One Tragic Night Read online

  Terrified, Estelle slowly climbed out of bed and joined her husband at the window. Together they watched as several cars began to arrive at 286 Bush Willow Crescent. Eventually an ambulance pulled up and they saw it drive off again minutes later, lacking the urgency with which it had arrived.

  Michelle Burger shot up in bed just after 3am, jolted awake by what she believed to be the blood-curdling screams of a woman in distress. Her husband Charl Johnson heard them too and lifted his head from his pillow to make sure what he had heard was real and not a dream. Charl leapt out of the bed and ran onto the balcony to focus his ear on what had pierced the early-morning silence. The couple had left the windows wide open – it was a warm evening and the lack of air conditioning made the bedroom stiflingly uncomfortable.

  They had lived on the Silver Stream estate, adjacent to Silver Woods, for about two years and their house was 177 metres from Oscar’s home. Standing on the balcony, Charl heard what he thought to be a terrified woman calling into the night, clearly distressed and in trouble. ‘Help … Help,’ he heard. Then what sounded like the voice of a man, also calling for help three times. Was this an armed robbery gone wrong? Both Charl and Michelle wondered.

  ‘Charl! It’s no use standing there, call security!’ shouted Michelle to her husband out on the balcony. As he rushed back inside, Michelle reached for her cellphone on the bedside table. Frantically she scrolled through her phone’s contact book and dialled the number saved under ‘Security’. It was 3:16am when she passed the handset to Charl.

  They hoped the estate’s security officers could call their colleagues at the neighbouring complex to alert them to what seemed to be a terrible attack in progress.

  When the call was answered, Charl rapidly explained that there were people being attacked, but he was met with confusion on the other end of the line. The guard who had answered handed over to a colleague and Charl repeated the story. When the second guard still didn’t respond, the penny dropped. Charl realised that the number Michelle had dialled was for security at the Strubenkop estate, several kilometres away, where they had previously lived. Realising the error, Charl ended the call, which had lasted 58 seconds, and ran back out on to the balcony.

  All that separated their house from the source of the noise was a few spindly poplar trees and an open field, and from the bed, Michelle could hear the screams becoming increasingly intense. She could only think about how scared the woman sounded. Charl sensed the fear in the voice escalate and to him it was clear that the woman was in imminent danger.

  And then, just as the screaming reached a climax, it was brought to an end by four cracks.

  First one shot, a slight pause, and then three more.

  Bang. Bang, bang, bang.

  The couple heard the woman scream again and then the final scream fading out after the last crack. Alarmed and shocked by what he had heard, Charl stepped back through the balcony door into the bedroom.

  ‘I hope that woman didn’t see her husband being shot in front of her,’ said Michelle to her husband.

  They did not hear the voices again that night but the memory of the shrill scream stayed with them, haunting them.

  Annette Stipp was feeling slightly fluish and was battling a troublesome cough that woke her up just after 3am on Valentine’s Day. The occupational therapist, her radiologist husband Johan and their three children live in the Silver Woods estate, with a clear line of sight of the home of Oscar Pistorius. The kids had gone to bed at around 8:30pm the previous night and the couple settled in to watch a few episodes of a TV series before going to bed at 10:30pm.

  Nearly four and a half hours later, Annette’s cough woke her. She looked at the digital clock radio on her husband’s bedside table. It was 3:02am but she knew that the clock was set three or four minutes fast.

  Annette lay in bed contemplating what to do about her cough, wondering if she should bother getting up to have a drink of water or just ignore it. Finally, she resolved to get up to fetch a drink. She didn’t want her husband to be disturbed by her coughing.

  As she was climbing out of bed, she was startled by what sounded to her like three gunshots.

  ‘What was that?’ Annette asked her husband.

  ‘I think it’s gunshots,’ he responded as he jumped out of bed and rushed out onto their balcony.

