Reliving the horror

Graphic images of blood trails, stain-smeared walls, spent cartridges and a mysteriously damaged main bedroom door - all broadcast to the world yesterday - offered a glimpse into the moments before Reeva Steenkamp was shot dead.

Pictures of pools of congealed blood in the bathroom, where Steenkamp was killed on StValentine's Day last year, had her friends reeling, clasping their hands to their mouths and gasping in shock.

As gory photographs - including images of Steenkamp's badly injured body - filled the TV screens at the Pretoria High Court, where Oscar Pistorius is on trial for murder, gasps could be heard from the public gallery.

A close friend of Steenkamp, who asked not to be named, told The Times after seeing the pictures: "We just want her back. I can hear her. I can feel ... Looking at those pictures, hearing the policeman, I can imagine her screaming, pleading for help.

"One can imagine her scared ... terrified in those final minutes before she was shot," she said.

Her friends looked shaken after viewing the photographs.

"I can't . I just can't," said one.

Steenkamp, 29, was shot three times in the locked toilet, inside the bathroom. Pistorius admits firing the fatal shots in the mistaken belief that an intruder was on the premises. The state believes the killing was premeditated and followed a heated, and possibly violent, argument.

Prosecutor Gerrie Nel introduced photographs of Pistorius's main bedroom door damaged around its lock and with what is thought to be a projectile hole in it, and an air rifle fitted with a silencer leaning next to it.

This evidence was presented as former Boschkop police station commander Lieutenant-Colonel Giliam van Rensburg, the first policeman on the scene, took the stand.

Nel used the officer's evidence to question the plausibility of Pistorius's version of events.

The questions included:

• How did a cartridge end up far behind Pistorius, behind a corner in the passage leading to his bathroom, when he was shooting inside the bathroom?
• When and how was his main bedroom door damaged?
• Why did Steenkamp have her iPhone with her in the toilet? and
• How did broken, bloodstained tiles end up behind the open toilet door?

Nel, taking Van Rensburg through his actions from the time he arrived at the scene, asked: "As we see the position of doors, bullet cartridges, cellphones, the cocked gun with its safety catch off, curtains, fans, sandals, overnight bag and holster, is that how you found the scene?"

Van Rensburg replied that it was exactly how he found the scene.

"When I arrived I saw a body under towels and black plastic bags ... Paramedics said the person was dead ... the accused was very emotional, pacing up and down in the kitchen" being comforted by estate manager Johan Stander's daughter, Clarice.

"I asked him what happened but he didn't answer me ..."

Van Rensburg said he ordered that no one be allowed to enter the house and that a crime scene management unit be dispatched to the house.

"I and Warrant Officer Hilton Botha, who came after I telephoned him, inspected the house. We followed the blood trail, the spots, smears and marks into the bedroom and to the bathroom."

Nel asked Van Rensburg about the damaged bedroom door.

"I did not inspect it. Crime scene management officers discovered the damage ... above the lock and the hole through the door."

Van Rensburg's testimony followed the state's counter-offensive against defence lawyers who on Wednesday alleged police incompetence in the collection, preservation and analysis of evidence, including the toilet door.

The defence had argued that forensic analyst Colonel Johannes Vermeulen failed to examine properly all the marks on the door, including a print thought to be that of a foot of Pistorius's prosthesis, which he says he wore when trying to kick open the door.

"Yes, I didn't analyse it. But there is no way of saying he kicked the door when he shot Steenkamp. There is absolutely no evidence indicating this," said Vermeulen to Nel.

Nel asked if, by kicking the door, Pistorius was trying "to scare someone". Vermeulen replied: "It's possible."