Evidence of Oscar Pistorius potentially being guilty of murdering Reeva Steenkamp continues to mount. Testimony from neighbors, police experts, a pathologist, and more, continue falling together while the Oscar Pistorius version of events, from the night he shot his then-girlfriend, seem less and less plausible.
Monday’s beginning to a new week of the Oscar Pistorius Murder Trial continued this trend, CNN reporting often contentious texts between Oscar and Reeva in the weeks before the model’s tragic death. The conversations reveal a troubled side to the relationship while also reflecting seemingly dark character flaws in Pistorius that lead to emotional outbursts, temper tantrums and poor treatment of Steenkamp.
Perhaps the most damning revelation against Oscar was Reeva texting, “I’m scared of you sometimes.”
The exchange is the apparent result of an incident that took place while Pistorius and Steenkamp were out to dinner to celebrate the engagement of a friend of Steenkamp’s. While there, Reeva was talking to another friend that happened to be a man, and this apparently was more than Oscar could take. An excerpt from Reeva to Oscar:
“I was not flirting with anyone today. I feel sick that you suggested that and that you made a scene at the table and made us leave early. I’m terribly disappointed in how the day ended and how you left me. We are living in a double standard relationship where you can be mad about how I deal with stuff when you are very quick to act cold and offish when you’re unhappy… I do everything to make you happy… You do everything to throw tantrums in front of people… I’m scared of you sometimes and how u snap at me and of how you will react to me.”
In response, along with explaining that he had been tired, hungry, and generally agitated, jealousy also seemed to play a role in Pistorius’ behavior:
“I was upset that you just left me after we got food to go talk to a guy and I was standing right behind you watching you touch his arm and ignore me. And when I spoke up you introduced me which you could’ve done but when I left you just kept on chatting to him when clearly I was upset.”
Another text exchange revealed at the trial took place February 8, 2013, less than a week before Pistorius shot Steenkamp. Again it appears Oscar had a public melt down at Reeva’s expense when she was trying to help them make a quick exit from an event where he was already perturbed:
“I didn’t think you would criticize me for doing that especially not so loudly so that others could hear… I regard myself as a lady and I didn’t feel like one tonight after the way you treated me when we left… I am trying my best to make you happy and I feel as though you sometimes never are, no matter the effort I put in. I can’t be attacked by outsiders for dating you and be attacked by you — the one person I deserve protection from.”
Along with Oscar and Reeva’s texts, the LA Times reports that another of Pistorius’ neighbors, Anette Stipp, testified she heard a woman screaming, along with gunshots, the morning of the shooting. Other neighbors have made this same claim, but the Pistorius defense says it was actually Oscar who was screaming.
Stipp, awake due to illness, testified she heard three gunshots ring out in the night.
“It was moments after the shots I heard a lady screaming, terrified, terrified screaming,” said Stipp. “The screaming just continued. It did not stop.”
Other witnesses have corroborated Stipp’s account, one remembering “blood curdling screams” of a terrified woman.
Stipp said to her husband, “‘I’m sure it’s a family murder. Why else would a woman be screaming like that?”
This week may see Pistorius take the stand. Guilty or innocent, it has been a grueling trial for Oscar Pistorius with no signs of letting up.