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- [00:00]
Morgan Abshur
Seems like this was an extremely loud, volatile argument. The pendulum swung hard in the other direction.
- [00:08]
Kayla Moore
They describe these gunshots as bang, bang, bang, bang.
- [00:26]
Morgan Abshur
Hi guys. Welcome back to clues, where we sneak past the crime scene tape to explore key evidence behind some of the most gripping true crime cases.
- [00:33]
Kayla Moore
I'm Kayla Moore and I'm going to be diving deeper into the timelines, backstories and the court files related to these cases.
- [00:39]
Morgan Abshur
And I'm your Internet sleuth Morgan Abshur. I'm the one who's diving into the Reddit forums, the news articles, and anything else I can find online to pull up the threads that just don't add up. And there's a lot of them with today's case.
- [00:51]
Kayla Moore
And just a reminder at Crime House, we value your support. So please share your thoughts on social media and remember to rate, review and follow clues to help others discover the show. And for bonus episodes, early access and ad free listening, join our Crime House plus community on Apple Podcasts Today we are talking about the murder of Riva Steenkamp at the hands of her boyfriend, Olympian Oscar Pistorius in 2012. Oscar was known as the Blade Runner and he made history as the first double leg amputee to compete in the Olympics for years track. But less than a year later, he found a very different kind of fame when he shot and killed his girlfriend Reva Steenkamp in his own home.
- [01:28]
Morgan Abshur
Oscar claimed it was a tragic accident. He thought he was shooting a burglar hiding in his bathroom. But prosecutors told a very different story. They said Oscar was a bitter, abusive boyfriend who murdered Reva in a moment of passion. But let's really unpack this case and all the clues that defined it right after this.
- [01:50]
Kayla Moore
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Morgan Abshur
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Morgan Abshur
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Kayla Moore
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Morgan Abshur
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Kayla Moore
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- [02:23]
Morgan Abshur
Okay, how much did you know about this case before diving into the research for our episode?
- [02:29]
Kayla Moore
I remember being in college when this happened and I remember everyone's first reaction. At least here in the United States was South Africa is so dangerous.
- [02:38]
Morgan Abshur
So, oddly, I don't really remember anything about this case, which is weird because, like, I was obsessed with the Olympics. I feel like the Olympics come on and, like, I'm locked into the TV the whole month, basically. But my fiance Justin was like, oh, I knew about that. That case was really big.
- [02:55]
Kayla Moore
I remember it being a huge deal that he ran in the Olympics the year before. I remember watching the 2012 Olympics a lot, and that was like, a huge deal. Weirdly enough, I actually feel like we talked about it in the United States, even though this was a South African case that happened. But then not long after this case happened, the Boston bombing happened, and then I think everyone stopped talking about it.
- [03:16]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah.
- [03:16]
Kayla Moore
News cycle shifted. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So it was interesting to really deep dive.
- [03:21]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah.
- [03:22]
Kayla Moore
Into this whole case. Today, we're going to talk a lot about what happened. We're going to talk about this one documentary we watched that we both really did not like. That was very biased.
- [03:31]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah.
- [03:31]
Kayla Moore
It's hard to get honest, actual information on this case.
- [03:35]
Morgan Abshur
I want to, like, go into this very neutral and, like, I think we try to present the timeline and the facts just like, this is how it went down. So I would love to see again. Yeah. Put your initial thoughts of what you know about this case, what you think, and then reply to yourself. Because the episode you guys did that on, seeing your thoughts and how they changed over the course of the episode was so, so interesting to me.
- [04:00]
Kayla Moore
And if you're an American like me, I'm very curious what you first heard about this case when it happened, because I think a lot of us were just kind of fed this narrative about how dangerous South Africa was at the time, and that of course, he thought it was an intruder. But I'm also curious if we have any South African listeners, what you guys heard about this case as it was happening. Because it's always so different. Like, the media travels across the ocean in such a specific way.
- [04:22]
Morgan Abshur
Absolutely.
- [04:22]
Kayla Moore
So we were just getting one small glimpse into this case.
- [04:24]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah. And a lot, you know, culturally, politically with this one in South Africa. So especially if you're South African or are over on that side of the world and familiar. Would really love to hear your thoughts on this one.
- [04:37]
Kayla Moore
Absolutely. So without further ado, let's dive in. So Morgan and I talked about this a lot. There's a lot of different ways that you can start this story. Some documentaries you watch start with Oscar's career as a runner. Some start with his childhood. Very few actually start with the story of Reeva Steenkamp, who was the woman at the center of all this. So I think today we're gonna start by just talking a little bit about Reva and, like, the incredible woman that.
- [05:03]
Morgan Abshur
She was, which, if you're gonna talk about this case, this is how it should be told.
- [05:07]
Kayla Moore
Yes. Just a trigger warning before we get into today's episode, but there's gonna be mentions of domestic violence, sexual assault, among other pretty stressful topics. So listen with care. All right, let's talk about Reva. So Reva Steenkamp was born on August 19, 1983, in Cape Town, South Africa. And ever since she was little, she wanted to be a lawyer. That was always her goal. She was dead set on being a lawyer. And other little kids on the playground wanted to be actors, and they wanted to be basketball players, But Reva wanted to do law. And eventually she earned a scholarship to study law at Nelson Mandela University, where she graduated at the top of her class. But she kind of has this interesting backstory because around the time that she's graduating at the top of her class, she actually suffers this devastating accident. She was riding a racehorse when she fell off and onto her back, which, I mean, you ride horses, Morgan. That's gotta be, like, a huge fear.
- [05:58]
Morgan Abshur
Oh, it's a big, big fear of mine.
- [06:01]
Kayla Moore
It's crazy how just, like, falling the wrong way can change your whole life forever.
- [06:05]
Morgan Abshur
2012. Hundred pound animal. And she ended up breaking her back from this injury.
- [06:09]
Kayla Moore
Yes. And so after she broke her back, she was just sitting in the hospital for six weeks, and the doctors were like, well, we have to kind of wait this out to see if you're ever going to be able to walk again. And by some miracle, she makes a full recovery. But. And this happens with a lot of people that suffer devastating accidents. After she heals, something kind of changes within her, and she decides that she's going to stop riding horses. Definitely. And she also dumped her abusive boyfriend that she was dating at the time. And she moves to Johannesburg. And even though she graduated with a bachelor's in law and was working as a paralegal, she decided to kind of put her law career on hold for just a moment. She definitely wanted to get back to it, but she wanted to pursue kind of a different life in Johannesburg. And that was modeling. It was something she always wanted to try, and she thought now was the time to do it. And for Reva, modeling just starts working pretty much immediately. She's a gorgeous person. Everyone recognizes that. She just starts booking all of These gigs and soon modeling is paying her bills pretty much in the way that law would have.
- [07:15]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah, modeling worked out very well for Reva. And I love the way people describe her though still. Like in one of the quotes from a friend, he's saying like, yes, she was beautiful. She was this amazing model. But Reva was a better person inside than she was on the outside. Yeah, she was exquisite looking. And that just describes her. She was just such a light. They said she was always smiling. She was just an amazing person. But she was also so dedicated to law still. And helping people like that was her big goal. At the end of the day, still.
- [07:48]
Kayla Moore
It seems like law and being a lawyer was always kind of like the North Star that was guiding her because she really especially wanted to work with as an advocate for survivors of domestic abuse. Riva herself had been in an emotionally abusive partnership in the past. So it was a cause that was very personal to her. But violence against women was and to some extent still is, at least based on my understanding and from the research that we had done, a pretty big issue in South Africa. I actually found this quote from a Vanity Fair article that goes into this a little bit more that I wanted to read. It talks about domestic abuse and sexual violence in the area, but it says, quote, in South Africa, in the two year period of 2011 and 2012, there were over 64, 500 reported sexual assaults. That's one every four minutes. It's the highest occurrence in the entire world according to the U.S. state Department. Even the current president, Jacob Zuma, stood trial in 2006 charged with raping a 31 year old AIDS activist. And there's a note here that says he was acquitted. So it just was like a huge part of the culture. And I think a lot of women were very fed up with it. And so Riva, like really wanted to take action and tackle this head on. And I read, we talked about this, that the morning of her murder, Reva was going to give a talk to a bunch of teen girls called Placing Value on youn as sort of like this empowerment speech she was going to give. But she would never go on to give that talk because on Valentine's Day of 2013, Reva died at the hands of her boyfriend, Oscar Pistorius. Now, a little bit about Reva and Oscar's relationship. Riva met Oscar in November of 2012 and the two fell for each other pretty quickly. We've looked into this. It's pretty easy to see on the surface at least, why Reva liked Oscar. He was very handsome. He was an incredibly successful athlete in South Africa at the height of his career, was basically a celebrity. His image was on billboards everywhere.
