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Subscribe to RSSThe Olympic superstar appeared in a South African court Tuesday where he explained that he had accidentally shot his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, because he mistakenly suspected she was an intruder. Prosecutors, however, aren't buying it. NBC's Michelle Kosinski reports.
“Blade Runner” Oscar Pistorius said Tuesday that he had heard a noise in the bathroom and felt “a sense of terror” on the night he fatally shot his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, insisting he thought someone had broken into his South Africa home.
In a statement read to a court hearing, the double-amputee Olympic and Paralympic star wrote that he loved Steenkamp "deeply." He also said he had received death threats in the past and kept a firearm beside his bed.
Earlier Tuesday, Prosecutor Gerrie Nel insisted there was nothing to support Pistorius’ claim that he feared there was an intruder in the house when he killed Steenkamp. She was shot dead through the door of a small bathroom in Pistorius’ home in a suburb of Pretoria early on Valentine’s Day.
Nel said she had "nowhere" to go and her death must have been "horrific," insisting Pistorius was guilty of premeditated murder.
The NBC Olympic and "Rock Center" correspondent spent a week over the summer with Oscar Pistorius and tells NBC's David Gregory that he was a "gun guy" who was worried about his safety and security.
The claims were made at a bail hearing -- described as a “little trial” by one expert -- that is being held to determine whether Pistorius should be freed pending trial.
Magistrate Desmond Nair ruled that Pistorius would face a charge of premeditated murder, but the hearing was adjourned until Wednesday morning.
As the defense and prosecution lawyers argued, the family and friends of the slain model and law-school graduate Steenkamp held a tearful funeral in her hometown.
As his statement was read to the court, Pistorius sobbed uncontrollably at times, prompting Nair to say, "I know it's difficult. ... I'm going to find it difficult to concentrate. ... Maintain your composure."
'She died in my arms'
The statement denied "in the strongest terms" that Pistorius had deliberately killed Steenkamp, adding that the athlete was "deeply in love'' with her, according to Reuters.
"I had no intention to kill my girlfriend," the statement said.
According to Pistorius' account, he and Steenkamp had decided to "have a quiet dinner together at home" and by about 10 p.m. they had retired to his bedroom, where she was doing yoga as he was lying down and watching television. After finishing her yoga, she got into bed with him and the two fell asleep, Pistorius' statement said.
During the early morning hours, it said, Pistorius woke up and went to his bedroom balcony to bring a fan inside and close the sliding glass doors and blinds.
"I heard a noise in my bathroom. ... I felt a sense of terror. ... I believed that someone had entered my house. ... I grabbed my 9mm pistol," it said.
Pistorius' statement said contractors had been working at his house and had left ladders outside, and there were no security bars on the bathroom window. The bathroom contained a separate toilet area with its own door.
“As I did not have my prosthetic legs on I felt extremely vulnerable. I had to protect Reeva and myself. ... I felt trapped as my bedroom door was locked and I have limited mobility on my stumps,” it said.
The statement then described Pistorius hearing movement inside the bathroom. "I fired shots at the toilet door and shouted at Reeva to phone the police," it said. "She did not respond and I moved backwards out of the bathroom, keeping my eyes on the bathroom entrance. Everything was pitch dark in the bedroom and I was still too scared to switch on a light. Reeva was not responding.
"When I reached the bed, I realized that Reeva was not in bed. That is when it dawned on me that it could have been Reeva who was in the toilet."
The statement also described Pistorius trying to open the locked bathroom door but failing, then grabbing a cricket bat to smash open the door. "Reeva was slumped over but alive. I battled to get her out of the toilet and pulled her into the bathroom."
Pistorius’ statement said that moments after the shooting he “picked Reeva up as I'd been told not to wait for the paramedics. ... She died in my arms.”
Earlier in the hearing, Nel said Steenkamp had arrived in Pistorius' home sometime between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. on the night before she died.
There was "no possible explanation to support" Pistorius' claim that he thought Steenkamp was an intruder, Nel said.
And he added that even if Steenkamp had been an intruder, the shooting would still have been the murder of a burglar.
Nel said Pistorius had armed himself, put on his prosthetic legs, walked to the bathroom and shot Steenkamp several times through the locked door as she sat on the toilet. "She locked that door for a purpose," Nel said.
"If I arm myself, walk a distance and murder a person, that is premeditated," he said, according to Reuters. "The door is closed. There is no doubt. I walk seven meters (just over 22 feet) and I kill."
"The motive is 'I want to kill.' That's it," he added. "This deceased was in a 1.4- (4.5 feet) by 1.14-meter little room. She could go nowhere. It must have been horrific."
