One Tragic Night

by Mandy Wiener

  Nel had worked closely with Moller on a previous high-profile case – the murder of Chanelle Henning – where data analysis of cellphone and bank accounts had proved critical to establishing a timeline and the movement of the accused. From a public perspective, a similar hope had been attached to Moller in this case. Moller’s expertise is not only about deciphering some or other code or cracking a password to reveal the intimate secrets of an accused or the victim, but also about putting that data into context. He has a knack for weaving a narrative from the numbers, dates and times to help the court understand how the information matches real-world events.

  Moller testified as to how he received the two iPhones and two BlackBerries as well as the MacBook and iPads from Botha, how he set about identifying whose number was whose, and the urgency of it all because he had to leave the city to testify in another case. He summarised how he ruled out the use of the BlackBerries and reached the conclusion that there was one phone missing. Moller told the court that the software he uses is designed to extract the data from the devices in an unaltered state. While it might seem obvious, it’s important for technical witnesses to put this information on the record, to assure the judge and counsel of the integrity of the data being testified about. The first and basic data report extracted from Reeva’s phone made up 2 688 pages, but a later and more rigorous analysis of the devices retrieved 35 654 pages of call logs, contacts, and 2 731 text and WhatsApp messages.

  The LCD screen in the court flickered to life when Moller was asked to go into detail in terms of what he had found. He started with the basics of what the extraction files contained – case file information, his own details, details of the phone’s owner – before Nel referred him to the first of the WhatsApp messages. The prosecutor asked Moller to read into the record a message Oscar sent to Reeva about a month before he killed her:

  2013/01/11 – 13:03:37 UTC: Angel please do not say a thing to anyone.

  Darren told everyone it was his fault. I cannot afford for that to come out.

  The guys promised not to say a thing.

  He then read the follow-up message Reeva sent to Oscar:

  2013/01/11 – 15:04:43 I have no idea what you are talking about

  Unlike Reeva’s facetious response, which ended with a smiley face emoticon, the court knew exactly what Oscar was referring to – the Tashas shooting incident. This was part of the state’s evidence to show that the athlete acknowledged that he was responsible for the shooting, but that his friend Fresco had volunteered to take the fall.

  Nel continued to lead Moller through the messages, asking him to read out those he wanted on the record. These included an argument about Reeva apparently smoking marijuana while on her Jamaican reality TV show. ‘I do not know how many times you took or if you took other things or what you did when you were on them,’ said Oscar in the message, seemingly concerned by what had been revealed to him. Moller read one of the most contentious messages Reeva sent to her lover, which would form the basis for the state’s argument that the accused was abusive, possessive and prone to violence. Part of the 518-word message, sent on a Sunday afternoon 18 days before her life ended, read:

  you have picked on me incessantly since you got back from CT and I understand that you are sick but it’s nasty … I was not flirting with anyone today … I feel sick that you suggested that and made a scene at the table … you do everything to throw tantrums in front of people … I am scared of you sometimes and how you snap at me and of how you will react to me … I am not some other bitch you may know, trying to kill your vibe … I get snapped at … Stop chewing gum. Do this, do not do that … your endorsements, your reputation …

  Those in the court were stunned. A badly controlled temper and the possibility of alleged abuse of some kind had been hinted at, rumoured and reported on from anonymous sources since the day of the shooting, but never supported. Here in court and in her own words, Reeva said she was at times scared of Oscar; it appeared to show his jealousy and temper.

  Moller was asked to read Oscar’s response:

  I want to talk to you. I want to sort this out … I am sorry for the things I say without thinking … I was upset … I was upset when I left you … I am sorry … I had a mad headache …

  Moller read another WhatsApp message into the record in which Reeva recalled an incident on 7 February when she felt her boyfriend had mistreated her. In addition, Nel asked the witness to refer to other messages that were of a loving nature. ‘I downloaded more than a thousand communications between the deceased and the accused person, of which I would reckon 90% were normal conversations and loving conversations,’ said Moller.

  Nel turned to deal with Oscar’s phone seized at the house and handed to Moller on the Friday after the shooting – the number ending with 4949 – and the device delivered to him on 26 February, the number ending with 0020. As with the earlier data, Moller explained how he had used it to make certain findings. In this particular case, he described how the handset connected to named and identified cellphone towers, which could then be used to plot the movement of the device. He also explained how data connections – using Twitter, WhatsApp or the Internet – would be registered on the service provider’s records as a GPRS connection.

  Moller created two timelines using the data linked to both of Oscar’s phones – the work and private handsets – one for 13 February, the other for the day of the shooting. The communication and movement analysis started at about 5:30pm on the Wednesday when he was driving through Midrand, south of Pretoria, on his way home. The connections Oscar’s phone made along the highway plotted his route. The information confirmed the calls to and from Reeva’s phone. The records show that at about 8:25pm Oscar called his cousin, a call that lasted nearly 30 minutes – the last call on this phone before the shooting. Moller said four more Internet connections were made on one of Oscar’s handsets on 13 February.

