STORY: "Pistorius cops frisked for theft during investigation," by reporter Liezl Thom, published by ABC News on March 14, 2014.
GIST: "The former police officer who was initially in charge of the Oscar Pistorius murder case told the court today how his officers mishandled evidence and that he even searched his own officers when one of Pistorius' expensive watches disappeared. Schoombie Van Rensburg, who was a colonel in the police force last year, told the court he was the first official to arrive at Pistorius' house after the paralympian known as Blade Runner shot and killed his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine's Day 2013. He testified that while collecting evidence in the bathroom, where Pistorius fired four shots through a locked bathroom door, he heard a gun being cocked behind him. When he turned to look, he saw an officer was handling Pistorius' weapon with his bare hands.
"So I asked him what are you doing? He looked and saw he was not wearing gloves and said 'Sorry,' before putting the magazine back and taking his gloves out from his pocket," Van Rensburg said. Van Rensburg also told the court that one of Pistorius' eight expensive wrist watches disappeared from the scene. The watches were kept in a box in the athlete's bedroom on top of a speaker. A photo of the box, shown in court, showed blood smears on the mirror inside the lid. It also shows eight watches. "I was very concerned about those watches because they are a temptation... One of the forensic team members mentioned that one of the watches, the green and black one, was worth between R50,000 and R100,000 (about $4,600 to $9,282)," the colonel said........."I was furious and the next morning I implemented access control," he said. Pistorius' defense lawyer Barry Roux used several other police official's statements to question whether Van Rensburg was indeed the first officer on the scene. He also accused the former police commander of tailoring his evidence to such an extent that the former investigating officer, Hilton Botha, would not have to be called as a witness.
Botha resigned last year after it came to light that he had been charged with murder. But it was his embarrassing admission that Botha was not wearing the required foot covers and might have contaminated the crime scene which Roux undoubtedly wants to explore further."
The entire story can be found at:
http://abcnews.go.com/International/oscar-pistorius-cops-frisked-theft-investigation/t/story?id=22910053
PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.
The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.ca/2013/12/the-charles-smith-award-presented-to_28.html
I look forward to hearing from readers at:
hlevy15@gmail.com.
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog;
