When Reeva Steenkamp locked the bathroom door behind her in the early hours of Valentine’s Day 2013, she never knew what was coming. Or so we’ve been told.
A new book by two forensic experts paints the model’s last moments a little differently. In Oscar vs The Truth, Calvin and Thomas Mollett say they believe that her boyfriend Oscar Pistorius first bashed her with a cricket bat during a violent argument, leading to her flee to the bathroom where she was fatally shot.
The paralympian told police that he had fired four shots into the bathroom of their Pretoria apartment after mistaking Reeva for and intruder, before realising his mistake and using the bat to break down the locked door.
Two oval-shaped wounds on Steenkamp’s back had been attributed to her falling onto a magazine rack after being shot, but following their year-long independent investigation of the evidence, the Mollet brothers argue they are the same size and shape as the tip of the bloodied bat found at the scene.
via Getty.
They also believe that the ripped and twisted grip on the bat's handle indicates it had been used in a violent struggle.
“Is this how the rubber would have looked after only four blows, hard blows [on the door] as they might have been?” the report reads, according to The Sun.
“Or were there other blows and action with the bat as well? Was there some pulling and twisting on the rubber while one person tried to take the bat from another?”
The claim ads weight to a neighbour’s reports that she had heard the couple loudly arguing in the lead-up to the gun being fired.
Pistorius was originally sentenced to five years in prison for culpable homicide, but the conviction was overturned in December.
He was instead found guilty of murder and will be sentenced next month.