  Annette looked across to the row of houses directly opposite their own. She could see the lights on in two of the homes. She sat on the edge of her side of the bed and focused her eyes on Oscar Pistorius’s house and noticed the light was on in his bathroom.

  Moments later, they heard the screaming. Three, four times, they heard what to them sounded like a woman screaming, loud and fearful. The type of screaming that made the doctor think the woman must be scared out of her mind. Johan knew that there was a serious problem and looked around, trying to establish where the noise was coming from. From the balcony he was standing on, he could clearly see the houses in the row opposite his own, separated by an open stand.

  He focused his eyes on Oscar’s house and he could clearly see the window of the athlete’s bathroom, where the lights were on.

  Together the couple stood on the small bedroom balcony, trying to ascertain the source of the screaming. They then moved onto a bigger balcony, which they hoped would give them a better view. The screaming continued and Annette couldn’t help but think there was a family murder playing out in one of the neighbouring homes.

  Johan knew he had to alert someone quickly and hurried back into the bedroom, grabbed his phone and called the estate’s security number. There was no answer.

  He punched in 10111, the police’s emergency number, and hit the call button but he had no luck with that either. There was an unusual dialling tone, as if the number was out of order. Annette went inside and tried to raise the alarm using her own phone.

  Meanwhile, Johan Stipp was still trying to get through to the police and get dressed at the same time. He was worried that children might be in danger and he wanted to go out to help. As he battled to think what number to dial next, he heard three loud bangs ring out.

  The doctor didn’t know if the same shooter had opened fire again or if someone else had begun shooting. ‘Get away from the windows!’ he shouted at Annette, trying to keep her out of harm’s way.

  The Stipps’ domestic worker Osterella Ntombenkosi Mkhwanazi also heard the gunshots. She was in her room on the ground floor, at the back of the house. Osterella was woken up by what she first thought was a baby crying next door. She listened carefully and realised it sounded as if it was a woman crying. She was still trying to work out where the noise was coming from when she heard ‘boom, boom, boom’.

  Johan Stipp’s phone finally connected to security and he told the guard on the other end to please come quickly; there was an emergency. As he put the phone down he heard a man scream for help three times.

  Mike Nhlengethwa slept right through the bang that woke his wife Rontle. She nudged him awake, asking him if he had heard the noise. The electrical engineer, his wife and their daughter live to the left of Oscar’s house in Bush Willow Crescent in the Silver Woods estate. Both homes are of a similar design and the same putty-grey colour. The balcony off their main bedroom is just 18 metres from Oscar’s balcony and a mere 11 metres from his bathroom window.

  Mike momentarily lay still, waiting to see if he could hear another bang, but all was quiet. His immediate concern was that the noise was emanating from inside his house and he worried about his daughter who was sleeping in her room, across the passage from theirs.

  Unable to hear any further noises, Mike got out of bed and went straight to his daughter’s room. The family has a habit of locking all the bedroom doors when they are asleep and he was relieved to find her door still securely locked. Mike thoroughly checked the rest of the house on the upper and ground floors, ensuring that the doors and windows were all still secure. Satisfied that all was as it should be, he returned to his wife in the master bedroom.


  While her husband had been out checking the house, Rontle had heard someone shouting for help three times. She had heard the voice loudly and was certain it was a man. Just then Mike walked back in to the room and peeked through the blinds.

  ‘No, there’s nothing in the house. So it means it is outside,’ he told her. As he widened the blinds to get a better look, he heard the piercing cry of a man – the voice of someone who sounded as if he was in shock. The Nhlengethwas both thought the person must have been badly hurt and needed urgent help. They could tell the cry was different to that of a man who was merely sad – this person was in danger. The high-pitched wailing stopped for a short while and then continued again. ‘Hey, I wonder, maybe it was a security guard that was patrolling. Maybe something happened to him?’ Mike asked his wife.

  All he had heard was, ‘No, please. Please, no.’

  Mike continued to peer through the blinds but he was cautious not to switch on the lights in his house. He didn’t want to give his position away and was alert to whatever danger might be lurking right outside his window.

