Lisa Wilson dishes the dirt on Oscar Pistorius' "RESURRECTION"

Buy 'RESURRECTION' now on Amazon.com!

February 13 Timeline

Review of Resurrection: Think outside the box, posted 16 July 2014

By MCD
I have read these books out of order, starting with 'Reeva in her own words' and then jumping ahead to 'Resurrection'. 

Ultimately, this is an interrogation of the Oscar Pistorius story, addressing the issues of authenticity, as well as 'could he?' (Pistorius) or 'should he?' be resurrected? 

The paradox of a world renowned Paralympian athlete is highlighted: a Paralympian who has admitted he wouldn't be doing athletics i[f] he was able-bodied. 

A number of questions are posed: 

-should Oscar Pistorius have been allowed to compete in able-bodied athletics?
 -does he, in fact, have an advantage when he runs with is blades? 
-does he steer attention away from other able-bodies athletes when he is in the same arena? 

 There are a few surprises that I did not expect, including a plausible motive, or at least context, which may have led to the tragic shooting on Valentines Day 2013. 

The author picks away at the tapestry of the Oscar Pistorius Brand, posing interesting questions. Although some statements are controversial and the reader may not always agree, this is a well researched and cleverly written comment on Oscar's narrative that will get one thinking outside the box.

 More information here.

To hear the author discussing how and why he wrote the series, go here.

Oscar reenactment video broadcast - Sunday Night 2014 07 06

For the true story and the most compelling motive yet presented, go here.

interrogating the BS* MEDIA STATEMENT IN RELATION TO LEAKED FOOTAGE OF OSCAR PISTORIUS

 

Since this MEDIA STATEMENT has been placed in the public domain, a public response is in order. I wonder, is this statement from Oscar's defence counsel addressed to the media, the public, or indirectly to the state? Or all three?

As a member of the public, and a conscientious citizen of society following this matter, and someone who contributes to the media machine, I am disturbed by what seems to be mischievous timing of this 'leak'.  

The case is about to be finalised, the defence has recently indicated there are half a handful of witnesses left to call (please, no more 'expert witnesses') and let's face it, the defence has been a mess.  It's been replete with inconsistencies, and your own experts contradicting one another, besides the accused himself and vice versa.  In short, it hasn't been pretty.

However, if successful in this application, these failures in the courtroom - made by defence - will effectively be 'struck from the record'.  This benefits the defence at a time when the defence, to a lay person, appears to be in a less than strong position.

Given the vagaries and selective use of obtuse words, this 'impression' of mischievous opportunism, is reinforced. Can you respond to this?  

As such, given the above background and rationale, I, as a citizen of South Africa and a member of the public, will query these uncertainties in your statement in a step by step manner.  You are of course at your liberty to respond or not respond.

Your original Statement is colored green for reason's of clarity. Red highlights my concerns, queries and uncertainties, and you are kindly required to furnish specific factual answers that address these serious questions, as a matter of urgency.

Your commique commences as follows, and I quote:

Statement/Press Release?

Video footage aired by Australian broadcaster >>>Hang on, so they air it despite your threat of legal action...couldn't be much of a threat the, could it...exactly what did you threaten them with and now that they have gone ahead, what action EXACTLY will you be taking against them, if any.  Will you let us know?


by 
Brian Webber, Ramsay Webber Inc.

06 July 2014 - you released this on a Sunday, I knew about this Saturday already. Ok, no biggie)

In October 2013, the Defence Team engaged the services of The Evidence Room, A US-based company specialising in forensic animation. >>>thanks for acknowledging this at the outset.  In layman's terms, you asked an animation (production company, someone who makes content iow) to create content on your behalf.
The company was engaged to visually map (you mean re-enact right?) the events on the night (the scene of killing of Reeva Steenkamp on 14 February, 2013) of the accident (still referring to it as an 'accident'?). As part of this process, certain video footage was filmed (yes, got that). The “visual mapping” was for trial preparation only and was not intended to be used for any other purpose. (like, to be sold at a later stage for bucks, if and when needed, or even strategically?)

It has now emerged (total surprise?) that an Australian broadcaster has obtained some of this footage from The Evidence Room and has just gone to air with it. >>>obtained how?

