Olympic runner says he shot girlfriend through door
PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) - Oscar Pistorius told a packed courtroom Tuesday that he shot his girlfriend to death by mistake, thinking she was a robber. The prosecutor called it premeditated murder.
The double amputee said in an affidavit read by his lawyer at his bail hearing that he felt vulnerable because he did not have on his prosthetic legs when he pumped bullets into the locked bathroom door. Then, Pistorius said in the sworn statement, he realized that model Reeva Steenkamp was not in his bed.
"It filled me with horror and fear," he said.
He put on his prosthetic legs, tried to kick down the door, then bashed it in with a cricket bat to find Steenkamp, 29, shot inside. He said he ran downstairs with her, but "she died in my arms."
Prosecutor Gerrie Nel on Tuesday charged the 26-year-old athlete and Olympian with premeditated murder, alleging he took the time to put on his legs and walk some seven meters (yards) from the bed to the bathroom door before opening fire. A conviction of premeditated murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in jail.
The Valentine's Day shooting death has shocked South Africans and many around the world who idolized Pistorius for overcoming adversity to become a sports champion, competing in the London Olympics last year in track besides being a Paralympian. Steenkamp was a model and law graduate who made her debut on a South African reality TV program that was broadcast on Saturday, two days after her death.
The magistrate ruled that Pistorius faces the harshest bail requirements available in South African law.
Nel told the court that Pistorius fired into the door of a small bathroom where Steenkamp was cowering after a shouting match. He fired four times and three bullets hit Steenkamp, the prosecutor said.
"She couldn't go anywhere. You can run nowhere," prosecutor Nel argued. "It must have been horrific."
Pistorius sobbed softly as his lawyer, Barry Roux, insisted the shooting was an accident and that there was no evidence to substantiate a murder charge.
"Was it to kill her, or was it to get her out?" he asked about the broken-down door. "We submit it is not even murder. There is no concession this is a murder."
He said the state had provided no evidence that the couple quarreled nor offered a motive.
Nel rebutted: "The motive is 'I want to kill.'"
There were affadavits from friends of Pistorius and Steenkamp read out by defense lawyer Roux in the bail hearing.
The statements described a charming, happy couple. The night before the killing, they said, Pistorius and Steenkamp had canceled separate plans to spend the night before Valentine's Day together at his home.
As details emerged at the dramatic court hearing in the capital, Steenkamp's body was being cremated Tuesday at a memorial service in the south-coast port city of Port Elizabeth. The family said members had arrived from around the world. Six pallbearers carried her coffin, draped with a white cloth and covered in white flowers, into the church for the private service.
June Steenkamp, the mother, said the family wants answers.
"Why? Why my little girl? Why did this happen? Why did he do this?" she said in an interview published Monday in The Times newspaper.
Outside the court, several dozen singing women protested against domestic violence and waved placards urging Pistorius be refused bail. "Pistorius must rot in jail," one placard said.
South Africa has some of the world's worst rates of violence against females and the highest rate in the world of women killed by an intimate partner, according to a study by the Medical Research Council. Another council study estimates a child or woman is raped every four minutes. While homicide rates have dropped, the number of women killed by current or former partners has increased, said the council's Professor Rachel Jewkes. At least three women are killed by a partner every day in the country of 50 million, she said.
Steenkamp campaigned actively against domestic violence and had tweeted on Twitter that she planned to join a "Black Friday" protest by wearing black in honor of a 17-year-old girl who was gang-raped and mutilated two weeks ago.
What "she stood for, and the abuse against women, unfortunately it's gone right around and I think the Lord knows that statement is more powerful now," her uncle and the family spokesman Mike Steenkamp said after her memorial.
He said the family had planned a big get-together at Christmas but that had not been possible. "But we are here today as a family and the only one who's missing is Reeva," he said, breaking down and weeping.
Pistorius was born without fibula bones and had his legs amputated when he was 11 months old.
