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This excerpt from Behind the Door: The Oscar Pistorius and Reeva Steenkamp Story has been published with permission from Pan Macmillan South Africa and is available from all leading stores.
Contaminated, Disturbed, Tampered
Questions surrounding the police’s handling of the crime scene emerged in the bail application mere days after the shooting and cast a shadow over the police’s integrity.
In light of the South African public’s cynicism about the capabilities of the police service, this wasn’t entirely surprising. Former investigating officer Hilton Botha was accused of entering the crime scene without the appropriate protective bootees covering his shoes.
Although anyone close to the case would claim that this was not relevant because the accused had already admitted to killing the victim, it was the principle that was being tested.
It was a ‘how dunnit’ rather than a ‘who dunnit’.
But then more details of irregularities emerged, some by the police’s own admission and others voiced by Oscar himself.
The accused stated in his plea explanation that he would use this to argue his innocence:
It will also be demonstrated during this trial, whilst Botha was the investigating officer and tasked with preserving the scene, that the scene was contaminated, disturbed and tampered with. This feature of the State’s case will be dealt with when Botha, amongst others, gives evidence.
At the time, the defence team assumed Hilton Botha would take the stand and were sharpening their knives in anticipation. But this wasn’t the way the trial ultimately played out.
Instead, the state called the former Boschkop station commander and the first police officer to arrive on the scene, Colonel Schoombie van Rensburg.
The veteran policeman has a Friar Tuck-like appearance, with a shiny bald patch on the top of his head and neatly trimmed greying hair around the back and sides.
Recently retired, he had subsequently followed his passion to coach sport.
Van Rensburg explained how it came to be that he and a Constable Christelle Prinsloo were the first police officers to arrive.
He had found Oscar in a very emotional state in the kitchen, where he was being consoled by a woman later identified as Carice Viljoen, the daughter of neighbour Johan Stander.
Nel led the witness through his observations when he arrived on the scene: who was there, what were they doing, what did they say and how did he react?
The answers set out the timeline of events, plotted the movements of key players in the police and the accused, and explained what had informed the police’s rationale to arrest Oscar on a charge of murder. Van Rensburg said he confined Oscar to the kitchen, where he observed the athlete retching at times.
When Hilton Botha arrived, Van Rensburg showed the investigating officer Reeva’s body, and together they followed the blood trail up the stairs, down the passage into Oscar’s bedroom, past the cupboards and into the bathroom.
Nel referred to the crime scene pictures along this path, which the policeman described and confirmed was indeed the state in which he had observed them. He was asked to comment on specific items in the bedroom:
Nel: Now that view of the bedroom, can you still remember that as the view you got the day you entered?
Van Rensburg: That is correct, M’Lady. That is as it was.
Nel: When you got to the scene, was that door open or closed?
Van Rensburg: The door was open, M’Lady.
Nel: What was the condition of the curtains, when you got to the scene?
Van Rensburg: The curtains were drawn open as they were there. They were not closed.
Nel: Now before we carry on, Colonel, since the time that you arrived at the scene, did anybody go upstairs, up until the time that you and Botha went up?
Van Rensburg: After I had arrived on the scene, M’Lady, until I went up with Botha, nobody else entered that scene.
The state was pre-empting the defence case. Nel was also laying the foundations for a much later exchange with Oscar, when he would take the accused through the state of the bedroom in order to discredit his version.
Van Rensburg further confirmed that when he arrived the grey duvet was on the floor in front of one of the fans; a pair of denim jeans was lying next to the duvet; a pair of white flip-flops was found on the left side of the bed close to an overnight bag on a chair; a firearm holster was found on the left bedside table; the two fans were found as they were pictured; and a box of eight luxury watches was found on top of a speaker in the room.
With the photograph of the bathroom up on screens in the courtroom, Van Rensburg described the state in which he found the room: the shattered wood panels, bullet shells, the cricket bat, shards of bullet fragments, the open window, the silver pistol with the hammer pulled back, and two cellphones.
A black iPhone, lying closest to the firearm, had come out of its silver case, which to Van Rensburg created the impression it was two phones on top of each other.
He said it was only later, while he was not present and while moving items in the bathroom, that police discovered the second phone, a white iPhone, under a towel closest to the bath.
Van Rensburg stated that after inspecting the crime scene and establishing from Oscar that only he and Reeva had been in the house at the time of the shooting, he immediately viewed the athlete as a suspect.
Oscar was then moved from the kitchen to the garage where his brother Carl and Advocate Kenny Oldwadge had access to him. The cop insisted that from the time he arrived at the house, access control was implemented and a barrier erected.
In the days that followed, the house was locked up with numbered and tagged tamper-proof seals that were documented.
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