We wish to make it very clear that the material that has been aired was obtained illegally (okay but you're not making it 'very clear', I can help you draft these sort of notices in future if you like, if clarity if the goal.  So can you explain specifically how this material was 'obtained illegally'? And are we talking speeding ticket illegally or we'll-sue-you-for-a million-bucks illegally?) and in breach of the non-disclosure agreement (oh so it was sold to be used at a certain date...and breach is about...TIMING?)with The Evidence Room. 


Its usage also constitutes a breach of privilege as this material was produced for trial purposes on the instructions of a commissioner (who is this commissioner guy anyway?  It's not Oom Arnold by any chance), and the ownership of the copyright vests in the commissioner. (wow so this is about copyright violation, that's all?  For something you made, and wanted aired, just not (?) specifically when it did.) No permission for the disclosure thereof has been given. (Come now, are you absolutely sure about that?)

For the family, the airing of this footage constitutes a staggering breach of trust and an invasion of the family’s privacy. (but the family are the actors...were the family forced to film themselves re-enacting or did they actually pay someone from the USA to bring cameras and 'investigate'?  And let's be fair...if we are going to talk about staggering breaches of trust, one might ask Oscar - your client - why he shot his girlfriend to death.  Isn't that a bigger breach, more worthy of addressing?)

It has come to our attention (how did you find out exactly, and while we're here, exactly when were you informed) that Channel 7 purchased this footage unlawfully.(for how much much, and how much did the the Pistorius family profit from this transaction, directly or indirectly) In addition, during our engagement with Channel 7, we received an undertaking that they would not air any of the material before the end of the trial.

(Ooooooooh...so at the end of this cleverly worded PR stunt statement Brian Webber, Ramsay Webber Inc.you admit to engaging with Channel 7 and making mutual undertakings....oookay.)

Whilst we cannot imagine how any of the footage would not support Oscar’s version, (you don't need to 'imagine', there's a lot that specifically contradicts his version and his defence) we will only be in a position to comment further once we have had the opportunity to study what has been aired. (That's your way of closing the door to the vague inferences you've placed in the public domain, rather than addressing the veracity of any of these claims. Your 'right to remain silent'.  Okay then, bye bye now.)

- ENDS -(Er, no, I think this is just the beginning of your Road to an Appeal. FYIBrian Webber, Ramsay Webber Inc. I've already investigated this option - which we can also call a 'trick' or 'technique' - before you pulled it. Ja, that's also in the public domain.  I suggest you read it here in order to appreciate how onto your asses I am.)

PS. Please note the conventional meaning for BS  in this case is unilaterally altered, for reasons of convenience.  For the purposes of this statement, BS should be seen to represent Broad Spectrum.  
I've also speculated on a motive (here's some additional reading on that as well) and a method, maybe you should check it out so long.  Gerrie, please assist ;-)

ONE WORD is missing from the Media's and the State's narrative of this trial>If it was murder, what was the MOTIVE?

Prosecutors have not disclosed a motive for the alleged murder, but one of their witnesses may testify that Pistorius had a temper.  - NBC

With Oscar refusing to admit that he intended to kill an intruder, he is trying to stop the state’s attempt to get him on grounds of dolus eventualis. Gerrie Nel has pointed out on many occasions that it is inconceivable for someone to fire four shots at a possible intruder without foreseeing the possible outcome or consequences of this action, a form of intention with knowledge of possible outcomes i.e. dolus eventualis. - TwoOceansvibe


The athlete was evaluated by four specialists as a day-patient to determine if he was, “at the time of the commission of the offence criminally responsible” and if he could appreciate the “wrongfulness of his actions and act according to that appreciation”. Judge Thokozile Masipa ordered the three psychiatrists and one clinical psychologist to evaluate Pistorius to determine whether his general anxiety disorder and his disability would have had any significant effect on him when he killed his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day last year. - DestinyMan

These are all questions Nel put to Pistorius, who contested that “nothing was normal about that night.”“I have difficulty with the huge leap from shooting an intruder to shooting at Reeva,” Nel said of Pistorius’s testimony that it immediately dawned on him that it was Steenkamp in the bathroom.“I understand that it doesn’t sound rational, but I didn’t have a rational state of mind,” Pistorius responded. - TheDailyBeast

