Oscar Pistorius: eight key pieces of evidence

"Bang. Bang-bang-bang."

That was how the state's first witness, Pistorius neighbour Michelle Berger, described the sounds she heard shortly after 3am on Valentine's Day 2013. This piece of testimony is crucial to the state's ability to prove premeditation - that is, the pause between the first and second shots indicating he had time to stop and reconsider. The defence tested this version, suggesting she could not be sure, because in fact the four shots were in the manner of a "double-tap", whereby the bullets were fired too rapidly for Pistorius to realise what was happening.

2. Screams

Four witnesses - two couples, Michelle Berger and her husband Charl Johnson, and Johan Stipp and his wife Annette. The first couple told the court they were woken by "a woman's terrible screams" shortly after 3am. Their main bedroom window, which faces Silverwoods Estate, was open. Mr Johnson rushed out onto the balcony and whilst there heard a woman scream followed then by a man screaming "help, help, help". He called security at 3.16am, and then returned to the balcony when he heard gunshots. Mrs Berger said she heard four shots and said there was a pause between the first and subsequent shots. Mrs Stipp was awake when she told the court she heard three gunshots, and directly afterwards heard a woman's "petrified and bloodcurdling screams". Her husband says he was woken by the sound of gunshots which caused him to get up and walk onto the balcony. Moments later he heard screams of a woman. Both the Stipps testified that they heard a woman's scream intermingled with a man's voice. They were both sure that it was a woman screaming. They heard three shots and the screaming stopped.

3. Argument 

Neighbour Estelle Van Der Merwe claims she woke at 1.56am and heard a woman's voice as though engaged in an argument. She did everything she could to block out the noise because she had to be up early the next morning but was convinced she heard a woman's voice. Some time later, she heard four "gunshots" which she described as "bang, bang". After the shots there was total silence. This is the only evidence of an argument taking place between Pistorius and Ms Steenkamp on the night she died.

4. Food in stomach

Professor Gert Saayman, who conducted the post mortem on Reeva Steenkamp, told the court he discovered that the stomach of the deceased contained approximately 200 millimetres of partially digested food residue with the appearance of primarily vegetable matter. He said the food in the stomach of the deceased "had been introduced within approximately two hours of her death or less". This was not consistent, the state argued, with Pistorius' claim that the couple had eaten a meal at 7pm and gone to bed at 10pm, and not risen again. While the defence argued that it was too difficult to predict individual digestion times, the state submitted this dovetailed nicely with the evidence of Ms Van der Merwe, who heard what she said described as a woman's voice arguing at 1.56am - about two hours before she was shot and killed. Thus the prosecution said the only reasonable inference to be made was that Ms Steenkamp "was awake and in all probability eating shortly before her death".

5. Internet surfing

Some evidence was presented indicating Pistorius' claim that the pair had gone to sleep at 10pm that night may not be entirely truthful. The court heard that an analysis of the couple's phones and internet connections showed Pistorius' phone connected to the internet at 1.48am for 309 seconds – just over five minutes. This appeared to further corroborate in part the claims of one neighbour, who said she awoke to sounds of two people arguing coming from Pistorius' home just before 2am. However, under cross-examination, the police's iPhone expert Captain Francois Moller conceded that such connections could be explained by applications on the phone remaining open and active despite no user activation.

An examination was also done of Pistorius' iPad, which revealed it had been used to search Google for a free pornography site at 6.30pm on February 13 - hours before he shot and killed Reeva. He claimed he had arrived home at 6pm, gone upstairs for a bath while Reeva cooked dinner, which they ate at about 7pm. Prosecution witness Colonel Michael Sales, a police mobile phone expert, revealed that all browsing history prior to February 13 had been deleted. The witness also said the iPad had also been used to look up free mobile porn and used car sales for Aston Martins and Ford Rangers at 9.19pm on the same night.

6. Crime scene photographs

If the court accepts the state's evidence as presented in the form of crime scene photographs, Judge Masipa would have a compelling reason to reject the accused's version of events. The photographs of Pistorius' bedroom immediately after the shooting showed the fan was in front of the balcony sliding doors, the bed's duvet was on the floor, and a pair of Ms Steenkamp's jeans were lying on top of it. The state argued that without any substance to Pistorius' claim of scene tampering, photograph 55 was "a true reflection of the scene" and thus "the accused's mosaic would lack any cohesion."

7. Locked in

It is not in contention that the door to the toilet cubicle within Pistorius' first floor bathroom was locked at the time he fired four bullets into it, killing his girlfriend. The door was locked from the inside, and crime scene police found Ms Steenkamp's mobile phone there with her. The state submitted the model and law graduate had "fled to the toilet with her cellphone".

8. The relationship

Oscar Pistorius and his defence team were at pains to present the couple's relationship as a close and loving one, and the messages sent via the WhatsApp phone application show this was predominantly the case. They sent affectionate pictures, used terms like "baby", "baba", "Ozzy" and "Angel" and CCTV footage captured at a service station 10 days before her death showed the couple kissing and behaving affectionately.

In about 1700 messages sent between the pair in three months, only a handful proved signficant to the prosecution. For example, Ms Steenkamp sent a message on  January 27, 2013, in which she stated that: "I am scared of you sometimes and how you snap at me and how you will react to me." In the message, Ms Steenkamp told him that while she tried her best to make him happy and not "rock the boat", she was also fearful of his increasingly frequent "tantrums". She says: "I just want to love and be loved. Be happy and make someone SO happy. Maybe we can't do that for each other. Cos right now I know u aren't happy and I am certainly very unhappy and sad."

On February 7, the couple argued once more and Ms Steenkamp again complained about how Pistorius was treating her, revealing he had criticised her loudly in front of others. In a message sent that evening, she said: "I can't be attacked by outsiders for dating you AND be attacked by you, the one person I deserve protection from." In its closing arguments, the prosecution notes that on February 13 Pistorius had actually wanted to spend the night with friends and had to be convinced by Ms Steenkamp to return to Pretoria. "On the accused's version, we are presented with the impression of a loving couple who spent a quiet evening together on the eve of Valentine's Day without even a suggestion of intimacy."

The SMH.