The man known as the Blade Runner because of his running prostheses has lost several valuable sponsorships estimated to be worth more than $1 million a year.
On Tuesday, the athlete was ousted from a pro-gay campaign being launched in Cape Town, organizers said. In a video axed from the campaign, Pistorius says "You don't have to worry. You don't have to change. Take a deep breath and remember, 'It will get better.'"=
The double amputee said in an affidavit read by his lawyer at his bail hearing that he felt vulnerable because he did not have on his prosthetic legs when he pumped bullets into the locked bathroom door. Then, Pistorius said in the sworn statement, he realized that model Reeva Steenkamp was not in his bed.
"It filled me with horror and fear," he said.
He put on his prosthetic legs, tried to kick down the door, then bashed it in with a cricket bat to find Steenkamp, 29, shot inside. He said he ran downstairs with her, but "she died in my arms."
Prosecutor Gerrie Nel on Tuesday charged the 26-year-old athlete and Olympian with premeditated murder, alleging he took the time to put on his legs and walk some seven meters (yards) from the bed to the bathroom door before opening fire. A conviction of premeditated murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in jail.
The Valentine's Day shooting death has shocked South Africans and many around the world who idolized Pistorius for overcoming adversity to become a sports champion, competing in the London Olympics last year in track besides being a Paralympian. Steenkamp was a model and law graduate who made her debut on a South African reality TV program that was broadcast on Saturday, two days after her death.
The magistrate ruled that Pistorius faces the harshest bail requirements available in South African law.
Nel told the court that Pistorius fired into the door of a small bathroom where Steenkamp was cowering after a shouting match. He fired four times and three bullets hit Steenkamp, the prosecutor said.
"She couldn't go anywhere. You can run nowhere," prosecutor Nel argued. "It must have been horrific."
Pistorius sobbed softly as his lawyer, Barry Roux, insisted the shooting was an accident and that there was no evidence to substantiate a murder charge.
"Was it to kill her, or was it to get her out?" he asked about the broken-down door. "We submit it is not even murder. There is no concession this is a murder."
He said the state had provided no evidence that the couple quarreled nor offered a motive.
Nel rebutted: "The motive is 'I want to kill.'"
There were affadavits from friends of Pistorius and Steenkamp read out by defense lawyer Roux in the bail hearing.
The statements described a charming, happy couple. The night before the killing, they said, Pistorius and Steenkamp had canceled separate plans to spend the night before Valentine's Day together at his home.
As details emerged at the dramatic court hearing in the capital, Steenkamp's body was being cremated Tuesday at a memorial service in the south-coast port city of Port Elizabeth. The family said members had arrived from around the world. Six pallbearers carried her coffin, draped with a white cloth and covered in white flowers, into the church for the private service.
June Steenkamp, the mother, said the family wants answers.
"Why? Why my little girl? Why did this happen? Why did he do this?" she said in an interview published Monday in The Times newspaper.
Outside the court, several dozen singing women protested against domestic violence and waved placards urging Pistorius be refused bail. "Pistorius must rot in jail," one placard said.
South Africa has some of the world's worst rates of violence against females and the highest rate in the world of women killed by an intimate partner, according to a study by the Medical Research Council. Another council study estimates a child or woman is raped every four minutes. While homicide rates have dropped, the number of women killed by current or former partners has increased, said the council's Professor Rachel Jewkes. At least three women are killed by a partner every day in the country of 50 million, she said.
Steenkamp campaigned actively against domestic violence and had tweeted on Twitter that she planned to join a "Black Friday" protest by wearing black in honor of a 17-year-old girl who was gang-raped and mutilated two weeks ago.
What "she stood for, and the abuse against women, unfortunately it's gone right around and I think the Lord knows that statement is more powerful now," her uncle and the family spokesman Mike Steenkamp said after her memorial.
He said the family had planned a big get-together at Christmas but that had not been possible. "But we are here today as a family and the only one who's missing is Reeva," he said, breaking down and weeping.
