Pistorius wept over girlfriend’s body: witness
Doctor believes athlete sincerely in sorrow
PRETORIA • Oscar Pistorius wept and prayed over the body of Reeva Steenkamp after shooting her, begging God to “please let her live, she must not die,” a court heard Thursday.
Johan Stipp, a doctor living nearby who went to help after hearing shots and screams, said he found Mr. Pistorius crouched over the model trying to help her.
“I went nearer and as I bent down I noticed a man kneeling on her left side. He had his left hand on her right groin and his right hand second and third fingers in her mouth,” he said.
“I remember the first thing he said when I got there was, ‘I shot her, I thought she was a burglar and I shot her’.”
Dr. Stipp, a radiologist, said as he examined the 29-yearold’s body, there were “no signs of life.” Her pupils were fixed and dilated, she had no pulse and he could see “brain tissue” mixing with blood and hair from the gunshot wound to her head. She also had wounds to her right thigh and right upper arm.
“She was clenching down on Oscar’s fingers as he was trying to open her airway,” he said. “To me it was obvious that she was mortally wounded.”
He added: “Oscar was crying all the time, he prayed to God, ‘Please let her live, she must not die.’ At one stage he was praying that he would dedicate his life and her life to God if she would just only live and not die that night.”
In court, Mr. Pistorius rocked forward as if about to throw up. He kept his head down, his shaking hands locked behind his neck.
Asked by Barry Roux, his lawyer, if he believed the athlete was genuine in his grief, Dr. Stipp replied, “He looked sincere to me. He was crying and had tears on his face.”
Mr. Pistorius denies the premeditated murder of his girlfriend by shooting her through a bathroom door at his home last Valentine’s Day. He claims he thought she was an intruder. The prosecution say he shot her deliberately after a row.
Dr. Stipp said he was woken by “three loud bangs” which he believed were gunshots.
“I got out of bed and went to the balcony. As I looked out trying to ascertain where it was coming from, I heard screaming,” he said.
“It sounded to me like it was a female. She screamed three or four times. I went back into the room and phoned security.”
Aerial photographs show Dr. Stipp is the closest person to have heard the incident to give evidence so far — he lives about 70 metres from the sprinter’s house.
Dr. Stipp said as he went out to the balcony after calling security, he heard three more bangs and a man’s voice shouting for help.
“I went towards the front door,” he said. “There was a lady standing there. I said I was a doctor and asked if I could be of assistance. She showed me through the door and towards the stairs where there was a lady lying on her back.”
Two previous witnesses have said screams preceded the first gunshots.
The defence has suggested they confused gunshots with the sound of Mr. Pistorius knocking down the bathroom door with a cricket bat, and the screams were not those of Ms. Steenkamp before shots were fired, but those of Ms. Pistorius after realizing what he had done.
By establishing this, the defence hopes to discredit a sequence of events implied by other witnesses that would suggest Mr. Pistorius would have known who he was killing.