One Tragic Night (51 page)

But when Roux started his re-examination he told the court that while he did ask Mangena about double-tapping, he was told soon after that that was not Oscar's contention, but that he had rather fired in quick succession. ‘It was incorrectly put by me,' said Roux. ‘So let me correct that.'

How was it possible that an advocate of Roux's calibre would submit as evidence something he had not heard from his client? The fact that this correction had come so late in the trial might suggest that Oscar could have tailored his evidence when faced with the facts presented by the state, which absolutely ruled out his version of a double-tap. Nel raised this issue when the accused took the stand.

The cross-examination of Botha called into question many of the defence expert's findings, which appeared to swing this witness in favour of the prosecution team. When pressed, Botha could not dispute some of the major findings of Saayman, such as the evidence on gastric emptying. This was significant, as the court could accept the state's witness testimony that Reeva was eating at least two hours prior to her death, the time the accused claimed she was in bed next to him. It wasn't the strong start the defence would have wanted, but the anaesthetist who subsequently addressed this issue further for the defence was adamant that no absolute timelines were possible.

Professor Christina Lundgren is considered a leading expert in the field of anaesthesia, with more than 30 years of experience and hundreds of published journal articles. She was called by the defence to cast doubt on Saayman's findings related to Reeva's last meal.

The professor wore a neat black jacket with a white blouse, her greying hair cut so short it barely touched the garment's collar and she was quietly confident in
her delivery. Lundgren explained that an anaesthetist must have a wide-ranging understanding of various physiological and pharmacological factors that might affect patients' health while they are unconscious, so as to ensure their safety. And one of the most important aspects is to establish whether a patient has any food in his or her stomach because one of the most dangerous complications that can occur is for food to be regurgitated and inhaled into the lungs, ‘which is an absolute disaster for the patient, hence we are experts in gastric emptying'.

She stated that there are general guidelines – related to clear fluids and solid food – adopted by anaesthetists to reduce the risk of a patient's stomach containing solid food at the time they are put under. Clear fluids can be consumed up to two hours before an operation and it will be expected to have passed through the stomach. ‘When it comes to solid foods, the studies are very difficult to perform,' she said, as she listed a host of factors that affect the rate at which food is digested and passed through the stomach.

But there is, however, an accepted guideline. ‘We have always felt that four to six hours after a buttered slice of toast and a cup of tea is acceptable time for you to come to theatre and have an empty stomach but, in fact, the anaesthetic literature has not been able to prove that there is no solid food in the stomach after four hours, hence the consensus amongst anaesthesiologists is a minimum of six hours after any solid food, so to ensure and in the hopes that the stomach is empty after that six hour period.'

Lundgren recalled, anecdotally, a patient who had fasted in hospital for at least eight hours prior to a procedure but regurgitated green stomach contents as she was putting the woman to sleep. ‘She still had not emptied her stomach and had no good reason not to have emptied her stomach after eight hours, and if I chat to colleagues, they have all had similar experiences. So it is not an exact science, unfortunately,' said the professor, echoing what Botha had said in his evidence.

Roux had provided the expert with Oscar's version – that Reeva had consumed a meal of chicken stir-fry between 7pm and 8pm the evening before she was killed – and asked her to study the contents of Reeva's stomach from the autopsy photographs and offer the court her opinion. ‘After six hours of fasting, after this meal, her stomach should probably have been empty but there are so many unknowns about possible factors that could have delayed gastric emptying that one cannot state it as being a fact and I would say it would be purely speculative.' Like Botha, she could not provide a hard-and-fast answer.

Nel was very polite to Lundgren, setting out firstly that he found her evidence balanced and that he did not have many differences of opinion. ‘Understand that
I am not fighting with you, I just think that we will have to go through certain things.'

Lundgren had listed numerous factors that might have delayed gastric emptying, from the types of medication a person was taking and whether they smoked cigarettes to underlying medical conditions and their exercise and sleep routine. But she conceded that on the facts before her, related to Reeva, she did not know that any of them existed except that the patient was pre-menopausal.

Lundgren was a tough witness for Nel and was not going to be pushed into conceding on the possibilities presented by the prosecutor that any accurate determination on the time of the last meal could be made by studying the stomach contents. When the prosecutor looked at Oscar's timeline – around eight hours from the time the couple ate between 7 and 8pm and until when she died at about 3am – and the resulting improbability any food would have remained in the stomach, Lundgren offered that the insoluble fibre in the vegetables might have delayed gastric emptying.

But Nel continued to push the witness, referring to Saayman's evidence that even in death the enzymes in the stomach would continue to break down substances. So how was the pathologist able to recognise food if it had been in the stomach for so long? ‘I am a clinician, I deal with live patients and I have immense respect for Professor Saayman, who is a forensic pathologist and his patients are deceased. So I am not a forensic pathologist and I do not wish to comment,' Lundgren said.

Saayman had inserted a disclaimer in his report when he acknowledged that gastric emptying is an inexact science, noting on his finding that ‘if there is any substantive evidence to the contrary, that must be weighed up by the court and ultimately, it will be the prerogative of the court to make that decision'.

‘Do you agree with that?' asked Nel, attempting to force the witness into a confrontational stance with the state's witness. ‘Is there anything that you see that would say the court should not take that into account?'