- [09:50]
Morgan Abshur
Everywhere.
- [09:51]
Kayla Moore
I was trying to think of, like, who in American society he would have been equivalent.
- [09:54]
Morgan Abshur
Michael Phelps. Yeah.
- [09:55]
Kayla Moore
Oh, that's a. Yes, exactly. Michael Phelps. Like in the commercials on the billboards.
- [10:00]
Morgan Abshur
But even more so because of the disability he had to overcome to be a paralympian in the regular Olympics.
- [10:08]
Kayla Moore
Now, Oscar was born with this rare condition called fibular hemomelia, which essentially means that he was missing bones in the lower half of both of his legs when he was born. And still, Oscar went on to not only race in the Paralympics, but also in the Olympics with his prosthetic legs. At the time, he was this huge point of pride in South African society. They just watched these races and were like, look at this incredible person that's, like, overcome so much and is representing our country.
- [10:35]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah. And, I mean, there's a lot politically and contextually with South Africa and the apartheid and, like, there's so much there. So this was like a country coming out on this big world stage, and this was a big deal.
- [10:51]
Kayla Moore
And when he and Reva started dating, their relationship was really public, basically from the get go. Reva was on Oscar's arm at every big event, every red carpet they went to. And friends of theirs at the time said that the two were preparing for a future together. At least that's what it seemed like. And In January of 2013, they were seen on the dance floor of a celebrity friends party where everyone was talking about how great of a couple they made. They just seemed like this perfect couple. Then at the end of that month, they went to a dinner with two friends of theirs who said the same exact thing. And they also said that Oscar was looking to move because he was feeling a bit unsafe in his current home. And they made it sound like Reva was possibly part of that plan to move, as if she was going to move with him. And then that following month, which was just four months into their relationship, this relationship was still brand new, which I feel like gets forgotten a lot when we tell the story. They had plans to do Valentine's Day together. So on the night of February 13, 2013, Reva cooked dinner for Oscar at his home. This is all according to Oscar. They had a quiet, romantic evening together, and they went to bed together around 10pm it was a humid night, and either Oscar's air conditioning was broken or he just didn't like using the air conditioner because he Said something about like, he didn't like the way it made him breathe at night. It like affected his breathing quality at night. So before bed, what he would do is he would open this, these sliding glass doors onto his bedroom balcony and he would set up two fans that would circulate air into the room. And before the two of them fell asleep, Oscar took off his prosthetic legs and set them by the open door to air out. This is something he would do every single night. And then he grabbed his 9 millimeter Parabellum pistol and he put it under.
- [12:37]
Morgan Abshur
The bed, which let's pause to talk about Oscar and the gun. It is legal to own guns in South Africa. And Oscar, like his father and a lot of other men in his family, they were really into firearms. Oscar actually owned multiple rifles, shotguns, handguns, and would post about his trips to shooting ranges on all of his social media. And a big reason why people own guns in South Africa is for self defense. You know, we talked a bit about South Africa and the high incidence of violence against women. There's also just high crime in general, especially home invasions. In a country of 60 million people, there's one and a half million home invasions per year. And that number just keeps going up. There's actually some research from the University of Cape Town that found that home invasion robberies are South African's biggest fear. So it kind of just goes to show, like people's mindsets, it's kind of always in the back of their mind and they had a lot of self protection to prevent, you know, their biggest fear.
- [13:36]
Kayla Moore
Yeah, some, some parts of America you can really take that for granted because you're not constantly worried about home invasions. But it sounds like in South Africa that is something that people were constantly worried about.
- [13:45]
Morgan Abshur
It's constantly front of mind for them. So this is all to say it wasn't out of the ordinary for Oscar to sleep with a gun within reach.
- [13:54]
Kayla Moore
So that night, Oscar says he got up a little after 3am, this is now February 14th. He said it was really hot and stifling in the room. So he got up to deal with the fans and according to Oscar Riva woke up next to him. When he first woke up and asked if he was having trouble sleeping and noticing that the balcony door was still open, he gets up out of bed, doesn't have his prosthetic legs on, and he goes to close the sliding glass door, move the fans out of the sliding glass door and close them. He said that at this time he had seen sensory deprivation. It was really dark. When he woke up, Oscar liked to sleep in near perfect blackness to get, like, the best quality sleep possible because he was an athlete, that's what he said. And the fans were also humming. So it's like the mixture of the darkness and the hum of the fans. He said he kind of had this weird sensory deprivation and didn't really know exactly what was going on. He goes to walk back towards his bed, and as he's doing so, he hears this loud noise come from the bathroom down the hall. It's like this screeching sound. And he knows immediately that that's the sound of his bathroom window opening. And his heart starts immediately racing. So he reaches under his bed and he grabs his gun. That's the first thing he does. He whispers to Reeva, who he assumes at this point is still in bed, to call the police because he thought they were being robbed. Oscar then creeps over to the bathroom, which the way the bathroom is set up is there's a room for the toilet, and then there's, like, the sink in the rest of the bathroom. So when he goes over to the bathroom, he can see that the toilet door is closed. But in the regular, bigger part of the bathroom, the window is open. And because this toilet room is closed, he starts kind of getting anxious about it. And all of a sudden, he starts hearing noises coming from inside the locked door. And he feels as though someone had broken into the window that was open and is now hiding inside of the toilet room, almost like barricading themselves in because they probably know that Oscar was coming for them. So then Oscar points his gun at the door and shouts for the intruder to leave. He then yells back to his bedroom, screaming for Reva to call the police. And then he hears more movement in the toilet room, and pretty much immediately he fires four bullets through the door. Then he calls for Reva back in bed and realizes she's not been answering him. The whole time he's been calling for her to call the police, he's been saying that there's an intruder, she's not been responding. And this is when it finally clicks for him. And so he goes back to the bedroom to check on her, and he realizes that she's not in there. And that's when the panic sets in. And he wonders if it actually was Reva in the bathroom instead. Like, maybe when he went to go move the fans, Reva had actually gotten out of bed and walked down the hall, but he just didn't hear her because he was only hearing the hum of the fans. So he rushes back to the bathroom and he tries to open the door to the toilet, but it's locked. So then he goes back to his room and he gets his prosthetic legs and also this cricket bat that he would keep in his bedroom. Then he goes back to the bathroom and he just starts smashing on the locked toilet door. And it finally breaks through and he can see that Reva is in that toilet room, sprawled over the toilet, bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds. Three of the four bullets had hit her. One in the arm, one in the hip, and one in her head. But at this time, he notices that she's still breathing. So Oscar goes back to his bedside and he grabs his phone. At this point, it's around 3:19 in the morning, and he calls a neighbor for help. At 3:20am he phones the ambulance service and at 3:21 he called security at his estate. He, after these calls, he picks Reeva up out of the bathroom and he carries her downstairs. And by this point, neighbors and neighborhood security can hear him shouting. He is just wailing, holding Riva. And a neighbor that arrived shortly after this recounted hearing him sobbing and screaming for them to call an ambulance. And one of the first responders that gets to this scene is this neighbor, a doctor named Johan Stipp. And he does this jaw lift maneuver on Reva. It's an attempt to open her airway and get her to breathe. But by this point, Reva is no longer breathing and she is pronounced dead at the scene at 3:43am after that, the police arrive at Oscar's house and because of what happened, they immediately begin processing this as a crime scene. Oscar is a total mess. When they see him, he's still crying, he's wailing, he starts throwing up and. And he openly admits to the officers that he shot Reeva. But he starts telling them this story about how he thought she was a burglar. But the police, at least initially, are not convinced by this story. The first detective on the scene, this man, Hilton Boda, is a 24 year veteran of the police department. And to him at least, when he gets to the scene, it looks like a classic case of domestic violence. Mainly because as Oscar is explaining what happened to him, it doesn't really make a lot of sense. For example, Oscar tells him that he got his gun out from under the bed, but somehow didn't notice that Reva was no longer in bed anymore. And the detective also finds it strange that Oscar would simply hear a sound coming from his bathroom and then just start firing. The gun in the house, knowing that someone he loves is also in the home. And. And it's these little details about Oscar that just really aren't adding up for the detective.
- [19:31]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah, especially when it's four shots, let alone just not one, like a warning shot. But besides the point, it. It starts to look even worse for Oscar when police start talking to all of his neighbors. And this is what gives us our first clue in this case. One of the neighbors told detectives that she was woken up by the sound of a loud argument coming from Oscar's home at around 2am about an hour before the shooting started. She says the argument continued for about that hour. And although she couldn't hear what they were saying exactly, it was loud enough that she had to put a pillow over her head to muffle the noise to get back to sleep. And in fact, she wasn't the only neighbor to hear something. Five of Oscar's neighbors told detectives they heard a woman screaming from inside his house shortly before they heard the gunshots. One of them said that she was convinced it was the sound of a woman being attacked. Some said the screaming even continued after the first shot was fired. This was a huge boost to the police domestic violence theory. And if Riva was screaming loudly enough for all of Oscar's neighbors to hear, it's unlikely that he would have been confused that this was an intruder.