Nel began by pointing out that Pistorius had heard the first noise, then got his gun before advancing cautiously down the passage towards the bathroom.
The prosecutor was trying to show that Pistorius had time for conscious thought after he was first frightened and before shooting, but a concession along these lines proved difficult to obtain from the witness.
At one point, Derman complained that he didn’t understand the “point” Nel was making or the “sequencing of the questions”.
Judge Thokozile Masipa replied: “I’m not sure that it should be your concern, counsel decides how he is going to ask his questions. If you cannot assist because you don’t know, you simply say you don’t know.”
Nel repeated: “In an incident like this where there’s a startle, with accused finding a gun, knowing where it is, getting a gun ready to fire, going to the bathroom, killing someone, would that still make sense to you if there was just one startle?”
“No, there would need to be more startles,” replied Derman.
Nel later moved on to Pistorius’ potential motives at the time of the shooting.
“If I put it to you that … he heard a sound and he fired at the sound to kill the person inside the toilet, you cannot say it’s not so?”
Derman cautiously conceded: “He fired at the sound and I’m sure that was to nullify any threat.” - CityPress

What's interesting, also is the near-deafening silence of those in Oscar Pistorius inner circle. His family, his agents, mutual friends, his sponsors, the fawning media. Is the media and are the schlebs still invested to the hilt in [and here's a HINT] protecting their BRANDS?  Like this guy:

Note: The CityPress article quoted in bold above wrongly suggests that a sound and motive are linked.  A sound may (or may not) bring about an instinctual response, which would show intent, or lack of intentional action. This line of thought is used not to show motive, but to show an ABSENCE of either intent or motive or both.

No one is seriously interrogating the possibility of an INTENTIONAL act, and a MOTIVE to murder.  We have a door, and four bullets fired through it.  Two people in a house.  One disabled, the other dead.  Similar to the Griekwastad case you have:

1) large amounts of money involved (and imminently even larger amounts about to be involved)

2) a sexual element (unbalanced)

3) an accused who does not see, hear or do anything

4) the potential for access (or the security, or maintenance) to these resources - mostly financial - severely threatened by...an incident with cataclysmic consequences in terms of reputational damage.

If you you're getting excited and you're thinking I'm talking about motive here, no, I'm still in the realms of INTENT, but not quite there.  I'm not going to reveal motive here [in a blog post].  What I will say...is it's easier for an accused to rationalise their own motive/s when they have massive vested interests in terms of enormous amounts of money (property etc) and these resources - they believe, are also at their disposal - and can be used to mount the best defence money can buy.

And we're not even going to interrogate motive?

Are we afraid we won't find something, or are we afraid that we might?

Are we hypnotised by a version to such a degree that we can't think critically and intuit something more rational, and realistic.

It was Valentine's Day.  [Griekwastad - it was Good Friday].  Did these days have no significance whatsoever?

And are we afraid that after a year and a half we may finally realise the full extent of the 'accident'.  Accident is another word for mistake.  It's the word you use to say you didn't do it on purpose, ie. that you had no motive. 

But what if the assertion isn't true to begin with?  IOW what if I say it was an accident when really I did act on purpose, I did have very good (?) reason to do what I did (or thought I did in the heat of the moment) but after I did it...and took stock...I realised I'd made a terrible mistake. But that's a different kind of mistake altogether, isn't it?

Motive is an entirely different narrative. When you are dealing with re-framing a narrative you have to be prepared to accept that you may have made some mistakes...you believed certain things about yourself/others that weren't/aren't true.  That's not always a good experience, because it means we've been kidding ourselves.  No one likes to admit they've duped, or been duped.

Mistakes are one thing, but evidence tends to leave a trail that asks questions beyond mistakes.  If you fire 4 shots, and 3/4 are on target, and you need to balance against a wall (which he did), then you have intent, but what is the motive?  No one is asking this question at face value because they believe it is:

a) too speculative

b) in addition to a) no supporting evidence

c) there's still an implicit sympathy for the fallen hero (in other words, we still accept his own narrative, and we still accept that as a hero he was incapable of murder - same as OJ Simpson)

4) we are afraid to challenge the presiding narrative because to do so causes us uncertainty.  If this guy isn't who he says he is, what does that say about me, and my world?

