Jono wrote:
heavenlyabyss wrote:
Jono wrote:
heavenlyabyss wrote:
Guilty.
From what I've read, he has a history of domestic violence. Also, I've read that domestic violence against women is very common in South Africa - unfortunately.
I haven't really seen any proof or evidence that he has a history of domestic violence. The only incident that I could find in the media was that one assault charge brought against him by a friend of Samantha Taylor's (his ex girlfriend) which he said was an accident when he slammed a door on her trying to kick her out the house during a party. There wasn't any testimony about it during the trial either, barring some instances of screaming and shouting (which could be emotional abuse), but I haven't heard anything about physical violence.
It's hard to find anything very concrete online. But there does seem to be evidence of emotional abuse at the very least. You might say the text that his wife sent in this article is irrelevant but emotional abuse does often escalate to physical violence.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/25/r ... -breaking/In any case, his defense seems weak to me and so does his character.
Yes, I thought that those text messages were evidence emotional abuse too when I first heard them but I think that context is also important. Some of it was mitigated for me when Barry Roux took him through those messages while he was on the witness stand, trying to explain the context of those messages. For example, the issue about leaving Darren Fresco's party early seemed to about the fact that he wanted to stay only for a short time and that his diet prohibited him from eating anything at the party. At least, I think that was his explanation. Also, she wasn't his wife because he wasn't married to her. She was his girlfriend of 3 months.
Also, if you're thinking of him as a jealous, abusive and insecure man, then there's also this anomaly that he seemed neither jealous nor did he even mind that she met with an ex-boyfriend just 2 days before the incident. He knew that she was going to meet him and even said that it was fine for her to do so in one of their message exchanges read out in court. For me, that doesn't seem to fit with that picture of him.
Obviously, he's going to paint himself in the best light possible. Obviously, he is going to lie on the stand.
Frankly, his defense is laughable. I would have a hard time sitting the trial and remaining objective, which is why I will never be a juror (I would never allow it).
I knew an abuser once. He wasn't emotionally abusive but he had patterns and everything Oscar's wife says about him reminds me a lot of this guy. Just an as*hole. And frankly, Aspie's have no obligation to feel empathy toward abusers. Especially since we are more likely to be the targets of abuse than the reverse. I doubt any of us would actually want to know this guy.
Yes, he's lied on several occasions. I think he has moat definitely lied about the two gun related incidents and the facts seem to be pointing in the direction that he's guilty of intentionally killing Reeva (though as I've been watching the trial, my opinions on this have been changing daily). The thing is that, all I was saying in my previous post was that many people in relationships get abusive and many people have said nasty and hurtful things to their partners, it just seems to me that it's sometimes difficult to determine when this behaviour crosses the line into abuse.
20 Apr 2014, 11:48 pm