- [20:43]
Kayla Moore
And we've looked at pictures of this neighborhood.
- [20:45]
Morgan Abshur
Right.
- [20:45]
Kayla Moore
It's one thing if you live in an apartment building and your neighbor next door is screaming so loudly, you have to cover your head with a pillow. They were in houses that were like. Some of these homes that still heard her screaming were, like, two streets away. Basically, that's how loud it was. And they could still hear it just kind of echoing throughout the neighborhood.
- [21:02]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah, it seems like this was an extremely loud, volatile argument. And police found something else to indicate Oscar and Reeva were fighting before she was killed. Or at least they think. Right, because Reeva was actually wearing a pair of white shorts and a black sleeveless top when she died. And which is actually our second clue to investigators, it doesn't look like Reeva was wearing comfy sleep clothes or pajamas. They were sort of things you would wear when you would leave the house. So now police are asking, why did Reva put all of her clothes on if she was just going to the bathroom in the middle of the night? To them, it looks like Reeva was trying to leave the house when Oscar shot her. And maybe she felt so threatened by Oscar that she locked herself in the bathroom door to try to protect herself.
- [21:48]
Kayla Moore
From him or even beyond putting the clothes back on. Maybe she never took her day clothes off because they had just been up the entire night. But to not put your pajamas on is just.
- [22:01]
Morgan Abshur
It's interesting.
- [22:02]
Kayla Moore
Yeah.
- [22:03]
Morgan Abshur
Especially because by Oscar's story, they laid down, they were sleeping, they went to bed. Yeah. You know, he even said that Reva had been doing yoga that night as he sat in bed watching tv. I do think it is interesting, too. I don't know about you, but, like, when I go to the bathroom at night in my own home, I don't typically shut and lock the door. So that's just something else that, like, as I was going through the research for this case and even talking, you know, about it with my partner, I was like, you kind of just leave the bathroom door open, or you don't.
- [22:33]
Kayla Moore
At least lock it, especially if there's. It's all the way down the hall, and there's two doors into the toilet room. Yeah.
- [22:39]
Morgan Abshur
This is a big bedroom, you guys. I. I think if you're, you know, if you're watching, we'll kind of have a floor plan on YouTube. But the bathroom is, like, I think, 25ft away. Like, it's down this long hallway. And another part of this story that I think is really interesting is, you know, he's getting up, he's moving the fans, he opens the window to shift things, whatever. Maybe he gets a little light. He hears stuff that's happening way down the hall in the bathroom, but doesn't hear or see Reva walk by him to get there. So.
- [23:09]
Kayla Moore
And this is all stuff that the police are making note of as they're hearing the story from Oscar. And now they're getting all of the testimony from the neighbors that were witnesses. And so they kind of start putting the story together in their own heads.
- [23:20]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah.
- [23:21]
Kayla Moore
And basically because of this, that day, Oscar is arrested for shooting Reva Steen camp. But before heading to jail, they actually take Oscar to a hospital so a medical expert can gather physical evidence from his body. They kind of are looking for anything that corroborates or disproves the story that he told them. Again, you're not going to get, like, the whole story just based on evidence that's on his body, but there might be some clues that he has. So, for instance, they tested his blood and his urine because they want to know if he had been drunk or on drugs. And those tests both come back clean. Then they take scrapes from under his fingernails, looking for Reva's DNA because they want to find anything that might indicate he assaulted her before the shooting took place. And again, there was nothing. At least not under his fingernails. And even without any of this physical evidence that they were looking for, Oscar still spends that night in jail. And then the next day, February 15, he's taken to court and officially charged with murder. And the judge orders Oscar to remain in police custody until his bail hearing four days later. Meanwhile, the police begin interviewing people who know Oscar just to try to get a window into his personal life. And this is when they learn that there is a lot more to Oscar Pistorius than this friendly, nice guy image that he lets on.
- [24:42]
Morgan Abshur
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Kayla Moore
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Morgan Abshur
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Kayla Moore
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Morgan Abshur
In the family chat or trading those.
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Kayla Moore
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Morgan Abshur
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Kayla Moore
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- [26:35]
Morgan Abshur
Turns out that Oscar has quite a dark side to him, actually, one that really was not well known before the news about Reva in the shooting broke.
- [26:44]
Kayla Moore
Oh, he was the golden boy before this. Everything you read about Oscar and his time before the shooting is about the charity work he did and working with children and his. The way he made leaps and bounds for, like, prosthetic community and the disabled community. They don't really include these parts of his story.
- [27:04]
Morgan Abshur
No. And the parts of the story are, Oscar was pretty reckless. For example, in 2009, Oscar was out driving a speedboat on a river near Johannesburg with a friend. He started going super, super fast, lost control of the boat, and actually crashed into a pier, like, at this high speed. And while his friend was okay, Oscar did have to be airlifted to a hospital. He was treated for a broken jaw and had such a serious head injury that he actually was required to be put into a medically induced coma to allow him to survive. And when he came to three days later, he had 180 stitches and his jaw had been wired shut. There was also evidence that Oscar might have been consuming alcohol while he was driving this boat. But, like, this isn't the only reckless moment, because then in 2010, a year after this horrific accident, he was driving around with friends when they were pulled over by police for speeding. Afterwards, Oscar was so angry about this traffic stop that he allegedly pulled out his pistol, stuck it through the car's sunroof, and fired a shot at a traffic light. Thankfully, no one was hurt, but clearly, reckless attitude, and Oscar had no problem messing around with a live weapon. And then there's an incident in January of 2013 that really shows he doesn't care about messing around with live ammunitions and weapons, because just a month before he shot Reva, there was actually another incident. Oscar was with friends at a restaurant when one of them mentioned that they had brought a new pistol along with them. That night, they showed Oscar the gun, and he started playing with it under the table, and then the weapon accidentally went off.
- [28:47]
Kayla Moore
Can you imagine being in a restaurant and hearing a gun fire?
- [28:51]
Morgan Abshur
I know the gun culture might be a little different over there, but, like, if you use guns and you go to shooting ranges, you know the basics about a gun. And, like, I'm not gonna play with it indoors. Should be front of mind.
- [29:03]
Kayla Moore
I'm not gonna play with it, period.
- [29:04]
Morgan Abshur
Like, and this was during a busy lunch service, too. The bullet grazed one of their friend's legs and damaged the floor of the restaurant. Luckily, that was it. But Oscar made It clear that someone else was going to take the blame for this. He couldn't let this get out. He couldn't let it hurt his reputation. And so very quickly, a friend stepped forward and said, no, no, no, this was me. So, like, up until this happened, like, we didn't know it was Oscar that did this. We thought it was one of the friends. So clearly there's some issues with behavior and acting a bit reckless with these firearms.
- [29:37]
Kayla Moore
It's also one thing to have a gun accidentally go off in the middle of a crowded restaurant because in theory, that was an acc. What really gets me too is getting so mad at a traffic stop that you open your sunroof and fire your gun at a stoplight.
- [29:54]
Morgan Abshur
It's giving anger issues.
- [29:55]
Kayla Moore
Yeah. It's just really wild to hear about.
- [29:59]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah. And it doesn't really stop there because there's this reckless behavior. But then there's also this side of how Oscar treats partners. So when police start talking to family, friends, and all these people that knew Oscar, it was pretty apparent that he had a really volatile temper. Something that was really confirmed when they spoke to Oscar's ex girlfriend, Samantha Taylor. Which brings us to our next clue. Oscar's history of supposedly abusive behavior. As one might assume when someone's handsome Olympic athlete successful, he didn't have a hard time dating. And so Oscar had a lot of these, like, serial monogamous relationships, I think is kind of how you could put it. And he tended to go all in on these relationships. Like every woman he dated, he believed was his soulmate. And he would be really romantic and kind of love bomb them is what it. It sounds like. One could interpret that way. Like on Valentine's Day, he actually surprised one of his girlfriends by tying hundreds of balloons to trees in her front yard. But according to this ex they interview Samantha Taylor, the pendulum swung hard in.
- [31:09]
Kayla Moore
The other direction, as it does with love bombing.
- [31:12]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah. So Oscar and Samantha were together for about a year and a half. They met in 2010 when Oscar was 25 and she was 17, which is legal in South Africa. 17. Hey, if you listen to two hot takes, you guys already know how I feel about age gaps like that. When.
- [31:29]
Kayla Moore
What does a 25 year old man have in common with a high school junior?