And we don't take any of this further for the same reason no one bothered to check whether it was actually, scientifically fair if Oscar competed with able-bodied runners.  This is the underlying narrative in RESURRECTION which flowed into the motive narrative (though I didn't realise it at the time).  No one bothered to check, to measure if Oscar had an advantage on his artificial legs over able-bodied runners.

Except that's not true.

There were tests.

There were measurements.

There was a scientific finding. [Read Resurrection to explore all that].

And in this case, do we have any evidence to support an assumption of guilt  Is there any evidence of a motive.  No.  If there was the state would have found it.  Because they haven't, there can't be a motive.  Because there is no obvious evidence, there is no motive.

But.

Actually.

There is.

You may think no evidence is no evidence, but consider Oscar's cellphone (whose PIN he couldn't remember).  We now know he was ALWAYS on his phone.  We see him on his phone (presumably a new phone) even in court.

We know he had his phone on him when he carried Reeva's body downstairs, he had it with him downstairs in the kitchen while the police were running around upstairs.

We even know, by his own admission that immediately after shooting Reeva, while she was alive but bleeding to death, he was fiddling with his phone [to call for an ambulance...oh yes, I'd use someone else's phone to do that...never-mind we all know cellphone handsets are universally access-controlled.]

It's also unfortunate that Nel didn't call Gina Myers to ask whether Reeva had a PIN on her phone.  It's possible Myers would never have noticed, but someone might have, and an audit of the phone would have proved this [PIN protection] in any case.

It's interesting that the police, and Oscar's sister, and Aimee Pistorius, and the neighbour's would have been aware at the time or subsequently, that all handsets had been seized as evidence.  But not Oscar's.
And that's okay?
 Did he give it to his sister?  Did the police not find it, or was he able to persuade them to let him hold onto it for a few days. Did he conceal the fact that he had his phone, or did he use it and sit simply [incredibly] didn't come up in the conversation.

Here's the kicker.  If Oscar wiped the memory of his phone, he would have needed time to do so.  He could have done it in public or in private, but given how crucial cellphone evidence is, Oscar is likely to have realised what he needed to do, and so would have methodically wiped the iPhone 5's memory in private.  In secret.

Let's reflect for a moment that it is cellphone data that ultimately locked in the timeline for the Griekwastad murders.  A final sms by the boy's mother along with his ETA at the police station was what finally exposed his version as both improbable and highly unlikely.

Ironically, we have similar timelines in this case, where neighbour's calls to security and Oscar's own calls provide a fairly narrow timeline.  In other words, within the irrefutable facts of these cellphone records, let's call it scientific data (ie verifiable information), a narrative has to be placed that makes sense.  Oscar's doesn't.  Time is simply one aspect that is out of sync.  Also the time that Reeva ate, and Reeva smsed to say she wasn't coming 'home' to the Myers that night.

“That was the last SMS from her phone, probably about ten, ten thirty – the time they usually SMS.”

From The Guardian:

9.49am BST  

Here's why the evidence on gastric emptying is so crucial to determining what happened on the night Reeva Steenkamp was shot.

The defence says Steenkamp ate around 7pm, and she and Pistorius went to sleep at 10pm.

The prosecution says the stomach contents indicate she ate around 2am. They say this suggests the couple were awake – and arguing – before the shooting.

It's not disputed that Steenkamp was shot at around 3am

Even if a cellphone isn't used on the day of a crime, it can fully contextualize behaviour, showing movements, showing communications, showing, in other words, general intent.  A single Valentine's Day message to Oscar from one of his masses of adoring female fans - just one - would have called into question his narrative of devotion and dedication to Reeva.

So it is pertinent that NO DATA was retrieved.  As such we have to wonder, what might this data have revealed?  Why would Oscar wipe its memory if he did (and yes, he very likely did).

The phone would have been crucial to supporting a possible motive, and so without the phone, we have a setback.  We have to forget about motive.  Right?  Wrong.  That's not my argument.  It's Oscar's and I think the state have accepted it too.

That's a mistake.

I know why. Well, I'm 99% certain.

I've pieced it all together.