  A similar scene was unfolding in the Motshuanes’ house, which neighbours Oscar’s on the right. Rika Motshuane had been woken by what seemed to her to be the sounds of a man crying in pain. She roused her husband Kenneth, urgently asking him if he had heard what she had.

  ‘Yes, I heard, but I thought I was dreaming,’ he responded.

  ‘The crying is real,’ she told him, beginning to panic.

  Like the Nhlengethwas, Rika thought it might be a security guard who had been injured. Dogs were barking and the crying was very loud and very close – so close, in fact, that she thought it could even be inside her own house.

  The couple couldn’t work out where the noise was coming from. Stricken by panic, they lay frozen in their bed and didn’t dare reach for the lights.

  Back at the Nhlengethwas’ place, Rontle remained seated on the edge of her bed, frightened into silence. But when Mike decided he was going outside to investigate, she found her resolve.

  ‘There’s no way I’ll allow you to go out,’ she told him.

  But together they reached a compromise and agreed that Mike should phone security, and at 3:16:13 he dialled the number from his cellphone. The first attempt didn’t connect so he tried a second time at 3:16:36. The call lasted 44 seconds.

  ‘It’s Michael from number 287. Can you quickly come up and check what is going on here? There is a person desperately crying and I’m sure he needs help,’ Mike told the security guard on the other end. He also asked security to check the houses of his surrounding neighbours. The guard confirmed they would investigate.

  As Mike ended the call, he continued to peer through the window. He could still hear the crying and in the distance a car driving up the street. He assumed it must be the estate security already responding to his call.

  Pieter Jacob Baba reported for duty at 6pm on 13 February. He had been working at the Silver Woods estate for nearly two years and had assumed a position of seniority there. Baba was the shift leader and one of five security guards working the night shift. He was responsible for a supervisor who patrolled the estate in a dedicated vehicle, a guard who patrolled on a bike, another who worked the gate and a fourth person who was responsible for general duties.

  Not long after Baba clocked in for work, a beautiful blonde pulled up to the boom in her Mini Cooper. Baba knew her as Oscar Pistorius’s girlfriend and they shared a brief joke and a smile before she drove through into the estate. A few minutes later, the Olympic athlete drove up in his white BMW, chatting on his cellphone at the time.

  At 8pm, as per normal, Baba and his colleagues closed one of the access gates to the estate and then an hour later, at 9pm, they shut all the gates. They needed to ensure the safety of the complex and this was the optimal way of doing so. As part of this function, the guards on duty also had to comply with a ‘guard track’ that saw them check in at various points around the estate a certain number of times per hour.

  That particular night, a guard by the name of Nyiko Maluleke was responsible for doing this clock-in patrol. Having completed a circuit of the estate, Maluleke came to fill Baba in on the situation in the estate that evening. He told his supervisor that the Van der Merwes’ gate was open, the Stipps’ balcony sliding door hadn’t been closed and a small gate leading to another resident’s home was ajar. It was a hot night, which explained why the Stipps had left their balcony door open, but Baba thought it best to send the other residents text messages from his official phone, telling them about their open gates.

  In the early hours of the morning Baba decided to patrol with Maluleke. At around 2:20am they drove down Bush Willow Crescent and checked in at Guard Track Point Two, located right outside Oscar Pistorius’s neighbour’s house. Everything was as it should have been that night; at this point there was nothing unusual to be seen or heard, and Baba and Maluleke returned to the gatehouse just before 3am.

  Minutes later, Phillemon Ndimande, the guard on bike duty, entered the gate to report that he had heard gunshots. It wasn’t long before the official phone line began to ring with residents reporting having heard gunshots in the estate.

  Phone records showed that the first call came at 3:15:51 from Dr Johan Stipp, who said he had heard gunshots and told Baba to come and see what was going on. The second was from Mike Nhlengethwa, Oscar’s direct neighbour at 3:16. His first call did not go through, but his second attempt connected. He called to say that he had heard bangs. None of the residents could say which house was the source of the action.