- [31:33]
Morgan Abshur
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
- [31:36]
Kayla Moore
I see that we made a note here that, like, technically the age of consent in South Africa is 16. So if you are in South Africa, if you're a South African listener and you think we're being Americans about this, please let us know. Like, if this is A big cultural difference. Truly, I'm willing to accept that. But in the States, this is a big. No, no.
- [31:55]
Morgan Abshur
I think, you know, over 18, you're still like teen. You're still teen. 19, still teen. But like, I just think he's 24, he's an Olympic athlete, He's seen the world, he's experienced life.
- [32:06]
Kayla Moore
He has way too much power.
- [32:07]
Morgan Abshur
There's a power imbalance with a 17 year old. This specific context. Okay, Right, right, you guys, but let's hear your comments.
- [32:14]
Kayla Moore
Yeah.
- [32:14]
Morgan Abshur
And so Samantha says that, like, at first Oscar was really sweet. He called her his little butterfly and the love of his life. Which again, hearing that at 17, you're.
- [32:24]
Kayla Moore
Like, little, very young, small butterfly. I hate it.
- [32:29]
Morgan Abshur
And by this time, Oscar really starts to get more jealous and controlling. When they weren't together, he would text Samantha constantly asking her where she was, even demanding pictures to like, prove where she was. Like, let me check your story and fact check you. And Oscar's moods would shift, like really quickly. One minute he'd be like, super sweet and considerate, and then the next he would fly off the handle into this rage about like something super small.
- [33:01]
Kayla Moore
I wonder too, because I've read a few stories and like listened to testimony from some girls who were in relationships with older men when they were teenagers. And I wonder if she was like, maybe specifically singled out because she was so young and you don't have any other relationship experience at that point. So you're gonna go along with this. Like, if he's demanding pictures of where you are, like, maybe someone with a little bit more experience would know that to run. But if you're really young, you might think like, oh, this is normal in relationships, like, he's a really nice guy.
- [33:31]
Morgan Abshur
Otherwise you don't have anything to judge or compare. Really?
- [33:35]
Kayla Moore
Yeah, it just breaks my heart.
- [33:36]
Morgan Abshur
It would be really tough. And a couple examples she give for like these small things is like if she would forget to clean a mug from the living room or if she wore clothes that were too revealing, he would get furious and just begin shouting foul and really abusive things at her and even at her friends if they were around. So it wasn't like this was just behind closed doors, like this was in front of other people to other people as well. And in the aftermath of these outbursts, he would then shower her with love and affection and apologies and be extra sweet for a while until something would set him off again. And as you know, we know with these abusive relationships, the cycle typically repeats itself.
- [34:20]
Kayla Moore
So now that we know that.
- [34:21]
Morgan Abshur
Yes.
- [34:22]
Kayla Moore
About his backstory, the guns, the domestic violence, and the controlling. Let's go back to where we are in this case, because at this point in the investigation, Oscar had been in jail for a couple of days. And on February 19, 2013, he goes in for his bail hearing, and he pleads not guilty to all charges. During the last hearing, the police pointed to evidence that they gathered so far, evidence that argued Oscar was this violent abuser and a flight risk who should stay behind bars. But they also bring in something that basically shows Oscar might not have been telling the whole truth about what happened that night.
- [35:00]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah, you see, investigators think Oscar is lying because of his prosthetics, which is clue number four for us. @ the bail hearing, the lead detective, Hilton Bota, argued that Oscar had been wearing his prosthetics when he shot at Reba. This would be a big deal if it were true, because it would mean that Oscar thought about his actions. Right. Like, he sat down at the bed, he had time to put on his prosthetics, and then pursued Reeva to the bathroom. And to prove this, he pointed to the bathroom door and the angles at which the bullets entered the door and said that they were consistent with the height Oscar Wilde was at when he had his prosthetics on. But Oscar's lawyers came in and really pushed back hard on this claim. And so did a ballistics expert who analyzed the door. They look at the position of the bullet holes and said that based on their angle and trajectory, Oscar was not wearing his prosthetics at the time. They conclude that he was actually on his residual limbs when he fired these shots. And ultimately, this evidence was so convincing that the prosecution dropped the issue entirely. They ended up agreeing with Oscar's lawyers that he had not been wearing his prosthetics during the shooting. And this was also such a huge screw up for Hilton Bota, so much so that he was actually taken off the case. But depending on what source material you get into for this one, a lot of people kind of speculate that that was also, like, a very political decision. There were a lot of strings being pulled behind the closed doors early on, and they kind of speculate on that a little bit. Yeah.
- [36:37]
Kayla Moore
That maybe he was taken off for other reasons.
- [36:39]
Morgan Abshur
Yes. So on February 22, 2013, a judge does grant Oscar bail on the condition that he surrenders his passport so he can't flee the country. This turned out to be a really unpopular decision with the public. While right after the shooting occurred, like, people did really believe this home Invasion story. Police kind of speculated there was, like, domestic violence. They were very, like, like, kind of discreet about it.
- [37:07]
Kayla Moore
Yeah.
- [37:07]
Morgan Abshur
But the public perception of him switched really quickly. Like those billboards that were up, they took them down same day.
- [37:14]
Kayla Moore
Yeah. Was shocked, like, doing the research and seeing just how fast people turn because that's how fed up, especially women in South Africa were with domestic violence, with violence against women, that the second the whispers of domestic violence started spreading around, they ripped his pictures down. He was not on any billboard. He was no longer the golden boy. Which is wild because I feel like there's so many cases where people could just keep making excuses for people because, like, they were a good guy. They had such a bright future ahead of them. Like, we don't know the full story until, you know, we hear it from him.
- [37:46]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah.
- [37:46]
Kayla Moore
And they were like, no, no.
- [37:48]
Morgan Abshur
It was a quick switch. And on Twitter, Reddit, all the socials, a majority of the commenters thought he was guilty. One of this week's partners is Function Health. We've got a lot of new technology and a lot of big changes in the world, but one thing that really hasn't changed is medical tests. I know I myself, when I was getting my thyroid checked, I had to ask to add certain tests. They weren't a part of the standard. That is not the case with Function Health. With Function, you can test over 160 biomarkers, from heart and hormones to toxins, inflammation, and stress. Me, I am so excited to see where my cortisol level falls. And you can even access MRI scans, CT scans, and it's all tracked in one secure place over time.
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Kayla Moore
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- [39:00]
Morgan Abshur
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Kayla Moore
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Morgan Abshur
It leaves you feeling so good after drinking it. My favorite part, too. No artificial flavors, colors, or sweeteners. It's non gmo, no soy, no animal products, no gluten, and no preservatives.
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Kayla Moore
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Morgan Abshur
That's it.
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Kayla Moore
Perfect.
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Morgan Abshur
And it's so. I use the vanilla flavor and it's so good. It's like a little dessert.
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Kayla Moore
And it's very smooth. I've had a lot of powders that are just chalky or not kachava, almost like unbaked batter. It's just a very straight. And I'm not a big fan, but kachava I've never had that issue with.
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Morgan Abshur
I love it.
- [40:26]
Kayla Moore
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- [40:39]
Morgan Abshur
One of this week's partners is hellofresh. Summer is here, and the last thing I want to be doing in summer is spending all my time in a hot kitchen. Cooking. No. Which is why I love HelloFresh. HelloFresh makes it easier to fit quick home cooked meals into your schedule every week by curating delicious recipes that are sent right to your door.
- [40:58]
Kayla Moore
They have so many good options. Morgan and I were just looking at.
- [41:01]
Morgan Abshur
The menus, drooling over the menus.
- [41:03]
Kayla Moore
They have southwest inspired chicken bowls and stir fried udon with pulled pork and vegetables. That salad again, I was just looking at the. Oh, what was it? Let me pull it up. It's the cranberry apple kale salad, which sounds perfect for summer.
- [41:16]
Morgan Abshur
Refreshing, refreshing.
- [41:18]
Kayla Moore
Oh, and then next to that is the sun dried tomato Grilled cheese sandos that we were looking at earlier too. So good that with the cranberry apple kale salad.
- [41:25]
Morgan Abshur
That's what I'm talking about.
- [41:27]
Kayla Moore
That is amazing.
- [41:28]
Morgan Abshur
I love hellofresh. I feel like it's actually taught me how to cook. I don't like cooking otherwise without it. Honestly, it makes it easy and attainable. And I get these good meals at the end.
- [41:37]
Kayla Moore
Yeah. And they send you all of the ingredients you need. Everything is pre portioned. You just put it all together in like sometimes as little as 15 minutes.
- [41:44]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah. There's no more time spent meal planning and then grocery shopping and getting home and realizing you forgot something at the grocery store. Hellofresh just sends it all to you and it's ready to go.