  The data shows that the athlete’s 0020 handset connected to the Internet on the morning of the shooting at 01:48:45 for 309 seconds. Did this show that Oscar was indeed up and awake at the time he claims he was sleeping? The information appeared significant and appeared to coincide with the testimony of the pathologist that the food in Reeva’s stomach put her up and awake about two hours prior to the shooting. Was this thus further proof?

  The next data connection was at 03:18:45 and lasted for 75 seconds, while at 03:19:03 the first voice communication is made from the device to Oscar’s neighbour, Johan Stander. That call lasted 24 seconds and thereafter several calls were logged in the following minutes:

  • 03:20:02 – call to Netcare – 61s

  • 03:21:33 – call to estate security

  • 03:21:47 – call to Voicemail – 7s

  • 03:22:05 – Security called back

  • 03:55:91 – call to friend Justin Divaris – 123s

  • 04:01:38 – call to brother Carl Pistorius – 34s

  • 04:09:03 – call to agent Peet van Zyl

  Moller stated that the call to Van Zyl was the last made from the device, and he further confirmed that this was the device handed to the police on 25 February, 11 days after the shooting.

  Besides the handful of messages that the state used to show that Reeva’s and Oscar’s relationship wasn’t the perfect, loving and caring romance the accused would have the court believe, the captain’s evidence was clinical, composed of indisputable numbers and streams of data. His evidence left some people in the court wanting, if not outright disappointed. Since the shooting the phones and their contents had been touted as possibly holding the answers to what might have happened that night, but there was very little in the way of answers. Equally surprising was that the phone that underwent analysis at the Apple offices in the United States did not feature at all, and without a public explanation for what had happened in the preceding weeks, including Carl’s alleged involvement, the police and investigators appeared to have made no significant headway with this line of investigation.

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nbsp; Moller testified over two days, the first day primarily dealing with the basics of his investigation and the text messages he retrieved in which Reeva told Oscar how she was scared of him and hinted at an abusive relationship. The second morning, a new face appeared in the public gallery – with his short bleached-blond hair gelled and styled to a bird’s nest of spiky peaks, former footballer Marc Batchelor squeezed his broad-shouldered frame into a black suit for court. Batchelor was listed as number 35 on the state’s witness list, but his presence in court indicated that they had no intention of calling him. As would become evident in Oscar’s later testimony, there was no love lost between the burly former national soccer player and the Paralympian. A member of the investigating team said Batchelor was called to ‘rattle’ the accused, ‘make him feel uncomfortable’. He sat in the row directly behind the dock next to Kim and Gina Myers. Oscar avoided any eye contact as he took his seat that morning. Aimee gave Oscar a book in the dock – Breakthrough Prayer: The Power of Connecting with the Heart of God. An open page revealed parts that had been underlined.

  When Nel concluded leading Moller through his evidence-in-chief, Judge Masipa had barely left the courtroom before Barry Roux jumped up and took the handful of brisk strides back to his client in the dock, gesturing for him to lean closer as he approached. Attorney Brian Webber and his candidate attorney Roxanne Adams soon joined them and they paged through documents containing tables and information. The legal team was confirming dates and times on the phone records before the cross-examination started.

  Oscar’s athletics coach had also made a rare appearance in court. Ampie Louw is a tall, aged man with a kind face and a smile to match, generous with conversation but mindful of his responsibilities to Oscar. The pair met with a warm embrace, separated by the dock. Oscar’s spectacles were pushed skew on his face as his friend and mentor buried the young man’s face in his neck and slapped him reassuringly on the back.

  With Moller back on the stand, Roux started by asking him to explain the functioning of handsets in relation to how they access the Internet. He referred specifically to one of the data connections on Reeva’s device that showed she had been on the Internet for more than 11 hours – beyond the time she had been shot and killed. Moller said if a user had not closed an application after using it, it might keep the data connection open while running in the background. There are also push functions of different applications, such as email and other notifications that activate without the user’s input. This was important for the defence – it explained that the data connection in the early hours of the morning did not necessarily mean that the accused was awake and using his phone.

  In order to place on the record the specific times of events that evening, Roux referred to the estate security landline: the records showed that Stipp first called security, followed by neighbour Mike Nhlengethwa, then Oscar. Security then returned Oscar’s call, as confirmed by the records and contrary to Baba’s evidence. Moller also explained away the peculiar call to Oscar’s voicemail minutes after the shooting. He didn’t have an iPhone, he said, but he’d made enquiries with colleagues.

  ‘The voice call button and the other buttons are very close,’ he said. ‘So my personal opinion about this call was that it was not an intentional call. That was during the time that Mr Pistorius was on the phone, he accidently pushed that button.’

  Roux accepted the assumption. He read several more items to Moller for him to confirm, which he did. On the calls to Van Zyl, Moller conceded that his analysis couldn’t say who made those calls, only that they were made from Oscar’s handset.

  Roux then turned his attention to the four messages Moller had read to the court that the state believed showed that Oscar was abusive. The captain said he had read through more than 1 700 messages:

  Roux: What was your approach in determining relevance?

