A series of messages that were exchanged between Oscar Pistorius and his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp through a smartphone app called WhatsApp were read at Pistorius’ trial on Monday. The messages, which were downloaded from Steenkamp’s phone by police captain Francois Moller, indicated that Steenkamp was frightened by Pistorius’ temper just weeks before he shot and killed her.
“I’m scared of you sometimes and how you snap at me,” Steenkamp wrote in one message, according to CNN.com. “You make me happy 90% of the time … I’m not some other bitch.”
Moller noted that 90% of the messages exchanged between the two were normal and loving in nature. However, there were several that seemed to show Pistorius had an issue with jealousy and would confront Steenkamp because of it.
“You have picked on me incessantly,” she wrote in another message. “I was not flirting with anyone today and I feel sick that you suggested that.”
Less than a week before Steenkamp was killed, she wrote a message to Pistorius expressing her disappointment after he apparently lashed out at her in public.
“I didn’t think you would criticize me for doing that, especially so loudly that others could hear…” Steenkamp wrote. “I regard myself as a lady and I didn’t feel like one after we left.”
Earlier on Monday, Pistorius’ neighbor Anette Stipp testified that she heard a series of three gunshots the morning of the shooting, followed by a woman and a man screaming, and then more shots after the screaming. Pistorius’ defense team has argued that the only screaming neighbors could have heard was that of Oscar after he realized he had shot his girlfriend. Stipp said she heard “terrified, terrified screaming.”
“It sounds to me as if there’s a family murder,” she said. Why else would she scream like that?”
The trial, which was originally expected to be over by March 20, is now scheduled to run through mid-May.
More from the Oscar Pistorius trial:
Report: Reeva Steenkamp may have told Oscar Pistorius she was pregnant
Oscar Pistorius vomited during Reeva Steenkamp autopsy testimony
Oscar Pistorius reportedly shot gun out car sunroof without warning
Oscar Pistorius reportedly asked friend to take blame for separate shooting