- [41:55]
Kayla Moore
And you can choose from 60 recipes every week including prep and bake and ready made meals plus 100 plus market items to add on to breakfast, lunch and more.
- [42:05]
Morgan Abshur
So if you're ready to try for yourself, make your summer enjoyable and delicious by signing up for HelloFresh@hellofresh.com clues10fm and get 10 free meals with a free item for life. That's HelloFresh.com clues10fm for 10 free meals and a free item in every box. HelloFresh.com clues10fm one per box with an active subscription. Free meals are applied as a discount on the first box. New subscribers only. Varies by plan. By and large, public opinion really seemed to be against Oscar.
- [42:39]
Kayla Moore
And after that bail hearing, the prosecutors really tried to bounce back from Hilton bota the whole fiasco and gather more evidence for their case against Oscar. They also announced that there was going to be three new charges against him, all violations of South African gun laws. One was going to be for shooting his gun at the traffic light. Another was going to be for accidentally shooting his friend's gun at the restaurant. And the third charge was going to be for possession of unlicensed ammunition which police found in his house after Reva's shooting. And maybe you're wondering, why would you add these new charges on top of everything that's happening? They kind of seem like a small deal compared to like the larger picture we're looking at. Well, this was all very intentional on the side of the prosecution. They figured if they could make the trial more about Oscar's pattern of reckless behavior, they could also have an easier time convincing a judge that he could shoot someone in anger. And this is something that depending on the side you look at, the defense really hates that the prosecution did this. They went on camera and they Were, like, complaining about how, you know, they're trying to turn this into something it's not. This is. Oscar really thought there was an intruder, and they're trying to turn this into making him look bad, making him look like he had anger issues, making him look like he had reckless gun charges against him. Which, like, is true. He did have all of those things, and that is, like, a very important piece of the puzzle. But the defense was so mad that they were bringing in all this extra information. And one thing that was really strategic about them doing this is the prosecution could then call Samantha Taylor, Oscar's ex that we talked about, to testify because she was actually a witness to one of the reckless shooting charges. They could essentially use this as a back door with her on the witness stand to get her to talk about Oscar's angry and aggressive treatment towards her, and that was maybe going to persuade the court to see him as this violent abuser who was very much capable of killing a girlfriend.
- [44:38]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah. And they really wanted to prove he was capable, so they really start looking at his relationship with Reva a little bit deeper, and the first place they went was her phone. Which brings us to our next major clue on this one. In October 2013, eight months after the shooting, they get access to Riva's archived WhatsApp messages. A lot of the messages that Oscar sent to Reva were normal relationship conversations and had, according to one detective, a very loving tone. But some of them told a darker story. Just a couple of weeks before the shooting, Oscar and Reeva had a huge fight at a friend's engagement party. Apparently, Oscar thought Reva was flirting with another guy, and he flipped out in front of all of their friends. In one of her messages to him about that night, she said, quote, you do everything to throw tantrums in front of people, end quote. After that blow up, he demanded they leave early, but he was so angry that Reva was actually afraid to go with him. In another one of her texts after that night, she says, quote, I'm scared of you sometimes and how you snap at me and of how you react to me, end quote. To which Oscar responds with a long apology. He seemingly says, I'm sorry a lot. I'm sorry for the things I say without thinking. I'm sorry. I wanted to go, but I was hungry and upset. I read any message I could find between Reeva and Oscar, but there's a few more, like, I really just want to read and highlight to kind of showcase what Reva was going through. Quote, I do everything to make you happy and to not say anything, to rock the boat with you. End quote. Quote, I can't be attacked by outsiders for dating you and be attacked by you, the one person I deserve protection from. Quote, I just want to love and be loved, be happy and make someone so happy. Maybe we can't do that for each other because right now I know you aren't happy and I am certainly very unhappy and sad. And all of these messages line up with what his ex girlfriend Samantha had said about his behavior. That he would fly off the handle and rage because of something minor and then he'd be super sweet afterwards and try to make up for it. And so the prosecution felt like this was a huge piece of evidence for them. It was proof that Oscar was repeating this abusive pattern of emotional abuse with Reeva. And it's not hard to see how emotional, psychological abuse can shift to something more physical.
- [47:11]
Kayla Moore
Yeah, those texts were a big deal when the prosecution found them.
- [47:15]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah. And there's only so much in the text, but like for someone to freak out at a party in front of all the friends, like, this is happening in person too.
- [47:25]
Kayla Moore
And you have in those text messages her saying, I'm afraid of you sometimes. Like it. You can't spell it out more than that.
- [47:33]
Morgan Abshur
It is very crystal clear.
- [47:34]
Kayla Moore
I'm sure there's going to be someone in this story that is able to read those text messages and figure out how this is all Reva's fault because that's just unfortunately how this typically goes. But let's go a little bit more into the trial, at least the pre trial details. So more than a year after the shooting, Oscar's trial finally begins on March 3, 2014. And before we get into but let's talk a little bit about the differences between America and the South African court system. So in South Africa, they don't have jury trials, which is something I didn't realize. Meaning the defense and the prosecution are not going to argue their case before a jury of Oscar's peers. Instead, they only have to convince one judge whether or not Oscar was guilty of first degree murder. And as a result, if he should spend the rest of his life in prison. And so the judge in this case was this woman named Tocuzila Masipa. And she has just an incredible story. She's one of the first black women to be appointed as a high court judge after the fall of apartheid in South Africa in 1994. And now she's going to be presiding over one of the most publicized trials in all of South African history. And most of this trial is also going to be broadcast live, so people can just tune into it.
- [48:47]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah, this is a huge deal. I'm not super familiar with South African history, but, like, from my understanding, this was basically racial segregation. And this went on until 1990, you guys. 1990?
- [49:02]
Kayla Moore
Yes.
- [49:02]
Morgan Abshur
So for her to be appointed as this judge, like, this was a big deal. It was huge.
- [49:08]
Kayla Moore
And also, just the imagery of this black woman overseeing this white golden boy on a domestic violence charge, I think was really big for the people of South Africa. And, you know, that's also something that the defense really tried to complain a lot about. Like, of course she's gonna find him guilty. Like, she's a woman, and, like, women all gang up together against men. And so that. That was, like, really what they were saying. I mean, they talk about that a lot in the documentary that we watched, which was the Life and Trials of Oscar Pistorius on Netflix, which. Which is obviously a very biased documentary. So first up, on March 3, 2014, Prosecutor Hurry Nell presented the government's case, and that was that Oscar had a violent temper and often took out his rage on romantic partners. And to back this up, he calls Oscar's ex, Samantha Taylor, to testify about his angry and controlling behavior. And then he reads out the text messages from Reva's phone that we talked about. And they really illustrated that Oscar had treated Reeva in a very similar way to how he treated Samantha, who was actually on the witness stand to testify. And Nell went on to say that the night of the shooting, Oscar had probably flown into a rage and gotten into some heated argument with Reva over who knows what. The argument ended with Reva running into the bathroom, slamming the door shut, and that's when Oscar shot her. And as proof, Nell has Oscar's five neighbors come and testify about all of the shouting and the screaming that they heard before they heard gunshots that night. And by the way, Oscar was actually in the courtroom for all of this testimony, and he was a wreck. Several times he got so upset that he actually threw up. And it happened so much that they had to keep a garbage can next to him at all times just in case he threw up.
- [50:57]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah, they put a bright green bucket next to him. And prosecutors also presented quite a few pieces of physical evidence as well. As they brought in the actual bathroom door that Oscar had shot Reva through. They carefully had reconstructed the pieces that Oscar had demolished with his cricket bat on the night of the shooting. And remember the bail hearing where prosecutors had unsuccessfully pointed to the door to claim that Oscar was wearing his prosthetics when he shot Reeva. Well, we know that the prosecution now agrees with the defense that Oscar wasn't wearing his prosthetics when he shot the door. But now the door was there for a different reason, a different argument, and that pointed to why Oscar was guilty. You see, Hurry Nell had ballistic experts testify in court about what order these shots were fired in. And as we know, Oscar had fired four shots at the door, hitting Reeva in the hip, the arm, and the head. But the fourth shot missed. Well, this ballistics expert looked at the bullet holes and said the first shot had hit Reva in the hip, which meant Reva did have time to scream in pain. They then concluded that Reva was likely positioned with her arms covering her head, which is why the other shots were in her arm and head. And if Oscar kept shooting after he heard Riva scream, the prosecutors claimed that would mean he did know who he was shooting at behind that door. But the defense called their own ballistics expert, who testified that there was no way to tell which order the bullets had been fired in. He also claimed that after firing a gun in a tiled bathroom, Oscar's ears would have been ringing so badly that he wouldn't have been able to hear anybody scream. Ultimately, no matter how much the prosecution tried to use the bathroom door to their advantage, they weren't able to definitively prove anything.