The prosecutor also asked why a burglar would have locked himself inside the bathroom.
After the shooting, Pistorius carried Steenkamp downstairs, where he met a security guard and a friend, according to the prosecution, and told them that he had thought she had been an intruder.
Pistorius' defense argued the sports star was not guilty of murder for that reason.
The defense lawyer claimed other husbands had shot their wives thinking they were intruders and asked, "Where's the premeditation?"
Following the defense's statements, Nel said he was now "more convinced" about what happened.
Karyn Maughan, legal correspondent for South Africa news channel ENCA, told NBC's TODAY that if a premeditated murder charge stands, there would be dire consequences for Pistorius.
“If he can’t prove that her death was unintentional, then it is unlikely he will get bail and he also faces a life sentence in jail,” she said. “He must try to convince the court he shot her in confusion, thinking she was an intruder."
Pistorius has hired his own high-profile forensic expert to analyze the police reports and post-mortem exam, ENCA reported. His defense team includes lawyer Kenny Oldwage, who previously won an acquittal for a driver accused of killing Nelson Mandela's great-grandchild in a 2010 accident.
'Why my little girl?'
Model and law-school graduate Steenkamp's relatives are hoping for answers.
"Why my little girl?" her mother, June Steenkamp, said in an interview with The Times of Johannesburg, calling her bubbly, blond daughter "the most beautiful person who ever lived."
"All we have is this horrendous death to deal with ... to get to grips with," she said. "All we want are answers ... answers as to why this had to happen, why our beautiful daughter had to die like this."
Steenkamp's family and friends gathered at a 90-seat chapel in Port Elizabeth, where Steenkamp grew up, for her funeral.
"She's my little sister and she's gone," her brother, Adam, told ENCA. "There is a big hole there that cannot be filled by anything else."
Steenkamp and Pistorius had been dating for about three months, and she tweeted a Valentine's Day message hours before her death.
The track star, who captivated the world when he became the first double-amputee to run in the Olympics at last summer's London Games, was a gun enthusiast who once took a reporter writing a profile of him to a firing range.
A South African newspaper reported Monday that he nearly shot a friend by accident while handling another friend's gun at a Johannesburg restaurant.
"I had quite a fright because the bullet hit the ground centimeters from my foot," boxer Kevin Lerena told the Beeld newspaper, according to Agence France-Presse.
"For some reason it got caught on his trousers, flipped the safety pin and a shot went off. I wouldn't say he was negligent. Days afterwards he was still apologizing."
NBC News Staff Writers Ian Johnston and John Newland and Reuters contributed to this report.
Related:
Mother of Pistorius' slain girlfriend: 'Why my little girl?'
Agent: Sponsors sticking by Oscar Pistorius
Oscar Pistorius' agent cancels races
This story was originally published on Tue Feb 19, 2013 2:01 AM EST
Leave a Comment:
If this man gets away with this murder I can't ever believe in the justice system anywhere because he shot through a bathroom door where she was hiding from him after he hit her in the head.
But all of us have to wait for the blood type to come back on the stick before we start throwing stones at anyone and that is a fact.
That was my first thought, he was beating her with the bat she ran into the bathroom to get away, as his rage settled a bit, he thought to shoot her and make up the intruder story to cover his beating her...thus the locked bathroom door, now he had to bust the door open to get her out, strange, strange outcome to a breakup of a girl and guy....just so very sad....like others posted "drugs" ?
An obvious suicide - she shot herself through a locked door. Where's Johnny Cochran when we need him?
I've read most of the articles concerning this story. I believe this is what happened. They had an altercation. The neighbors heard the noise. At some point he picked up a cricket ball and hit her in the head with it. She ran into the bathroom and locked the door. He followed. He tried to break the door in. She stood against the door to prevent him from getting in. He retrieved his gun and shot through the door four times. She fell backward against the sink. He broke in the door and saw her body laying there. He picked her up and moved her body to another room. He made several phone calls. Then he tried to revive her body. It was cold blooded murder carried out by a overly spoiled person that is use to having his way.
It is so sad that he want admit his own guilt. To say that he loved her is a disgrace. He didn't love her. He just wanted to possess her like he possess all his other trophy. But the problem was his human possession had a mind of its own. He couldn't accept this. So he terminated it.
I agree. That's exactly how it happened. I also believe that the steroids exacerbated his anger to the point that he wasn't thinking clearly before he bashed and then shot her. Not that it's an excuse....I hope he rots in jail.
For anyone out there using steroids, be warned. Roid rage is a reality. It can ruin your life just as surely as getting into a car drunk and killing someone will.
