Photos of Oscar Pistorius’ bathroom where Reeva Steenkamp lay dying after he gunned her down through the door, have emerged today.
The luxurious stone-clad en-suite is now the focus of a murder inquiry as investigators try to piece together what happened in the toilet cubicle where Reeva Steenkamp spent her last moments.
Prosecutors argue the model was trapped in there hiding from Oscar Pistorius, while he claims his girlfriend was using the bathroom after getting up in the night at his upscale Pretoria home.
In a sworn affidavit Oscar Pistorius stated that he thought someone was in the bathroom and shot at them because he “noticed that the bathroom window was open .I realized that the intruder/s was/were in the toilet because the toilet door was closed and I did not see anyone in the bathroom. I heard movement inside the toilet”.
“It filled me with horror and fear of an intruder or intruders being inside the toilet. I thought he or they must have entered through the unprotected window,” he stated.
Prosecutors believe that Oscar Pistorius, picked up his gun, strapped on his prosthetic legs and stood near the large corner bath, before taking aim at the cubicle door.
The athlete shot four times and hit Reeva Steenkamp three times – it is thought she was sitting on the toilet when she was hit in the arm, head, hip and finger by bullets.
The door was broken down – Oscar Pistorius claims he battered it down with a cricket bat to reach his bloodied and dying girlfriend and found her “slumped over but alive”.
The bathroom was the key focus for both the defence and the prosecution at today’s bail hearing at Pretoria magistrates court.
Painting a picture of a premeditated murder prosecutor Gerrie Nel said that Reeva Steenkamp was shot when she took refuge in the bathroom after the couple had been arguing.
“The applicant armed himself, attached his prosthesis, walked seven metres to the bathroom and shot the deceased while she was in the toilet.”
“He shot four times…There’s no possible explanation to support his report that he thought it was a burglar,” he said.
“If I arm myself, walk a distance and murder a person, that is premeditated,” he said.
“The door is closed. There is no doubt. I walk seven metres and I kill.”
“The motive is <<I want to kill>>. That’s it,” he added.
“This deceased was in a 1.4 by 1.14 metre little room. She could go nowhere.”
Gerrie Nel said the killing was premeditated because Oscar Pistorius had planned to say that he thought he was shooting an intruder.
“It was all part of the pre-planning. Why would a burglar lock himself inside the bathroom?” Gerrie Nel said.
“She locked that door for a purpose. We’ll get to that purpose.
“That is where she was when those shots were fired. She couldn’t go anywhere. It must have been horrific.”
But Oscar Pistorius’s lawyer, Barry Roux, said Reeva Steenkamp was not murdered, and there were a number of cases where men shot members of their own family through doors after mistaking them for burglars.
He also suggested that Oscar Pistorius broke down the bathroom door after the shooting to help his girlfriend.
“We submit it is not even murder,” Barry Roux said.
“There is no concession this is a murder.”
In a sworn affidavit, Oscar Pistorius, who broke down in tears on several occasions, said the pair were in bed together when he woke up and went onto a balcony to bring a fan inside.
On his return to the bedroom he said he heard a noise and thought an intruder had broken in through his bathroom window.
Oscar Pistorius claimed he was too scared to switch a light on, so he grabbed his 9mm pistol – which he kept under his bed after receiving death threats – and walked towards the bathroom, which contains a toilet with a separate door.
“On my way to the bathroom I screamed words to the effect for him/them to get out of my house and for Reeva to phone the police. It was pitch dark in the bedroom and I thought Reeva was in bed,” he said.
“I believed that when the intruder/s came out of the toilet we would be in grave danger. I felt trapped as my bedroom door was locked and I have limited mobility on my stumps.
“I fired shots at the toilet door and shouted to Reeva to phone the police. She did not respond and I moved backwards out of the bathroom, keeping my eyes on the bathroom entrance. Everything was pitch dark in the bedroom and I was still too scared to switch on a light. Reeva was not responding.
“When I reached the bed, I realized that Reeva was not in bed. That is when it dawned on me that it could have been Reeva who was in the toilet. I returned to the bathroom calling her name. I tried to open the toilet door but it was locked. I rushed back into the bedroom and opened the sliding door exiting onto the balcony and screamed for help.”
According to Oscar Pistorius he then smashed his way into the toilet using a cricket bat, finding her “slumped over but alive”.
The athlete then phoned for an ambulance and carried her downstairs, but she died in his arms.
The defendant said he was “absolutely mortified” by what had happened, but insisted the evidence would prove his innocence.
Although no decision was made on bail today, the judge did rule that the charge would be premeditated murder indicating Oscar Pistorius, who last year became the first double-amputee track athlete to run at the Olympics, is likely to remain behind bars until trial.
He has now been driven back to jail where he will spend a sixth night behind bars before the hearing resumes in the morning.
As Oscar Pistorius’s relatives supported him in court, the distraught family of Reeva Steenkamp attended her funeral in Port Elizabeth.
Her brother Adam said that her death had “left space missing inside all of the people that she knew”.
But there was also anger. Gavin Venter, an ex-jockey who worked for Reeva Steenkamp’s father, called for the harshest of sentences for Oscar Pistorius.
“Without a doubt. He must stay in jail,” he said.