- [52:41]
Kayla Moore
And we talk about this a lot on this podcast. Like the battle of experts. Like, you can just call experts that say what you want them to say, essentially.
- [52:50]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah. You choose your experts accordingly. Yeah.
- [52:53]
Kayla Moore
This is something that can never be known. Like, the actual order of the bullets. Like, it's really just up to interpretation. No one was there when it happened. So you can have one expert that says, no, I can definitively say this was the order. And then another expert that's like, we could never know the order. And so it's just like, it's really just up in this case to the judge to decide whatever she feels like is the truth.
- [53:14]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah. I think it's also interesting, too, with this, is this claim that while his ears would be blown out after shooting in a tiled room, then why did you fire three more shots? You're a gun expert. You go to a shooting range. You don't know who's behind that door. With conclusive evidence, you haven't seen anyone. Why are you still firing shots?
- [53:34]
Kayla Moore
It could have been a raccoon. Like, all he heard was rustling coming from within the bathroom. He didn't hear a gun click, like someone was prepared to shoot him. He didn't hear anything that seemed like it was a direct threat to his life in that moment. And we talked about this, but, like, we're in California. There's laws in California where you can shoot someone in your home if you believe they're a direct threat to you. But there's so many laws around it. Like, if that were to happen and I heard someone in my bathroom and say I did grab a gun and just shoot at the bathroom door, I would get in trouble for that.
- [54:06]
Morgan Abshur
It's a very different state than, you know, say, Texas or, you know, elsewhere in this country.
- [54:11]
Kayla Moore
But even in Texas, you have to prove that that person was a threat to your life in that moment.
- [54:15]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah.
- [54:16]
Kayla Moore
So you still are going to get questioned as to why you shot at the door when you didn't know that your girlfriend wasn't in bed with you and you didn't know who was in your bathroom. Like, they're still going to question that. I mean, maybe it's a little bit different in South Africa, but, like, at least here in the states, which, I mean, we kind of tout our, like, gun loving culture, but there's still laws that, like, you would get in trouble for something like this even here.
- [54:38]
Morgan Abshur
Absolutely.
- [54:39]
Kayla Moore
When it was his turn, Oscar's lawyer, Barry Roo, continued to really pick apart the prosecution's argument. So Rue pointed out that of the. I'm gonna. I get so mad when I read this part. Morgan Rue pointed out that of the 1709 messages that were sent between Oscar and REVA in the three months, three to four months that they were together, something like 90% of them were positive and loving. And we've already gone over these text messages. Like, the 10 that weren't positive and loving were literally like, I'm afraid of you.
- [55:11]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah. And I also think you have to take into context too, like, this was a only four month long relationship. If you're having these big issues only four months in, when, like, a lot of people in relationships are still in the honeymoon phase, happy phase, like, that is a big issue. Like Reeva saying, I'm scared of.
- [55:31]
Kayla Moore
Yes.
- [55:32]
Morgan Abshur
Only four months in, like, really in my head, speaks to how bad he was acting and it kind of negates.
- [55:39]
Kayla Moore
The 90% that we're loving. Like, that's the bare minimum.
- [55:43]
Morgan Abshur
So it's almost like I'm literally just like an analogy that kind of in my head fits that. Oh, well, the jaguar only ate half my arm.
- [55:51]
Kayla Moore
Literally.
- [55:52]
Morgan Abshur
Still have the other you know, 90% of my body. Come on.
- [55:58]
Kayla Moore
Yeah.
- [55:59]
Morgan Abshur
Context.
- [56:03]
Kayla Moore
When they printed them out, it printed actually to more than 35,000 pages. So there were a lot of messages being sent between this couple. And the last text that they exchanged on the day of the shooting were Oscar and Reva cheerfully making plans to have dinner at his house that night. Again, if you're an abusive relationship, that's not abnormal to have some moments of normalcy in your relationship. But Rue presented this as evidence that while Oscar and Reva did fight sometimes, it was no different than other young couples in love. And he said that the text also made it clear that the couple didn't appear to be having a fight on the day of the shooting, which we know how quickly fights emerge. If it's not over text, maybe it's in person later that day. And it also sounds like Oscar could be having a perfectly normal day. And then you don't wash his mug.
- [56:55]
Morgan Abshur
Right.
- [56:55]
Kayla Moore
And all of a sudden, he flies off the handle.
- [56:57]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah.
- [56:58]
Kayla Moore
And of course, his defense team is trying to ignore all of that context. Rue also cross examined these five neighbors who had testified on hearing the screaming that was coming from Oscar's house before the shooting. And the first neighbor that they bring up is this woman, Estelle van der Merva. And she was the woman who heard shouting from Oscar's house about an hour before the shooting took place. But when Rue questioned her, she revealed that she couldn't hear necessarily what the voices were saying. And so he kind of really works on her, and he gets her to admit that she wasn't even sure she could pinpoint exactly where the voices were coming from. And so that's when Rue starts planting the seed of doubt. Well, maybe it wasn't even Oscar's house at all. Maybe it was other neighbors that you were hearing that were having a screaming match at three in the morning or whenever. And then he starts questioning other witnesses, and he makes this point to ask them if they heard Reva screaming after the shots were fired. And multiple witnesses said that, yes, they had. And this is something that they talk about a lot in the documentary. So I kind of want to break down a little bit more of, like, what the defense was saying to these witnesses. So the defense really tries to paint this picture that a lot of the neighbors heard four bang sounds, but they didn't hear eight. And so his point is, you only heard the gunshots or the cricket bat. You didn't hear both things. And it, to me, it makes more sense that you would hear gunshots. They're much louder. You can hear gunshots from houses away, but you're not necessarily going to hear, like, the cricket bat hitting the door.
- [58:34]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah.
- [58:34]
Kayla Moore
From a few houses over. So what the defense tries to say is that because people only heard four bangs, they probably slept through the gunshots, woke up, heard four bangs, and that was actually the sound of the cricket bat hitting the door. Because one of the witnesses describes hearing those bangs as not bang, bang, bang, bang, as you would think. Like, okay, if. If it was the gunshots and Oscars firing the gun at the door, he probably was, like, very emotional, and it was bang, bang, bang, bang. No, they describe these gunshots as bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Gaps. Gaps that allow you to think about what you've done, especially after the first one. Bang, bang, bang, bang.
- [59:19]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah, I think this is the part where I become unglued because one of the witnesses heard screaming before. Gunshot. Gunshot. Screaming. Gunshot. Gunshot. No, screaming.
- [59:34]
Kayla Moore
And what the defense. The defense tried to say that Oscar actually sounds like a woman when he screams. Oh, so you heard the cricket bat. You heard the cricket bat and him screaming in agony as he's trying to get Reeva out of the bathroom, realizing what he's done. It wasn't actually the gunshots and her screaming. It was the cricket bat and him screaming. And that is really, like, the picture that they're trying to paint. And it's so hard to watch that part of the documentary and not just want to throw your fricking shoe at the tv because it's. It's so clear that that's not what happened. But the defense is just trying to, like, tell the witnesses, like, you heard wrong.
- [60:10]
Morgan Abshur
I mean, the defense was the way they berated these witnesses. Absolutely insane to me. They really put into, like, question, like, oh, well, you didn't even hear anything. Like, you didn't hear anything. There's no way you could have heard anything from a hundred yards away. We had an audio expert come in, and they couldn't hear anything from 100 yards away. And it's like the doors were open. A lot of the tests that they recreated were, like, different conditions. Yeah, it was just really frustrating to watch this evidence when it's like, there's always going to be this human aspect of it where it's like, it can happen. It. It just does. And it can. And we can't explain it, but, like, to be like, oh, well, you couldn't even tell what direction it's coming from. Well, I still heard something.
- [60:51]
Kayla Moore
Right. Like, I still heard women's screams and There was something that sounded like gunshots.
- [60:56]
Morgan Abshur
I'm in bed. I'm not, like, looking. I'm like. It's just. It's really frustrating. This is what really frustrated me, I think, with this case.
- [61:04]
Kayla Moore
But all the defense has to do is plant that seed of doubt in the judge's mind. And so they're just really working on making it seem doubtful that what the people heard was actually what they heard. And they're kind of doing. I mean, I don't want to say they're doing an okay job, but, like, as we'll see, like, some people start really changing their mind on this case because of the way that the defense is doing this. So on April 7th of 2014, this was what some people say the most dramatic part of the trial was. And this is when it began. And that's when Oscar himself took the stand to testify. When it was time for the prosecutor hurry Nell to cross examine Oscar, he really did not show any sympathy. For the first five days of cross examination, Neil demanded that Oscar take responsibility for killing Reeva. But here's what's kind of complicated about this case is Oscar did take responsibility for killing Reva. He said, it's really just like the motive that we're looking for. And so Oscar's on the stand crying and saying time and time again that he did take responsibility. That's not the problem. But Oscar, as he's crying on the stand, he keeps saying that this was a mistake, though. I did shoot Reva, but it was a mistake. I shot her by accident. And this is kind of a time during the trial where it starts looking a little bit bad for the prosecution because Nell is questioning Oscar so aggressively, saying, take responsibility, even though Oscar is taking responsibility. So he's just up on the stand crying, and the judge actually repeatedly chastises him for being so harsh to Oscar. And that, to me, is like the judge taking sympathy on Oscar. And it's just, like, really not a good point in the trial for that to start happening.