But Lundgren wasn't biting, opting for a diplomatic course of action and referring the court to the forensic pathology literature already submitted that questions the reliability of using gastric emptying as a measure. ‘I am not prepared to comment on what Professor Saayman's opinion is. It is as it stands, however, I have been given forensic pathology evidence to read and there it states quite categorically that it is not a good idea to judge the time of the last meal from the stomach contents.'

The cross-examination came full circle when Nel referred back to Lundgren's own report in which she stated, based on the available evidence that included
the meal of chicken stir-fry, that ‘in the ideal world, after six hours of fasting, after this meal her stomach should probably have been empty'. With Lundgren unable to identify any of the factors she listed as affecting gastric emptying being present in this case, Nel was satisfied he had done enough with this witness to ensure Saayman's evidence remained persuasive.

It would be up to Judge Masipa to decide whether to accept the expert witnesses' testimony on gastric emptying – this could be a crucial element in deciding whether or not Oscar and Reeva were awake in the hours before the shooting and whether an argument between the couple possibly led to the incident or not.

Exactly three weeks after the shooting, on 7 March 2013, a white body bag arrived at the office of police ballistics expert Chris Mangena. It had been dispatched by the Case Administration Section of the Forensic Science Laboratory in Pretoria. Mangena, a captain attached to the Ballistics Unit since 1995, has worked on nearly 6000 cases over the past two decades.

Mangena broke the red seal marked ‘30002', pulling apart the two zippers to reveal the item to be studied. It contained ‘One damaged 227x79 cm Wooden Door' – the meranti door from Oscar Pistorius's bathroom through which the athlete had shot and killed Reeva Steenkamp.

The door had taken an interesting journey from the Paralympic superstar's house in Silver Woods to Mangena's office – one that would cause some consternation and raise many eyebrows. It also, arguably, led to the resignation of Colonel Schoombie van Rensburg, the station commander at the Boschkop police station (a claim he denies), which was handling the murder investigation. It is the type of incident that occurs occasionally in South Africa, where the quality and standard of police forensics can be dubious as a result of high case loads and substantial backlogs.

On the day after the shooting, Colonel Van Rensburg returned to Oscar's house. The atmosphere was far calmer than the previous morning when he had been the first police officer to arrive following the shooting. He had already had to deal with a watch being stolen from the crime scene and now Van Rensburg had been informed that, amid the media frenzy, some newspapers were willing to pay up to R60 000 for a photograph of the door. He knew that the door had to be removed from the scene immediately.

‘We decided to take it down,' Van Rensburg told the trial court a year later. ‘The
door is the most valuable evidence, exhibit on the scene, because it indicated the shooting holes. The deceased was behind this door when she was shot. So that was the main reason … it had to be seized. But when we received the information on the Friday, we decided we would do it immediately.'

In a scene out of a keystone cop sitcom, the officers set about trying to find packaging, and a form of transport that would be big enough to hold the door.

‘It is a very big … big door, as you see,' explained the station commander. ‘So we made arrangements that we take body bags. Now I personally drive to Bronkhorstspruit and got body bags, different sizes of the body bags and then only the biggest body bag the door could fit in.'

Lieutenant-Colonel Frans van der Merwe from Forensic Services and police photographer Warrant Officer Bennie van Staden set about taking down the door. There might have been a concern about whether or not the officers would have been able to reconstruct the exhibit once it had been removed, but Van Rensburg was confident it would be easy to reassemble with a screwdriver. They took down the door and sealed it in the body bag with official seals.

Once they had carried the bag outside the house, the next problem was trying to fit the door into a police car. The men had to call in a long-wheel-base vehicle to fit the door into the back, but then they encountered another concern. The loose panels of the door had shifted and the officers were concerned they would rip the body bag, which would mean that the evidence could be contaminated. Securing this crucial piece of evidence was proving to be a real headache for Van Rensburg.

A police constable drove the door to the Boschkop police station where it was handed in to what is known as the SAP13, where exhibits for all investigations are booked and held. Usual practice at Boschkop is for the bigger exhibits to be kept in the charge office, which is a temporary facility. However, on that Friday afternoon, the officers could not fit the exhibit in and decided to leave it standing in the passage of the charge office. When the station commander arrived back at his office, he found the door, still sealed, leaning against the wall in the passage. According to ‘Standing Orders', it is the responsibility of the station commander to safeguard the property and the exhibits. So Van Rensburg signed for the door and took the unusual step of choosing to keep it in his office. He was quizzed about this decision when on the stand during the murder trial.

‘Now I know someone will ask the question, why do you take it to your office. The first thing about the office is it is secured. There is security … I am the only person that had a key to the room … It was kept there in my office the whole weekend.'

The arrangement was that on the Monday, Warrant Officer Van Staden and Lieutenant-Colonel van der Merwe would collect the exhibit and hand it in at Forensic Services. But the investigating team got caught up in the bail application and before they realised, more than two weeks had passed.

‘Now during this period this door was kept in my office. I was the only person in control of that office. No meeting was held during that period in that office. If someone come and see me I close the door, I lock the door and I went to another office and have a conversation with that person. Also … there was only two faxes on the station. One fax is in my office. Sometimes the people come and they want to fax something. I took that faxes and I fax it myself. So nobody else did tamper with that evidence explained …' Van Rensburg to the court.