One Tragic Night

by Mandy Wiener

  Sales used the same forensic diagnostic software his subordinate had employed on the iPhones to extract the data from the devices. The web browser history analysed started at about 6:30pm and ended at 9:20pm on the evening of 13 February. It showed the user browsed websites related to used car sales, Aston Martin, Ford Ranger and free mobile porn. The term ‘youjizz’ featured amongst the Google search words.

  Sales found commonalities between the two devices he studied – similar web pages accessed on different dates across the devices. It suggested the couple used each other’s iPads interchangeably.

  In cross-examination all Roux wanted to know from Sales was whether or not he was able to establish who was using the device at the time a particular website was being accessed. It was obvious – he couldn’t say. For the defence, this meant that the state couldn’t claim their client’s ‘website activities from the time that he got home [were] in direct contrast to that of a loving couple spending time together’, as stated in a request for further particulars prior to the commencement of the trial.

  From the testimony of both Moller and Sales, a richer picture was painted of what went on in the hours and days before Reeva was shot. There was a better understanding of the relationship the couple shared, with details of their pet names and their disagreements being aired.

  Perhaps the greatest mystery lingering after the phone experts left the witness stand was ‘What was on the iPhone?’ Almost everyone wanted to know why no evidence was led about the phone taken to Apple in the United States and why the police had not bothered cracking the code. For many, it seemed obvious that the answer to the question of motive lay hidden between the metal and glass of the handset.

  For Danny Myburgh and his forensic experts at Cyanre, the way the phone evidence was handled in court left more questions than answers. ‘They didn’t explore Oscar’s phone sufficiently. One thing that stood out for me – Moller was not very clear at all times on what device he was testifying from. No questions were asked. If you look at the evidence that was led – it was very one-sided. They looked at Reeva’s phone and led evidence from there. They predominantly used Reeva’s phone and there was little to no supporting evidence stating that the information was found on both phones. If you find messages on “A’s” phone, but didn’t find it on “B’s” phone, you have to conclude that it was deleted. You can therefore prove validity and completeness by checking “A” against “B”. It looked like they were just accepting the information without testing or validating it. If I was Barry I would have asked these questions. I would have asked them, “Well, did you find it on Oscar’s phone?” Can you place Oscar behind the phone? It was as if … certain areas were “don’t touch, don’t ask, don’t smell”.’

  A source close to the defence legal team gives some insight into just why Roux was so willing to make the admissions on the cellphones and appeared so passive in challenging the chain of evidence regarding the phones.

  ‘The overall view of the electronic evidence, the WhatsApps was overwhelmingly in favour of Oscar. So the defence chose to make the admissions as 99 per cent of the WhatsApp messages supported Oscar’s version and they decided it would be more prudent to deal with and explain the 1 per cent.’

  As the contents of that phone were largely wiped, it was difficult for investigators to establish conclusively what activity took place via that phone. However, they did have the phone records from Vodacom, which formed part of the exhibits in the case. This meant they could see who Oscar had been talking to or exchanging messages with but they could not see the contents of those messages or know what the conversations were about. Inexplicably, the prosecution team and the investigators chose not to lead any of this evidence in court.

  We analysed the Vodacom phone records by checking the service provider call records against the data extracted from Oscar’s phone. This allowed us to plot Oscar’s movements and who he was in contact with on the day before he killed Reeva. This was crucial as it set out a day in the life of the athlete and provided insight into exactly how normal, or not, circumstances were in the hours leading up to the shooting. We juxtaposed this against Oscar’s own version of events in an attempt to finally answer one of the great mysteries lingering after the case.

  Oscar told the court he woke up early in his Pretoria home on 13 February because he had several meetings to attend:

  I had woken up in my house in Pretoria. Reeva had slept over. I had to leave Pretoria early to skip the traffic. I couldn’t be late for this meeting, there were many people involved. I got to Johannesburg, I guess about anhour before my meeting and I met up with a friend in Melrose Arch. We met for a short time. We had a cup of coffee and then I had to be at my meeting. I was there until about midday, about twelve o’clock.

