by BJW Nashe and Patrick H. Moore
South African police have completed their murder investigation into global track and field star and double-amputee Oscar Pistorius. He will appear in court next week on August 19th to formally receive detailed charges for the Valentine’s Day shooting of his girlfriend, noted model and budding reality TV star, Reeva Steenkamp.
Nicknamed “Blade Runner” for the prostheses he wears in competition, Pistorius was released on bail in February after being charged with murder. The August 19th hearing is expected to be brief and procedural.
In an affadavit to the court submitted in February, Oscar claimed that he woke up in the middle of the night and thought he heard an intruder in his house. He grabbed a 9 mm gun and ended up firing it at the door of a bathroom, which was locked. He assumed, so the story goes, that an intruder was in the bathroom. In fact, Reeva Steenkamp was inside. When Oscar smashed the door open, he found her crouched beside the toilet, bleeding from three gunshot wounds. He called the manager of the gated community, who summoned an ambulance. Then Oscar carried Reeva downstairs, laid her on the floor, and attempted to resuscitate her.
Police stated on Tuesday they had used forensic experts, ballistics experts, psychologists and technology experts to investigate the February 14th shooting death of Ms. Steenkamp at Pistorius’s upmarket Pretoria home. They have rejected his claims that the shooting was accidental.
“It is expected that he will be served with an indictment and that the matter will be postponed. The prosecution, in collaboration with the defense team, will agree on a trial date,” police said in a statement.
In the South African legal system, an indictment is a more detailed charge sheet that is used to move a case from a lower court to a high court.
This case has not been handled particularly well from the standpoint of the prosecution. South African law enforcement was forced to replace their original lead detective when it emerged he was facing attempted murder charges for shooting at a minibus. The new investigator, appointed in late February, has handled some of the country’s highest-profile cases.
Pistorius was one of the most celebrated athletes of the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics in London. He qualified for the Olympic 400 meter semifinal and won the Paralympic gold for the same distance.
In South Africa, his triumph over adversity made him a hero for both blacks and whites, transcending the racial divides that persist 19 years after the end of apartheid and his arrest and subsequent murder charge a few months later shocked millions around the world.
As All Things Crime Blog reported back in May, however, that at some point, the sports celebrity apparently turned into a self-centered hothead ready to lash out at anyone who stood in his way. The Blade Runner eventually turned into Bladezilla:
- In 2009, Pistorius was arrested for assault, after he allegedly slammed a door on a woman hard enough to cause injuries. The charges were subsequently dropped.
- In 2009, Pistorius slammed his speedboat into a pier on the Vaal River, breaking his jaw and several ribs and damaging an eye socket. When he emerged from a three-day coma, he had 180 stitches in his face.
- In 2011, he stormed out of an interview with the BBC when they asked him a question he considered unpleasant.
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When Pistorius lost to Brazil’s Alan Fonteles Cardoso Oliveira in the 200 meters at the 2012 Paralympic Games, he criticized the winner for having longer blades than he did.
- A roommate at the Olympic Village in London described Oscar as continually yelling at people on the phone.
- After the Olympics, Pistorius’s friends reportedly changed from “the good old lads” to “the Southern Jo’burg tattooed skinhead-gang type.” These guys tended to indulge in violence and rage as an outlet for any kind of feeling.
- Subsisting on a diet of caffeine pills and energy drinks, Pistorius threw tantrums in the gym. Unable to sleep, he’d head out to the shooting range with one of his many firearms. He liked to boast on Twitter about his marksmanship. “Bam! 96% on head shots!”
- Pistorius kept a pit bull and a bull terrier as pets, not strange in itself. Add two white tigers that he eventually had to sell to a zoo once they grew to 400 lbs and things get a little weird.
- He had a string of blonde girlfriends, toward whom he reportedly exhibited controlling behavior.
- Pistorius threatened a coal-mining magnate who was seeing one of his former girlfriends. He also threatened to break the legs of a soccer player who tried to diffuse the situation. A newspaper story reporting on the incident claimed that Oscar was carrying guns with him wherever he went.
- In January 2013, Pistorius was dining out with friends. One friend had a pistol, which he passed under the table to Oscar. The gun went off, and a bullet narrowly missed the foot of another of Oscar’s buddies.
- At the time, perhaps all of these incidents could simply be seen as evidence of the trappings of machismo. Nothing here rises the level of serious crime. That would change, however, on the morning of February 14, 2013, when Reeva Steenkamp was somehow shot to death in the bathroom of Pistorius’s home.
Ms. Steenkamp was by all accounts a highly intelligent, very motivated, and strikingly beautiful young woman. Although she had a law degree, and graduated at the top of her class, she decided to pursue her dreams of success through modeling, and then by starring on a reality television show. Ironically, she was an outspoken advocate for women’s rights issues. She met Oscar Pistorius near the end of 2012, and was evidently attracted to his personal magnetism, as well as his level of success and affluence. Oscar pursued her ferociously, which led to steady dating. We don’t know much about the couple’s brief affair. Some remarked that the two “looked great together.” Others had misgivings, largely due to Oscar’s growing reputation for trouble.
These misgivings have proven to be correct.
Pistorius has kept largely out of the public eye since his release on bail in February.
Click here to view our earlier post on Oscar Pistorius:
Oscar Pistorius, From Blade Runner to Bladezilla: What Will be Revealed at His Upcoming Murder Trial?