Pistorius: it doesn't make sense already. If an "intruder" is in the bathroom, with the door locked, that is about as safe a place where an intruder can be. And btw, when you got up of your bed, put on your legs, and did not see Reeva next to you, who you think was in that bathroom. And those women screams, did they not sound like..your girlfriend's?
This guy is a killer and we didn't know him. And Reeva didn't know him.
ZIVO24 : I do not think the "London newspapers" is like the "Inquirer" quit spreading your disinformation but I think he did it but its up to the jury people to decide.
If Pistorius thought that there was an intruder in his bathroom (which I think we all know by this point that he didn't), wouldn't a, "Who's in there?" be warranted instead of firing multiple shots through the door? This way, his girlfriend could have responded with a simple, "It's me." and none of this would have happened.
Yep.
Didn't the police respond to a domestic violence call at this house earlier in the night? And if you suspected that there was an intruder, wouldn't you make sure you knew where your girlfriend was in order to protect her? This guy got really angry and shot her and now regrets that she's dead. That's one of the problems of using a gun - it's a tool designed to be very easy to use and very efficient when killing people. It doesn't surprise me that he will regret for years the actions he took in a couple seconds.
He regrets that he will spend the rest of his life in prison (hopefully).
Some people call it a sling blade, ah huh...I call it a foot.
I think someone broke into my house and is hiding in the bathroom so i will put on my blades and run fast as i can out of the house and i'm fast ! However, choice #2 is i'll put on my blades take my 9 mm pistol and shoot through the door at whoever may be in their risking of course being shot by that someone thru the door also ! BETTER RETHINK YOUR DEFENSE BUDDY BOY !
he's rich, he's white, he's in south africa. do you really need any more information than that?
for a man who has set out to prove so much he now wants to whine about it?
there is one thing he can do that would rectify this entire situation, MAN UP..........stop lying and trying to make excuses and cover your ass and MAN UP.......which is the last thing this sniveling little pric..k will ever do.
this entire situation has me shaking my head in absolute disgust. and knowing it will only get worse.
it's such a tragedy that a man who accomplished so much, who inspired so many can in the end be a pathetic, sniveling, lying, whining, coward.
as to her, what a horrid tragedy. she got thru law school and was purported to be intelligent. yet even after police were called for domestic violence she stayed? really? how intelligent was that?
makes a person wonder in absolute stupefied confusion what is the matter with people.
You are so right. I've seen so many women do the same thing. Some women allow men to abuse them for years, and refused to leave them. This man don't want you. He only tolerate you because no other woman wants him. And he know your self-esteem is lowered than his. I am so proud of my sisters. I have seen them kicked many guys to the curb just for saying the wrong thing. A lick, you are going to jail.
A rich spoiled person killing other rich spoiled person. I have no sympathy of either.
You have no sympathy for an innocent person who was murdered in cold blood? That's pretty harsh.
number, one.... was she there that night and did they go to bed together? if so he knew she was in the house, two,, does an intruder come to your house to do you harm or rob you but decide to go to the bathroom first then come hurt you or steal from you. this story has so many holes in it .. after he probably didthis , he didnt call paramedics but friends where he could spin any story and he had to get his so called story out there if there have been reports of domestic abuse prior to this, and it was with her , she should have gotten out .. i dont know why these women stay with abusive men,, how sad for her, and her family whose lives are forever changed .. for him to say he had to defend himself, he had time to put on his leg, look for her, but with the so called intruder in the bathroom how the heck was he in fear for his life.. this story is a joke
Hey c'mon, people. Let's talk about basic human rights. Intruders have the absolute right to use the toilet!
Jealousy and insecurity...a fatal combination in this case.
Lets take some emotion out of this for just a moment and honestly think of what seems more plausible: That he woken from a noise he heard, thought someone was burglarizing his home and he took the gun with him to where he heard the suspected intruder and shot (there were previous problems with break-ins at the home) or, that for no reason that anyone can point to, he woke from a sound sleep, loaded his gun, put on his prosthetics and shot his girlfriend through the door for no apparent reason. Now, as we go through this, we may find that they have been fighting or whatever but, at this point, I think the more plausible course of events is what he indicates happened. Innocent until proved guilty, remember; we have become way, way to quick to judge simply because the press has told us what we should believe.
OMG! Are you REALLY that ignorant? Good grief, what school of nonsense did you just graduate from?
Are you insane?! You need your head examined.
This guy's story just doesn't add up. I don't believe he has a leg to stand on.
Have only heard that joke about 35,000,000 times since this happened.