  What was the meeting about and who had he met for coffee?

  Oscar’s first call that day was incoming, at 8:31am, and lasted a mere 12 seconds. The number ended in ‘622’. Searching Oscar’s contacts database identified the corresponding number: Ryan from Firzt realtors. This corresponded with Oscar’s evidence that he met his estate agent and it was probably a quick call to confirm the meeting. The data showed that Oscar’s phone made the connection via the Silver Lakes 3G tower, the one closest to his home.

  Once Oscar was on the road to Johannesburg he made several calls. He phoned his manager Peet, and then tried to make contact with a banker from Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) at 9:40am. Coming through Midrand at about 10:20am, he called someone listed on his phone as ‘Vayvay’ and spent 24 seconds on the call. He connected to the Vodaworld 3G tower for that call.

  Running a consumer search on the number linked it to sports journalist Vaylen Kirtley. She had contacted the athlete three days earlier, on Monday 11 February, eager to meet him. Oscar called her on Tuesday, speaking for about three minutes, and they met on Wednesday 13 February for breakfast at a restaurant in Melrose Arch.

  Kirtley says the meeting was a catch-up of old friends. ‘Oscar and I met when he started competing with disabled athletes in early 2004 and we became friends and were friends since.’ She adds that they had not seen each other for a few months. ‘We chatted about our families and his plans for the year. He showed me pictures of a house he intended buying and pictures of Reeva – his girlfriend. When I returned home I saw my mother and told her I had caught up with Oz who sent his love and I told her he had this lovely new girlfriend who, I thought, if anyone, he would marry one day. I assumed this by the tone Oscar used when he spoke about his girlfriend. What happened after was truly tragic.’

  Earlier that morning, at 8:31am, Oscar had received an SMS confirming the meeting he was to attend at a law firm. On his way from Melrose Arch to the meeting a few blocks away, Oscar called the banker from RMB. The athlete had had his R4-million bond approved for his new home in Atholl a week earlier. The call to the banker lasted 532 seconds, or nine minutes. After this he received a very short call from David at Nike, one of his primary sponsors.

  As Oscar explained in his testimony, he then went to meet his estate agent:

  I did not have any plans for the afternoon but I wasn’t going to train because I had a shoulder injury. I thought that Reeva was going to come back to Johannesburg. I thought maybe after my meeting I would give her a call and see if she was doing anything. When my meeting ended at twelve, I phoned the estate agents that was brokering the purchase of my home. I met briefly with him, I am not sure for what reason, if it was to get house plans or photos or to sign papers. I can remember that from the message I sent Reeva, saying I was with Ryan.

  What Oscar did not mention in his testimony were the phone calls he made between his meeting at the law firm and his appointment with the property man.

  At 12:57pm he chatted to his friend Justin Divaris. And then at 12:58pm he spent four minutes on the phone with a model, whose name is known to us. In fact, phone records show that since 1 January 2013 Oscar had called the model at least once a week. He had also been in contact with her on the
Monday, making this the second call to the young woman that week.

  Oscar went on to have his meeting with Ryan from Firzt realtors, and after that he went to Divaris’s shop on Rivonia Road. He recounted what happened that afternoon in his evidence-in-chief:

