Oscar Pistorius broke down and sobbed uncontrollably as he testified Tuesday about finding his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp’s bloodied body after he fatally shot her in the bathroom of his Pretoria home.
“I heard a noise from inside the toilet which I perceived to be someone inside the toilet. I fired four shots into the door and shouted for Reeva to phone the police,” the so-called “Blade Runner” testified during the 18th day of his trial on premeditated murder charges.
“I don’t know how long I stood there for, shouting for Reeva,” said Pistorius, who has insisted that he shot the stunning model and TV personality after mistaking her for a burglar.
Prosecutors say he shot her early on Valentine’s Day in 2013 after an argument turned violent.
The one-time Olympic hero said his ears were ringing from the gunshots from his 9mm Glock semi-automatic pistol, so he kept calling her name.
“But there was nobody, no one responded to me,” he said, choking up.
He said he looked around his bedroom for her but that she was not there.
“I then … it was [at] that point, My Lady, that it first dawned upon me that it could be Reeva that could be in the bathroom, in the toilet,” he told Judge Thokozile Masipa.
Pistorius said he made his way back to the bathroom and broke through a panel of the door with a cricket bat and was able to reach through and unlock the door — only to find Steenkamp lying motionless on the toilet.
He said he “sat over her and cried” and that “she wasn’t breathing.”
He then ran to the balcony and screamed “Help, help, help!,” he said.
“I don’t think I ever screamed like that or cried like that. I was crying out for the Lord to help me, I was crying for Reeva. I was screaming.”
Pistorius then collapsed in gut-wrenching, hysterical sobs and the judge adjourned court until Wednesday morning.
Earlier Tuesday, he described the events leading up to the shooting.
“I woke up, My Lady, in the early hours of the 14th of February,” he said in a quivering voice.
“I sat up in bed. Reeva was still awake. She rolled over to me and said, ‘Can’t you sleep, my baba?’ I said no,” he testified under questioning from his lawyer, Barry Roux.
He said he then went to his porch to turn off a pair of fans, and when he returned, he heard a window open in the bathroom.
“That is when everything changed,” Pistorius said. “The first thing that ran through my mind is that I needed to arm myself. I wanted to put myself between the person who gained access to my house and Reeva.”
Pistorius, 27, said he grabbed his Glock from his bedside and shouted at what he thought were intruders to leave the house and for Steenkamp, 29, to call the cops.
The once-beloved Olympic hero said he was “overcome by fear” at that point.
“There’s no barrier between me and the bathroom window. I immediately thought that they could be there at any moment. I needed to protect Reeva and I needed to get my gun,” he said.
“I wasn’t sure if someone was going to come up the ladder or out of the toilet and attack me,” he said in tears, referring to a ladder that workmen at his house had used earlier in the day.
Steenkamp’s mother, June, who had displayed no emotion during Pistorius’ earlier testimony, held her head in her hand as Pistorius described the moments leading to her death.
Also on Tuesday, Pistorius insisted the couple had a loving relationship despite texts introduced earlier by the prosecution showing they had often quarreled.
In one message, the blond TV personality and model wrote that she was “scared out of my mind” by Pistorius’ fits of jealous rage.
But the Paralympian — who uses prosthetic blades to run and walk — insisted the two were planning a life together.
“Through January our relationship really got going,” Pistorius said.
“We both came out of difficult relationships before. I was very keen on Reeva and I think if anything I was a bit more than she was at times.”
Pistorius has pleaded not guilty to murdering Steenkamp and to three gun-related charges. The judge will decide his guilt or innocence because South Africa does not have a jury system.
Pistorius faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted of premeditated murder.