Accused murderer Oscar Pistorius held his head in his hands and wiped away tears as a court heard grisly details of the injuries inflicted on his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp during the second day of his trial in Pretoria yesterday.
Pistorius also leaned forward and held his head in his hands as his defence counsel Barry Roux read details of the post mortem report into 29-year-old Steenkamp’s death on Valentine’s day last year.
Mr Roux said that some fragments of the bullet were removed from Steenkamp’s head. Pistorius covered his ears as though not wanting to hear.
The trial’s first witness, Dr Michell Burger, a neighbour who lived around 170 metres from the home Pistorius shared with Steenkamp, faced a tough cross examination from Roux who challenged her claim to have heard screams before and after the shots that killed Steenkamp.
He said that was not possible considering that one of the shots hit her in the head and that the resulting brain damage would not have allowed her the scream.
Dr Burger insisted that she heard a scream after the fourth shot and that “it faded away”.
Meanwhile, Reeva Steenkamp’s mother June Steenkamp, 67, gave a TV interview broadcast overnight in which she said that she has already forgiven Pistorius no matter what the outcome of the trial because she “doesn’t want to live with bitterness in my life”.
She said she attended the trial in an attempt to “force” the world famous athlete, a double amputee known as the Blade Runner, to look her in the eye. Footage taken inside the court shows Pistorius walking past Mrs Steenkamp avoiding eye contact.
“I wanted to see Oscar face to face so he would know I was there,” she said. “I wanted him to see me. I’m the mother of Reeva. It’s just important for me that he saw me there. I can’t explain to you why but that’s what I wanted yesterday. He just walked into the courtroom and looked straight ahead and never looked my way at all.”
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