Pretoria - A witness heard “non-stop shouting” coming from the home of Paralympic track star Oscar Pistorius shortly before his girlfriend was shot dead, the lead detective in the murder investigation said on Wednesday.
Investigating officer Hilton Botha also told the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court that Pistorius' girlfriend, model and law graduate Reeva Steenkamp, was hit by three bullets, in the head, elbow and hip.
Botha said the shots were not fired straight at the toilet door, but rather “directly to the toilet, the basin itself.”
“If you walk in directly and fire straight at the door you will miss the toilet,” he said, suggesting Pistorius had been aiming.
Pistorius broke down in tears as Botha presented his testimony.
Steenkamp was in a locked toilet adjoining Pistorius' bathroom when she was shot in the early hours of Thursday last week. Botha said the angle at which the shots were fired through the door suggested the shooter had aimed specifically to hit somebody on the toilet.
Botha, who arrived at the scene at 4:15am to find Steenkamp dead at the bottom of the stairs, also said police had found unlicensed .38 ammunition in Pistorius' house in an upmarket gated compound north of Pretoria.
In an affidavit delivered on Tuesday, Pistorius said he used to sleep with a 9-mm pistol under his bed and had grabbed it when he awoke in the middle of the night thinking an intruder had climbed through his bathroom window and entered the toilet.
The 26-year-old then described how he fired into the door in a blind panic, in the belief the intruder was lurking in the toilet.
He said he and Steenkamp, 30, had been asleep in bed before he woke up.
In contrast, lead prosecutor Gerrie Nel painted a picture of a premeditated killing, a crime which carries a life sentence in South Africa. “If I arm myself, walk a distance and murder a person, that is premeditated,” he told the packed courtroom on Tuesday.
The bail hearing is expected to conclude by the end of the week. - Reuters, AFP