Pretoria, South Africa -- The prosecution in
the Oscar Pistorius murder case expects to rest early next week,
prosecutor Gerrie Nel announced unexpectedly on Wednesday.
Nel has only four or five
more witnesses to call, he declared to the shock of the courtroom just
before lunch on the 13th day of the trial.
He requested and got an adjournment until Monday to consider the state's position in the case.
The surprise move
prompted questions about whether Nel was thinking about throwing in the
towel, whether he had surprise new evidence to study, or whether the
state's case was simply running ahead of schedule.
Pistorius, 27, could take the stand in his defense as early as next week if the case goes ahead as planned.
Pistorius could take stand next week
Oscar Pistorius trial week three
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His legal team has the
option of moving for the whole case to be thrown out -- or "discharged,"
in South African legal terminology -- once the prosecution rests.
But it's not clear that the defense has so completely rebutted the state's case that the judge would end it there.
Eighteen witnesses have testified for the prosecution in the 13 days since the trial began, including three on Wednesday.
The most dramatic
testimony of the day came from police Capt. Christian Mangena, who
testified that Pistorius' first shot hit Steenkamp in the hip, knocking
her back onto a magazine rack, and that two other shots then hit her arm
and head.
Pistorius admits firing
the shots that killed his girlfriend but has pleaded not guilty to
murder, saying he thought she was a burglar and he believed he was
acting in self-defense.
He fired four shots
through the door to the toilet room in his house in the middle of the
night, probably killing her almost instantly with the shot to the head,
according to the autopsy.
Blood in the bathroom
Mangena testified that
Steenkamp was behind the door and facing it when the first shot hit her,
then seated in a defensive position with her hands over her head when
the other two bullets ripped into her body.
She then fell forward toward the toilet, the ballistics expert said.
Police blood-spatter
expert Ian van der Nest testified later on Wednesday that blood in the
toilet probably came from Steenkamp's head wound, while blood on the
floor in front of it probably came from the wound to her right arm.
In court, Pistorius
stuffed his fingers in his ears and leaned forward with his hands over
his face each time Steenkamp's fatal injuries were discussed.
His defense lawyer Barry
Roux disputed Mangena's theory about the position of Steenkamp's body
and the order in which the shots hit her, saying experts would prove the
police officer wrong.
The verdict may hinge on
whether there was time for Steenkamp to scream between shots, giving
Pistorius a chance to realize his mistake and stop shooting.
Roux argues that Pistorius fired four shots in quick succession, or two "double taps."
Mangena said that was "impossible," since there would have been no time for Steenkamp's body to change positions between shots.
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Prosecutor Nel pointed
out that the first witness, neighbor Michelle Burger, said she heard a
pause after the first shot, then three more in quick succession.
"That is possible," Mangena said.
Not on his prosthetics
He described Tuesday how
he used lasers to track the path of the bullets that Pistorius fired
through a door, coming to the conclusion that "the shooter was most
likely not wearing prosthetic legs."
After initially
disagreeing over whether Pistorius, a double amputee, was wearing his
prosthetics when he killed Steenkamp, the prosecution and defense now
agree that he was not.
That he was not wearing
his prosthetics is a vital part of his defense. He argues he was
justified in shooting through a toilet room door because he is
particularly vulnerable when he is on the stumps of his legs.
Blood spatter expert van der Nest took the stand after Mangena.
He testified that the
pattern of blood he saw in the house was not only "consistent" with
Pistorius' version of events, but was the "most probable explanation."
Pistorius says he carried Steenkamp's body downstairs from the toilet room to the entranceway of his house after he shot her.
Photos of blood spatter on the stairs have been shown to the court several times.
Van der Nest also
testified that there was no evidence of "blunt force trauma" to
Steenkamp's body, suggesting there is no evidence Pistorius hit
Steenkamp.
After van der Nest,
police cell phone data expert Michael Sales testified briefly. He said
he downloaded data from two iPads found in the house, but didn't reveal
what was on them.
Neither side asked him.
The browsing history of
one was cleared several hours before Steenkamp was killed, and it was
not used after 9:19 p.m. that night, he said. That's consistent with
Pistorius' story that the couple went to bed around 10.
About five hours later,
Pistorius shot Steenkamp through the door, hitting her with three
hollow-tipped bullets, one of which probably killed her almost
instantly.
Pistorius says he heard a
noise in the middle of the night after getting out of bed, did not
realize that Steenkamp had also gotten out of bed, got his gun and shot
her in a case of mistaken identity.
Pistorius first achieved
fame as an outstanding double amputee sprinter who runs with special
prostheses that earned him the nickname "Blade Runner."
The case against
Pistorius is largely circumstantial, Nel said in his opening statement
on March 3. Pistorius and Steenkamp were the only people in his house
when he killed her.
Nel has been building a
picture of what happened through the testimony of police officers,
experts, neighbors who heard screaming and bangs that night, current and
former friends of Pistorius' and a security guard who sped to the scene
because of reports of gunshots.
Neighbors said they
heard a woman screaming before the shots were fired. But the defense is
proposing that what neighbors thought was Steenkamp screaming in fear
for her life was in fact Pistorius when he realized what he had done.
And the defense says
that the sounds neighbors heard were not the gunshots, but a cricket bat
hitting the door as he tried to rescue her.
Judge Thokozile Masipa
will decide the verdict with the help of two lay people called
assessors. South Africa does not have jury trials.
In South Africa,
premeditated murder carries a mandatory life sentence with a minimum of
25 years. Pistorius also could get five years for each of two unrelated
gun indictments and 15 years for a firearms charge he also faces.
If he isn't convicted of
premeditated murder, the sprinter could face a lesser charge of
culpable homicide, a crime based on negligence.
The sentence for culpable homicide is at the judge's discretion.
The trial is currently scheduled to run through April 4, take a break, and resume in mid-April.