  Moller: If one reads through these conversations and one thousand seven hundred and something entries that there was, one can immediately identify certain messages that stood out. By standing out I would mean that it is not the ordinary or normal conversations, something else that is happening here.

  Roux: I can ask you many questions. Let us get straight to the point. You found four relevant to arguing between them?

  Moller: That is correct, M’Lady.

  Roux: That is what you are looking at?

  Moller: That is correct, M’Lady.

  Roux: It is not that they are standing out. You were looking at messages showing some argument between the two?

  Moller: That is correct.

  Roux: Yes, and out of that more than 1 700 you found four?

  Moller: That is correct, conversations not … because some of them were more than only one message but yes, conversations.

  For Roux it was about context and perspective. The vast majority of the communication between Oscar and Reeva was normal conversation, and yet the state had chosen to focus on the four examples of unhappiness and distress in the relationship that the messages appeared to reveal.

  The advocate read Moller the message his client sent to Reeva about the Tashas shooting incident, where he said, ‘Darren told everyone it was his fault.’

  ‘One thing that is not there,’ said Roux, ‘is that him saying to Reeva that he asked Mr Fresco to take the blame. It is not there?’

  Moller agreed.

  Roux spent the next several hours going through hundreds of messages between the couple. From the mundane good mornings and good nights, to the romantic and the fun. Messages ended with little Xs to denote kisses. Oscar checked up on Reeva to ensure she was safe at night. They shared dieting tips, supported each other when they were down. They spoke about cars, dreams and money.

  Roux didn’t venture on to the more intimate messages between the couple, but our study of the data report shows that the couple spoke about sex, and Reeva sent Oscar topless photos of herself, to one of which he responded: ‘You so cute.. I love that … You’ve just made me feel really naughty..’

  What also emerged was their fondness of pet names for each other: ‘my boo’, ‘my baba’, ‘my baby’, ‘bub’, ‘boobi’, ‘my angel’. The defence had collected its own list of hundreds of messages that were compiled into an exhibit and submitted to the court.

  After brief argument between Roux and Nel, the defence was allowed to screen in court surveillance footage filmed on 4 February at a filling station’s convenience store. It shows the couple touching, hugging and kissing as they scan a fridge for snacks.

  Roux referred back to the WhatsApp messages showing love and affection. Moller agreed that the messages accorded with the behaviour witnessed in the footage. Roux made the point that after these argumentative messages to which the captain had referred, the interaction between the two returned to normal, that it was not ongoing bickering and unhappiness, but rather moments of tension between a normal couple that were quickly resolved through open and honest communication. Just days before the shooting, Reeva offered to cook a Valentine’s Day meal.

  Two days before she died, Reeva met with her former boyfriend Warren Lahoud. She had considered postponing the meeting, but Oscar insisted in a message that she see him because he had a dentist appointment. It was hardly an example of the possessive and jealous boyfriend the state was trying to portray.

  However, in interviews after Reeva’s death, Lahoud spoke about how Oscar repeatedly called Reeva during their short coffee meeting and he thought the sportsman’s behaviour was odd.

  Later that same day Oscar referred to a physiotherapist appointment where he was to have his shoulder looked at. Oscar had claimed that he slept on the left side of the bed because his right shoulder was hurt – for Roux, this was evidence of the injury.

  Moller was asked to read the messages right up to the last one in which Oscar told Reeva he would be home at about 6pm that evening: ‘Please stay and do whatever it was you were going to do ’.

  Roux had shown the court there was far more to the messages than
merely the arguments on which the state had relied. Those arguments made up a minuscule number amongst the hundreds of messages the couple sent each other daily over the brief period they dated. Yes, the advocate pointed out, there were instances of unhappiness and arguments. But is this unusual for a couple? He didn’t believe so.

  In re-examination Nel looked at what was not in the messages – the state and the defence had both identified specific messages to argue a particular point, but what was missing? Almost all the communication was short messages. The only long messages in their entire collection were the unhappy, angry ones.

  The evidence of Captain Moller set out two things for both the state and the defence. Firstly, it provided a timeline of events. Logged calls and data are indisputable and they tracked the movements and actions of the parties involved. Secondly, it provided insight into the relationship. Most importantly, it provided the prosecution team with statements from a dead woman in which she described in her own words the concerns she had about the behaviour of her boyfriend. Reeva’s ‘I’m scared of u sometimes’ were the powerful words abused women related to, and in some people’s eyes nullified every ‘I’m sorry, but …’ excuse provided by an abusive partner. It didn’t matter how many loving words the couple exchanged in the months they dated, as laboured by the defence; it was the instances of apparent fear and belittlement that the state believed characterised the relationship.

  Moller’s boss Colonel Mike Sales was called to testify about the iPads the police seized at Oscar’s house. In the weeks before the trial this evidence had caused some controversy, with reports suggesting that Internet browser history showed that someone had been visiting pornographic websites while Oscar claimed to be spending a relaxing evening with his girlfriend. The articles – their accuracy untested – spurred public debate on whether a man viewing porn amounted to infidelity, and further speculation that perhaps the couple were viewing porn together.