By Robyn Dixon, Los Angeles Times

JOHANNESBURG — An expert witness called by the defense team of South African Olympian Oscar Pistorius testified about bullet wounds, blood spatter, bruises, ballistics, sound, light, fibers and a toilet door — but acknowledged Wednesday that he wasn’t a pathologist or ballistics expert and had no training in analyzing blood spatters.

Forensic geologist Roger Dixon initially was called in by the defense team to look at gunpowder residue. But under cross-examination he said he ended up looking at a wide range of issues in which he had little or no expertise.

Prosecutor Gerrie Nel accused him of irresponsibility for doing so.

“You gave evidence, you were strong about it,” said Nel, referring to pathology evidence Dixon offered. “Do you see how irresponsible it is to give evidence on areas you are not expert?”

Police ballistics expert Chris Mangena, pathologist Gert Saayman and another pathologist called by the defense, Jan Botha, all found that Pistorius’ girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, was hit by three bullets behind a door. Dixon determined she was hit four times.

Pistorius, the first athlete to compete in the Olympic Games on prosthetic limbs, shot and killed Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day last year. Pistorius has pleaded not guilty to murder, contending he didn’t intend to kill anyone and didn’t consciously pull the trigger. He says he was in a state of terror, believing an intruder was about to come out the door.

Dixon was not present during the autopsy and based his findings on photographs.

He contested the state’s analysis that Steenkamp fell into a sitting position on a magazine rack after the first shot hit her in the hip.

Dixon testified that he had photographed white fibers on the Pistorius toilet door that matched up with Pistorius’ sock, backing the athlete’s story that he kicked the door with his prosthetic leg.

But under cross-examination by Nel, he admitted he only matched the fibers with the sock by looking at the photograph of the athlete wearing white socks. In fact he never held the socks.

“I did not examine the socks. I saw photographs of those socks being worn on the prosthesis at the scene,” he said. “I did not physically touch them.”

Nel planted more doubt over Dixon’s involvement in sound recordings of gunshots and a cricket bat hitting a door that were played in court. The defense contends that neighbors heard not shots but the sounds of a bat hitting a door. Pistorius claims he used a bat to break down the bathroom door after the shooting.

Asked what expertise he applied, he said he wielded the cricket bat while others played different roles. Dixon said he had no idea whether the person who recorded the sound had any expertise in recording gunshots and explosives.

As part of his preparation for the sound recording, “I went on the Internet to listen (to) sound bites that people use when they dub them into movies,” Dixon said.

He identified the sounds of shots on the recording played in court, but acknowledged he was not present when the gun was fired.

“To me it goes to the integrity of the witness,” Nel told the court. “Why would you identify gunshots if you weren’t there? It’s a serious issue to identify gunshots when he was not there.”

Although neither a wound ballistician nor a doctor, Dixon identified a bruise on Steenkamp’s buttock as evidence her back scraped against the magazine rack as she fell.

Pathologist Saayman, who has conducted about 15,000 autopsies, testified he opened up the wound and found it was caused by one of the hollow-point bullets fired by Pistorius, which broke up inside Steenkamp’s body after striking her hip.

South Africans were riveted by Nel’s tough cross-examination of Dixon, with the forensic expert’s name trending on Twitter. The most retweeted tweet in South Africa on Wednesday came from standup comedian, Lazola Gola: “Did Dixon find this gig on Gumtree?” — a reference to a South African online classified advertising site.

AFP Photo/Bongiwe Mchunu

By Robyn Dixon, Los Angeles Times

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — The final, horrific moments in Reeva Steenkamp’s life came into focus Wednesday at the murder trial of South African Olympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius, as a ballistics expert offered graphic testimony on how she died.

Ballistics expert Chris Mangena told the court that Steenkamp, Pistorius’ girlfriend, was standing, facing the door, when he shot her for the first time.

The bullet, a Black Talon-style projectile designed to open up and cause maximum tissue damage — with six sharp talons blossoming in a star shape upon impact with flesh — struck her in the hip, shattering the bone and breaking up inside her.

She immediately collapsed backwards into a sitting position on a magazine rack behind her in the toilet off the bathroom, he said. Steenkamp raised her arms above her head in a defensive manner, according to Mangena.

Pistorius kept firing. One shot struck his girlfriend in her arm and exited. A third hit her left hand, which was trying to protect the right hand side of her head, Mangena said. That bullet penetrated her skull. Another bullet hit a wall and ricocheted around the toilet.

After the third bullet struck her head, Steenkamp immediately slumped to the right, Mangena told the court.

“I am of the opinion that after this wound was inflicted in the head she dropped immediately,” he said. “Her head ended up on the toilet seat,” he said. The lower part of her body was still on the magazine rack, he added.

According to Mangena, had Steenkamp collapsed onto the floor instead of into a sitting position on the magazine rack after the first gunshot to the hip, the subsequent shots would not have hit her.

Pistorius has pleaded not guilty to murder, contending that he believed Steenkamp was an intruder when he fired his gun. Defense attorney Barry Roux said he would later call his own ballistics expert who would offer a different analysis that would contest Mangena’s version on the order in which the bullets were fired and Steenkamp’s position.

Describing the impact of a Black Talon-style expanding bullet Mangena said, “It creates six talons and these talons are sharp. It cuts through the organs of a human being. If it hits a hard object like a bone it breaks into pieces.” He held up photographs of star-shaped spent bullets that he had fired into a water tank.

They do not expand when hitting a hard object such as a door, but are designed to open up when they hit moist objects, like flesh, he explained.

Mangena, the prosecution’s ballistics expert, said it was most likely that Pistorius was not wearing his prosthetic legs when he fired his gun and that he was standing at a distance of two or more feet from the door. Both the prosecution and defense agree that Pistorius was not wearing his legs at the time of the shooting.

Mangena said his findings were based on the height of the shots in the door, their angle and ricochet wounds, among other factors.

He said the position of the spent shell casings suggested the shooter moved as he fired. But he drew no firm conclusion from the position of the casings on the floor because they could have been kicked or moved. Under cross-examination, Mangena said their position was consistent with Pistorius’ version, that he stood at the bathroom entrance when he fired.

Pistorius has also been charged with two counts of recklessly discharging a gun, once in a restaurant in 2013 and once out of the sunroof of a car in 2012. He has pleaded not guilty to both.

Two witnesses have earlier described Pistorius firing the gun out of a car sun roof after being angered by a policeman who earlier stopped the car and handled the gun. Mangena said it was dangerous to fire a gun into the air, as the falling bullet could kill a person.

The weapon Pistorius fired in a restaurant in 2013 was a Glock pistol with a safety mechanism on the trigger. It wouldn’t have been possible to fire a shot without pulling the trigger, Mangena said.

AFP Photo/Bongiwe Mchunu