Have a look at RESURRECTION Book #3 in my Oscar Pistorius Trial 5 part series.  It interrogates Oscar's chances of competing in able-bodied sport, it investigates his chances at winning an appeal and the final three chapters provide the first compelling case for MOTIVE. 

- The Media are not mentioning it because they believe it is unknown and unknowable (or perhaps they want to draw this story out for as long as they can before bringing it to resolution.)

- The State are not mentioning it because if they are wrong on any detail, they can throw away their case.  In other words, the State are taking a conservative approach.

- RESURRECTION for the first time provides context, intent and motive.It provides a new, alternative narrative to the one sold to and leveraged by the media.  In other words, it's not Oscar's narrative of who Oscar is, it's an updated version made by a third party.  Is it accurate?  Is it more accurate than Oscar's version?  Well, you have to check one set of facts to another.  And a good practice exercise for this is the able-bodied/disabled narrative. That was a false narrative, and Oscar's entire persona was based on it.  So what does that tell us about his relationships with facts, reality, science and rationalising.

I have used all of these to piece together a new narrative.  I believe this one is better, and more authentic.  They're closer to the real Oscar than the original narrative.  The original asks us to make assumptions and take beliefs on face value.  We do because they are positive and seem to inspire us, but are they true?

Using dates, the stated intentions of Oscar Pistorius, his agent Peet Van Zyl, Capacity Relations (Reeva Steenkamp's PR company) and crucially the social media evidence in the public domain, I've pieced together a new narrative.  I've also interrogated the media's narrative in this regard.

Bluster? One prominent journalist who I provided the original word.docx of the final three chapters said the following:

Hi, die redakteurs wil nie nou iets doen nie. Ek verskil obviously van hulle. Gee vir ander journos, asb. Dit moet gekskryf word.

As of right now, I have motive.  Nobody else does, not the media, nor the state, nor any of the so-called scrum of expert commentators on Carte Blanche's Oscar Trial Channel. There may be one other person in the world right now who knows the same thing I do.  I'll give you one guess who that might be...

RESURRECTIONS (Amazon Kindle Bestseller Rank #24 on 5/07/2014) is currently available as part of a 207 page eBook here. You don't need a Kindle or specific eBook reader.  All you need is a computer, laptop, smartphone + internet connection + download this free app. The first few pages are free, otherwise you can purchase the entire eBook, 207 pages for $3.41.  That's about R34, the price of a magazine.

If you do read it, be sure to let me know what you thought @HiRezlife or email me at nickvanderleek[at][gmail][dot][com].

Motive is fully unpacked in the last 30 pages.

Is this Oscar's motive? ---and I'm going to be REALLY lazy and use this as my #4 Confessions of a Failed Author ;-)

Just going on 06:00 16:00 7:15pm.  I've had my latest Oscar Trial eBook on Amazon [download the free Kindle apps here] since about 9pm last night and already sold  9 19 22.

Jani Allan also contacted me on twitter and asked why is it available in the UK but not in the US.  (It was still going LIVE at the time).

It's a great compliment getting favorites and retweets from the likes of Ulrich Roux, David Dadic, Jacques Steenkamp, Dr Ross Tucker - hang on, Dr Tucker didn't RT or favorite but the Doc (who I quote extensively in the book) did share some more interesting insights on Oscar and the IAAF, the the schema of sport and PR, from wherever he is in Belgium.  If you're curious to that pretty long tweetersation, check out our twittersteams.

What I really want to talk about, and even more, want the media and the public to absorb into their own narrative, is the question of MOTIVE.  Even Gerrie Nel has essentially dodged dealing with this directly.  It's a crazy case, because after 37 days, Nel is still dancing around MOTIVE and Oscar's defence are still dancing all over the place, trying to nail down first one defence, then another.  After 37 days we still don't know what it is.  It's not Meryl Foster's GAD, it's not a putative self defence (is it?) and now we're into a third, or is it fourth explanation from the defence, this whole amygdala hijacking business.


I believe - and I cover this in depth in the 2nd last chapter (Motive - the Undiscovered Country) anyway I believe Prof Wayne Derman, (from UCT's sport and exercise medicine dept - I wonder if Tucker knows him, or knows of him...) is onto something with his...assertions of floods of adrenalin and panic and so on.  But he's only halfway there.  There was plenty of flooding going on, over several hours, and you'll see why when you look at my carefully crafted contextual analysis.

