A former girlfriend of Oscar Pistorius testified on Friday at the double-amputee runner’s murder trial that he always carried a firearm, sometimes shouted angrily at her and her friends, once shot his gun out the sunroof of a car, and that their relationship ended when he cheated on her with Reeva Steenkamp, the woman he fatally shot last year.
Samantha Taylor also described some of Pistorius’ habits while they were dating, including what side of the bed he always slept on at home and where he kept his gun during the night. Taylor’s observations of what Pistorius did when they were together show different habits from what the Olympic athlete says he did on a later night when he shot Steenkamp.
Pistorius, 27, is charged with premeditated murder for killing Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model. Prosecutors said he did it during an argument but he insists it was a mistake, and that he shot four times through a locked toilet door believing an intruder was behind it.
The testimony Friday by Taylor paints the picture of a man who had a temper and was fond of guns.
Pistorius carried a gun with him “all the time” when they were dating, and on one occasion he fired it out of a car’s sunroof soon after a policeman stopped the car they were in for speeding, Taylor said.
Taylor, who started dating Pistorius in 2011 after meeting him the previous year, described another incident in which she and Pistorius were followed by a car as he drove home.
“When we arrived at his estate, he jumped out of the car with his gun and held it to someone’s window and then they drove away,” Taylor said.
The court adjourned briefly after Taylor broke down in tears while describing how Pistorius cheated on her with another woman, before he began his relationship with Steenkamp. It adjourned again when she wept while describing problems in her relationship with Pistorius, the first amputee to run in the Olympics. Earlier, Taylor said: “He cheated on me with Reeva Steenkamp.”
Defense lawyer Barry Roux said he would produce emails between Taylor and Pistorius to show that was untrue, and he also sought to highlight apparent gaps in Taylor’s memory of the shooting incident on a road in September 2012.
Darren Fresco, a friend of Pistorius, was driving the car that was stopped by police who then asked the two men to get out of the car, said Taylor, who was in the car at the time. The police officer then saw Pistorius’ gun on the seat of the car, she said.
‘Everything is fine’ A security guard working in Oscar Pistorius’ gated community says the athlete told him everything was “fine” when he called to investigate neighbours’ reports of gunshots on the night of killing.
Pieter Baba, who drove with another guard and made a phone call to Pistorius from outside the Olympian’s villa in the pre-dawn hours of February 14 last year, testified Friday: “that’s when Mr. Pistorius said to me everything is fine.”
Baba said Pistorius called him back but was crying, didn’t say anything and the line “went off.”
Baba said he told a fellow security guard: “not everything was in order as Mr. Pistorius was telling me.”
Pistorius is charged with murder. He says he shot Steenkamp by mistake, thinking she was an intruder.