- [62:50]
Morgan Abshur
No. And when you have a trial that's decided by one person versus a jury, that really doesn't.
- [62:57]
Kayla Moore
I know.
- [62:57]
Morgan Abshur
Bode well.
- [62:58]
Kayla Moore
Yeah.
- [62:59]
Morgan Abshur
So another clue that we're going to talk about where both the prosecution and defense really hone in on is Oscar's mental health. You see, once Oscar's time in this hot seat was over, his lawyers called another expert witness to begin wrapping up their case. She was a psychiatrist named Dr. Meryl Vorster, and she had recently evaluated Oscar's mental health.
- [63:20]
Kayla Moore
And we didn't talk about it a ton at the beginning when it comes to Oscar's story, but it doesn't really seem like being disabled was that much of a stressor on Oscar, at least, growing up. Like, he was treated very normally. His parents wanted him to do all of the same sports as all of the kids that had their legs. And there was one section I read where, or like, just in the research, where his mom would say, like, put on your shoes. And for his brother, it meant putting on his shoes. And for Oscar, it meant putting on his prosthetics. Like, it was just like a normal part of their routine. There was a part of Oscar's story, actually, when he was running in the Paralympics, trying to run in the Olympics. Olympics where people. There was like, a whole thing about does his prosthetics actually give him an advantage? Which they did find out through that process that Oscar actually is like Michael Phelps in the sense that he's just kind of superhuman. Like, the way that his body processes oxygen is just different than everyone else. And ultimately his prosthetics probably hinder his ability to run. He's just so fast that he still beats everyone, even having, like, a minor disadvantage. And I know that that trial was incredibly stressful for him, but I don't know if I buy this. Years of anxiety from having a disability at least. And that's the way that Oscar tells his story, too, is that it was, like, not that stressful for him.
- [64:47]
Morgan Abshur
No. It seems like this generalized anxiety disorder, like, this is the first time you're ever really hearing about it. And I think even, you know, the documentary that seemingly, when you watch it, at least from my perspective, it felt very biased towards Oscar. Like, they just describe his life as so normal. Like, he played rugby, you guys, like, intense rugby. And, you know, sometimes his prosthetics would pop off and everyone would pause. He'd put it back on, and then there's scrimmaging again. It was. It was just this thing for him.
- [65:19]
Kayla Moore
And does his generalized anxiety disorder make him shoot the lights out at a stoplight? Like, there's other things he's doing that to me you can't excuse with just anxiety.
- [65:30]
Morgan Abshur
And the prosecution thought this was a ridiculous argument as well. Like, a lot of people struggle with anxiety and they're not shooting a gun through their bathroom door. Yeah, four times. And so they didn't want Oscar to get away with murder based on, you know, this testimony from this one doctor that his team had hired. So hurry. Nell motioned that the judge bring the trial to a Halt. So that Oscar could be evaluated by an independent team of psychiatrists. He figured that once a group of doctors who weren't on Oscar's payroll took a look at him, that they would testify that this whole anxiety defense was absurd. So Judge Masipa agreed with the prosecution and put the trial on hold for the next 30 days so that Oscar could be evaluated by a team of psychiatrists at a major hospital in Pretoria. A month later, the trial resumed, and the judge reviewed the psychiatric team's findings. And they found that Oscar did not have, quote, clinically significant generalized anxiety disorder. But they did find that Oscar didn't fit the psychological profile for men who commit domestic violence. He didn't show signs of narcissism or abnormal physical aggression. And they did agree with Dr. Vorster, saying that Oscar often felt fearful and vulnerable. Specifically, he lived in fear of being a victim of a violent crime. But the psychiatrist testified that Oscar's fear was more of an obsession.
- [66:56]
Kayla Moore
Right. So this is also something that kind of ends up working against the prosecution. Like, they're the ones that call for this psychological exam to take place. And then it kind of basically proves, quote, unquote, in a way that, like. But he doesn't seem like an abuser. Like, we talk to him and he seems chill. Doesn't really work for them. So on multiple occasions leading up to the shooting, Oscar went into a frenzy when he heard strange noises in his house. This is one of the things that they learn when they're talking to him. And actually, one night, he came home pretty late, and he heard this noise in his kitchen. As usual, he was carrying his gun around in his house, and he pulls it out, creeps through the house in what he called, quote, full combat mode, looking for an intruder. That is a very intense reaction to hearing a noise in your house. And when he gets to the kitchen, the room is empty. And eventually he realizes that it was his laundry machine that was spinning. Another time, Oscar actually dozed off while he was watching a movie with some friends. And when a loud gunshot in the movie woke him up, Oscar leapt off the couch and ran out of the room in a panic. There was a time, also, this is something they learned about him, that when he was with a friend that was sleeping over at Oscar's house, they got up to get a glass of water in the middle of the night, and Oscar came running out of his bedroom holding a gun in his hand, thinking his friend was an intruder.
- [68:27]
Morgan Abshur
It's very. For me, it feels frustrating to hear this. And for him to not, given these circumstances, have that self awareness, like, hey, maybe I'm being overly paranoid. Maybe I need to address this issue. Maybe I should stop pulling guns and shooting first mentality, ask questions after like. And this is coming from his perspective, right? Did they call anyone to corroborate this?
- [68:50]
Kayla Moore
I believe that this is coming from his perspective, that this is what they learned from Oscar as they were doing this exam.
- [68:56]
Morgan Abshur
So take that with a grain of salt as well.
- [68:59]
Kayla Moore
Take that for what you will. The psychiatrist believed that this obsessive fear of crime actually started when Oscar was a child. Because his mom was also terrified of home invasions when he was growing up. She would often wake up in the middle of the night thinking that someone was breaking in. And she would pull Oscar and his siblings into home, her bedroom and would lock the door. And then they would all huddle together and wait for the police to arrive. Oscar's mom, like him, also slept with a gun under her pillow. And mental health experts said that this did have a major impact on Oscar's fight or flight response. Another factor too, that the psychiatrist really weighed heavily during all of this is Oscar's disability. So his fear and paranoia was especially bad when he wasn't wearing his legs because he felt like he was more vulnerable then he felt like an easier target. I mean, I absolutely understand that.
- [69:52]
Morgan Abshur
Absolutely.
- [69:52]
Kayla Moore
And the defense actually demonstrated this by having Oscar parade around the courtroom without his prosthetics on. So everyone could see that he's not as fast when he doesn't have his prosthetics on. He's a little wobbly, it's hard for him to walk. It makes sense that someone would be a little bit more freaked out if he didn't have his prosthetics on because he was a bit more of a target, essentially.
- [70:12]
Morgan Abshur
I watched this happen, this clip from court, and it was very apparent that the judge even really address this. Like, I commend you for doing this in court. I like almost you could feel the sympathy come across during this, which it felt really like a. A tactic that the defense was. Was using during this, especially the image of.
- [70:33]
Kayla Moore
Because they had already ruled that he most likely was not wearing the prosthetics when he's coming down the hallway. So then for the judge to see this man, who is a good 6 inches shorter than he would be, he's not this big, like, intimidating guy when he doesn't have his prosthetics on, he doesn't move very fast. He's shorter than Reva would have been. Like he. To have that image in your mind. I think the judge really started seeing, like, oh, wow, he was in a really vulnerable position if this is what he was coming down the hallway like, and it maybe was a tactic. So once all of the evidence had been laid out, Judge Masipa announced her verdict on September 11th. And she had a lot to say. Her prepared remarks were 72 pages long. She had definitely, like, taken a lot of time to think about this case. And in the end, she found Oscar. After everything we heard about all the text messages, all the witnesses, all the experts, the mental health, everything that was taken into consideration, she found Oscar not guilty of murder. She just didn't buy the prosecution's argument that Oscar and Reva were fighting that night. And she pointed to the audio experts analysis that said neighbors likely heard Oscar screaming, not Reva. And she dismissed the WhatsApp messages between Reeva and Oscar because she said nothing in them indicated that Oscar had a murderous intent. But she did find Oscar guilty of culpable homicide, which is equivalent to manslaughter in the United States. I mean, he wasn't denying that he shot and killed her. And Judge Masiba ruled that while Oscar hadn't intended to murder Reva, he had been irresponsible and negligent with his gun, which led directly to her death. She also found him guilty of one additional weapons charge for accidentally firing the pistol in a restaurant. And Oscar was ultimately, at least at this time, sentenced to eight years in jail, five years for accidentally shooting Reeva, with a concurrent three year suspended sentence for the weapons charge. And he began serving that sentence on October 21, 2014. But after less than a year, he was allowed to serve the rest of his sentence under house arrest.