Pistorius was born without fibula bones and had his legs amputated when he was 11 months old.
The man known as the Blade Runner because of his running prostheses has lost several valuable sponsorships estimated to be worth more than $1 million a year.
On Tuesday, the athlete was ousted from a pro-gay campaign being launched in Cape Town, organizers said. In a video axed from the campaign, Pistorius says "You don't have to worry. You don't have to change. Take a deep breath and remember, 'It will get better.'"=
He's lying she ran into the bathroom to get away from him, that's what girls do when they are afraid.
No more investigation needed I got it all figured out.
Steroidal rage?? Think so !
Bull shi%!!! And, she didn't holler after the first shot?
His story is so outrageously unbelievable and I am shocked he thinks people are dumb enough to buy it. I simply cannot wait to hear the official evidence. Trajectories of the bullets (to determine whether he had his legs on or not when he shot her), forensics on the bat, forensics regarding her body, etc...they will be very telling and I have a suspicion they won't tell the same story he is.Â
Some reports of steroid use. Steroids turned my bro from a man I was proud of, a Marine, a super intelligent dude but who had s slight anger issue. He got into body building in a major way, now he's an enormous pile of seething anger, a musclebound landmine, the Incredible Hulk who is in full green-guy mode 24/7. Sad.
He sounds badass!
Gets up, hears a noise in the bathroom, and grabs his weapon and shoots, in the dark, through a closed door, doesn't even check to see if it's his chick. Possibly the most negligent killing ever. If I woke up and someone was in the bathroom I'd think it was a family member first! (dumb f**k).
I don't believe he did it "on purpose", of course the bat had blood on it, I'd bet there was a lot of blood, she was breathing when he picked her up so no doubt bleeding profusely, he carried her over the bat, she bled on it. No where does it say her head was bashed.
No doubt this guy committed a crime, for ultimate stupidity.
He's creepy. Steroids. Guns. Violence. Jealousy. Murder.Â
@KKStJohn Not to mention the Kangaroo legs
I read somewhere else that the autospy revealed that her body had been moved and also her skull was fractured after she was shot with the bat he used to "knock the door down"
He felt vulnerable without his legs? A gun will fix that, I guess. Jesus.
He must have some cool stuff to rob in his bathroom. I guess in South Africa you blindly shoot first then later find out what you hit / killed.
Sounds like US military policy.
@TimBurr And that doesn't happen in this country? I recall the old guy who went into his garage in Salem and saw some and shot him and asked questions later. Turned out the kids was drunk and confused and laying on the garage floor. So don't get so uppity about what this country doesn't do. This country is only slightly better than South Africa and Columbia in the rate gun-related violence per year. Something we should be proud of.
In South Africa, sometimes it pays to do just that! The bad guys all carry machine guns.
Pretty hard to believe a guy would wake up, fail to notice his girlfriend is no longer in his bed, then just assume the person behind a locked bathroom door is a burglar. If he did not see or hear anything from the "burglar," what prompted the deadly force? Wouldn't a normal person say something like, "Reeva, is that you?" Isn't one of the cardinal rules of firearms safety to properly identify your target? For that matter, wouldn't a normal person take the opportunity to leave the room and/or call the police?
These two people had a volatile relationship and it does not surprise me this happened, especially on Valentine's Day, when the expectation for romance or intimacy is high. Oscar Pistorius sounds like any other turd who knows he's murdered someone in cold blood, and now he has to make himself the victim ("she died in my arms") and try to talk his way out of it.
I believe him.
Personally, I don't think this guy has a leg to stand on.
I guess we will have to wait until the investigation is over. Â Unless they come up with something, he looks very guilty. Â His idea of being vulnerable because he didn't have his prosthetic legs on sounds like BS. Â He had a gun. Â He didn't need to run anywhere.
@Shadow I get fear can be a difficult thing, but this man does not strike me as the type to "shy" away from anything, much less an intruder.
This story has legs.