I'm obviously not going to give it all away here, buy the book here, and dive straight into the last 2, 3 chapters.  Point is, we are straying now into the real heart of the case.  And into Oscar's heart.  And state of mind.  What was going on - inside Oscar - when he fired those shots.  The public and the media and just about everyone else has been maintaining all along that we will never know.

Actually, thanks to Google, an army of Oscar Trial TV experts, realms and realms of print journalism available online, and not least of all Oscar and Reeva's OWN words - in social media - there's an orgy of evidence.  I guess not everyone has the time or space to throw it all onto a pile and piece it together, but that's what happens when you write a book.  You have to.  And while I was doing that, just innocently putting a narrative together, Peet Van Zyl testified and my whole narrative suddenly slotted PERFECTLY into place.  That's how I got to #motive [in small caps].

I kinda went  a little crazy. I really thought - and I do - that I was, I am, onto something HUGE!  I contacted a few inner circle type journos, and then was surprised that they didn't seem to be getting the message.  #MOTIVE!  I contacted a network of freelancers but they seemed to also, have better fish to fry.  And a lot of big hitters said they'd be calling me first thing in the morning...I guess they're all still 'all-Oscared out', to quote Leonard Carr.

I asked someone who I gave an advanced copy (still in Word.html) whether I was just being a megalomaniac.  She said no it makes perfect sense.

I thought if I had pieced it together it would be a matter of minutes or hours before someone else would. Then I got a commitment from a journalist at YOU magazine that they wanted this, and wanted exclusivity, but then didn't go further than that...and that was a few hours ago.  Well, it's about a day ago now.  But then they went radio silent and seemed to be distracted by...deadlines and other stories I guess.  And so did all the other journalists.  I also got a call from eNCA's Gia Nicolaides. She also seemed to think it made perfect sense. Enough to volunteer to inform Gerrie we'd spoken, if their paths crossed.

So we'll see what happens.  Potentially this text here [ja, this stuff you are reading right now...this word...and that one, and even this typfo - might be included in some breaking news press release by some overseas news-wire in search of a Google-able quote...at any time perhaps tomorrow possibly even next week eventually].

Before I sign off, I want to share what I think is great about the whole eBook deal.  It's new to me.  I thought you needed a Kindle or had to pay to download an app (all the apps are free).  And the only reason I took this route was because (see paragraph 1.7.6B, above, exhibit XXXY) you do the work, you do your analysis, but no editor has time, or mental energy to pay attention to your story, and it gets lost in all the Oscar noise.)  So what to do with these narratives?  A local writer told me, Dude, ePublish.  I scoffed.  Then I thought I'd give it a try.

There's something amazing, if you love writing, and research, and want to deliver a quality narrative, that you don't have to take it to an editor with a begging bowl.  You don't have to invoice, or lose control of your text and see it pop up, distorted and filled with mistakes, and worse, often errata that isn't even yours.  What's more, you make your own brief, set your deadline, and oh joy (oh curse! the reader says) no damned word limits.  Resurrection is 222 pages, almost 60 000 words.  Compiled in 2 weeks.  That's effectively 120 typical magazine length articles, 8.5 a day.  Not impossible, but no mean feat.  And easier if you forgo food and sleep.  (Check my Facebook timeline if you don't believe me.)

I digress.  The beauty FOR THE READER is that with an eBook you can seamlessly move from narrative to online reservoir.  From narrative to YouTube link.  From narrative to an image link. You're reading it on a digital device, the links are inserted in the narrative, so it's just a matter of choosing where you want to explore, where you want to find your own insights, and where the basic narrative is enough. Hell, that's far more interactive and rich than print! It means the eBook experience is immersive, exciting, kind've like an adventure.  I imagine fantasy is better on the printed page, because let's face it, imagination - the reader's - is the writer's most potent weapon. 

But with the potential dreariness between occasional action sequences in a trial narrative, it's nice to be able to spice things up.  Provide color, and context.  Easy.  Blah blah blah blah blah.  Go to this link to see what I'm talking about.  And now blad de this is starting to make more sense and it's not blah blah anymore.