- [72:41]
Morgan Abshur
Insane.
- [72:42]
Kayla Moore
Obviously, this sentencing was very unpopular in South Africa and kind of throughout the world at large. The majority of people online, at least the people that were very vocal online, felt like Oscar had gotten away with murder, like Murder in Cold Blood. Trevor Noah, who, like, pretty much we all know he's a South African comedian, he hosts the Daily show, he drew a comparison to the O.J. simpson trial, tweeting, quote, O.J. pistorius after the verdict was read. He was very vocal and very upset about this one. And Judge Masipa's ruling was so controversial that she did go on to receive death threats, and the police had to be stationed outside of her home after the verdict. Even the court system itself believed that Oscar had gotten off too easy. In 2015, South Africa's supreme Court actually reviewed this case and ruled that Judge Masiba's sentence had been too light, and they found Oscar guilty of murder and increased his sentence from 8 years to 13 years and 5 months. And he was actually sent back to prison after being just on house arrest. That's also something that's different about South Africa's court system and ours. Like, you, you don't re sentence people like that here.
- [73:54]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah.
- [73:55]
Kayla Moore
And still, because Oscar was pretty much a model prisoner, he was released on parole in January of 2024 after serving only nine years of this sentence.
- [74:06]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah. And that brings us to today. Oscar is competing in triathlons. He has a new girlfriend. I would like to know your thoughts on this. Maybe we put some side by side comparisons up with this new girlfriend and Reva. To me, they look eerily similar. Eerily similar.
- [74:30]
Kayla Moore
Yeah. I agree.
- [74:31]
Morgan Abshur
Reva's mom has since come out and said, you know, he still has anger issues upon hearing the news that he had a new girlfriend again. You know, she said she was very sad by this and kind of just issued this warning to this woman because, you know, she's dealing with a lot of feelings of guilt about what happened to Reva. And she's like, I'm scared for this woman. Like, he still has anger issues. I don't understand how she doesn't see a red flag about him because he has not lost this temper problem. And, you know, she goes on to share that he was supposed to have, like, all of these anger management classes while he was in prison. And a big reason about why he even got nine years is because she found out he wasn't attending these classes. And so she went to, like, South Africa's, like, version of a parole board.
- [75:16]
Kayla Moore
Yeah.
- [75:16]
Morgan Abshur
And said, like, no, he's not taking these classes. He needs to do this. And so that's why I think he even got nine years. Or at least that's my understanding of.
- [75:25]
Kayla Moore
This, why the sentence was increased.
- [75:26]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah. So, you know, Reeva's mom June is really worried. Really worried. In the wake of the shooting and the trial, Reeva's family created the Reeva Steenkamp Foundation. Throughout her life, Reeva was passionate about helping survivors of domestic abuse. And the Steenkamp foundation carries on that mission by raising awareness about domestic violence and providing support for survivors. In the speech that Reva was due to give to a group of teen girls the morning after her murder, she wanted to emphasize, quote, placing value on you as you talked about Caitlin. And in an outline of her speech that her family actually shared, Reeva planned to talk about soul searching to remind herself of her value in this world. She wanted to end her speech with this quote, be brave, Always see the positive. And quote, go home and tell your parents, siblings, neighbors that they are appreciated. You will go to bed with a happy heart and an open mind for the future. So if you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, there is help. You can call the national domestic violence hotline 24 hours a day at 800-799-7233 to speak with someone about resources and options. To find safety, you can Also text begin to 88788. I also want to touch on this quiz. I talk about this a lot on my podcast, but there's a website called loveisrespect.org they have a quiz and it's meant to just determine how healthy your relationship is. So whether you're out there and like because of this episode, you have some alarm bells ringing or you think your relationship is the healthiest out there, everyone should take this quiz and you should see. This is also a great website for resources for domestic violence. It has built in safety features. On this website, if you hit the escape key twice, it immediately goes to Google. If you hit back, it goes nowhere. There's also a big exit. So again it goes to Google. Like this website is meant for people to be able to safely get resources. So that will be in our show notes description as well. But I really think it's a quiz that everyone should take regardless.
- [77:43]
Kayla Moore
Yeah, I'm looking at it now and there's just questions like your partner is well liked by your friends. Your partner says that you are too involved in different activities. So just. Yeah, it's just like a little.
- [77:53]
Morgan Abshur
It gets you thinking. Yeah, it gets you thinking. And really just looking at it from a lens of I think everything's good but like, is it like. I just, I think it's a really great resource for people out there.
- [78:04]
Kayla Moore
Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. I'm, yeah, gonna look at this later.
- [78:08]
Morgan Abshur
But that concludes our case on Riva Steenkamp, closing the case file and moving on to our missing person of the week.
- [78:17]
Kayla Moore
Yes. So there's someone that we wanted to highlight this week. Each week we're going to be just highlighting a different missing person where there's still action items that can happen. And maybe this will jog someone's memory and make people just think and remember something that they hadn't really thought about before.
- [78:32]
Morgan Abshur
Get the word out a little bit more.
- [78:33]
Kayla Moore
Yeah, exactly. So this week we're going to highlight Sandra Johnson Hughes, who went missing in 2020. Now, the note here says, if you have any information about this individual or if you have been in the area south of Merced Pass and Buena Vista Crest During July of 2020, please call 209-372-0610. Even if you didn't see her or her abandoned gear, if you plan to travel in the area and you notice possibly abandoned gear during your trip, do not touch it. Take photos, note the exact location and report it when you return. Sandra is described as 54 years old, 5 foot 3 and 150 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. She was last seen on Saturday, July 4, 2020. She was camping alone in the Sierra National Forest and had crashed her vehicle. She was seen walking away, but she refused assistance from other motorists. A sleeping bag matching her recent REI purchase was found a few days later off trail 2.5 miles north of the accident scene and just inside the Yosemite national park boundary. Her original campsite with most of her gear appears to have been abandoned. The search by the Madera County Sheriff and Yosemite national park has so far been unsuccessful. So, again, if you have any information on Sandra Johnson Hughes, you can call 209-372-0610. Thanks, guys. That is it for this episode of Clues. Thank you for helping unravel this case with us. If you're a South African listener, just know we love your language and we're sorry if we got any of the words wrong. We tried very hard and we looked up all the pronunciations.
- [80:08]
Morgan Abshur
Really, really, really tried.
- [80:09]
Kayla Moore
Guys, we want to hear from you guys now, though. I want to hear any thoughts you have, any theories. Like I said, we're curious, even just like, the initial things you heard about this case when it first happened. Um, I feel like this is one too, where a lot of people heard the headline when it first came out, but don't necessarily know how it concluded. At least people not in South Africa.
- [80:28]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah, absolutely.
- [80:29]
Kayla Moore
Yeah.
- [80:30]
Morgan Abshur
It is a really. It's kind of a twisty case. It's one that has just left me utterly confused. I sit here and I'm just like, why?
- [80:39]
Kayla Moore
Why, why, why?
- [80:40]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah, so I'd love to see all your. Your comments on it. And again, like, I hope that you go back to your initial comment now and reply to yourself, has it changed? Are you, you know, more lenient about what happened? And, you know, I can't wait to read your comments at Crime House. We really value your support. So please again share your thoughts on social media and remember to rate, review and follow clues to help others discover our show. And if you're hungry for more content, we've got you covered. There's exclusive content and monthly bonus episodes, early access and ad free listening. You can get that by joining our crime House plus community on Apple podcasts.
- [81:16]
Kayla Moore
All right, we're going to be back next week with another case that we're going to do a deep dive into. And until then, keep searching and we will see you next time on Clues.
- [81:25]
Morgan Abshur
Bye, guys.
- [81:26]
Kayla Moore
Bye. This Friday, starring Taran Edgerton. Holly, Dangerous men are coming for us.
- [81:38]
Morgan Abshur
I want you to get through race. Can you do that for me?
- [81:42]
Kayla Moore
All her father needs is a fighting chance. Everybody is looking for you.
- [81:46]
Morgan Abshur
What do you do?
- [81:51]
Kayla Moore
I'll keep you safe.
- [81:53]
Morgan Abshur
Promise. She rides shotgun.
- [81:55]
Kayla Moore
Rated R under 17. Not admitted without parent. In theaters Friday.