Already wounded in the hip, a terrified Reeva Steenkamp tried in vain to protect herself by covering her head with her arms as Oscar Pistorius shot her twice more, according to dramatic testimony in his murder trial Wednesday.
Steenkamp, 29, was standing in the bathroom and facing the locked door when she was hit in the right hip by the first of four bullets Pistorius fired, most likely while not wearing his prosthetic “blades,” said Capt. Christiaan Mangena, a police ballistics expert.
The helpless blond model fell back onto a magazine rack and crossed her arms over her head as a second bullet tore through the bathroom door, ricocheted off the wall and broke into fragments, bruising her back, he said.
Steenkamp was then struck in her right elbow by another hollow-point slug the once-beloved “Blade Runner” fired from his 9mm semi-automatic handgun.
And another shot struck her in the head — exposing her brain tissue through the gaping wound — and she collapsed with her head on the toilet seat, Mangena said.
The South African cop then described the impact of the hollow-point bullets in Pistorius’ gun, which were designed to cause maximum damage to an intended target.
“It hits the target, it opens up, it creates six talons, and these talons are sharp,” Mangena said. “It cuts through the organs of a human being.”
Mangena also testified that “the shooter was most likely not wearing prosthetic legs,” confirming the Blade Runner’s claims since the shooting that he fired from his stumps.
The prosecution had also conceded last week that he was not wearing the prostheses when he shot Steenkamp.
Mangena previously testified that he had Pistorius’ height checked with and without his prosthetics.
Pistorius, 27, is charged with premeditated murder in Steenkamp’s shooting death on Valentine’s Day 2013 and faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted.
The one-time Olympic hero said he shot Steenkamp by mistake, thinking she was an intruder who had managed to get into his luxury pad in a heavily guarded, gated suburban Pretoria community.
But cops and prosecutors charged that the trigger-happy Pistorius — who is also facing two separate weapons charges — killed her after a pre-dawn argument turned violent and she locked herself in the bathroom.
Neighbors had earlier testified that they heard a woman screaming before the shots, and that the screams only faded away after the shots were fired.
Mangena concluded that one of the final two bullets fired by Pistorius went through Steenkamp’s left hand, which she held over her head, before it penetrated her skull, adding that he couldn’t determine the order of the last two shots.
As Mangena threw his hands up to cover his head in court to re-enact Steenkamp’s cowering position, and described details of the head wound, the cowardly defendant put his fingers in his ears to block out the testimony.
June Steenkamp, Reeva’s mother, was in the courtroom and occasionally glanced at photos of the bloody scene of her daughter’s shooting.
Mangena said the bullet that struck Steenkamp’s skull broke into two fragments, one of which exited her head and struck the wall behind her. The first shot into the right hip broke Steenkamp’s hip bone, Mangena said.
“I’m of the opinion that after this wound was inflicted, my lady, she dropped immediately,” Mangena said, addressing Judge Thokozile Masipa.
Also Wednesday, chief prosecutor Gerrie Nel said he planned to wrap up his case early next week after calling four or five more witnesses.
Masipa granted Nel’s request to adjourn the trial until Monday so that Nel had time to consult his last witnesses.
In other testimony Wednesday, police Col. Ian van der Nest testified that many of the blood spots and stains found in various parts of Pistorius’ house were due to arterial bleeding, consistent with the gunshot wounds on Steenkamp’s head and arm.
Some stains came from Steenkamp’s blood-soaked hair as well as her short pants, which had been saturated with blood, he said.
Another witness, Col. Mike Sales, investigated the Web history on two iPad tablets found in Pistorius’ home, analyzing the activity on one of the devices hours before Steenkamp was killed
Around 6:30 p.m. local time on Feb. 13, according to records shown on TV monitors in court, a search was made on Google for a pornographic Web site.