  From there I went to see my friend Mr Divaris. I was chatting with him for a while. He was still at work. I was asking him what his plans were for the rest of the day and he suggested, or he said to me that he was meeting another mutual friend of ours for dinner and asked me, if I wanted to join him. At some point his girlfriend, Mr Divaris’s girlfriend arrived. Ms Samantha Greyvenstein. She is a very close friend of Reeva’s and she asked what I was up to for the rest of the day and we informed her about possibly having dinner. The boys having a dinner, she said she was in a mood to watch a movie in Johannesburg. She said that she would phone Reeva or text Reeva and ask her if she wanted to come through and we were just chatting informally at Mr Divaris’s work. I phoned Reeva, and there were texts that went back and forth between us. She said to me that she just going to finish her washing and then she would come. She was planning on coming back to Johannesburg. She asked me after my day, if I wanted to spend some time with my sister at home. I cannot remember the exact words in the messages, but I said to her that I do not mind … what her plans … if she wants to stay, she can stay. I do mind if she wants to come back. We could do something there. When I spoke to her on the phone, she told me that … I was aware that Sam had asked her if she wanted to watch a movie in Johannesburg. Sam told me that Reeva had said to her, that she did not want to come back. She was thinking of staying the night again at my house in Pretoria. And then I decided to … that I was too tired, that I did not want to stay in Johannesburg and go for dinner with Justin and his … and our mutual friend. That I would rather return home and in that process Reeva asked me if I would like to … if she like me to cook us dinner.

  Oscar’s call to Reeva was made at 3:54pm and was his last call before he got back onto the highway to head home.

  On the way he spoke to his siblings Carl and Aimee, for about five minutes each. At 5:25pm he chatted to Aimee, referred to as ‘M’ in his contact list, for around 300 seconds before Carl then returned an earlier call that Oscar had made to him. Reeva had popped out of the estate to go to buy food for dinner and called her boyfriend at 5:44pm. They chatted for just two minutes before Oscar called his friend Alex Pilakoutas and then rugby player Wynand Olivier. Pilakoutas said in a statement read at the bail application that he and Oscar were close friends; they trusted each unconditionally and spoke to each other at least twice a week. ‘Oscar would often confide in me with regard [to] his relationships. He always used to tell me how he felt about a girl.’

  Pilakoutas also confirmed this last call to the court. ‘As usual I asked how he was doing and Reeva, and Oscar told me that everything was fine and that he was doing well and that he would see me on Friday for Carl’s surprise birthday dinner.’

  At 6:07pm, while connected to the Wapadrand cellphone tower, which is located close to his home, Oscar made one more call from his car and spoke to the person for nine minutes. Estate security guard Pieter Baba testified in the murder trial that Reeva arrived at the estate at about 6pm. Surveillance footage shows her arriving in her Mini Cooper, smiling and having a brief chat with the guard. Baba said Oscar arrived a few minutes later. ‘I greeted Mr Pistorius and he was on his cellphone, M’Lady.’

  Who was Oscar talking to? He was never asked.

  We cross-referenced the digits on the service provider report with the athlete’s contact book. It turned up a single name: ‘Babyshoes’.

  Who was Babyshoes? There was no associated email address or other particulars that could help identify the contact.

  Had Oscar contacted the person before? Looking back at the service provider report, searching for this number turned up more than a dozen text messages and phone calls between Oscar and Babyshoes since 1 January 2013.

  The first text message to Babyshoes in this timeframe was sent on New Year’s Day at 3:38am. On 11 January, the day Oscar discharged Fresco’s firearm in the Tashas restaurant, seven SMSes were sent that evening from Oscar to Babyshoes.

  On the afternoon of 12 January, Reeva sent Oscar a message telling him that she was feeling genuinely low, to which he responded that he believed he had a ‘beautiful connection’ with her. At about 20 minutes past midnight on the following morning, Oscar sent three text messages to Babyshoes.

  The data showed that all contact with Babyshoes was outgoing: sent messages, not received. Searching the text messages wasn’t helpful because many were deleted when the handset was unaccounted for. And, in addition, every single WhatsApp message was also wiped.

  Then came a change in the contact pattern. At 1:57pm on 27 January, Oscar called Babyshoes and chatted for 400 seconds. A study of the phone records shows that the athlete doesn’t tend to spend a lot of time on the phone talking to people. While he calls many people, most of the calls are short, from less than a minute to about two or three minutes. A seven-minute conversation is an anomaly.