On a more personal note, I'm going to admit something here that may make a lot of people angry.  Or those who have been following me may be surprised. In piecing this together..Look, I am very angry with him, and I think he could have been a lot more honest, and a lot more honest a lot sooner.  That's my opinion.  But I felt a deep agonising sense of...something...based on what I've pieced together, and this unexpected emotional tug is what convinces me my attempts to lay down an authentic narrative mean something.

Having compiled the #MOTIVE I then went and looked at this moment, because I wanted a sense of...I dunno...I guess beyond making sure exactly which words Oscar used to confirm my intuitions, I wanted an emotional confirmation.  

And for the first time, I felt like I real saw Oscar.  I'd encountered Reeva viscerally like that through compiling Reeva in her own Words, and have been her knight upon shining keyboard ever since.  

But once I'd cottoned onto #MOTIVE and once I looked at this, and when I listened to Derman becoming flustered (argy bargy as David 'O Sullivan described it), and I recalled Versfeld's painful testimony of what it is like to be Oscar, struggling to walk or balance...that's when I encountered him viscerally.  The imagination is a powerful thing, and the way you solve a case like this is to put yourself deeply, intimately, in their shoes.
Reeva tweeted something along exactly those lines...

Before you lift a pen or raise your voice to criticise, acknowledge people's circumstances. You don't know their struggles. Their journey.
— Reeva Steenkamp (@reevasteenkamp) February 8, 2013

Because social media happened, is happening and continues to evolve, I think we completely underestimate it's power and reach, ESPECIALLY in a case like this. Ordinary people underestimate it. We love it but we don't quite know the EXTENT of it on our lives, though we're starting to feel it's inexorable presence.  The media.  They dip into it, nowhere nearly enough.  Lawyers. Celebrities.

Now look at these two.  Oscar and Reeva. Both public figures.  Publicly branding themselves. In social media.  Did someone miss that? because all along both Oscar and Reeva have also been revealing their heart and mind-stuff in a stream of consciousness. And that's where we start to see intent for the first time.  Accumulate enough private thoughts expressed in social media and you have their own narrative.

Perhaps in future cases social media will play a more central role.  I mean, for example so a deceased person can speak for themselves from beyond the grave.  And not rely on that patently difficult setup where the accused, who may have...a #MOTIVE...emphasises things like...well, she told me she loved me, look here's the card, here's proof etc. And while we were together this is what [the person I later killed] did and said.  Oh and by the way, one of the last things she said before I killed her by mistake was that she [insert convenient term of endearment here].

In my perhaps not too humble opinion (but 'with respect') I think it's strange and unfortunate that both Gerrie Nel and Barry Roux dipped so lightly into these streams. Yes, the character evidence stuff.  But they ended up going there anyway.

Both counsels could have very effectively bolstered their respective cases.  Perhaps the perception is that it is all noise and nonsense.  But when you align the real world with these self-expressed intentions, and sufficient structure through dates, times, facts, and key moments, then the narrative can't slip away.  

We got some of this from Whatsapp, including that absolutely vital essay from Reeva herself. But I've uncovered equally if even more compelling sentences, slights, situations and scenarios on Facebook, twitter and even YouTube.

I mean, we forget that this sort of thing is out there, in the public domain, all you have to do is remember it happened, and search.

Knock, and the door shall be opened.  And then you find this:

and this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFfvGHvA0g0 (embedding disabled)

 and this.

 Recent, yet easily forgotten.

I did not fire at Reeva - Oscar

1 month till my first race of 2013.. Can't wait to burn it up! http://t.co/zjUeOY2V
— Oscar Pistorius (@OscarPistorius) February 11, 2013

 I've spoken about #MOTIVE in the last few chapters, and provided what I think is the first definitive possibility.  Kind've like The Griekwastad Murders - The Crime that Shook South Africa version of finding out the girl was raped, and thus you immediately see a few possibilities for motive.

What I've pieced together is not as dramatic - or maybe it is.  It could just make international headlines during the next 24 hours, and this is no exaggeration.  The few people who've read it so far have been both shocked and impressed by its portent.  The ultimate compliment will be if it achieves some hype and Gerrie Nel refers to it (or uses it in some way) between now and his closing arguments.  Then, my job will be done ;-)