She was a law school grad but was not smart enough to see this guy was an arrogant, no good person?
Obviously, she was using his newfound fame to help promote her modeling career. Be careful what you wish for.
Really? And you know this how exactly? She was already a rising star before she started dating him 3 MONTHS AGO! She was on the cover of FHM in 2011 and was voted "top 100 most beautiful women" 2 years running. So again, what facts do you have here or is this just blind conjecture?
Po little tink-tink!
youtube.com/watch?v=_qlNEmpxQxI
Most people born with a physical handicap do not grow up to enjoy doing physical things like hunting etc. How did this healthy looking perp become an amputee athlete in the first place? Being given the gift of running and running in "track and field" is not the same as hunting. So, how did this perp suddenly have love for a gun to own one? He's whites and live in South Africa? and he uses excuse to own a gun like he lives in inner city america?
then this perp uses legal defense like he lives in europe? i.e. he took gun to protect visiting girlfriend he said, heard noise inside closed door bathroom, and shoot his gun through door to kill noises inside bathroom? And that's how his girlfriend got kill?
Well, I kind of recall hearing/reading some news in the past where some white dude uses gun to shoot a home buglar in the same manner, but not sure if it was in south africa or australia or even mediterranean europe...
You're an idiot. The guy was born without the bones in his lower legs. I personally know of plenty of people far more disabled than this guy that hunt, fish, swim, and do all sorts of things. There are plenty of white people living in South Africa. They don't allow whites to immigrate there so he was BORN there. Gee what a moron.
If you think it's odd that he owns a gun like he lives in "inner city america" I suggest you go there and see how dangerous this place is for yourself. He also can use the legal defense "like he lives in Europe" because they have the same legal system as Great Britain. I'm surprised at how uneducated people like you can even find MSN.
Randall-3860330,
geezwhiz, Randall-3860330, I got it figure that white people have it good in South Africa, even after apartheid, white people still make excuses to own a gun. I means to say I see no white people living in slums and using sheet metal for roof and walls if they can afford to. So, like you says, there are plenty of white people and they not slumming and still making excuses like you Randall-3860330. So, "whites" can't immigrate to South Africa? does that means you know more white people immigrating to south Africa then you know worser physically handicap people who enjoy playing football ?
Does your excuses for owning a gun and living in south africa is nothing but excuses for a white guy to live in south africa to own gun to kill white people since apartheid is over and they can't kill africans anymore like that?
Are you a moron like that to yourself and people with holy see and church going? Well anyone christians like Randall-3860330 wanna speak up?
Jujubefruit, I can't even follow your sentences. And I agree with Randall.
this story is just simply tragic... If he indeed shot accidentally out of fear of an intruder.. that's tragic. What an enormous guilt to live under. If he shot her out of anger or jealousy and his grief is actually signs of remorse.. thats sickening. Her life is gone and can't be replaced... and his life is gone now too... so sad.
All I can say is that if you haven't spent time in South Africa, you don't have any context in which to make a statement. I saw horrific killings there and I was only there for two weeks. Imagine having a radio station in every large city in which to obtain sniper reports. Imagine people killed on a scale that it doesn't even make the news and mostly they are killed not for money or food but for weapons.
Personally I can see how this could have possibly happened. I heard many many stories of people that were killed for no reason at all and the wealthy or people that owned property or weapons were especially targeted. In that country the chinese hate the indians, the indians hate the blacks and they ALL hate the whites.
Believe me, this fellow is white. He won't get justice in South Africa.
I sure hope he doesn't hobble around on his two "stumps" or artificial limbs in hopes of getting sympathy. That trick certainly can't work considering he just competed in the Olympics.
Guilty a** f***er!!!
He isnt nothing but a little rich piece of crap, and now trying to get out of his crime, life in prison is to good for him, kill him, give him a death sentence down with this murderess dog
He loved her..yes that's possible. ( I would too, great looking young lady).
Its also possible he was the jealous type of person.
Love is blind.
Bottom line the Roids kicked in and he committied murder. Hang the bastard.
Sounds like he was just exercising his second amendment right to me. If anyone comes into your house, you have the right to blast away (less questions that way). He was just protecting himself.
Sam, I pray to God that you have the same opportunity to blow away one of your love ones. Maybe one of your grand kids would come home from college, and go straight to the powder room.. You then mistaken the child for an intruder and shot through the lock door until the child is dead. Or perhaps you and your spouse have an altercation. You hit her upside the head with a golf club, She runs to the powder room and locks the door. You retrieve your revolver, and fired through the door hitting her several times ubtil she is dead. You call the authority and say you were just exercising your second amendment.