Bullets caused maximum damage
THE BULLETS Oscar Pistorious pumped into Reeva Steenkamp’s body were built to inflict maximum tissue damage, mushrooming and curling up like a flower petal upon reaching a target.
The “very sharp jaggered edges” of Black Talon bullets, now known as Winchester Rangers caused such extensive injuries that surgeons operating on victims of such gunshots had to exercise extra caution.
This evidence by pathologist Professor Gert Saayman in the Pretoria High Court yesterday, pointed to Oscar Pistorius’ “obsession” with firearms.
Just a month before gunning down his model girlfriend in February 14 last year, the paralympian had applied for six firearm licenses – among them a Winchester shotgun, which is produced by the same manufacturers of Black Talon bullets.
These included a Maverick shotgun, a Winchester shotgun, a Mossberg shotgun, a Smith & Wesson Model 500 revolver, a .38 Special revolver and a Vector .223 rifle.
His father, Henke, caused a stir last year when he told a British newspaper that he and other relatives owned a total of 55 guns because they could not rely on the police to protect them.
And last week, the double-amputee athlete’s exgirlfriend, Samantha Taylor, told the court that Pistorius never went anywhere without his gun.
In his affidavit presented during his bail application last year, Pistorius told the court he slept with his gun under his bed despite living in a security complex because he had previously been a victim of violence and burglaries.
It was this fear that prompted him, upon hearing a noise while taking in fans from the balcony of his bedroom, to grab the gun and fire shots through a locked bathroom door.
That 9mm Parabellum pistol, according to police records, was the only firearm registered in his name and yesterday the type of bullets used were revealed for the first time in court.
“It (the bullet) is a projectile designed to cause maximum tissue damage. As it strikes a tissue, it folds out like petals of a flower. They were designed to have very sharp jaggered edges . . . cause maximum tissue damage. As it hits tissue it mushrooms. If a surgeon was to operate on such a patient he would have to exercise extra caution,” said Saayman.
He started by describing the black sleevless vest Steenkamp wore when she was murdered, saying it had “extensive bloodstain, scattered fragments of tissue and bones to the front of the vest” and a “deformed part of a bullet entangled in the fabric”.
As he said this, Pistorius curled up in the dock, holding a tissue with hands placed over his head and started making retching sounds. His sister, Aimee, let out a muffled cry and wiped away tears as a red-faced big brother, Carl, placed his arm around him.
Saayman continued, giving graphic details of injuries inflicted on Steenkamp’s body:
• There was a penetrating wound with an irregular shape edges, dimensions of 37x27mm.
• There was a projectable that approached the skull, struck the skin, penetrated the scalp and exited in the second wound with the rest of projectibles and bones exiting. There was indistinct bleeding on the inner surface of skull . . . an entrance defect on the skull. It wasn’t a normal perpendicular entrance where the whole fragment went into the skull.
• There was soft tissue swelling, bruising of the right upper eyelid. No direct trauma but swollen due to skull trauma caused by gunshot to the head.
As he said this, Pistorius made retching sounds again, causing the court to adjourn briefly. Saayman continued: • There were small irregular superficial wounds (2mm) caused by either small pieces of projectibles but more likely wooden splinters (from when Pistorius smashed the door with a cricket bat).
• Gaping skin wound and exposure of underlying skin tissues . . . lacerated and torn, above the elbow. Another smaller, irregular formed wound adjacent to this at three o’clock position.
• Right interiour of the chest or chest wall showed groupings of abrasions, superficial wounds just below the right breast. These are not pernetrating but superficial wounds, likely caused by splinters.
• Oval shaped penetrating gunshot wound on the right hip.
• Grouping of superficial small non-penetrating wounds varying from 2mm in size. These were splinters which embedded themselves on the forearm.
• Scattered lesions of skin on the upper arm and elbow.
• Lesions found on the back midline, caused by a blunt object.
The evidence of Saayman proved to be too much for Pistorius, who shot Steenkamp four times with his 9mm pistol. He started off by sitting with his head covered by his hands in the dock, but soon started to vomit loudly into a blue plastic bucket, which was placed by his side even before Saayman took the stand in the North Gauteng High Court.
Pistorius sobbed uncontrollably when Saayman was asked by the prosecution as to how long Steenkamp would have lived following the shot to her head. Saayman said it would be safe to say that she would have been incapacitated immediately after the bullet had hit her.
“She would have been incapable of voluntary actions (after being hit in the head), but it did not mean that she was dead. Death can take some minutes,” said Saayman.
He added that his findings during the autopsy regarding the brain, suggested that after the headshot, she only breathed a few times before she died.
Asked by the State whether the shots to Steenkamp’s hip and arm could have independently also have been fatal, Saayman said that was possible, especially the wound to her groin area. He said the chanced of one surviving such an injury was not likely.