  Two hours after this call, Reeva sent Oscar the WhatsApp message in which she says, ‘I’m scared of u sometimes’. The day that Oscar had an argument with his girlfriend, he had a long conversation with Babyshoes. Then that night Oscar called Reeva and they spoke for nearly an hour.

  The next contact visible via the records available between Oscar and Babyshoes came on 6 February at just after 7.00am. The previous evening Reeva had sent Oscar a message saying she was worried that she cramped the athlete’s style. He was dismissive, saying he had work to get through that night and had an early start the next day. Amongst the first calls on that day was to Babyshoes.

  Two days later, on 8 February, at 10:39am, Oscar’s phone connected once again to Babyshoes – and this time the pair spoke for 12 minutes. According to the records, apart from his calls with Reeva, it was one of the longest conversations Oscar had had on his phone.

  What was significant about the day? Reeva’s phone reveals that barely 11 hours earlier, she had sent Oscar a message about the fight the couple had had at the Virgin Active Awards, in which she said, ‘I regard myself as a lady and I didn’t feel like one tonight after the way u treated me when we left.’

  It appeared that when Oscar had a fight with his girlfriend and there was unhappiness, he picked up the phone and had contact, sometimes at length, with Babyshoes. He had called this person before arriving at home on 13 February, and was still on the phone to Babyshoes when he entered the Silver Woods estate, although there is no evidence that Oscar and Reeva had argued that day.

  Investigations revealed that the phone number listed as Babyshoes in Oscar’s contacts was registered to a man in his sixties. His surname? Edkins. And he has three children – one of them named Jenna. This particular number was used by her.

  Jenna Edkins was Oscar’s girlfriend from 2008 until 2011. In his biography, the Blade Runner described the special presence in his life:

  At the beginning of 2008, I had started going out with Jenna, a delightful, sweet-natured, beautiful girl with blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes. She was eighteen. We had been honest with one another from the outset and I had explained to her that I was still not entirely ready for another serious relationship. On some level I still missed Vicky [his ex-girlfriend] terribly, and although our relationship was over I still had to come to terms with the hurt I felt. I was of the opinion that it was important not to rush into things, and I feel that we have a beautiful relationship because we took the time to get to know one another, and because our relationship developed from a strong and meaningful relationship.

  Oscar and Jenna had broken up three years later, but she maintained a significant presence in his life. Samantha Taylor names her as being at the centre of her own break-up with Oscar, just weeks before he met Reeva and took her to the sports awards.

  Jenna had vehemently defended the athlete on social media a day after the shoo
ting and was the only ex-girlfriend to be interviewed by the panel when Oscar was later referred to Weskoppies Psychiatric Hospital.

  On the day after Reeva’s death, Jenna posted a series of comments on Twitter:

  People must stop jumping on the bandwagon with such hurtful allegations. Os is the loving, amazing inspirational person we know him to be..

  You have all my familys love and support #loveandsupportoscar

  All I am saying is let him speak, let his side be heard without jumping to conclusions.. Love and thoughts to Reevas famiy..

  I would just like to say, I have dated Oscar on off for 5 YEARS, NOT ONCE has he EVER lifted a finger to me, made me fear for my life..

  Jenna was not questioned by the police, nor was a statement taken from her. And Oscar made no mention of their conversation lasting 522 seconds on the evening of 13 February 2013 in his evidence-in-chief – although he was never asked to detail all his telephone calls. The focus of his testimony was the near-30-minute conversation he had had later that evening with his cousin, Graham Binge, in Port Elizabeth.

  The unavoidable question is why the state never pursued the possible relevance of this phone call and the other communications with Jenna.

  The independent digital forensic expert says the police should certainly have followed up this lead. ‘They had to very seriously analyse his movements and every activity of that day and they trace it to a person and then they just ignore it. This was one of the last calls on his phone. I know that the police would look at the 24 hours before the shooting, they scanned the whole phone but for me the crucial period would have been from the previous morning when he woke up through to the next morning.’