  Baba immediately sprang into action and sent Ndimande back out on his bike to try to gauge where the gunshots were coming from. He also phoned Jacob Makgoba, who was patrolling in the official security vehicle, ordered him back to base and told him he wanted to drive around the estate with him to try to find the source of the shots.

  They drove straight to the Stipps’ house, where they found the doctor standing on the small balcony outside his bedroom, waving them down and pointing across at Oscar’s house.

  Through his bedroom window, Mike Nhlengethwa had a clear view of the open plot at the back of his house. Across the field, he saw a white security vehicle pulling up to a house he would later find out belonged to the Stipps. Mike watched as the security guards stepped out of the car and he could see them talking to the owner of the house.

  Standing on the balcony, Johan Stipp explained to Baba that he believed the shots and screams were coming from Oscar’s house and they should investigate. As the guards drove off, Stipp moved on to the bigger balcony and watched as they made their way towards the row of houses opposite. Stipp looked towards Oscar’s house where the lights were on in the bathroom and noticed a figure moving in the bathroom, from right to left. He had the distinct impression that it was a man.

  Meanwhile, as Baba drove away from the Stipps’ house, the guard’s phone rang. It was Oscar. Phone records show that the athlete phoned security at 3:21:33 and that Baba called him back at 3:22:05. But despite this, Baba maintained that he made the first call to Oscar. He also recalled the runner saying to him, ‘Security, everything is fine.’ The athlete’s version is different, saying he told the guard, ‘I am fine.’

  During the call Baba realised that Oscar was crying. He turned to his colleague Makgoba and told him that everything was not in order but before he could say anything further, the phone line went dead. Moments later the guards pulled into the driveway of the athlete’s house.

  Johan Stipp still felt compelled to act despite security already being en route to the scene. He was concerned that there might be children involved in the incident and, having kids of his own, he was worried it could be a family tragedy. He quickly dressed, climbed into his SUV, drove first to the guardhouse at the entrance to the estate, to check if it was safe, and then proceeded to Oscar’s home.

  Mike Nhlengethwa had watched the exchange between the Stipps and Baba. Initially he remarked to his wife that the crying must be coming
from the Stipps’ house. But then he saw the security vehicle speed away. It made a left turn and did a loop, passing his own house. Moments later, a white SUV also pulled out from the Stipps’ house and made a right turn, doing a loop in the opposite direction.

  Mike realised that the disturbance must be closer to his own home and moved to another room in the house to see if he could get a better look. His study looks onto Bush Willow Crescent and, peeking through the horizontal wooden blinds in that room, he saw the security vehicle pull up in front of Oscar’s house.

  He knew his neighbour relatively well. They often greeted each other on the street and just days before Oscar had introduced Reeva Steenkamp to Mike as his fiancée.

  Mike knew he wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep and now that security had arrived, it seemed safe to go outside. Like Johan Stipp, he felt the need to go to see what was happening. He threw on some clothes, switched on the lights and went downstairs.

  Rika Motshuane heard a car pass by her home and turn into the street outside Oscar’s house. Overcoming her fear, she got out of bed and looked through a window that faced in that direction. From the window she saw a Mini Cooper coming to a stop in Oscar’s driveway.

  Rika climbed back into bed but struggled to sleep. She was still shaken and wondered what had happened. Then she heard another car. Again, she looked out the window and saw that a security vehicle had also arrived at the house.

  Rika urged Kenneth to phone security to find out what was going on. The guard told him they were taking care of the situation but offered no further details about what was unfolding at their neighbour’s house. But the Motshuanes knew the situation was grave. The screams had been terrifying.

  It was 3:19:03 when Johan Stander’s cellphone rang. He looked at the handset and saw that the caller was Oscar Pistorius. At that hour of the morning, he knew it must be urgent.