeah.

1:50:39 Like, so there are people that I don't know that anyone, Yeah,

1:50:42 everyone it's to some degree can can agree that it's a minimum

1:50:46 man sort sort of sort of situation.

1:50:48 And in that a very reckless one. Yeah.

1:50:51 I think that's where we all can come at.

1:50:53 Whereas, I mean, some people then go to the next level and

1:50:55 go, no, he was a domestic violence abuser and this was

1:50:59 next level, you know, in some ways premeditated.

1:51:03 It's sort of idea of, you know, he's a, he was an aggressive

1:51:06 piece of shit. Yeah.

1:51:08 Yeah. Whereas some people go, no, no,

1:51:10 no. Like he honestly was just, you

1:51:11 know, paranoid and unfortunately took it too far and shot an

1:51:14 intruder. Like thought he was shooting an

1:51:16 intruder. Yeah.

1:51:17 I don't know how you can't think of your partner in the situation

1:51:20 of there being an intruder in your house and going first port

1:51:23 a call. That person I love.

1:51:25 Where are you? Because there's someone in our

1:51:27 house. That you just reminded me of

1:51:29 something that he said to Reeva's parents.

1:51:32 He's, and he said this in court when he was making a statement,

1:51:36 something along the lines of or at least raving you when she

1:51:40 died, that she was loved. No, fuck you.

1:51:45 No, the absolute opposite. Because even if you thought she

1:51:49 was an intruder, even if you are telling the absolute truth in

1:51:53 that you didn't think of her when there was an intruder in

1:51:57 your house, I knew. She was behind the door.

1:51:58 Meg. Exactly.

1:52:02 He knew what he was doing. Oh, that actually infuriates.

1:52:05 I know. Oh my God.

1:52:07 Yep, I can't. I'm like, you disgusting piece

1:52:10 of shit, How dare you say that to her parents?

1:52:13 How? How you dare you?

1:52:15 Yeah. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,

1:52:18 whoa. OK, I'm done.

1:52:20 Yep. Can't anymore.

1:52:22 Yep. All right.

1:52:23 Well, thank you everybody for joining us for another episode.

1:52:25 This has gone on. Oh my God, James.

1:52:27 So much for this being. Oh, there's not much to this.

1:52:29 Yeah, famous last. Oh, totally.

1:52:33 Make sure you come and join us over on Patreon.

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1:53:10 Lucky you, lucky I pity the person.

1:53:12 Oh, totally, I'm putting it on a T-shirt.

1:53:17 All right, thanks everyone. Stay curious.

1:53:19 Crime besties. Bye.

1:53:37 Oh, my God. Oh, sorry, sorry.

1:53:40 Oh, because your screen's like, frozen.

1:53:42 I didn't see like that you were gonna clap.

1:53:44 Oh, your screen's frozen for me too, all right.

1:53:46 Anyway. Is Peter working?

1:53:49 Yeah, well, is it work playing Fortnite It?

1:53:56 Better not be all right. 91 isn't it?

1:54:03 91 What episode 91? Sorry, I'm here are.

1:54:09 You. Are you actually the?

1:54:10 Coffee's not kicking in yet. No, no.

1:54:14 Welcome back to crime. Oh sorry, I just started while

1:54:17 you were drinking a coffee. This morning.

1:54:21 You know why? It's because the screens like.

1:54:24 Yeah, it's, it's not. I'm not seeing each other.

1:54:25 Yeah, I need to put you over the top of my screen.

1:54:28 Yeah, stuffed up. Well, anyway.