PRETORIA, South Africa — Police photographs of a bare-chested Oscar Pistorius standing in his garage on blood-stained prosthetic legs and wearing shorts covered in blood, taken shortly after the athlete fatally shot his girlfriend, were shown to the court at his murder trial Friday.
PRETORIA, South Africa — Police photographs of a bare-chested Oscar Pistorius standing in his garage on blood-stained prosthetic legs and wearing shorts covered in blood, taken shortly after the athlete fatally shot his girlfriend, were shown to the court at his murder trial Friday.
Prosecutors displayed two photos on TV monitors in the courtroom, with the first of the muscled double-amputee Olympic athlete standing facing a camera. There are blood stains up to the knees of his limbs and his shorts are also bloodied, but his naked chest appears to be clean of blood.
A second photograph of Pistorius from the waist up and from the left side also shows blood on his shorts and parts of his body, with a tattoo visible on his back.
The photographs were taken in Pistorius’ Pretoria home soon after the athlete killed Reeva Steenkamp in the early hours of Valentine’s Day last year, a former policeman testified. Pistorius says he carried Steenkamp downstairs to try to save her after mistakenly shooting her in his bathroom.
Former police Col. G.S. van Rensburg described the early part of the investigation after he arrived at the scene around 30 to 40 minutes after prosecutors say Pistorius killed Steenkamp in the pre-dawn hours of Feb. 14, 2013. The prosecution says Pistorius intentionally killed Steenkamp in the upstairs bathroom after a loud argument and then tried to cover it up by saying he thought the 29-year-old model was a dangerous intruder.
Pistorius, 27, maintains the killing was an accident and has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him.
Van Rensburg, the former commander at a police station close to Pistorius’ home, said he didn’t arrest Pistorius immediately, but did warn him to remain at the house.
“I told him I observed him as a suspect at that stage,” van Rensburg said. “I warned him of his rights … I requested him to remain present at all times at the scene.”
Van Rensburg said Pistorius was earlier “very emotional,” and that the runner’s brother and sister, Carl and Aimee, and a lawyer later arrived at the house.
A close-up photograph of the toilet inside the cubicle where Steenkamp was shot three times, once in the head, was also displayed. It showed an extensive blood smear on the rim, as well as thick blood streaks in the bowl, where the water was also dark with blood.
Van Rensburg said he recognized the toilet door through which Pistorius shot as the “most valuable” piece of evidence, and that it was important to secure it, particularly since he had heard media were willing to pay up to $5,500 for a photo of it.
The toilet door was placed in a plastic “body bag” and transported to a police station, where van Rensburg said he stored it in his office because it was too big to fit in an area normally reserved for evidence from crime scenes