Did witness hear shots or thuds? – Oscar Trial

Kenny Oldwadge was interrogating Annette Stipp, whose townhouse is near Pistorius’s in the Silver Woods estate, Pretoria, over the affidavit she had submitted to court.

She said in her statement, written in Afrikaans, she heard two sets of sounds from Pistorius’s house around 3am on February 14 last year, when he shot and killed his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

She heard “slae” (blows) followed by “drie plofgeluide” (three thudding sounds).

“Slae and plofgeluide, are you saying it’s the same thing?” Oldwadge asked her.

“As a lay witness… there were two sets of sounds. I did not look so much at the descriptive words of the sounds,” Stipp replied.

She said the first set of sounds were like gunshots.

Pistorius contends he shot Steenkamp through the locked door of his toilet, thinking she was an intruder.

Stipp testified that from her bedroom balcony she and her husband could see across an open plot to Pistorius’s bathroom and toilet windows.

Court was adjourned for lunch.

Pistorius has been charged with the premeditated murder of Steenkamp and contraventions of the Firearms Control Act. He allegedly fired a shot from a Glock pistol under a table at a Johannesburg restaurant in January 2013.

On September 30, 2012 he allegedly shot through the open sunroof of a car with his 9mm pistol while driving with friends in Modderfontein.

– Sapa