1. A court has heard details of the night Reeva Steenkamp was murdered at Olympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius‘ home in South Africa. The bail hearing was told neighbours heard a woman’s screams coming from the house before the shots were fired. Reading an affidavit, Pistorius said that he fired shots into the bathroom door because he thought there was an intruder hiding in there. He though Reeva was lying in the bed next to him. A detective in the court said Oscar’the 26-year-old’s story stacked up with the evidence presented so far.
2. Bernard Gaynor has resigned from Bob Katter’s Australian Party. He said he resigned because the party because “it failed to oppose abortion”. Earlier this month, Gaynor caused outrage when he said he would never let a gay person teach his children.
3. The Federal Government has reversed a decision to cut funding to Victorian hospitals by $107 million per year. The move came after hospitals announced plans to cut 20,000 elective surgeries and close 350 beds.
4. Three sisters in India have been raped, murdered and dumped in a well. It’s believed the three girls – who were aged six, nine and 11 – were lured by their attacker with food. It’s one of a growing number of hideous cases in recent months and the case has sparked fresh outrage in India, with many people calling for tougher penalties for rapists.
5. Activists working on the anti-whaling vessel The Sea Shepherd are reporting their vessels have been “rammed” twice by a Japanese ship called the Nisshin Maru in the Southern Ocean. On his Facebook page yesterday, Sea Shepherd’s captain Paul Watson said one of the vessels was taking on water. The Japanese have since suspended their annual whale hunt.
6. A woman in the US has given birth to two sets of identical twin boys. The odds of that happening are around one in 70 million. Tressa Montalvo said she and her husband weren’t using any fertility treatments – they just wanted a sibling for their two-year-old son. “We planned the pregnancy – I guess we just succeeded a little too much!” Tressa said after the birth. The four babies were born at 31 weeks.
7. A three-year-old in China has been rescued by firefighters after she got stuck in a washing machine. The incident occurred when the girl was playing alone in the laundry. It took crews a few hours to free the girl and fortunately the machine wasn’t turned on.
8. A family court in Victoria will allow a 12-year-old who was born as a boy but raised as a girl to be given puberty blocking drugs. Doctors warned the 12-year-old – who goes by the name “Jodie” – was at a risk of self harm.
Top Comments
I think the first thing you would do if you thought there was an intruder would be look at your partner next to you in bed to say did you hear that, not start shooting not knowing where she was.
While I would love to believe Oscar didn't murder Reeva, why was the bathroom door locked? That in itself is confusing. She locked it for a reason. I'd never lock the bathroom door if it were just myself and my boyfriend. If he called out to Reeva to call the police, wouldn't she have just shouted back it was her in the bathroom, or came out to show it was her? So many questions.
In SA people lock themselves into their bedrooms at night - so one of two things - she was trying to escape from his rage and the bathroom was the only place to lock herself in safety (too difficult to escape from him via numerous locked doors through the house) - or she was in the bathroom, heard his warning cries that there was an intruder in the house and locked the door. I wonder if we will ever know the truth.
Yeah but he said he didn't know if she was in the bed next to him. I don't care how big a bed is, you would be able to tell if someone was next to you.
Read the court transcripts. The leading investigator was asked if he was Reeva and heard Oscar calling out to call the police and shouting about an intruder would he lock the toilet door? He said yes, he would lock the door.
The media is absolutley sensationalising this whole thing. If you followed what was happening in court its really clear that this was an accident. The state has next to no evidence that this was murder. The 'witnesses' (only 2) say they heard shots fired and screams - These neighbours were between 300m - 600m away! They can't identify where the screams/fight came from and has the number of shots heard wrong compared with those fired. The witnesses also have differing statements - heard different amount of shots.
The lead investigator has admitted there is nothing to suggest this wasn't an accident. The autopsy showed the Reeva's bladder was completely empty - meaning she had just emptied it. It wasn't perforated, and the only way it could of emptied was by going to the toilet. This strongly refutes the arguement that Reeva had run to the bathroom to get away from Oscar.
Plus the prosecutor has now mentioned that the gun was kept under HER side of the bed - so there's no way he could have retrieved the gun from under it (as he said he did) without seeing she wasn't in the bed.
He also said in his statement that he got up to bring in the fan from the balcony and shut the balcony doors. Even without a moon, surely you'd get some kind of light in from outside enough to see if your bed was empty. He obviously had enough light to see and move the fan and close the doors, then get back to bed.
The whole thing is bloody odd.
ps I lived in SA and I never locked the toilet door in the middle of the night.